April 2023

Discord Leak: Information, Insecurity, and Impairment  or Perfidy, Peril and Publishing Perniciousness

Twenty-one year old Jack Teixeira, a guardsman in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, has been arrested and accused of revealing classified national defense information. According to The Guardian (not affiliated with the Massachusetts Air National Guard as far as I know) Teixeira took secret documents home, photographed them and posted them on 4chan and Telegram internet sites.

It’s a big deal because of this: Releasing classified information reveals what we (or, as it is, the U.S. government) know, and by revealing what we know it also endangers those who supply us with information about our adversaries. When such information becomes public, the source of that information can be in grave danger (or, as Jack Nicholson said “is there any other kind?”) and, in some cases, be executed almost immediately. What Jack Teixeira apparently doesn’t understand is that revealing information puts our sources at risk. Certain information can come from very limited sources, and when that information in U.S. hands becomes public, those who had access to said information and revealed it to the U.S. are in questioned and, in many cases, executed or imprisoned for a very long time.

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The Trouble with Trans

I don’t get the whole ‘trans’ thing.  But then, I don’t need to.  My attitude toward it is the same as for a lot of other things:  Do what you want and live as you choose and leave me out of it, and I’ll do the same.  What I do get – más o menos – is the English language and how this group of selfish, imagination-less people have disrespected it and the rest of us.

It is apparent that trans and androgynous people don’t want to be referred to as either ‘he’ or ‘she’.  Fine.  But the pronouns they have gravitated to, ‘they’ ‘them’ and ‘theirs’, are PLURAL pronouns.  Do they consider themselves so very special as to require to be referred to as more than one person?  Or are they just being lazy?

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