Thursday, July 28, 2011

Harrison Ford Settles a Feud



Actually, I like the idea of Air Force One 2...

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The next Pearl Harbor could be a Cyberattack!

The Pentagon revealed recently that in March it suffered a foreign government cyberattack resulting in the loss of 24,000 sensitive data files. The military has since been pursuing a new strategy which emphasizes superior defenses of its networks, working with private industry and new measures to prevent the efforts of "malicious insiders."

"We have a pretty good idea" who did it, Deputy SecDef William Lynn said in a speech at the National Defense University.

Most previous cyberattacks in the past have been blamed on China or Russia. The DOD's greatest fear on the matter is that a terrorist group, with less at stake than country, could acquire the resources and ability to penetrate U.S. computer networks to steal data or worse to attack U.S. defenses or even cause deaths as a result.

"If a terrorist group gains disruptive or destructive cybertools, we have to assume they will strike with little hesitation," Lynn said.

During his Senate confirmation hearing last month, new SecDef Leon Panetta said that the next first strike against the U.S. could be a cyberattack that cripples the U.S. power grid, and financial and government systems and likened it to Pearl Harbour. Panetta said that cybersecurity will be one of the main focuses of his tenure at the Pentagon.

"Our networks are really our lifeblood," Marine Gen. James Cartwright, VCJCS. He said the Pentagon currently is focused 90% on defensive measures and only 10% percent on offense. He wants balance reversed and a 50:50 balance for the federal government as a whole.

President Obama signed executive orders earlier in the year that lay out how far military commanders around the globe can go in using cyberattacks and other computer-based operations against enemies and as part of routine espionage. The orders detail when the military must seek presidential approval for a specific cyberattack on an enemy.

A global solution to the problem may be at hand however, GAPSNet the Global Alien Prevention and Surveillance Network is touted by UNETIDA as the most secure computer network ever devised by man and has been used to monitor, defend and attack belligerent aliens by controlling an array of orbital lasers, satellites and telescopes. "It's so advanced, it’s almost sentient at this point," said Colonel “Trojan” Hayter, UNETIDA Cyberspace Operations Commander "nothing on the planet can penetrate it." Col. Hayter denied the notion that GAPSNet is a single Apple Macintosh notebook with a virus intended to be uploaded into a “mothership”.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

"Alien" Monkey is false alarm

A UNETIDA Special Operations and Containment team was dispatched to the village of Gezhai in Henan Province, China last Thursday. They were responding to frantic telecommunications chatter concerning the appearance of an Unidentified Xenobiological Entity, but it turned out to be just a malnourished monkey.

"At first I thought it was a rabbit, then I was shocked to see it had an alien face," said Ms Mao Xiping who was so disturbed, she had called the police to come and arrest it.

The starving animal had no hair and it's skeletal frame was visible from malnourishment. It began gorging on Ms Mao's cucumbers but will now only eat peaches. A team of scientists are now caring for and examining the skinny creature to see what species it is and where it came from.

Colonel "Whopper" Creedon appeared on TV to put the Chinese people at ease and thanked them for taking the animal into care as opposed to eating it.

Source: Eamo / SkyNews

Where was the Colonel?

I have returned. Obviously, for security reasons I can't tell you when I'm going to be absent for a while, but I'm back now.

I wasn't too far, I had to attend a course at the Command and Staff School at the Military College in The Curragh, something necessary to have on paper for career advancement.

I also had a UNETIDA Special Operations budget review for the UN Security Council and even had to dispatch a mission to China to investigate a bit of monkey-business... ...actually that last one deserves it's own post.

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Green Lantern's day ain't too bright!

If you're a DC Comics superhero these days and someone says they're going adapt you for TV or a movie, my advice is: unless you're Batman, you should decline politely. Superman's last big-screen outing was an unmitigated disaster and they've just shit-canned David E. Kelly's attempt at bringing Wonder Woman to TV. They're going to try Superman again, bless 'em, but before that they decided to unleash one of their lesser known secondary characters upon the masses for the first time.

His name is the Green Lantern and he has the power to create “constructs” which are fully working manifestations of his imagination [albeit bright green]. These can take the form of cars, swords, anti-aircraft weapons or giant fists [and DC threw in the power of space flight because allowing him to imagine a rocket ship would have made the character cooler than Superman]. I’ve read very few Green Lantern comic books and most of those were in the mid-‘80s but a few years ago Mark forced me to read some of his graphic novels. In comparison to my normal reading material, I found them uninspiring, bland and quickly forgotten – much like this movie will be in a few years I suspect.

Sadly, Green Lantern begins in the most clichéd, predictable and derivative way possible – Ace fighter pilot Hal Jordan [Ryan Reynolds] suffers engine failure during some aerial manoeuvres and is rapidly losing his battle with gravity. As he plunges, we are treated to some black and white footage of Hal’s father waving at his son before he takes off on his own fateful flight and for a moment I thought I was watching JAG again with bits of Iron Eagle or a movie of it's ilk. For me, the movie never recovered from this and I could find no way of reconciling Hal's actions with that of a normal human being with any form of common sense. For example, the dying Lantern Abin-Sur crashes on earth [our satellites don’t detect him and somehow no one sees his ship even though he crashes on the coast of the US, in a populated region, in daylight] and sends his ring to find someone worthy. It finds Hal and brings him to the crash site [which still hasn’t been found even though enough time has passed to make it dark now].

Yes look, I know I'm nitpicking; I can let a few things go in most of the shite I love, that's for certain, but sometimes things are just too blatantly obviously bad to enjoy it the way it was meant to be and it just stops being fun. I cannot separate fantasy from madness - and this movie was sheer madness on many scales.

It was obvious in places that several different special effects houses were used to finish the movie, even without it being highly publicised that there was a rush-job going on for the last few months. While the animators of Hal's first flight sequence are not even qualified to work with MS Paint, I will tip my hat to the people responsible for animating the villain Parallax who was truly frightening but sadly wasted on this movie.

Poor Ryan Reynolds, he’s had so many great opportunities since Van Wilder. He’s not only had Scarjo, one of the most desirable women in the world but he’s the first person to play both a Marvel and a DC Comics hero in movies. As lacklustre as Green Lantern is however it is nowhere near as bad as what Reynolds was reduced to in the celluloid mangling of Deadpool, Marvel’s wisecracking mercenary in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. No, nothing is that bad, but sadly Lantern is far from Reynolds' finest hour – and it should be!!! What in sweet Lucas is wrong with DC/Warners and their superhero movies? They’re a one-trick wonder with the current Dark Knight franchise which outclasses everything Marvel has done but that’s it! It’s like there’s no effort with anything else apart from their DVD/BD animated movies.

Final Verdict: Mildly entertaining, but ultimately unimpressive. I’ll be honest, I can’t recommend you see this in cinemas, or even buy the Blu but it may be worth your while to check out a HD-Digital download or something, if you just want to watch something new.

Colonel Creedon Rating: **1/2



PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT ON BEHALF OF UNETIDA

Upon discovering a crashed Extra Terrestrial vessel with a live pilot:

1. Do not approach the vehicle
2. Do not enter the vehicle
3. Do not speak to the pilot
4. Do not touch the pilot
5. Do not remove artifacts from the vehicle
6. Call 1-800-555-WHOPPER and report your location immediately.

Obama Assassinated!!! Sick Bastards Hack Twitter!

Some sick bastards hacked into Fox News' Twitter account yesterday and posted a series of messages "reporting" the assassination of President Obama.




"We will be requesting a detailed investigation from Twitter about how this occurred, and measures to prevent future unauthorised access into FoxNews.com accounts," said Jeff Misenti, head of Fox News Digital.

"This is blatant threat against the peace and security of the United States and particularly, the office of The President. The perpetrators of this heinous act must face summary execution" said Colonel "Whopper" Creedon of UNETIDA.

More at ZDNet
Source: Eamo, ZDNet