Nascent: Weasel Word of the Week

nascent (adj) - Beginning to exist or develop

I've encountered this word more often in the past two days than I have in the last decade. Probably the best synonym is embryonic. It was used by two different American spies for two very different purposes. Nascent is a word few Americans are familiar with, even I had to look it up to be sure of its meaning. It's one of those words used to obfuscate not illuminate.

A nascent elephant

FBI director Robert Mueller used the word as an excuse for the fact the while the FBI is using drones to spy on American citizens the FBI doesn't yet have any policies for directives for their use. Is some jealous FBI drone operator using one to stalk an ex-girlfriend? There certainly isn't any rule, regulation, or law forbidding it.

Yesterday, deputy NSA director Sean Joyce use to word to disguise the fact the "plot" to blow up the New York Stock Exchange was not a plot at all. A "nascent plot" is one that has not gotten beyond the "wouldn't it be cool if we..." phase of plotting.

Nascent is one of those go-to words for government spies trying to hide their activity.

Defending NSA Spying Fails

President Obama says the NSA spying program is "transparent." That's actually true but not in the meaning Obama suggests, openly operated. It is anything but that. The NSA programs is transparent in that it is invisible, unseen, and unseeable. It is so hidden that when a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer wanted to explain in general terms the oversight process both the White House and Congress pissed their collective pants and forbade her.

The NSA head says their spying program has stopped "potential terrorist events over 50 times." Yet he can only give a couple of examples neither of which is very convincing. He claims the other examples are all top secret, which is another way of saying they don't exist at all or are even less convincing that the two public examples.

President Obama says "we should take pride" in the government's ability to spy on our daily lives. He thinks we should celebrate the fact that the United States has the largest, most intrusive, most comprehensive spy network in the history of mankind. We are better than the KGB, Stasi, and Gestapo were in their prime. USA! USA!

President Obama says the government "cannot and have not" spied on Americans. Except when they can and have with rubber stamp permission from a secret court or when they have done it by accident, through the numerous loopholes in the system, or just whenever they thought it was a good idea.

Congressman Mike Rogers has denounced opponents of government spying as "our enemies within [who have] become almost as damaging as our enemies on the outside." Since polls show 53% of Americans oppose the government spying that means that a majority of the nation is being classified as enemies of the state.

Fire Pierre McGuire

NBC's hockey coverage is just fine except for their main "Inside the Glass" guy.

Pierre McGuire, unlike every other color commentator in sports, never played professionally at any level. The most he ever accomplished was two pathetic losing seasons as an NHL and ECHL head coach and a handful of years as an assistant coach, mostly at the college level.

Like every career loser, McGuire spends most of his time whining about how the sport is being unfair. The ice is unfair, the officials are unfair, the rules are unfair.

That last one is particularly annoying. The NHL has a rule that if a player flips the puck out of play from his defensive zone it is a penalty. It's a great rule that keeps the game going at a quick pace and makes for a more exciting game.

McGuire hate the rule because it punishes unskillful play. Like any career loser, McGuire believes the rules should take pity on incompetent hockey players who lack the ability to control the puck when clearing it from danger. He wants the penalty forgiven if the player's actions were "accidental."

That could be forgiven if McGuire were interesting. He is the most boring voice in sports. It is said, accurately, that baseball's Vin Scully can make reading a grocery list sound like Shakespeare (I've heard him do it). McGuire makes a sport as viscerally exciting as ice hockey sound duller than reading the phone book.

Besides the constant whining, McGuire is obsessed with player's resumes. His comments are frequently nothing more than a recitation of names and locations. Where someone played junior hockey and who his coaches were, who his junior line mates were who never made it to the NHL. If McGuire were reading the phone book we would at least get some numbers to dial to alleviate the tedium.


McGuire is an abomination who we will probably be stuck with forever. He is the singular reason I prefer the CBC broadcast whenever I can get it.

Punking the NSA

I've been thinking about pranks I can pull on the NSA. You know, make them think I'm a terrorist even though I am perfectly innocent. I figure I could really mess with their minds with a few strategically chosen Google searches while sending out e-mails with a handful of key words included.

Then I figured out that by the time they realized I had been playing a joke on them I would have been shot several times, waterboarded within an inch of my life, and spent a few years in an isolated cell where the only other humans I would see would be my torturers. Kind of a...

So I will confine myself to heaping foul scorn on everyone involved, including both the current and past presidents, and not believing a single fucking word they or their minions say.

How the US Helps the Syrian Rebels

Not powerful enough weapons to actually make a significant difference because those weapons will likely end up being used by jihadists.

Just enough weapons to insure the civil war continues in perpetuity because nothing benefits Israel more than watching one of her border states bleeding itself to death. If either side wins that side will see Israel as its enemy so the goal is to insure neither side ever wins.

I'm not saying this is necessarily bad only that the assistance is based entirely on geopolitics and has nothing to do with humanitarianism.

The Queer Mind of Scalia

Antonin Scalia wrote one of the most bizarre concurrent opinions in the history of the Supreme Court in the decision that corporations could not patent human DNA.

Concurrent opinions are reserved for justices who agree with the ultimate judgement but disagree on some fine point of law within the judgement. Scalia didn't do that. He wanted preserved in the history of the court for posterity that he did not understand nor believe in molecular biology.

It was an odd thing to do. Was he slyly chiding his colleagues? Was he saying the court should have avoided the case because none of them understood the science? It's the kind of arrogant SOBish thing he would do. But I don't think that's it.

Scalia has based his entire career on the theory that neither man nor science has changed in the last 250 years. Molecular biology is one of those newfangled sciences that didn't exist when the Constitution was written. Scalia, quite simply, refuses to believe in it. He put that in writing because in some future case, probably having to do with gay rights, he intends to rely on denying the basic facts of biology.

Or, Scalia is just a raving loon.

US Society Is "The Prisoner"

People compare the NSA domestic spying program to the novel "1984." But that society is a bleak place. A more accurate comparison would be the British TV show "The Prisoner."


There is lots of pomp and music, a mirage of constant celebration.

Most everyone appears content and happy because they have meekly acquiesced.

We have the illusion of democracy but no matter who is elected nothing much ever changes.

We are numbers and not free men. We all have 10 digit government issued numbers without which we cannot work, cash checks, or basically exist.

We may have the illusion of freedom but every waking moment is controlled by the government, our employers, the banks.

And we are watched. All the time. It is for our own good, we are told. National security. We are instructed to be happy we are under constant surveillance.

But,....

Step out of line, the man comes and takes you away.