“A recently proposed but little-noticed Senate bill would allow the federal government to shut down the Internet in times of declared emergency, and enables unprecedented federal oversight of private network administration.”

From The Raw Story.

Say again? “Shut down the Internet”? Are you sicing me?

Nobody in the Congress appears to understand what the Internet is. Yet they propose to “shut it down” for “security” reasons? Either that or it’s the media gatekeepers who don’t get it. I mean, we already knew that Washington doesn’t get it (cf. “series of tubes“), but this shows as flagrant a misunderstanding of anything as I’ve heard in awhile. There is no magic button that can “shut down the Internet.”

Most of the core internet protocols were designed to be distributed and autonomous and independent of any central control. First, TPTB would have to find the choke points. Then they’d have to seize them. Why don’t you pricks in Congress stop beating around the bush, be honest, and just admit you’d like to nationalize all telecomm infrastructure? The honesty would be appreciated, and that’s the only damn way you’d do it in the first place.

(Actually, don’t get any ideas. Instead of doing that, I’d prefer any assholes in Congress just resign instead.)

I’m trying to figure out whether this is a misunderstanding on the part of congressmen or on the part of the media carrying the “story.”

Giving the United States power to “shut down the Internet” would require widespread nationalization of at least the main backbones of American Internet infrastructure. Either that or sweeping authority for the President to, say, send in military forces to “seize” ISP resources. I doubt that is going to happen anytime soon, even if the ISPs are increasingly pawns of the powers that be (especially regarding the intellectual property, monitoring, and censorship fronts). But I’ve been wrong before.

(Just a sort of semantic quibble, too: the power of the United States President to “shut down the Internet” would not extend beyond American borders. Considering how widely distributed the Internet is, even if the United States President had power to shut down the main backbones in the States, large parts of what we consider “The Internet” would be able to continue to operate to a pretty substantial degree. What we call “The Internet” is to a large degree a relatively decentralized and distributed system, by intent. Internet access exists – n.b., worldwide – in pretty much all settled areas in industrialized parts of the globe. I know it doesn’t fit into characteristic American arrogance (coupled here with alarmism and ignorance), but the Internet does extend beyond United States borders, folks. Though ISPs – at least in the United States and other parts of the West – get government favors on various governmental levels, to a large degree the Internet confounds politicians because it’s so damned hard to control (which is one of the reasons I love it); as much as things like the “Great Firewall of China” suck, as much as the powers-that-be want to control the Internet, they can’t control it all.)

I’m certainly not inviting infrastructure nationalization, and the notion is revolting, but I’m wondering who’s being the alarmist here. There’s not exactly a “Turn off the internets!!!1! /b/ is clogging the tubes again!” button.

Sigh. I’ve been thinking about things like this for sometime, and there has to be some left-libertarian means of wresting control of infrastructure from governments and government-privileged corporate ISPs. The fact that at least one Congressman even thinks this is feasible or desirable means that some fucker in government would probably be willing to hatch a way to do it by brute force or good old Fascist-style nationalization. Because even given my doubts above about “shut[ting] down the Internet,” the moves of governments trying to control the Tubes is bothersome, even if there probably won’t be a new “Internet Button” on the President’s desk next to the armageddon phone anytime soon.

If the United States government is concerned about the security of its IT infrastructure, there are ways to protect it VPNs, firewalls, active IDSs, etc. You don’t need to nationalize the “tubes” to protect government secrets. If the United States government hits the point of being in an “emergency,” and information supposedly important to supposed national supposed security is in “jeopardy,” unplug or shutdown the damn boundary routers at all federal buildings or lockdown their firewalls. (The private sector would probably take awhile to notice.)

“Shut down the Internet?” That’s not how it works, folks – at least without a global EMP. Or martial law initiated for the sake of seizing main trunks and backbones.

For now.

(File this one under the “So That’s What Public Officials Do All Day” category.)

I don’t really have anything fresh to add here. Just adding my incredulity.

As if we needed any further proof that politicians are moronic, shallow, uneducated douchecocks, Oklahoma legislators have released a resolution asking… ugh. It’s so ludicrous I won’t even bother to paraphrase. I’ll just let it speak for itself:

THAT the Oklahoma House of Representative strongly opposes the invitation to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma to Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published statements on the theory of evolution and opinion about those who do not believe in the theory are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma.

THAT the Oklahoma House of Representatives encourages the University of Oklahoma to engage in an open, dignified, and fair discussion of the Darwinian theory of evolution and all other scientific theories which is the approach that a public institution should be engaged in and which represents the desire and interest of the citizens of Oklahoma.

I don’t need to point out that those two paragraphs are grossly contradictory, right? I’m at a loss. Somebody remind me why we’re supposed to find representative democracy to be a compelling idea. I truly want to find this resolution funny, but it’s not for obvious reasons.

The first poll, conducted last week by Rasmussen Reports, has 40 percent of Americans in support of legalizing the drug [marijuana] and 46 percent opposed. The second, conducted in January by CBS News, has 41 percent in favor of legalization and 52 percent against. And a third poll, conducted by Zogby on behalf of the marijuana-rights advocacy group NORML, has 44 percent of Americans in support of legalized pot and 52 percent opposed.

From here.

Considering that the page claims that only 10% of people wanted weed legalized back in 1969 (a bit before my time, but ironically I believe that was two years after the summer of love), shouldn’t people like me, who want to see all substances legalized, without qualifications, be heartened? Shouldn’t I be happy reading that now only 46-52% of the population, rather than 90%, is apparently moronic? Marijuana legalization is a no-brainer. And they say the stoners are the ones who are braindead…

No, I shouldn’t be heartened. The numbers are absolutely not energizing or encouraging in any way. Indulge in the “glass half-empty, half-full” Freudian psychoanalytical crap about me as much as you want, but that number is pathetic. It’s a case where the the half-empty glass is almost as good as an bone-dry, empty glass.

In fact, the best word I can think of is “meh.” Apparently, even on this relatively not-so-radical proposal (I mean, considering what marijuana is, not what the propaganda machines claim it is), this pole suggests that about half of the country is still staggeringly idiotic. Either that, or the propaganda is just that effective.

(Consider that Michael Phelps was caught “red-handed” in the process of indulging in the apparently horribly sinful process of hitting a bong. The ensuing displays of public outrage were at once stunning and maddening. Kellogg’s retracted a corporate sponsorship for Phelps while retreating to its politically-correct high-horse. People took the moral high ground in condeming him for tainting his golden-boy role-model persona. Self-righteousness abounded. Idiocy on social networking sites and the internet in general is expected, but some of the blog posts and comments I read condemning Phelps were incredible. I actually felt bad for Phelps.

Considering the outrage over Michael Phelps toking it up, I am forced to consider that maybe the propaganda and outright lies about marijuana really have been that successful. Today, the (alcohol) Prohibition Party is openly laughed at, when it isn’t just ignored. The fact that marijuana prohibitionists aren’t met with the same derision is, frankly, astonishing.)

Whether it’s propaganda or sheer idiocy, the ~50% number is hardly encouraging.

Though I do realize why some people are excited about these polling numbers. You see, 50% has special meaning in electoral and democratic politics. 50% is enough to outshout the other guys. 50% is enough to put the political strong arm on people with whom you disagree.

I’m the last, of course, to advocate involvement in politics. And I have already argued that the drug liberalization movement itself is fundamentally sick. As far as I’m concerned, if people want to light up a blunt, fine. Fire at will. I don’t care, and I don’t in any way support a cop’s right to take away your stash or throw you in jail or prison for smoking or selling the stuff.

Marijuana is really incredibly benign. I can understand the revulsion regarding legalizing the “hard drugs” (say, meth). Prohibition of all drugs is similarly wrong-headed. But it’s more understandable in some sense when people demand bans on so-called hard drugs, as inconsistent as the Controlled Substances Act is. (Hey, I understand the statist mind – I was once a statist).

If only about 50% of Americans get the no-brainer of legalizing weed, then, boy howdy, America is full of morons. Either that or the propaganda against marijuana is far more successful than I thought.

In no particular order, just some YouTube vids. They’re admittedly old.

First, this really invites no other comment other than “WTF!?” Usually before cops indulge in wanton violence, there’s some vague excuse that they were provoked into doing so. Here, there is none. It just seems as though said cop just felt like decking a peaceful cyclist. It really is something you expect to see staged on Jackass, for the purpose of getting a rise out of the onlookers and then awkwardly running away.

Months later, he was formally indicted for misdemeanor assault and for felony charges of fabricating/fudging cop reports. I really should start compiling a page with links to all these examples of over-the-top police violence.

Second, a good video (again, a bit dated) regarding Murray Bookchin, unions, syndicalism, and anarchist movements. This one captures some thoughts I’ve had 1) as to why I’ve never really felt unions will ever really help the anarchist cause much, and 2) sort of captures the general disillusionment I’ve had with “movement anarchism” for some time. The video starts out with a recording of a talk by Bookchin, and follows with commentary (some cursing, probably NSFW):

Third:

Interesting food for thought. It makes a good point, and while no means proof of anything, it does give us pause as to why, in America, the state sometimes seems to be a more revered “sacred cow” than the notion of God.

Now, instead of patching (something that probably should have never been a security issue)…

Microsoft is offering a $250,000 reward for the information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the creator(s) of the infamous Conficker/Downadup worm.

First, the responsible parties are already in the wind, to be honest. He/she/they were in the wind by the time the handlers knew something was wrong. That’s just a realistic observation. You can talk about “fighting malware authors” as much as you want, but at some time we all have to, in the words of Lewis Black, “agree on what the fuck reality is.”

Second, it’s literally heaping another $250,000 on top of already sunk costs. It adds cost insult to cost injury. Sure, Microsoft can claim euphemistically that they’re broadening their responses to malware infections, but this rings so hollow:

“As part of Microsoft’s ongoing security efforts, we constantly look for ways to use a diverse set of tools and develop methodologies to protect our customers,” said the general manager of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group, George Stathakopoulos, in a statement. “By combining our expertise with that of the broader community we can expand the boundaries of defense to better protect people worldwide.”

I sort of understand the rationality, but I just fail to see how this in any way makes business sense. Even if this character or these characters are brought to “justice” (whatever Microsoft & Co. mean by that), so what? What are they going to do to him/her/them? Spank them?

It’s the rough equivalent of swatting a wasp when you have a hive under your front porch. Even if you literally crucify the wrongdoers on telephone polls it’s still a sunk cost.

Come on, Microsoft. Patch, move on, and put that $250,000 into making sure this shit doesn’t happen again. Stop with the vindictive digital hitlisting. This is not a “tool” that will help protect Microsoft’s customers – it will waste their money; even if it pans out and the responsible folks are “found,” that won’t magically quarantine all the infected machines. If Microsoft customers had any sense, this would raise at least a bit of ire.

It’s like a ten-year old got put in charge of some twisted Corleone family and threw a hissy fit when one of his grunts got hit. There’s no better way to slap your paying customers in the face than to put a digital hit out on one of a million malware authors.

Grandstanding. Digital gunboat diplomacy. Throwing around a quarter million dollar bounty will not make Windows a secure operating sytsem.

The people who crafted the worm are laughing.

PS – Dear Microsoft: Since you’re in the mood for slinging around the money I have paid you in the past, how about you take a few dollars of that $250,000 and send me a few copies of XP Pro?

Dear Open Source fanboys,

Kindly abandon your whinings directed at the Messiah-in-chief insisting he back open software. Instead, focus on doing something constructive, like ignoring the god damn president.

Regards.

I’ve mentioned it in the past. Some people apparently think free and open source software can help clean up politics, and turn America away from its protracted slide into the shitheap of history. Yet more evidence that the FOSS community is a bit polluted by a state of insipid intellectual bankruptcy. FOSS won’t clean up the political power seats. So give it up and live your life.

Put down the petition pens and wake up. You guys look like a bunch of desperate digital panhandlers. (Not to mention Obama isn’t exactly shaping up to look like a supporter of freeing information.)

That’s not pessimism or cynicism. That’s realism.

Via Ars Technica.

(If you must wonder, yes, I’m in a bit of a Carlin mood lately.)

Over a month ago, I posted about my Acer Aspire One and how much fun I was having with it. A few days later, I posted about Dropbox, a cool tool for syncing bits between multiple computers. These are just “follow-up” after a month…

Aspire One

Still love it, while being intermittently annoyed by Windows XP Home.

I had posted in my previous post that I had fixed the intermittent wireless issues, but alas, I’m still having occasional problems with it. However, I’m less inclined to blame either the Aspire One itself or the wireless chipset. I really think it’s an issue with Windows XP Home flakiness.

My wireless will still intermittently drop – unbeknownst to Windows. That is, I will quite obviously lose my connection – apparent by the fact that I will lose my ability to communicate both on the LAN and with the public internet – but the wireless icon in the tray will report everything as ship-shape (“Excellent” quality signal, etc.). Oddly, this is usually accompanied by odd  error messages when attempting to use ipconfig from cmd.exe. I usually find I have to logout or reboot to fix it. The fact that I have this issue on several wireless networks indicates that it’s probably not flakiness associated with dd-wrt (WPA2 Personal, AES), my home wireless firmware.

Other than that, I really am not a huge fan of XP Home, but that was already known. I consider it crippleware, and the fact that it still exists today, when it costs Microsoft just as much to burn and license an XP Professional copy as a copy of XP Home, is a pretty blatant continued money-grab.

Really, though, I’m just impressed by the Aspire One. It works great for what it’s meant for, pulls off massive battery life feats, and in general is just perfect for what I needed it for.

Dropbox

Of interest to netbook users (and backup fiends) is Dropbox. For more about the features of Dropbox, see my previous post and the Dropbox website. Dropbox is software for syncing files between multiple computers, an obvious boon for anybody who works on several machines regularly. Everything is synced to the server over encrypted channels. It does it quickly and efficiently because the file transfers use a great binary differential. In other words, if you change around only a few bytes on a few-hundred megabyte file, only the changed sections will be sent over the wire. It allows changes to be blazing fast. So, while uploading large files may initially be slow (especially if you’re syncing from a home connection, which typically have rather paltry upload rates – yes, even that “high speed cable” you’re paying $30-40 a month for), subsequent updates will be fast. Which brings me to my next point.

I’m confident that data  sent over Dropbox sockets is unlikely to be read and cracked by eavesdropping parties in transit. Properly-implemented SSL is computationally infeasible to crack while a given session socket is open. And, if you don’t put anything in your public folder, the general public will not see what you have in your Dropbox.  However, for the paranoid among us, that doesn’t rule out the folks at Dropbox from snooping into your files, right? I mean, at least conceivably. While it may be a bit arrogant to think that anybody at Dropbox really cares about what naughty stuff you’re putting in your Dropbox, strong encryption digital encryption never hurt a savvy computer user, right? (Well, unless you get yourself in a situation that even you can’t decrypt what you have encrypted.) One man’s paranoia is another man’s preparedness, and some folks don’t trust other folks as far as they can be thrown.

This is where I was using TrueCrypt (the idea certainly didn’t originate with me; see here, for example). Because Dropbox uses a differential “bitwise” (not file-wise) sync, you can put a Truecrypt volume into your Dropbox and, assuming your TC volume isn’t breached (unlikely if you practice good password hygeine), the folks at Dropbox will be none the wiser, and changes to your volumes will sync quickly as long as you’re not routinely making major changes to the contents of your TC volumes.

Unfortunately, the implementation of Truecrypt on Linux can be dodgy depending on distribution and version. TrueCrypt on my Arch 64 box managed to corrupt one of my Truecrypt volumes irrevocably. That’s what backups are for, sure, but I don’t really trust the Linux implementation of TrueCrypt after that little incident. Not necessarily a gripe against Dropbox per se, but certainly a consideration for people like me who would like to use the Dropbox + TrueCrypt duo from multiple platforms. After all, as they say, if it’s not dependable at all times, it’s worse than useless. Into this void, I’ve switched over to using passworded and encrypted OpenOffice OpenDocument files to safeguard some of my data and writings without the inconvenience of mounting and dismounting TrueCrypt volumes. Not as secure as a TC volume cascaded with three encryption algorithms, but more convenient.

Dropbox integrates very nicely with GNOME... but needs a bit of "persuasion" for other graphical environments.

Back to Dropbox proper. Dropbox is nice, and its cross-platform nature gives it prospect for being enormously useful, especially as netbooks with small storage drives might become more and more popular. One of my main gripes with Dropbox is that, though it integrates perfectly (again, on my Arch x86_64 box) with GNOME and Nautilus, it seems to not be customizable enough to run well with other Desktop Environments and window managers – not without a bit of sleight of digital hand, that is. One of the main problems is related to the fact that Dropbox seems only capable of calling Nautilus.

For the uninitiated, if you call Nautilus – without certain switches – Nautilus will bring up metacity and attempt to hijack your running DE or WM, no matter what that may be. The most visible result is that your desktop background will be changed to GNOME’s active desktop wallpaper. The quickest way to fix this is to (sigh) log out and restart the X session. So, though it’s possible to get Dropbox running and syncing under other graphical environments, if you don’t want your environment hijacked by greedy Nautilus, the utility of the Dropbox icon in the “tray” is little more than a graphic to show whether your Dropbox is in sync.

(The fix is pretty brutally simple: allow the user to specify which file manager is called when double-clicking the icon.)

On a related issue, I think it’d be great to be able to run Dropbox independently of a GUI entirely. It may be, but I haven’t investigated entirely. It wouldn’t be entirely unusual for Linux users to desire this, and think of the utility – just run the Dropbox daemon on that headless home file server, and your Dropbox will be synced to an extra machine, where you could take scheduled backups of it (e.g. rsync cron jobs).

That aside, Dropbox works great, and transparently to boot. The Windows client works flawly, and the Linux client works beautifully with GNOME – though though I do think it’d benefit from some more customizability and neutraility with regard to graphical environments. And, of course, this is all to say nothing about the utility of the browser access, shared folders, public folders, and revisions – the lattermost of which has saved my hide a couple times already.

I’ve become increasingly convinced over time that, if we ever do end up in a totally-monitored 1984-type world, the infrastructure and technical means to monitor all citizens at all times will not be built by governments.

To make the analogy more apt, it will probably not be the very poor who are monitored to the hilt, just as Orwell’s proles weren’t monitored as closely as party members. Just as party members were the ones to be monitored more closely, so today are tech-savvy people monitored more closely than their “old fashioned” counterparts.

Let me explain.

The United States government is not likely to build its own infrastructure, come up with all the ideas, and troubleshoot all the technical obstacles to mass monitoring of civilians. Nope. Not a chance in hell. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

Just as propaganda was largely outsourced (admittedly in an impromptu fashion) by the US government to the so-called independent corporate media, so will the means of mass monitoring of citizens be built on the backs of IT giants and then taken under the wing of state and federal governments.

It will be corporations that will sink the R&D into coming up with and building up the technical means by which people will openly allow their every move to be monitored in ever more excruciating detail.

We’ve already seen the increasing infatuation with alerting the world about your every move at all times. They call it “social networking,” but that could be seen as little more than a euphemism.

One of the reasons I canned my Facebook account was its initial release of “stalker edition,” which told your friends (as I recall) of the exact minute you logged on, modified a profile setting, added a friend, etc. Now, I haven’t looked back since then, so Facebook’s managers may have recanted and pulled back on the creepy factor, but I don’t care enough to register again.

We’re seeing increasing numbers of “social networking” sites in which you can categorize the minutiae of your every like and dislike for the entire world to see – music, video, books, whatever. Then there’s Twitter, an easy way to update people, who may or may not care about what you’re doing every minute of the day, with exactly that – updates on whatever you’re doing every minute of the day.

Webcams and microphones conceivably allow one to advertise the goings-on in one’s abode at all times – farting, nose-picking, eating, sleeping, reading, beating off.

Newest case in point: I just read about the release of Google Latitude.

Thanks, Google, but no thanks. And here I thought your tracking cookies were bad enough.

Hey, I’m all for freedom. If people want to participate in these things, fine. If people want to run their webcams 24/7 and update their twitter feeds every 2 minutes, I don’t care. If people want to update their friends on what fucking coffee shop they’re sitting in from 9:32AM-9:48AM, whatever. It is neither my job nor my right to prevent people from being fools.

What I do care about is the macro picture given the socio-political and economic landscape of the American corporatist fold. I can’t shake this growing feeling that corporations and IT giants are putting into place the infrastructure that will one day enable the US government (and, conceivably, other Western governments) to monitor us more closely than we ever thought imaginable.

And, frankly, that scares me a hell of a lot more than the most avid Twitter updater.

Via PC World.

I’ve been struggling with some mild performance issues since flashing to dd-wrt. It has coincided with dealing with some dodgy wireless issues on my new Aspire One, so it’s been hard pinpointing which element is the weak link.

I’m going to stick with dd-wrt for now (I’m using a Linksys WRT54G rev8), and things are better since making a few changes this afternoon.  I am running a straight 802.11g network. Some changes I made are as follows. I’m the first to admit that none of these settings are original to me – all of them came from suggestions found while searching.

• TX Power: I tried bumping up the TX power to 84mW as I had read suggested somewhere. But the unit started making funny noises during file transfers, and I didn’t find that overly endearing. On the suggestion of a professor of mine, I backed down the TX power. I’m doing fine now on 40-50mW. (Wireless -> Advanced Settings) For more on what I mean by “fine,” see below. Your mileage may vary depending on how much area you have to “paint” with wireless signal.
• Frame bursting: If you have only a few wireless clients (say 3 or less), frame bursting is supposed to help. (Wireless -> Advanced Settings)
• DTIM Interval: I turned down the DTIM interval (to 1). (Wireless -> Advanced Settings)
• ACK Timing: most performance tweak guides for DD-WRT suggest looking close at this one. Most I’ve seen suggest setting it to 0. I’m doing fine with 200 (default is 2000). (Wireless -> Basic Settings)
• Channel: This shouldn’t be a huge issue for non-enterprise users, but it can’t hurt to tweak a bit, right? Use the least congested channel; if at all possible, use channel 1, 6, or 11 as they are non-overlapping channels for the 2.4Ghz band. However, in most situations, it is preferable to use an overlapping channel if the non-overlapping channels (1, 6, and 11) are heavily used. If you live in a residential area – especially an apartment building or dormitory – these non-overlapping channels (especially 6, I would think) will be quite cramped. Avoid using channels with a lot of congestion. Use the Site Survey functionality on the “Advanced Settings” subtab of the Wireless tab and look for a channel that’s not being used.
• Mode: If you’re not using 802.11b at all, why run mixed mode at all? Switch to G-only if all your wireless devices are 802.11g capable.
• IP Filter settings: A big one that’s had big impact on my performance. Avoid setting the “Maximum ports setting” too high if you have a model with only 8MB of memory. Realistically, from what I read, don’t put the Maximum Ports Setting (Administration ->Management) above 2048 (even that’s pushing it). I also set the UDP and TCP timeouts to 120. These settings are especially important if you use torrents or similar peer to peer technologies that maintain a lot of half-open TCP connections (or embryonic TCP connections, depending on who you ask).

Notes on the signal strength on the status tab:

I have been experience intermittent signal dropping since using dd-wrt. It’s not necessarily severe enough that Windows realizes the connection has dropped, but it’s apparent from a lack of connectivity (Windows XP Home, the OS on my Aspire One, is poor enough with wireless that it apparently doesn’t realize when the connection has dropped). Reparing the connection has been remedying it, but of course I want to troubleshoot it. When torrenting, I was noticing dropping signal every 10 minutes or so – not acceptable, of course.

I had thought at first that the problem was poor signal quality. Though Windows reports “five bars” for my signal quality, I was concerned that the signal quality on the dd-wrt wireless status page for my clients was around 50% if not lower. After doing a bit of reading and thinking, this isn’t so alarming. Here’s why:

100% is the Land of Oz. You’ll never achieve “100% signal” (or near it) for the same reason you’ll never achieve the theoretical 54Mb/s throughput of 802.11g or the theoretical 11Mb/s of 802.11b: we live in the real world.

A bit of reading suggests that if there are no problems with signal dropping, don’t worry immensely about a 50% or so reading on the dd-wrt wireless status page. That’s a percentage of a theoretical signal quality that nobody will ever achieve (especially with “cheapy” home wireless access hardware).

A better number to look is the SNR (signal to noise ratio) – higher is better. I read on the dd-wrt forums that 40+ SNR is great.

So, my screenshot showing 53% quality and SNR of 41 is really nothing about which be concerned. In fact, based on what I read, it’s damn good. If you’re having performance issues, this may not be the place to be suspicious. Take a look at some of the settings mentioned above.

This is the new boss:

Barack Obama gave the go-ahead for his first military action yesterday, missile strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan which killed at least 18 people.

I figured it’d be at least a few months before the bombing runs on other countries commenced.