Hello, again, on another wet morning.  It has been nice to get several days of rain--the kind we needed two months ago.  Only 18 days to normality--defined as airwaves clear of political ads.

Over this last week the mainstream media has made a big deal of Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta's warnings about a "Pearl Harbor" in cyberspace.  Actually, the media is, as usual, Johnny-come-lately to the issue.  I have been reading about the possibility since before the publicity broke over Stuxnet hitting the Iranian nuclear installations months ago.   Panetta urgently wants funds to beef up the military's cyberwar capacities--purely defensive of course. (sarcasm alert)  This article gives some indication of why I am skeptical.  I don't know which is more threatening.  Who do you fear the most--cyber criminals, government snoops, or corporate vultures?  Think carefully on that as you read this article.

Leigh at Five Acres & A Dream provided us with a good chuckle today.  If Riley is anything like any of the various cats who have, from time to time, owned me, I doubt that any human made rules will make any impression.

Here is another piece of Repthuglican crap, dished by Ann this time, that makes me shake my head in disbelief.  Equating Mormon missionary service with military service with the self-serving notion that there are 'different ways of serving' is simply beyond belief.  Serving your religion is not necessarily serving you country.  The last part doesn't reflect well on Mitt.  A perfect combination of expediency and cowardice.

Continuing on the theme of Repthuglican crap--a person, self-described (on LinkedIN) as a GPS Grassroots (aka Karl Rove) field director for the RNC, threw a folder of filled our voter registration forms from Virginia into a trash box in Harrisburg, PA.  He has been arrested but no one has explained what will happen now to those people in Virginia whose registration forms weren't properly filed.

Now we shift to crap of a different kind.  First the Catholic Church (still embroiled in pedophilia cases after more than 10 years of lawsuits and new revelations) then Penn State (with Sandusky newly convicted and sentenced for molesting boys over a couple of decades) and now the Boy Scouts of America (whose 'perversion files' have been revealed by a judge's order.)  The individual charges aren't surprising.  We have always had, now have, and always will have monsters among us.  What is disturbing is the lengths to which institutions and the people in charge of them will go to cover up the problem and protect the perpetrators.

Margaret and Helen are very good at calling spades 'spades,' or, in this case liars 'liars.'  And yes the topic is Mitt Romney.