Traditional Targets

All this time the Dutch have been spared even the threat of a terrorist attack. As a nation the Netherlands has managed to stay out of trouble while Spain and the UK have been bombed and Germany recently managed to escape such a thing by a narrow margin, or so we've been told.
It can't be a lack of reasons; the Dutch government has immediately sided with the USA on the preemptive wars and it's army has a noteworthy presence in Afghanistan. The Netherlands has, as recent (after WWI) history teaches, been willing or even eager to cooperate with occupying forces and to side with the biggest bully on the block.
It can't be a lack of targets either. Schiphol is a mayor airport, hub for many european and intercontinental flights. We've got one of Europe's main ports with Shell's huge oil refineries and the likes just across the river and a capital that speaks to the imagination whether you fancy sex, drugs, Rock 'n Roll or van Gogh, which can be either a deceased painter or a hatemonger against the Islam in general who, true, has been butchered allmost 2 years ago. For this there was plenty reason, never enough to form an excuse.
Maybe this lack of attention is because "Holland and Germany are reputed to have the highest levels of covert governmental mobile phone tapping,"[Source] which doesn't bode well for other surveillances. Perhaps there is no real need to strike fear in the hearts of the Dutch population, no need to push farfetching anti terrorist laws through the throat of independent and free civilians. Maybe those laws are allready in place and the population is in ignorant bliss about it.
The Dutch intelligence community uses (closed, proprietary) software kindy provided by the MOSSAD, who gets away with the mere promise they won't abuse the obvious potential therein. The harbors in Rotterdam are equipped with container scanning equipment delivered and manned by the United States, off limits to the Dutch, in effect moving the United States border into this little domian and possible reason BushCo has no real incentive to protect their own harbors with simular devices.
This makes you think about the targeted nations and convenient timing of the terrorists, who allways seem to (try to) hit those who are engaged in hefty public debate or even in court about new or expanded anti terrorist laws or practises and the threat these pose to personal privacy and freedom. Especially since the most recent shampoo plot appears to have been blown out of proportions by hysterically eager mainstream media, pushing the Israeli massacre, escalating sectarian violence in Iraq and incredibly increased production of papaver in Afghanistan to the side. By the time these allegations have to be held up in court, where they rarely even end up, Joe Random has forgotten all about it, and the traditional media most likely won't refresh his memory.
It also makes you think about the targets and implied lack of imagination and capability for strategic thinking of these enemies of ours, as if extended boarding time, increased airport security or frustrating Michael O'Leary is high on their agenda. If disrupting 'our way of life' is their aim or in their interest, I could whip up some less elaborate and more effective alternatives before I've finished my beer. Considering the fact that voting for a senator who wishes to pull out from Iraq is widely presented as to be aiding the enemy I'll refrain from posting them here.

Trespassing Allowed

Just over a week ago the BBC posted an article with a warning from the Department of Homeland Security. It didn't concern liquids or airplanes, nor did it concern harbors and containers or other unlikely terrorist plots. It concerned Microsoft Windows. The Department of Homeland Security issued an official warning on Windows bugs and "urged Windows users to install the latest patches from Microsoft as quickly as possible." Everybody knows or should know that Microsoft Windows Software is notoriously insecure but that this is a matter of Homeland Security must be somewhat of a surprise to even the most dedicated followers of the Redmond Robbers.

It raises some questions. About the software, obviously, but I'll refrain from ranting and raving about that for the moment because there are more interesting issues. For instance why the Department of Homeland Security does not advise the public to replace this evidently dangerous product with a better and safer one. They have done so themselves, as has the army, the navy and the intelligence community at large, who are all running some GNU/Linux distribution or another. Could it be that the Department of Homeland Security actually likes something around 90% of the western population to use and depend on this bit of technology? Could it be that the closed (proprietary) nature of this product allows for virtual surveillance devices? Some sort of Government Approved Spyware?
Now, don't run off screaming about paranoid delusions. It is not beyond living memory that there was an FBI, a CIA and No Such Agency. The unveiled National Security Agency's call database, the unwarranted, illegal eavesdropping by BushCo which surfaced about a year back was an outlandish conspiracy theory just a decade earlier.
Mind you, it's just Joe Random's desktop where Windows still has an excessive dominant marketshare, and recent events have established that Joe Random is to be suspected, needs to be monitored and tracked. A suggestion that the Department of Homeland Security, or the NSA, or one of DARPA's children would tap into each and every homecomputer was farfetched to say the least not to long ago, but given the current state of affairs, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. Windows is allowed to lie about it if it were true and the closed nature of the software doesn't allow for peer review.
Rumor has it that early next year Microsoft's new Vista will finally be released, after being made compatible with the systems used by the various intelligence gathering bodies, which took a little longer then expected. It stands for Very Insecure Software, Trespassing Allowed. And once in a while the Department of Homeland Security will remind us to update the drivers of our Personal Surveillance Devices "as quickly as possible".

Introduction

Before you venture any deeper into the domain of my assorted thinking you might first want to visit Paul Graham's What You Can't Say. It will bring you to another place in the ecosphere of the web and will inform you a little about the founding principles behind the creation of this blog.
This place will be swarming with interlinking acronyms, holistically connecting everything with everything, from the outspoken to the outlandish and from the instrumental to the insane. This is a free-for-all playing ground for creative thoughts, gravitating and interacting like molecules or probability clouds thereof afloat in a mist of harmonic distortion. There's more way then one to do such a thing, and this Blogspace provided by Google's Blogger is just one of them.
As Paul Graham stated there are a lot of things a lot of people would probably hesitate to formulate aloud amidst their peers. Issues that would be considered taboo in a given conversation. The following introduction to an article on Common Dreams News Centre also touches the subject of conversational taboo:
"At one dinner party with dear friends, I find that no criticism of Israel is allowed. At another, with equally dear friends, only remarks supportive of Palestinians are countenanced. As talk -- and silence -- at dinner tables shows, no question is more polarized than this one." Source
I beg to differ. The Polarisation Effect Value (PEV) at the dinner table depends for a large part on the people present. And since this is a Blog freely accesible to everybody with Internet Acces the guests at this particular table can be legion. And I will do my utmost to touch on as many social taboos as possible, quite possibly alienating each and every soul. In other words, this might all be opinionised but not without logic or reason, and if you are sincerely commited to one taboo or another, you'd best be on your way out.

2048 refers to 1984 by George Orwell which was written in 1948.
It's original title, "The Last Man in Europe", obviously refers to me (AaA) :-)