Filed under: Corona 2020 | Tags: Corona virus, Covid-19, equality, Europe, fairness, France, greed, hoarding, honor, honour, humanity, illness, individualism, integrity, Italy, justice, plague, self centered, sickness, Sociology, stockpiling, virtue, voting
The Ides of March…
Just went to vote. No one taking legal closures and governmental advice seriously…folks were kissing, standing in small, tight-knit groups. The high street pedestrian area was teeming. Two restaurants (of two) in the one km stretch from my home and the voting location open and folks inside eating.
A ski area was open in Morzine and there were lines snaking around the lift station.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what Édouard Philippe said: people are ignoring safety procedures and thus things will get more serious and we’ll end up locked down like Italy! What is wrong with people?!
Went to the local grocery store and saw folks with TWO grocery carts stockpiling. THAT will cause a problem for everyone, but “fuck it! I’m (me, mine, etc.) sorted.”
Now, they’re talking about rationing on the news – not because like the war there was a shortage of food, but, quite simply, because of the mine, mine, mine attitude of people.
This selfish, individualistic, greedy behavior is so stupidly shortsighted and individualistic I could scream. It is, arguably, the source for all the problems in the world today (climate change – overpopulation, habitat destruction, consumer orientation, airplane travel, etc., PM of UK, “prez” of USA, poor public education, evasion of taxes for the welfare of all, etc.).
If I spoke better French, or was a confrontational person, I would have said something to the twats at the voting site, and in the grocery store, “Shame on you!” As it is, I’ll do as the boys sang in “The Book of Mormon” and suppress all the pain of it.
Filed under: From the Soap Box, In Vino Veritas, In Aqua Sanitas | Tags: attack, blackmail, British Airways, combat, Cyber, cyber security, Experian, greed, humanity, integrity, robbery, Russia, social security card, society, Trump, warfare
Cyber warfare truly is the combat of the future. Over the last year, I’ve had all of my credit details stolen via Experian, the credit monitoring agency in the USA, and my passport and credit card details hacked via the British Airways site. That’s right, the almighty social security number every American is told to guard with their lives has been exposed – what an ineffective way to identify a person. I have diligently had my credit report monitored and received yearly reports because I have bought into the idea of identity theft and the need to protect my credit rating in case I want to buy more stuff. Then the very agency gets hacked (with the CEO’s of said company resigning mere weeks before the news broke and those of us effected were alerted). I can barely access my own bank accounts in the USA because of the levels of ‘security’ on my account, with numerous passwords and questions/answers that I simply forget. Which means, I can’t even prove I’m me often enough, yet others can break into the “super secure” storaging systems of corporate entities. This week, I received an email that had the password to my computer in its subject line, and then there was a letter of blackmail. The letter tells me that I have two weeks to pay $1000 to a bitcoin account (with no reference number or name, so I’m not sure how they’d know it was me if I paid up, or why they would stop at that). If I don’t pay up, all of the contacts I have on social media and via my email accounts, will receive an email telling everyone that I watch pornography and am a disreputable person, etc.
Meanwhile, Trump and his cronies pretend to question the need for increased cyber security? Oi vey. Well, we know why that is, but I won’t digress.
As a result of this threatening email (yes, I have been known to watch porn online – adult, consensual material, with the knowledge of my husband) I have spent the day changing passwords for the myriad of accounts that I use online, updating spyware software, running diagnostic checks to make sure that my system is still not hacked (the software identified two threats and removed them) and eliminating saved details across accounts. Not because I’m afraid that all of my contacts will receive a disparaging email from these unknown assailants, but because I am thoroughly freaked out that the camera on my computer may have a little hacker eye looking at me, and a little hacker ear listening to my computer’s microphone, and these same hackers are aware of all of my personal and professional banking details, accounts, behavior, interests, as well as my thoughts and wishes conveyed via personal missives.
In my day, receiving phone calls at home from telemarketers was considered intrusive. Is this how “progress” is defined? What a waste of a day. What a waste of humanity’s technological ingenuity that it has come to this: intruding, blackmailing, and threatening your fellow (small change) man in order to get a few bucks simply because you can.
Victoria Jelinek 