As the sun heats up the thin air in the Khost province of Afghanistan, a constant mountain breeze swirls the lifeless dirt into a dervish-dance of dust. In the mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, 18 miles from the Pakistani border, beyond which lies the Federally Administered Tribal Areas another 270 miles from Islamabad, center of Pakistani governmental authority; four CIA officials and their three contracted bodyguards meet with Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid of Mukhabarat, Jordan's General Intelligence Directorate.
The topic of discussion, al-Qaeda's No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri. One of Zeid's handles had urgent intelligence to pass along.
Less than a year before Dec. 30, Zeid "recruited" Jordanian doctor, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, 32, to travel into Afghanistan and infiltrate al-Qaeda to help track down key al-Qaeda leaders, stated the Financial Times and NBC News.
Traveling alone in a car, al-Balawi approached the Forward Operating Base Chapman to which he was allowed entrance without a formal search at the front gate, al-Balawi's first and only visit to the CIA base.
As the team of intelligence officials headed towards al-Balawi, he detonated an explosive device killing them all, while injuring another six. The greatest loss of life to the Agency since the 1983 bombing in Beirut; now a total of 91 stars adorn the wall dedicated to deceased members of the CIA at their headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
However, a severe breakdown in intelligence and espionage occurred to bring about this latest tragedy in the perpetual martyrs-crusade of al-Qaeda, to whom al-Balawi was affiliated.
Mukhabarat initially detained al-Balawi after he signed up with a group of doctors determined to aid Palestinian's during Israel's invasion last January, stated Newsweek.
After three days of detention, stated Defne Bayrak, 31, al-Balawi's widow, he was released. Collective offers of up to $600,000 from the CIA and the Jordanians' may have persuaded al-Balawi to accept his task as a Jordanian spy, said Bayrak, yet she never doubted her husband's true intentions towards Jihad.
After the United States invaded Iraq during 2003, al-Balawi "started to change," Bayrak told Newsweek.
"He was constantly reading and writing. He was crazy about online forums. He would go onto them and write severe, extremely hardline comments. He would cite verses from the Quran that talked about the need for jihad, and then write very tough comments based on those verses or on the sayings of the Prophet," said Bayrak.
Math time. 2009 - 2003 = 6 years
Six years that al-Balawi filled web pages and message boards with virulent voracity in regards to Jihad against the United States. So how could someone so passionately spiteful towards the Western World because of religious inclination be so easily swayed into their aid? All within three days?
Evan Kohlmann, a U.S. government consultant who monitors jihadi Web forums, believes al-Balawi was the brain behind the online handle Abu Dujinah. Although Kohlmann could not prove without a doubt al-Balawi commented online as Abu Dujinah, he has, "compelling reasons to believe it's the same person."
Those reasons include age, background, and a lengthy interview of Abu Dujinah published in, Vanguard of Khorasan, a Taliban magazine, Kohlmann told Newsweek.
"“He was actually an administrator on the now-defunct Al-Hesbah forum, previously al-Qaida's main chat forum," Kohlmann told NBC News.
Despite the fact, al-Balawi commented for half a decade in favor of Jihad, his allegiance stood firmly within the camp of infidels?
Yet al-Balawi somehow galvanized enough trust with his handler Zeid, that he not only gained entrance to a CIA base, but also lured CIA officials from Kabul to the remote location for the meeting.
That turn of events smells more like the hot barrel of a smoking gun rather than quality intelligence work.
Alas, this is the state of affairs the CIA has been in for a decade. The reliance on human intelligence (HUMINT) has been put on the back burner as signals intelligence (SIGINT) has heated up due to technological advancements in the arsenal of espionage.
Now armed with overhead satellite photography, radar imagery, predator drones, and audio monitoring programs with increasing sophistication, the CIA has laminated their old-fashioned past with a shiny array of devices utilized to keep CIA operatives off the streets.
Camp Chapman for example, provided intelligence for locating and choosing Predator drone targets, reported CBS News.
With more than a year of stunning success by Predator drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing dozens of high-valued al-Qaeda targets, you'd have to ask yourself why drop your guard in the middle of nowhere less than 100 miles from the areas al-Qaeda roams at the base where you decide to kill them? With an "agent" who's trust had been "proven" through a stream of low-key targets with furious and scathing fingers towards your way of life?
The problem is a paradigm shift in tradecraft (CIA security protocol) reliance. Many intelligence experts in the United States believe the CIA has begun to rely far too heavily on SIGINT, or "TECHINT" while neglecting the backbone of their business, human intelligence gathered through human interaction, reported BBC News.
Even former CIA director George Tenet believed technology would offer no benefit to intelligence without case officers on the ground. During 2001 alone he began training 10 times the amount of case officers within the CIA's ranks, reported Bob Woodward in, Bush at War. During the 1990s, when Tenet began his impressive rise through the intelligence hierarchy, the CIA had but 12 case officer trainees.
What this incident goes to show more than anything, is how little the United States has progressed in rooting out true terrorism in the world and how desperate it has made our intelligence service in getting concrete information as to al-Qaeda's location.
It has been years since the CIA has had a definitive location on al-Zawahiri, but how could they expect someone within the ranks of al-Qaeda for less than a year to gain conclusive information on the location of their No. 2? Considering the CIA has decades of experience in the country, this incident does not go to show Americans that hearts and minds have been won over there during those decades.
With the volume of case officers who've served in Afghanistan and the amount of intelligence gathered through their own relationships with local contacts and the CIA's close relationship with the mujahideen turned al-Qaeda you'd expect to have a well-oiled network by now.
But thus far the war on terror has shown to be no more than a lame nurturer of dissent.
Is it true? Are we still here? Back at the beginning?
While on the battlefield of espionage, the front line remains to be everywhere.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Informed Screening
Monday morning airport security workers around the globe took deaf ears towards United States concerns to work.
As the recent bombing attempt on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 has raised a scare on U.S. psyche, fingers have been thrust in multiple directions and criss-crossed patterns on Capitol Hill.
Many accuse Obama of relaxed security operations. Yet Umar Abdullmatallab, 23, the Nigerian bomber-intent of Flight 253 flew from Nigeria onto Amsterdam and then into Detroit.
He never crossed through American airport security precautions until he was apprehended.
To accuse Obama of relaxed security operations would be unwise, or foolish if taken out of context. Such as former vice president Dick Cheney who accused Obamas' Administration of, "“trying to pretend we are not at war,” with terror; referring to the attempted bombing while tangenting to the closing of Guantanamo Bay, reported politico.com.
Clearly, security operations in other countries have been proven to be accessible to terrorist attacks, as our own; and not just for years; but decades.
No matter how the operations are changed or upgraded, the systems are eventually compromised. Yet an endless struggle to progress security measures is a health prolonged investment.
However standards must be spread to international flights that reflect the utmost scrutiny, without offending the passengers privacy by respecting cultural differences when possible.
Despite the Muslim view of dogs, they offer keen advantages to certain senses which can easily sniff out substances threatening to a plane while maintaining good behavior; they're trained to.
Yet the Christmas Caper Abdullmatallab slipped through the system, but not an American system. Despite their subtlety; signs were present that some odd intent drove Abdullmatallab's journey to America.
The tickets were one-way trips, yet his temporary visa issued on June 16, 2009 stated the reason for travel as a "religious seminar," stated abc.go.com. That visa expires June 16, 2010.
These are signs that must be taught to airport gatekeepers globally that can be aggetated with simply inferences.
"A religious seminar? What city is it in Mr. Abdullmatallab? What is the seminars theme? When is it taking place?"
"When do you plan on returning Mr. Abdullmatallab? You only have six months to schedule a return flight"
Converse with your passengers my terminal technicians around the world, listen to them intently. Informally screen them and see what they come up with, you never know. A slip here or there is suspicious and could be a crack in the cover of a malicious agent.
For it is not just American security precautions that need constant consideration, but all security precautions.
If anything this even showcases how globally interdependent the world has become. We rely on the security measures of other countries in regards to international flights, shipping, and quality control.
Look at the product scare last year regarding certain Chinese products that had resources and materials within them which caused hazards to humans and their pets.
What breakdown led to toys and food produced half way around the world harming those who didn't even purchase them? Did anyone care to blame W. for letting those products slip through customers? No, it would be foolish to blame the President for the quality standards of another nation's production.
Yet we as a world must now see that it is not a globalized society we make today, but an interdependent society on a global scale. If the nations of the world cannot stand together, the only one that shall fall is humanity.
Look where we find ourselves today, look where our ancestors have tread.
Civilization may be thousands of years in it's expanse, but our finite lifetimes keep humanity forever young within it.
As the recent bombing attempt on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 has raised a scare on U.S. psyche, fingers have been thrust in multiple directions and criss-crossed patterns on Capitol Hill.
Many accuse Obama of relaxed security operations. Yet Umar Abdullmatallab, 23, the Nigerian bomber-intent of Flight 253 flew from Nigeria onto Amsterdam and then into Detroit.
He never crossed through American airport security precautions until he was apprehended.
To accuse Obama of relaxed security operations would be unwise, or foolish if taken out of context. Such as former vice president Dick Cheney who accused Obamas' Administration of, "“trying to pretend we are not at war,” with terror; referring to the attempted bombing while tangenting to the closing of Guantanamo Bay, reported politico.com.
Clearly, security operations in other countries have been proven to be accessible to terrorist attacks, as our own; and not just for years; but decades.
No matter how the operations are changed or upgraded, the systems are eventually compromised. Yet an endless struggle to progress security measures is a health prolonged investment.
However standards must be spread to international flights that reflect the utmost scrutiny, without offending the passengers privacy by respecting cultural differences when possible.
Despite the Muslim view of dogs, they offer keen advantages to certain senses which can easily sniff out substances threatening to a plane while maintaining good behavior; they're trained to.
Yet the Christmas Caper Abdullmatallab slipped through the system, but not an American system. Despite their subtlety; signs were present that some odd intent drove Abdullmatallab's journey to America.
The tickets were one-way trips, yet his temporary visa issued on June 16, 2009 stated the reason for travel as a "religious seminar," stated abc.go.com. That visa expires June 16, 2010.
These are signs that must be taught to airport gatekeepers globally that can be aggetated with simply inferences.
"A religious seminar? What city is it in Mr. Abdullmatallab? What is the seminars theme? When is it taking place?"
"When do you plan on returning Mr. Abdullmatallab? You only have six months to schedule a return flight"
Converse with your passengers my terminal technicians around the world, listen to them intently. Informally screen them and see what they come up with, you never know. A slip here or there is suspicious and could be a crack in the cover of a malicious agent.
For it is not just American security precautions that need constant consideration, but all security precautions.
If anything this even showcases how globally interdependent the world has become. We rely on the security measures of other countries in regards to international flights, shipping, and quality control.
Look at the product scare last year regarding certain Chinese products that had resources and materials within them which caused hazards to humans and their pets.
What breakdown led to toys and food produced half way around the world harming those who didn't even purchase them? Did anyone care to blame W. for letting those products slip through customers? No, it would be foolish to blame the President for the quality standards of another nation's production.
Yet we as a world must now see that it is not a globalized society we make today, but an interdependent society on a global scale. If the nations of the world cannot stand together, the only one that shall fall is humanity.
Look where we find ourselves today, look where our ancestors have tread.
Civilization may be thousands of years in it's expanse, but our finite lifetimes keep humanity forever young within it.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Bono's "Ohno"
Lately, Bono (Paul David Hewson) has had to say a lot...about what other people think about the world. Much to the familiar fantasy of Team America World Police, Bono is acting like a real-life member of FAG.
What's that Bono? Global warming is an inconvenient truth? Thanks for bringing that discovery to the world's attention! I'm sure because of your brilliant expertise on the subject we can stop some chemical-bullets hellbent on penetrating the blue sky and really cool things out here on planet Earth.
Come again Bono? Trouble in Africa? We had no idea the cradle of civilization had problems! Lions, and tigers, AK's and AIDS on my! Boy am I glad we have you to bring these travesties to our attention Bono!
In a recent Op-Ed column for the New York Times Bono commented briefly on the net neutrality debate, a decade after Napster and Metallica lit that powder keg.
So Bono, what's illegal about doing things with the internet it was designed for? File-sharing is the bud of the internet through which it has blossomed. The systems that eventually developed into the world wide web of today were constructed by universities in an effort to share research and data...you know files.
But at least your understand of American lawmaking helps shed more light on the travesty that has befallen the music industry.
"The immutable laws of bandwidth tell us we’re just a few years away from being able to download an entire season of '24' in 24 seconds. Many will expect to get it free." Well, many already get it for free.
What we have here my fellow Americans, is a foreign citizen who has never sought to study the due process of Americas Congress. Along with a misconception that a few contracts with a record studio makes one a legal expert.
The system of bringing forth legislation in America was designed to move slowly through a bureaucracy of consideration before coming law, to ensure it didn't infringe the promises within the preamble of the Constitution.
Through the Declaration of Independence, Paul, the founding fathers sought to ensure for the Americans to come, a guarantee of unalienable rights endowed by the Creator of their beliefs. One of which is a right to free will. Hence our American obsession with freedom.
So what if a few rotten eggs are spoiling your profit margins, you have no right to infringe upon the freedom of American citizens who abide by copyright laws by targeting our internet service providers, we pay for that bandwidth it doesn't come for free.
We also have an obsession with due process over here Paul. Simply calling out red-herrings in your catatonic crusade to save the music industry will get your thoughts through to nothing but the scathing tongues of our public discussion.
Are the internet service providers truly at fault here Paul? No, they offer a paid service to willing customers. How can you even relate Robin Hood's moral to their service?
He robbed wealth from the rich and distributed it to the poor, ISP's rob no one and give nothing for free.
Yet you called them "reverse Robin Hoods", who would rob from the poor and give to the rich? Have those tinted glasses truly blocked your ability to see the light of reason?
"A decade's worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators..."
Math time.
2009 - 10 = 1999
mIRC released 1995
1995 - 1999 = -4
That's some sloppy research Paul.
For those of you who don't use mIRC. mIRC is an Internet Relay Chat program which allows computers through an internet connection or local access network to connect, communicate, and share between each other within a chatroom setting; peer to peer. Remember the p2p programs such as Kazaa, Morpheus, perhaps Limewire or Frostwire? Guess where the abbreviation came from.
Aside from chatting, we could share files of any sort with each other. At the time, based upon the speed of connection, the only worthwhile files to share were music and word processor files.
Did we illegally take copywrited material and release it illegally by deriving profit? No, we ripped music we had received by willing creator or store clerk and shared it with the world free of charge.
Yet you claimed, "...the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business."
When in fact, a fledgling artist who shares his music with a passerby leading to it's publication and distribution online will give that artist notoriety as his music spreads. Once people connect with that music they will feel a calling to purchase the music once it hits a store shelf or iTunes browser.
Precocious conclusions of another mans' thoughts are but one of many failures in logic. For the music industry didn't suffer severely until certain technologies for delivery and other advancements in access turned sour to the bloated appetites of an industry based upon talent before vision.
Look at the price of a U2 iPod compared to a Walkman cassette or CD player. Then look at the model of access for the iPod. Don't need to buy the whole album anymore do you? The whole thing's become a customized single beckoning the preference of a cash-strapped consumer.
I used file-sharing over the internet this weekend to obtain music from a friend's computer which was purchased and ripped to his hard drive. Is there anything illegal about that? No. Did that musician miss out on my $20? Yes Why? Because I don't have that $20 and neither has the average American for a decade.
Didn't care to clean those tinted glasses of yours and see the real world over the last 10 years did you?
Just bought another pair when their euphoric-shine faded?
Purchasing power is down man! Shot to pieces like a barrel of fish at the business-end of a barrel of gun.
Look at CompUSA. Computer sales have remained consistent, the overall price has even decreased offering the consumer more choices! Video game sales are doing better than ever, and with the sexy in-bed relationship game developers have fostered with third-party performance parts manufactures, CompUSA offered under one roof everything needed to put that game on your monitor for $20 less than Circuit City or Best Buy. Yet they went belly up.
Did file-sharing of video games lead to CompUSA's demise? No, purchasing power within their market of inventory dried up. Many games have become too resource-demanding for the pay checks average gamers receive.
Music devices that put your "work" in our ears are getting there as well. At the price of an iPod today I could score a new CD player plus $250 worth of CDs. Today, since mp3 has taken over the format, that luxury has turned archaic.
"Not to mention China’s ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it’s perfectly possible to track content." ...Certainly if it works for a communism it works for democracy.
Yet Paul, failed within that hinting to realize his tinting has blinded his foresight. China controls internet content for one reason, censorship. Not in the protection of industry, but to censor the marketplace of ideas within it's society. Not for ignoble means, but for control.
In that respect, the American government has very limited right to toy with net neutrality. For our marketplace of ideas is to remain free and unhinged based upon the First Amendment.
Does that grant us the right to in certain cases, share files across the internet under illegal pretense? Of course not. What is does give us the right to uncensored discourse. For tracking internet content is a slippery slope at Mount Privacy.
Yet your foresight of technological advancement is at least looking in the right direction Paul.
"Caution! The only thing protecting the movie and TV industries from the fate that has befallen music and indeed the newspaper business is the size of the files."
Warning! It only takes but an hour to download a full length HD-quality movie onto my computer from the internet....times sure have changed since I started file-sharing through mIRC. I can even play an online game without suffering a drought in bandwidth while I'm downloading that movie.
For if your beloved music industry, Paul, operated by the wings of creativity, average consumers would have had the ability to purchase music online since TCP/IP went live to them through Windows 95. Instead they stuck to their compact disc format until Apple released iTunes.
So until Irishmen are granted unconditional American citizenship, lobby your own government with your plagiarized ideas and leave innovation to the truly creative.
You want an example of media creativity Paul?...Radiohead's In Raindows.
What's that Bono? Global warming is an inconvenient truth? Thanks for bringing that discovery to the world's attention! I'm sure because of your brilliant expertise on the subject we can stop some chemical-bullets hellbent on penetrating the blue sky and really cool things out here on planet Earth.
Come again Bono? Trouble in Africa? We had no idea the cradle of civilization had problems! Lions, and tigers, AK's and AIDS on my! Boy am I glad we have you to bring these travesties to our attention Bono!
In a recent Op-Ed column for the New York Times Bono commented briefly on the net neutrality debate, a decade after Napster and Metallica lit that powder keg.
So Bono, what's illegal about doing things with the internet it was designed for? File-sharing is the bud of the internet through which it has blossomed. The systems that eventually developed into the world wide web of today were constructed by universities in an effort to share research and data...you know files.
But at least your understand of American lawmaking helps shed more light on the travesty that has befallen the music industry.
"The immutable laws of bandwidth tell us we’re just a few years away from being able to download an entire season of '24' in 24 seconds. Many will expect to get it free." Well, many already get it for free.
What we have here my fellow Americans, is a foreign citizen who has never sought to study the due process of Americas Congress. Along with a misconception that a few contracts with a record studio makes one a legal expert.
The system of bringing forth legislation in America was designed to move slowly through a bureaucracy of consideration before coming law, to ensure it didn't infringe the promises within the preamble of the Constitution.
Through the Declaration of Independence, Paul, the founding fathers sought to ensure for the Americans to come, a guarantee of unalienable rights endowed by the Creator of their beliefs. One of which is a right to free will. Hence our American obsession with freedom.
So what if a few rotten eggs are spoiling your profit margins, you have no right to infringe upon the freedom of American citizens who abide by copyright laws by targeting our internet service providers, we pay for that bandwidth it doesn't come for free.
We also have an obsession with due process over here Paul. Simply calling out red-herrings in your catatonic crusade to save the music industry will get your thoughts through to nothing but the scathing tongues of our public discussion.
Are the internet service providers truly at fault here Paul? No, they offer a paid service to willing customers. How can you even relate Robin Hood's moral to their service?
He robbed wealth from the rich and distributed it to the poor, ISP's rob no one and give nothing for free.
Yet you called them "reverse Robin Hoods", who would rob from the poor and give to the rich? Have those tinted glasses truly blocked your ability to see the light of reason?
"A decade's worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators..."
Math time.
2009 - 10 = 1999
mIRC released 1995
1995 - 1999 = -4
That's some sloppy research Paul.
For those of you who don't use mIRC. mIRC is an Internet Relay Chat program which allows computers through an internet connection or local access network to connect, communicate, and share between each other within a chatroom setting; peer to peer. Remember the p2p programs such as Kazaa, Morpheus, perhaps Limewire or Frostwire? Guess where the abbreviation came from.
Aside from chatting, we could share files of any sort with each other. At the time, based upon the speed of connection, the only worthwhile files to share were music and word processor files.
Did we illegally take copywrited material and release it illegally by deriving profit? No, we ripped music we had received by willing creator or store clerk and shared it with the world free of charge.
Yet you claimed, "...the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business."
When in fact, a fledgling artist who shares his music with a passerby leading to it's publication and distribution online will give that artist notoriety as his music spreads. Once people connect with that music they will feel a calling to purchase the music once it hits a store shelf or iTunes browser.
Precocious conclusions of another mans' thoughts are but one of many failures in logic. For the music industry didn't suffer severely until certain technologies for delivery and other advancements in access turned sour to the bloated appetites of an industry based upon talent before vision.
Look at the price of a U2 iPod compared to a Walkman cassette or CD player. Then look at the model of access for the iPod. Don't need to buy the whole album anymore do you? The whole thing's become a customized single beckoning the preference of a cash-strapped consumer.
I used file-sharing over the internet this weekend to obtain music from a friend's computer which was purchased and ripped to his hard drive. Is there anything illegal about that? No. Did that musician miss out on my $20? Yes Why? Because I don't have that $20 and neither has the average American for a decade.
Didn't care to clean those tinted glasses of yours and see the real world over the last 10 years did you?
Just bought another pair when their euphoric-shine faded?
Purchasing power is down man! Shot to pieces like a barrel of fish at the business-end of a barrel of gun.
Look at CompUSA. Computer sales have remained consistent, the overall price has even decreased offering the consumer more choices! Video game sales are doing better than ever, and with the sexy in-bed relationship game developers have fostered with third-party performance parts manufactures, CompUSA offered under one roof everything needed to put that game on your monitor for $20 less than Circuit City or Best Buy. Yet they went belly up.
Did file-sharing of video games lead to CompUSA's demise? No, purchasing power within their market of inventory dried up. Many games have become too resource-demanding for the pay checks average gamers receive.
Music devices that put your "work" in our ears are getting there as well. At the price of an iPod today I could score a new CD player plus $250 worth of CDs. Today, since mp3 has taken over the format, that luxury has turned archaic.
"Not to mention China’s ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it’s perfectly possible to track content." ...Certainly if it works for a communism it works for democracy.
Yet Paul, failed within that hinting to realize his tinting has blinded his foresight. China controls internet content for one reason, censorship. Not in the protection of industry, but to censor the marketplace of ideas within it's society. Not for ignoble means, but for control.
In that respect, the American government has very limited right to toy with net neutrality. For our marketplace of ideas is to remain free and unhinged based upon the First Amendment.
Does that grant us the right to in certain cases, share files across the internet under illegal pretense? Of course not. What is does give us the right to uncensored discourse. For tracking internet content is a slippery slope at Mount Privacy.
Yet your foresight of technological advancement is at least looking in the right direction Paul.
"Caution! The only thing protecting the movie and TV industries from the fate that has befallen music and indeed the newspaper business is the size of the files."
Warning! It only takes but an hour to download a full length HD-quality movie onto my computer from the internet....times sure have changed since I started file-sharing through mIRC. I can even play an online game without suffering a drought in bandwidth while I'm downloading that movie.
For if your beloved music industry, Paul, operated by the wings of creativity, average consumers would have had the ability to purchase music online since TCP/IP went live to them through Windows 95. Instead they stuck to their compact disc format until Apple released iTunes.
So until Irishmen are granted unconditional American citizenship, lobby your own government with your plagiarized ideas and leave innovation to the truly creative.
You want an example of media creativity Paul?...Radiohead's In Raindows.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
This isn't health care, this is apatheic and lethargic disease prevention
A woman in Denver calls 9-1-1, dispatch emergency, requesting an ambulance.
"Severity of the emergency ma'am?"
"It's my ankle, it hurts."
"How did you hurt it?"
"Oh, I didn't do anything to it, you see I have diabetes and high cholesterol, I'm overweight, crushed my ankle because it buckled when I tried to stand and I just can't wait three more days to see my doctor, be a dear and send me some help."
Another forlorn story of apathy and lethargy in American society, the result of a people submerged in a sea of fear and loathing for far too long. The rational mind of an average American can no longer recognize a legitimate medical emergency compared to a self-perpetuated inconvenience. It's an emergency when that ankle was broken and needs to be mended and reset, it's an inconvenience when your weight becomes too gravitationally rebellious for your bones to handle.
As our lost society continues to weed through our ever-growing concrete jungle, our perception and understanding of our most basic emergency service, 9-1-1, has become soiled. Now more than ever, an ill-informed populace request ambulances for non-emergency care, police assistant in getting a child to turn off the XBox 360, a husband to eat his supper, and a Mc Donald's employee for not serving a food item the location was currently bingo on.
"I'm sorry ma'am, we have none of what you ordered, may I get you something else?"
"Nah, I'mma get me the pou-lease ta' get me mah Mc' Rib."
My mom's done a lot in her life, most of that though has consisted of work. Since 1973, she's held the same job at the same place decade in and decade out. She's a registered nurse at Memorial Care in Long Beach CA, intensive care. You know who gets themselves into intensive care? Allow me to explain...
Things that will commonly get one into intensive care include the following; invasive surgery, cancer, severe illnesses that require a bed and round-the-clock care, stroke victims, deceptive junkies, and a plethora of ailments littering Web MD's 'least wanted' list. Things that without a doubt require hospital care.
Some things people today have gotten themselves into intensive care for; heart attack caused by obesity, chronic pains leading from obesity, non-emergency conditions (like Debra Neaves from the denverpost article) of patients who can't wait to see their doctor, and people that just don't have a doctor. People that know no better than to pick up the phone and dial 9-1-1 when confronted with any medical issue.
Walk into an ER complaining of a medical condition and you will be seen by a doctor.
Have a medical condition that doesn't require the services of an emergency responder and you just wasted time for someone who does and the strained resources of a facility on the brink of professional and moral bankruptcy.
Take them in, get them out, but make sure they leave with a prescription! No need to educate them on how to stay out of the ER, just push em' through...who cares if they come back just another current in our endless sea of patients.
For this is the failure of multiple aspects of our culture. Education, general social welfare, and de-humanism.
Education taking a back beat leads minds away from knowledge as they drift towards euphoric-driven cravings for entertainment, with glazed catatonic eyes. Does one learn anything about how to care for their health by watching Grey's Anatomy? Probably not. Do many Americans know that show was pseudo-ironically named after the premier medical journal penned in the English language? Probably not.
But this is information I have been privileged to receive, by birth, not by favoring circumstances. Because I was luck enough to inherit a parent who instead of crusading against the inevitability of disease, has simply cared for the health of humans.
This is where we have turned about-face in our pursuit for life. Caring for one's health is not a periodical assessment of blood tests, forced coughs, and stethoscopes. It is an ever-present consideration for what one puts into their body, and how one carries themselves through the decades comprising their life. Maintaining a diet that spans the multitudes of foods we consume to ensure our bodies receive as many nutrients by volume and variety as possible, consistent exercise to keep the body and it's tissues strong and fresh, and constant consideration of one's health status (feelings of weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath, identifying pains).
Essentially it is on us to know our anatomy and physiology so we can engage in discussion with our doctors when we do need to visit them to best diagnose whatever is happening to our bodies.
A few mornings ago I awoke to a slowly building pressure in my ear, which over the next hour, developed into an intermittent pain. The last time I'd had an ear infection, I was still shitting in diapers, but I never forgot what an ear infection was. After dropping 2 Tylenol to ease the pain, I called the doctor and set an appointment for later that afternoon. Upon arriving into room 12, the doctor asked me what was up and I explained to him what happened...
I'd taken a shower the previous night, water may have remained in my ear allowing for bacteria to grow. The pressure built slowly over an hour, the drum may have ruptured leading to the pain I experienced. I had used Q-tips to clean out any wax that might have blocked the passage of air, but I didn't go deep enough to pop my ear drum. After I took the Tylenol the pain subsided but my ear still wasn't pressurizing correctly.
After he took a look, noticing some wax and blood obscuring his view of my inner ear; he came to two conclusions. The drum popped but will heal, or I do have an ear infection as I suspected. I left the office with 10 days worth of antibiotics for the infection with directions to return after the medicine ran out if the problem continued.
Now, five days later, my ear is fine. Though I'll be finishing the antibiotics regime over the next five days; the infection is gone. If the drum had indeed popped I'd still surly be suffering from that fallout. Self-diagnosed and solved within a calendar week, not bad for someone who's medical instruction began and ended in high school during Anatomy and Physiology.
But this is also critical to understanding how we go about fostering social welfare in America. The view of my inner ear was obstructed, but he could have taken time to clean out the wax and blood to really see what the problem was. Though it seems that infection is the most plausible of causes, it many have been a combination of pressure pushing against my ear drum, causing the intermittent pain, and bacteria beginning to grow in water that remained and seeped deeper into my ear as the night progressed after my shower. We'll never know, because the doctor didn't scrutinize the situation deeply.
Am I better? Yes. Does this show that the medical system in America has success? Yes.
Does this constitute a factual anecdote that we are caring for health rather than preventing the inevitability for health to turn sour? No.
If indeed our medical practitioners conducted "health care", your visit to the doctor would consist of much more than; "how are you feeling", "a person of your age only needs to worry about the following", and "take those and call me if they don't work." These are the faulty lines in a vaudevillian medical profession we call American. A minstrel show of cost-effective diagnosis and prescription paradise. If the pill can't fix it, neither can my laxed skills as a medical-savant.
Cross-eyed as it may seem, our outlook for social welfare lacks insight. True to Henry Ford, American life continues to institute the principles of assembly-line mechanics. Getting them in and get them out...doctor's got a full load today, time to bust the quota...next!
But what of humanity and our value for human life? Darwanistic or not, God doesn't need to exist for there to be a deeper meaning to life. If not for spirit, our tangibly finite mortality gives life all the meaning it will ever need to inspire a cultivating feeling for prosperity and growth. We have but minimal moments in our life, sure it may seem a long stretch, but for those of you looking at a glass now half-full instead of half-empty, where have your years gone?
Care is an unconditional regard for compassion. Medical care ought be an unconditional regard for health, rather than a relentless crusade against disease. To educate our populace on anatomy and physiology will empower them to care for their own health and to pass along that knowledge to those that will come. To regard social welfare by re-humanistic means will bring about a culture that seeks to foster life for the sake of life, not fight disease for the sake of time.
Yet as long as we Americans, allow our medical industry to remain an "industry", free market economics will be top-down the medical policy for American health care. A health care system hell-bent towards profit from selling your health as a commodity.
"Severity of the emergency ma'am?"
"It's my ankle, it hurts."
"How did you hurt it?"
"Oh, I didn't do anything to it, you see I have diabetes and high cholesterol, I'm overweight, crushed my ankle because it buckled when I tried to stand and I just can't wait three more days to see my doctor, be a dear and send me some help."
Another forlorn story of apathy and lethargy in American society, the result of a people submerged in a sea of fear and loathing for far too long. The rational mind of an average American can no longer recognize a legitimate medical emergency compared to a self-perpetuated inconvenience. It's an emergency when that ankle was broken and needs to be mended and reset, it's an inconvenience when your weight becomes too gravitationally rebellious for your bones to handle.
As our lost society continues to weed through our ever-growing concrete jungle, our perception and understanding of our most basic emergency service, 9-1-1, has become soiled. Now more than ever, an ill-informed populace request ambulances for non-emergency care, police assistant in getting a child to turn off the XBox 360, a husband to eat his supper, and a Mc Donald's employee for not serving a food item the location was currently bingo on.
"I'm sorry ma'am, we have none of what you ordered, may I get you something else?"
"Nah, I'mma get me the pou-lease ta' get me mah Mc' Rib."
My mom's done a lot in her life, most of that though has consisted of work. Since 1973, she's held the same job at the same place decade in and decade out. She's a registered nurse at Memorial Care in Long Beach CA, intensive care. You know who gets themselves into intensive care? Allow me to explain...
Things that will commonly get one into intensive care include the following; invasive surgery, cancer, severe illnesses that require a bed and round-the-clock care, stroke victims, deceptive junkies, and a plethora of ailments littering Web MD's 'least wanted' list. Things that without a doubt require hospital care.
Some things people today have gotten themselves into intensive care for; heart attack caused by obesity, chronic pains leading from obesity, non-emergency conditions (like Debra Neaves from the denverpost article) of patients who can't wait to see their doctor, and people that just don't have a doctor. People that know no better than to pick up the phone and dial 9-1-1 when confronted with any medical issue.
Walk into an ER complaining of a medical condition and you will be seen by a doctor.
Have a medical condition that doesn't require the services of an emergency responder and you just wasted time for someone who does and the strained resources of a facility on the brink of professional and moral bankruptcy.
Take them in, get them out, but make sure they leave with a prescription! No need to educate them on how to stay out of the ER, just push em' through...who cares if they come back just another current in our endless sea of patients.
For this is the failure of multiple aspects of our culture. Education, general social welfare, and de-humanism.
Education taking a back beat leads minds away from knowledge as they drift towards euphoric-driven cravings for entertainment, with glazed catatonic eyes. Does one learn anything about how to care for their health by watching Grey's Anatomy? Probably not. Do many Americans know that show was pseudo-ironically named after the premier medical journal penned in the English language? Probably not.
But this is information I have been privileged to receive, by birth, not by favoring circumstances. Because I was luck enough to inherit a parent who instead of crusading against the inevitability of disease, has simply cared for the health of humans.
This is where we have turned about-face in our pursuit for life. Caring for one's health is not a periodical assessment of blood tests, forced coughs, and stethoscopes. It is an ever-present consideration for what one puts into their body, and how one carries themselves through the decades comprising their life. Maintaining a diet that spans the multitudes of foods we consume to ensure our bodies receive as many nutrients by volume and variety as possible, consistent exercise to keep the body and it's tissues strong and fresh, and constant consideration of one's health status (feelings of weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath, identifying pains).
Essentially it is on us to know our anatomy and physiology so we can engage in discussion with our doctors when we do need to visit them to best diagnose whatever is happening to our bodies.
A few mornings ago I awoke to a slowly building pressure in my ear, which over the next hour, developed into an intermittent pain. The last time I'd had an ear infection, I was still shitting in diapers, but I never forgot what an ear infection was. After dropping 2 Tylenol to ease the pain, I called the doctor and set an appointment for later that afternoon. Upon arriving into room 12, the doctor asked me what was up and I explained to him what happened...
I'd taken a shower the previous night, water may have remained in my ear allowing for bacteria to grow. The pressure built slowly over an hour, the drum may have ruptured leading to the pain I experienced. I had used Q-tips to clean out any wax that might have blocked the passage of air, but I didn't go deep enough to pop my ear drum. After I took the Tylenol the pain subsided but my ear still wasn't pressurizing correctly.
After he took a look, noticing some wax and blood obscuring his view of my inner ear; he came to two conclusions. The drum popped but will heal, or I do have an ear infection as I suspected. I left the office with 10 days worth of antibiotics for the infection with directions to return after the medicine ran out if the problem continued.
Now, five days later, my ear is fine. Though I'll be finishing the antibiotics regime over the next five days; the infection is gone. If the drum had indeed popped I'd still surly be suffering from that fallout. Self-diagnosed and solved within a calendar week, not bad for someone who's medical instruction began and ended in high school during Anatomy and Physiology.
But this is also critical to understanding how we go about fostering social welfare in America. The view of my inner ear was obstructed, but he could have taken time to clean out the wax and blood to really see what the problem was. Though it seems that infection is the most plausible of causes, it many have been a combination of pressure pushing against my ear drum, causing the intermittent pain, and bacteria beginning to grow in water that remained and seeped deeper into my ear as the night progressed after my shower. We'll never know, because the doctor didn't scrutinize the situation deeply.
Am I better? Yes. Does this show that the medical system in America has success? Yes.
Does this constitute a factual anecdote that we are caring for health rather than preventing the inevitability for health to turn sour? No.
If indeed our medical practitioners conducted "health care", your visit to the doctor would consist of much more than; "how are you feeling", "a person of your age only needs to worry about the following", and "take those and call me if they don't work." These are the faulty lines in a vaudevillian medical profession we call American. A minstrel show of cost-effective diagnosis and prescription paradise. If the pill can't fix it, neither can my laxed skills as a medical-savant.
Cross-eyed as it may seem, our outlook for social welfare lacks insight. True to Henry Ford, American life continues to institute the principles of assembly-line mechanics. Getting them in and get them out...doctor's got a full load today, time to bust the quota...next!
But what of humanity and our value for human life? Darwanistic or not, God doesn't need to exist for there to be a deeper meaning to life. If not for spirit, our tangibly finite mortality gives life all the meaning it will ever need to inspire a cultivating feeling for prosperity and growth. We have but minimal moments in our life, sure it may seem a long stretch, but for those of you looking at a glass now half-full instead of half-empty, where have your years gone?
Care is an unconditional regard for compassion. Medical care ought be an unconditional regard for health, rather than a relentless crusade against disease. To educate our populace on anatomy and physiology will empower them to care for their own health and to pass along that knowledge to those that will come. To regard social welfare by re-humanistic means will bring about a culture that seeks to foster life for the sake of life, not fight disease for the sake of time.
Yet as long as we Americans, allow our medical industry to remain an "industry", free market economics will be top-down the medical policy for American health care. A health care system hell-bent towards profit from selling your health as a commodity.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Christmas firecracker leads to al Qaeda scare
A Nigerian man, identified as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, attempted to detonate an explosive mixture of powder and chemicals on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 upon approach to land in Detroit. The device failed as passengers rushed the man. Abdulmutallab sustained second degree burns, consistent with firecrackers of a similar chemical composition. Something I myself have witnessed before, just not on a plane and without the intent of killing innocent people.
Back in my sophomore year of high school, I had chemistry with Mr. Jones. Aside from his goofy antics and mastery of the field, Mr. Jones also had brilliant teaching methods. To teach us about the law of expansion of gases, he showed how to make dry ice bombs (non-lethal...just very loud). When the dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) reacted with the water inside the bottle, the dry ice experienced a rapid change of matter-state (from solid to gas) leading to a build up of pressure so robust, the bottle burst in an eruption of sound and water. Very cool stuff to a 15-year-old.
When it came time to teach us about chemicals and how they are mixed, Jones displayed a layered combination of chemical powders (he wouldn't tell us what) and ignited the mixture with a liquid chemical ( essentially a firecracker). The beaker containing the mixture blossomed with a brilliant display of colors with the visual aesthetic of a Fourth of July sparkler on crack and acid, tweeker flipping.
This appears to be the same combination by explanation through the press, of Abdulmutallab's concoction; the difference though is not by design but intention. Jones sought to teach, Abdulmutallab sought to kill. Problem being, firecrackers don't explode with deadly force.
As facts about this horrifying incident begin to fill the world wide web, few things have been declared that the FBI is verifying:
I don't know how to make a bomb, but I could find out. Sad to say as it is these devices have been around for far long, and discovering the proper combination of chemicals to cause an explosion sizable enough to level an air plane is not difficult. But I know for fact, that a firecracker couldn't even blow up some of my model airplanes gracing my attic, let alone a jet liner. Bad students do bad work, lucky al Qaeda inspired and hired a class clown.
For the events of today on Northwest Flight 253 clue us into the fact that, we've gotten to them and they are hurting.
We have seen attempts like this before.
Just eight years ago, Richard Reid, an al Qaeda operative, attempted to detonate an explosive device in his shoe. That failed, he's in jail. Suffice to say, a fate Abdulmutallab shall suffer shortly.
But this is old technique played out on an American people that have become by default of survival, feverishly paranoid towards the inevitability of another terrorist attack via plane.
Why? Success on our behalf.
The war in Afghanistan has waged now for eight years, since then we've heard a stream of upper al Qaeda operatives and commanders falling to the prey of American muscle and missile.
Essentially, they have become lame in their attempts, and scattered to a degree of unsophistication that was once their edge against the Western World. The guerrillas have run out of bananas, leaving few peels for U.S. to slip up on.
Which is how we wrap around to today. This attempt is an act of desperation to keep control of psyche. As long as we fear of an inevitable attack because of ones in proximal history, the tactics of al Qaeda are successful. As soon as we shed this fear, their house of cards collapses before their eyes.
Yesterday, reports from the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, Iran disclosed that one of Osama bin Laden's daughters just showed up. Officials at the embassy had no clue she was in the country, nor how she entered.
After running around Afghanistan and flying around the northern provinces of Pakistan for eight years, bin Laden has eluded U.S. captivity like a fox...or perhaps not. Out foxed us in the sense that we've been searching in all the old holes while he's moved on, true. Yet cracks from his steps are beginning to show.
His age is turning against him, his dream of Islamic supremacy is fading with his eye sight, and the ranks of his "base" are thinning; these are the acts and ploys of a desperate man on edge, shall he fall soon? We shall see...
Back in my sophomore year of high school, I had chemistry with Mr. Jones. Aside from his goofy antics and mastery of the field, Mr. Jones also had brilliant teaching methods. To teach us about the law of expansion of gases, he showed how to make dry ice bombs (non-lethal...just very loud). When the dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) reacted with the water inside the bottle, the dry ice experienced a rapid change of matter-state (from solid to gas) leading to a build up of pressure so robust, the bottle burst in an eruption of sound and water. Very cool stuff to a 15-year-old.
When it came time to teach us about chemicals and how they are mixed, Jones displayed a layered combination of chemical powders (he wouldn't tell us what) and ignited the mixture with a liquid chemical ( essentially a firecracker). The beaker containing the mixture blossomed with a brilliant display of colors with the visual aesthetic of a Fourth of July sparkler on crack and acid, tweeker flipping.
This appears to be the same combination by explanation through the press, of Abdulmutallab's concoction; the difference though is not by design but intention. Jones sought to teach, Abdulmutallab sought to kill. Problem being, firecrackers don't explode with deadly force.
As facts about this horrifying incident begin to fill the world wide web, few things have been declared that the FBI is verifying:
- Abdulmutallab is an engineering student from the University College of London, according to federal documents (many members of the Mujahideen financed by the CIA during the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in the 80s were also engineering students, many Mujahid joined Osama bin Laden in the creation of al Qaeda)
- Abdulmutallab's name is in a law enforcement database, stated ABC News.
- Abdulmutallab is on a suspected terrorist watchlist, stated Rep. Peter King (R-NY) member of the Committee on Homeland Security.
- Abdulmutallab allegedly has affiliations with al Qaeda and received the device along with instructions while in Yemen.
I don't know how to make a bomb, but I could find out. Sad to say as it is these devices have been around for far long, and discovering the proper combination of chemicals to cause an explosion sizable enough to level an air plane is not difficult. But I know for fact, that a firecracker couldn't even blow up some of my model airplanes gracing my attic, let alone a jet liner. Bad students do bad work, lucky al Qaeda inspired and hired a class clown.
For the events of today on Northwest Flight 253 clue us into the fact that, we've gotten to them and they are hurting.
We have seen attempts like this before.
Just eight years ago, Richard Reid, an al Qaeda operative, attempted to detonate an explosive device in his shoe. That failed, he's in jail. Suffice to say, a fate Abdulmutallab shall suffer shortly.
But this is old technique played out on an American people that have become by default of survival, feverishly paranoid towards the inevitability of another terrorist attack via plane.
Why? Success on our behalf.
The war in Afghanistan has waged now for eight years, since then we've heard a stream of upper al Qaeda operatives and commanders falling to the prey of American muscle and missile.
Essentially, they have become lame in their attempts, and scattered to a degree of unsophistication that was once their edge against the Western World. The guerrillas have run out of bananas, leaving few peels for U.S. to slip up on.
Which is how we wrap around to today. This attempt is an act of desperation to keep control of psyche. As long as we fear of an inevitable attack because of ones in proximal history, the tactics of al Qaeda are successful. As soon as we shed this fear, their house of cards collapses before their eyes.
Yesterday, reports from the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, Iran disclosed that one of Osama bin Laden's daughters just showed up. Officials at the embassy had no clue she was in the country, nor how she entered.
After running around Afghanistan and flying around the northern provinces of Pakistan for eight years, bin Laden has eluded U.S. captivity like a fox...or perhaps not. Out foxed us in the sense that we've been searching in all the old holes while he's moved on, true. Yet cracks from his steps are beginning to show.
His age is turning against him, his dream of Islamic supremacy is fading with his eye sight, and the ranks of his "base" are thinning; these are the acts and ploys of a desperate man on edge, shall he fall soon? We shall see...
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