The Last Ephor

Sean Thomas Lugano Today's the day. Ten years gone and the rest of our lives to go. This blog honors Sean Thomas Lugano I knew Sean casually. We went to college together and were on the rugby team together. He was much better than I was. He was very fast and much stronger than he looked. Sean was one of those guys who was reserved but very funny. He wasn't one of those guys who garnered attention by being outrageous or demonstrative. He was just there, always with a smile and quick with a laugh or a joke. He took a lot of flack in college because of his modeling career. He used to model to make money for college and the idea of a rugby player being a model seemed absurd. The only commercial I ever saw him in was for The Gap and ironically, he was playing rugby in the commercial. That seemed to redeem him somewhat in the eyes of his teammates and we didn't rib him much after that. I didn't know Sean well enough to keep in touch with him after college. Occasion...

Today's the day. Nine years gone and the rest of our lives to go. This blog honors Sean Thomas Lugano I knew Sean casually. We went to college together and were on the rugby team together. He was much better than I was. He was very fast and much stronger than he looked. Sean was one of those guys who was reserved but very funny. He wasn't one of those guys who garnered attention by being outrageous or demonstrative. He was just there, always with a smile and quick with a laugh or a joke. He took a lot of flack in college because of his modeling career. He used to model to make money for college and the idea of a rugby player being a model seemed absurd. The only commercial I ever saw him in was for The Gap and ironically, he was playing rugby in the commercial. That seemed to redeem him somewhat in the eyes of his teammates and we didn't rib him much after that. I didn't know Sean well enough to keep in touch with him after college. Occasionally, I'd see ...

Today's the day. Seven years gone and the rest of our lives to go. This blog honors Sean Thomas Lugano I knew Sean casually. We went to college together and were on the rugby team together. He was much better than I was. He was very fast and much stronger than he looked. Sean was one of those guys who was reserved but very funny. He wasn't one of those guys who garnered attention by being outrageous or demonstrative. He was just there, always with a smile and quick with a laugh or a joke. He took a lot of flack in college because of his modeling career. He used to model to make money for college and the idea of a rugby player being a model seemed absurd. The only commercial I ever saw him in was for The Gap and ironically, he was playing rugby in the commercial. That seemed to redeem him somewhat in the eyes of his teammates and we didn't rib him much after that. I didn't know Sean well enough to keep in touch with him after college. Occasionally, I'd see him in the...

I'm a little late to the party on this one but it's worth reading: A SCOTTISH soldier has been praised for making the longest recorded kill in Afghanistan after shooting a top Taliban fighter from almost a mile away. Corporal Christopher Reynolds took out the Afghan drug lord during some of the hardest fighting of the war so far. The 25-year-old, of 3 Scots, The Black Watch, kept watch on a shop rooftop for three days to eliminate the target. But he admitted the top-level Taliban fighter – known as Musa – was so far away it took him a couple of attempts to get the aim right. Initially Musa, who was with four men, did not even realise he was being shot at. But Cpl Reynolds, of Dalgety Bay, in Fife, together with his spotter Lance Corporal David Hatton, worked out different factors such as wind speed and the trajectory of the bullet to hit the target. Musa, who was more than 1,500 metres away, was taken out with a single shot to the chest. Cpl Reynolds, who has killed 32 Taliban ...

Every defining attribute of Bush's radical secrecy powers -- every one -- is found here, and in exactly the same tone and with the exact same mindset. Thus: how the U.S. government eavesdrops on its citizens is too secret to allow a court to determine its legality. We must just blindly accept the claims from the President's DNI that we will all be endangered if we allow courts to determine the legality of the President's actions. Even confirming or denying already publicly known facts -- such as the involvement of the telecoms and the massive data-mining programs -- would be too damaging to national security. Why? Because the DNI says so. It is not merely specific documents, but entire lawsuits, that must be dismissed in advance as soon as the privilege is asserted because "its very subject matter would inherently risk or require the disclosure of state secrets." What's being asserted here by the Obama DOJ is the virtually absolute power of presidenti...

It has become something of an article of faith among the anti-war crowd that any action by the US in Iraq creates scores of terrorists. Our bungling ineptitude enrages the Arab/Muslim street and our enemies multiply endlessly. Or not. That noted neocon organ The New York Times has an article: “I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers .” Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: “ The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.” .... “I used to love Osama bin Laden...Al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army are spreading hatred. People are being killed for nothing.” So we're winning by not being the iron clamp of oppression and death i...

Perhaps the title of the post is a misnomer. Intrepid infosec blogger Dancho gives a great analysis of the Global Islamic Media Front's boasting about their security toolset. See here and here for more. I confess to having missed this one entirely. I've not even heard of GIMF. However, as someone with a passing familiarity with encryption tools and network security, I can say that the key phrase in the article is this: "If you perceive the Technical Mujahid magazine as a threat to the national security of any country, old issues of Phrack magazine must be giving you the nightmares." I snarfed my Red Bull when I read that one. I used to be an avid reader of Phrack , 2600 and cDc's various white papers. In full nerd fashion, I went to HOPE twice and once even bamboozled my company into paying for it. At H2K one group emphatically decided I was an FBI agent and despite my protestations gave me a wide berth and breathlessly warned anyone I spoke to that ...

More on the previous post on the bin Laden/Leftist rhetoric locus: David Broder of the NYT agrees with me.

And this is different from Islamist barbarism how, exactly? Only one. Frequency.

Hube is angry that DelawareLiberal is downplaying the terrorism stories of the day. Frankly, he's missed the point. Jason is arguing straw man. It is not that we should be afraid but that we need to take these attacks seriously. This one may have been a dud, but that doesn't mean anything. Imagine that 19 young Saudis were thwarted in their efforts when their bags were lost or they were denied boarding. We would have read posts on Kos and DelawareLiberal about how those bumbling idiots thought they were going to hijack a plane with a blade embedded in a toothbrush! Complete fools! Nothing to see here, move along. Look! Bush said something non-inclusive! Atheists/gays/liberals were disrespected! What a buffoon. Hube correctly points out the neat trap they've constructed for anyone who takes terrorism seriously. Doing something makes you a jackbooted civil liberties squasher. Doing nothing makes you either an incompetant rube or worse, a opportunistic soul-less ...

Once again, that myth is put to bed with the latest installment from Ole Blighty. 'Terror ringleader' is brilliant NHS doctor We've been told time and again that desperation and poverty breed terrorists. They have no other avenue but violence to be heard. Crap. Crap. Crap. It's desperation alright but not that kind. They're desperate because their societies are so oppressive and strict. They are denied anything approaching fun for their entire life. They are told by everyone that they are God's chosen people but their societies are failures. Aside from oil, they produce nothing. They see the decadent and indulgent West doing everything they deny themselves and we're kicking their asses in every measure that matters. Economically, militarily, culturally, technologically, you name it. That has throw everything they're told into question. How can this be? How can we, God's faithful and chosen, be doing everything right and have nothing to ...

The Spanish pulled out of Iraq after Islamic terrorists bombed their train stations . This, they reasoned, would keep them safe. Not so. Suicide Bomber at Yemeni Temple Kills 9 AHMED Al-HAJJ The Associated Press Monday, July 2, 2007; 1:31 PM SAN'A, Yemen -- An al-Qaida suicide bomber blew himself up Monday at the site of an ancient temple popular with tourists, killing seven Spaniards and two Yemenis less than two weeks after the U.S. Embassy issued a terror warning about the area. They will follow us home. If they have their way, we have two choices. Dhimmitude or Death. Preferably the latter.

"I was stopped by someone the other week who said it was not surprising there was so much terrorism in the world when we invaded their countries (meaning Afghanistan and Iraq). No wonder Muslims felt angry. I said to him: tell me exactly what they feel angry about. We remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes; we replace them with a UN-supervised democratic process. And the only reason it is difficult still is because other Muslims are using terrorism to try to destroy the fledgling democracy and, in doing so, are killing fellow Muslims. Why aren't they angry about the people doing the killing? The odd thing about the conversation is I could tell it was the first time he'd heard this argument." Neocon Warmonger and Puppet of Big Oil (TM)Tony Blair

I am loathe to link to jihadi videos but I'm breaking my rule here. War supporters continually stress that this war will not end if we go home. It is not our foreign policy that drives them to seek to kill us. It is our lack of submission to them. To wit: "We will fight them and kill them even if they leave Iraq or Palestine. We will follow them and end all their evil actions." In WWI we had a quote; "We'll be over, we're coming over, And we won't come back till it's over, over there." Otherwise, it will just end up here.

9/11 Mastermind Confesses in Guantanamo . He confessed to 29 separate plots both successful and unsuccessful. He also took responsibility for the Lusitania, Mt. Vesuvius, the Sack of Rome, bell bottoms, lite beer, American Idol and any other horrors visited upon Americans for the foreseeable future. NB: I think he's guilty of the 9/11 plot from start to finish but now he's just taking credit for everything as a means of self-aggrandizement.