Cyber Threats

Chaos is at our Door: Why a dangerous world is closing in. (Part 2 of 5)

An EMP attack is far from the only way of wreaking havoc on America’s infrastructure or blacking out our power grid. Cyber-attacks through the internet, for example, are a new and growing danger to our nation’s most sensitive government, military and financial operations.

Many experts worry that they could shut down our nation’s financial system, locking up bank accounts, freezing credit cards, and putting our economy into a tailspin.

Worse, according to 9/11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean, the danger of cyber terror is even more immediate and deadly. “Hackers can threaten the control systems of critical facilities like dams, water treatment plants, and the power grid.” Being able to remotely control a dam, pumping station or oil pipeline could unleash large-scale devastation.

Terrorists could deliver a knockout punch with more conventional means as well. Last year, in what was called “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred,” unknown individuals used rifles to disable 17 electrical transformers near San Jose, Calif.

It took technicians almost a month to get the facility back online, and that was just one substation. What if terrorists did the same thing in coordinated attacks all across the country? According to Wellinghoff, they could disable the grid and black out much of the United States.

Whether it’s through an EMP, a massive cyber-attack, another 9/11, or just isolated sprees of murder and mayhem, military and homeland security officials agree it’s just a matter of time before the U.S. faces some kind of terrorist attack.

It might be along the lines of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, where terrorists launched a dozen coordinated attacks, gunning down innocent victims at hotels, a bar, a train station, a hospital, and a movie theater. In all, they killed 164 innocent people.

Or it might be like the attack on Westgate Mall in Kenya last year. Four armed terrorists linked to al Qaeda were able, thanks to Kenya’s strict anti-gun laws, to spend four days torturing, mutilating and gunning down shoppers with almost no fear of reprisal. They killed 63 innocent people and wounded 175 more before they were stopped.

So ask yourself: Could suicidal terrorist mass murderers try to bomb an American hotel, an American train station, shopping mall or movie theater? Don’t think that a group of terrorists aren’t smart enough to pull it off, eventually, or that a single determined person with an agenda isn’t going to be successful.

Chaos

EMP Threats

Chaos is at our Door: Why a dangerous world is closing in. (Part 1 of 5)

Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President, recently wrote, “You won’t hear about this from the mainstream media, and few politicians dare to discuss these things openly”. His comments were not meant to be intentionally alarming or apocalyptic, but the reality is that we may be living in some of the most dangerous times in human history.

Does that sound like some crazy exaggeration to you? Well, consider this: Recently, in The Wall Street Journal, former CIA Director James Woolsey warned that “the most significant threat to the U.S. in the world” is the threat of catastrophe caused by an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. And that danger appears to loom larger every year.

Even if no blast, shock or fallout reaches the ground, the cascading avalanche of infrastructure failures caused by an EMP can create a national catastrophe; because an EMP is designed to destroy the electronic equipment upon which so much of modern life is built.

In the short term, an EMP will drown out radio communications, like radio, TV and cell phones, to air-defense radar systems, to police, fire and EMS frequencies. Over the long term, an EMP blacks out the power grid, plunging much of the continental U.S. into darkness and chaos lasting for months, if not years.

Collapse of the power grid, in turn, would have a domino effect on the infrastructures Americans depend on most for survival. Landline telephone and cell phone systems, the internet and all the vital signals the internet carries, military command and control, banking and financial systems, gas pipeline and gas stations, nuclear power plant safeguards, hospital and emergency room functionality. Public water and sewage services, perhaps our most urgent and immediate life support systems of all.

This isn’t some feverish, paranoid fantasy. It’s not some fabrication from “Doomsday Preppers.” It’s the kind of scenario that the most informed national security experts in the country, including military commanders, emergency response planners and scientists have been warning politicians about with increasing urgency for more than a decade.

China and Russia have considered limited nuclear-attack options that employ EMP as the primary or sole means of attack, and in 2004 Russian military officials warned U.S. government investigators that North Korea’s military had recruited Russian scientists to develop nuclear EMP weapons.

Designs for variants of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter century. Yet, while the media should be alerting the public to this danger, and our nation’s leaders should be setting up systems to protect us, we get adolescent media gossip about the latest celebrity tweet.

If this all sounds inconceivable to you, the government’s own congressional EMP Commission reports that within a year of a national blackout, as much as 90 percent of the population of the U.S. could die due to starvation, disease and the collapse of civilization as we know it.

Merry Christmas

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.

In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets;

in these last days, he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe, who is the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being,

and who sustains all things by his mighty word.

Newtown Remembered

I continue to stand with those who remember the victims of all violent incidents, especially in America, including the horrific shooting in the Newtown Connecticut School. I am increasingly saddened by the tragic loss of life and by the struggle of those who survive. I am also saddened by this nation's reaction to these events.

Those that support gun rights may or may not be correct about mental health being the primary cause, but it’s almost a given that someone psychologically prepared to kill innocent people is suffering from some form of mental illness. While it’s difficult for me to understand psychological causes related to terrorism perpetrated by religious fanaticism, I would say these people have lost their way too.

What can we learn from this event? Ask yourself why the focus is still on the tools used during a crime instead of the underlying causes of crime, and you might get an insight into what is happening in this country. If you continue to let our nation’s leaders, the media, or anyone else distract you then you are part of the problem. Be part of the solution: Guns are just a tool, they are not the problem!

It's also time to recognize that what we're seeing is a change of behavior in this country. During the course of American history we've been moving away from the "Land of the Free" to the land of laws as more and more control is implemented over it's citizens. It's impossible to stay neutral given that the laws being codified to "protect" us from ourselves are in fact causing more strife.

Thanks be to God

For the fruits of his creation, thanks be to God.
For his gifts to every nation, thanks be to God.
For the plowing, sowing, reaping,
Silent growth while we are sleeping,
Future needs in earth's safekeeping,
Thanks be to God.

In the just reward of labor, God's will be done.
In the help we give our neighbor, God's will be done.
In our worldwide task of caring, for the hungry and despairing,
In the harvests we are sharing,
God's will be done.

For the harvests of the Spirit, thanks be to God.
For the good we all inherit, thanks be to God.
For the wonders that astound us, for the truths that still confound us,
Most of all that love has found us,
Thanks be to God.

Life Redefined

After America: There is No Place to Go (Part 2 of 2)

1) The government redefined education.

Education was nationalized. The day Hitler was elected (March 13, 1938), Kitty walked into her schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler's picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Her teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class they wouldn't pray or have religion anymore. Instead, they would sing nationalistic songs and participate in physical education.

Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum, but they were told that if they did not send their children, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. Kitty says the first two hours consisted of political indoctrination, and the rest of the day was devoted to sports. As time went along, they came to love it, and would go home and gleefully tell their parents about the wonderful time they had.

2) The government redefined equal rights.

Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn't support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.

In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant, if you didn't work you didn't get a ration card, and if you didn't have a card you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn't have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.

By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.

3) The government redefined service.

Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and  participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines.

When Kitty goes back to Austria to visit family and friends, most of the women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before she turned 18, she was severely injured in an air raid attack and nearly had a leg amputated. As a result she was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.

4) The government redefined the family.

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no mothers to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology.

5) The government redefined health care.

Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries. To support this level of healthcare, tax rates went up to 80% of our income.

6) The government redefined welfare

Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

There was another agency designed to monitor business. Kitty's brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities, even though it was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn't meet all the demands, and he soon went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the livestock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

6) The government redefined mercy killing.

In 1944, Kitty was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When she arrived she was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. She knew one named Vincent, very well, who was a janitor at the school.

One day, she looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. When she asked her superior where they were going, she was told they were going to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months, and also told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.

As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled, and recognized what was happening. There people left in excellent physical health and yet died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.

7) The government redefined individual rights.

Next came gun registration. Officials said that the real way to catch criminals was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law-abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.

Don't let freedom slip away:

Totalitarianism didn't come quickly in Austria, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943 to establish a full dictatorship. Their lives were changed forever by creeping gradualism. Had it happened overnight, Austria's countrymen would have fought to the last breath, but now their only weapons were broom handles.

The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little, eroded their freedom. America might truly be the greatest country in the world, but this country is in trouble. If we are to loose our freedom, it won't be the on-slot of tanks and guns, it will be because we have let freedom slip away while listening to others tell us it's for our own good!