So the full horror of the economic meltdown to come is finally dawning on everyone, and those who have been predicting, nay shouting as loudly as they can for as long as its been clear to them, have finally stopped being “nuttered off” by the know-it-alls with vested interests in it not being so.

theres some truly scary stuff started being talked about now, and whats really scary is that it’s only just started being talked about honestly, now, after all this time, of being so obvious, to so many..

like this, chilling piece from  www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article5766.html

We’ve got about $70 billion in subprime and Alt-A securities in our portfolio. Freddie Mac is even more at risk, with nearly $150 billion. And that’s not even our primary concern. Our primary concern is the surging foreclosure rate in “prime,”supposedly “high-quality,” “safe” mortgages, which represent the bulk of the paper we hold or guarantee.

and this www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article1906.html ..the comments at the end of this one are truly thought provoking

It gets worse. I just put out an alert to subscribers that your retirement funds, pension funds, and so on, are all into – guess what? MBS, CDOs, (mortgage derivatives) and are in the same boat as the MMFs, and everyone else who played with this toxic mess that is only about $2 to $5 trillion…. The list goes on and on. You need to check out your pension funds and MMFs.

Now, I have only written so far about the $2 to $5 trillion of mortgage derivatives in trouble. I can’t cover all the other areas of pending trillions of losses and make this article less than book size.

and..

I want to comment on the UST market and stocks, but first another thing about how bad this credit crisis is. It is NOT over. The commercial paper market (short term credit for companies like 30 to 90 days) is swapped between banks and companies and institutions to cover short term funding needs. The market in the US alone is $2trillon. $50 billion has to roll over each week.  ….Well, in the last two weeks, a backlog of $90 trillion has accumulated and NOT rolled over.

This is the next set of dominoes to fall. The EU is having similar trouble, and one German banker said there is the making of a serious German banking crisis – because short term paper is not rolling over. So what does everyone do now? The system is collapsing right before our eyes.

& on a lighter note this funny blog post

dinner party revenge of the frustrated first time buyer..

‘You bought a BTL last November? You f***ing dimwit!’

‘You paid £200K for a 2 bedder in central Manchester? You daft c**t!’

‘Seen these Haliwide monthly figures - I bet you’re well gutted!’

‘ Resetting your NR Together mortgage - I think not, pal!!

‘Tell you what, I’ll give you half what you paid for it!’

‘Rental income won’t cover, and its value collapsing as well? Well, could be worse. You’ve got still your health…’

‘They overvalued it?  mate! They saw you f**king coming, didn’t they!!’

‘No, I can’t lend you a fiver. You’re sub-prime, mate’.

‘Living in your car? Still, it’s a VW estate, isn’t it? Plenty of room…’

‘Property, eh? Up and down like a bride’s nightie. Me? I’m renting, quids in!!’

‘Chin up, they say there’ll be an upturn in 2019…’

and scroll further down the page on the last link for Kirsty Allsop eating her property-hyping hat.

You know it’s really not funny at all, but quite how people ever thought this way of life was sustainable in any long term fashion has always puzzled me. Banks are not there to give us money and a life that we can’t afford.

Their prime purpose has always been to take as much of our money from us as they can manage, by enslaving us into their system, and then extracting their pound of flesh later on once we’re imprisoned.

Well get your knives out and prepare to get sawing, because now, they want it back, and someones gotta pay..

This American snipers using bait for pre-meditated murder got me absolutely fucking SEETHING this morning, I truly wish I had not read it, talk about ruin your day..

I mean, really, WTF??!! have you dirty bottom-feeding lowlife pond scum really not murdered enough innocent people yet?

from one of the outraged comments on the post

“Bush must love the Dirty Harry idea of taking out random Iraqis with a “Go Ahead - Make My Day” challenge.

“Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of” blowing the natives away, regardless, Didier sorta admitted in the statement.

“Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would” blow his head off, regardless of age, lack of criminality, or perhaps the person’s legitimate intent to turn the bait into the proper authorities.

It’s not the kind of warfare the US Army should be proud of.”

IT IS NOT THE KIND OF BEHAVIOUR ANYONE CLAIMING TO BE IN THE HUMAN RACE SHOULD BE PROUD OF, AND THEY SHOULD BE SWIFTLY REMOVED FROM IT.

…you didnt like it much when one lone sniper started shooting up Washington did you?

If I were the child of someone taken out like this for possibly innocently picking up something he didnt even know what it was, maybe thinking he could sell it for a dollar or two to feed his fucking family, not only would I be joining the resistance to forcibly remove the great Satan from my homeland, I would also be doing my sniper training and planning my relocation to the USA for similar missions.

You cannot win this shit, just stop the killing and get the fuck out, and hand over whoever gave those orders to the locals for a televised fucking beheading, because frankly they are no better than the scum who do that, and deserve to feel the terror and pain that they inflict on others, followed by a quick game of football with their heads.

can you feel how angry I am? I am white English and this sickens me to the utter core. If “scanners” style telepathy were possible, certain of the US military & high command would be receiving the exploding head treatment right about now.

As it is I can only hope karma and natural justice takes its course.

…shouldnt really post just video, but some things just stand on their own..

yet again, having been told at least 3 times, “this is what needs to happen..” yet again, these supposedly intelligent, successful people have done exactly what they were informed not to.

it makes me question people’s motives. “youre not stupid enough to have done this by accident again, what exactly the fuck is your game”?

wtf.

no further words required.

This is really sad.

We love each other, we get on great, but we both have fundamental needs and differences that require of the other, to be something they are not.

Neither of us want to split up, but deep down we both know that it is inevitable, eventually. ..This is what is wrong with Love.

It is primarily a set of biochemical conditions in the brain, set off by whatever natural processes and stimuli, using systems that have obviously worked well for millions of years, but in the modern world, my modern world anyway, it gets it fucking wrong. continually. every time.

..and then it takes fucking ages for you to even feel like dipping your toe again, and it then ruins the next 2 relationships for you, before you even start them, whether from your side - if you didnt wait long enough, or from theirs, if you did.

wonderful.

the world would be a lot simpler without it.

In an update to the previous Troll v2.0 post I’ve been in an email exchange and directed to a couple of internet addresses of old ghost forums which have been the scene of trolling scams mentioned previously.

This is one such (fake) forum “set up to ensnare the internet’s thronging hordes of vigilante “keyboard warriors” belonging to the “The ACA” mentioned in the previous post.

Its quite difficult to make out what exactly went on in there and it looks like the work of kids on both sides really, but by all accounts had up 150 people glued to their computers at any one time, for 2 weeks solidly while it played out echoed across every martial arts forum, with victims running around arranging venues for fights, forum invasions, legal agreements, referees, waivers, disclaimers and in general wasting lots of their time.

I asked if surely the trolls have to waste an equal amount of time and was told that although it can take up a fair amount of time, as they are running the game, they can choose the timing of things and post as and when they want to to draw it along.

As they are also a global organisation spread across 4 timezones with up to 20 members active, and everybody is able to access any and all forum accounts they can basically run a shift pattern so nobody really needs to put in more than an hour or two.

It kind of boggles my mind that seemingly intelligent successful people would go to such lengths and organisation to basically waste silly people’s time, but when I put this to my new aquaintance (again) over email he replied..

“..well yes I do see what you mean, but its ultimately what we do is more constructive than wasting away your life playing Wii or Dungeons & Dragons etc because we are like the internet’s instant Karma, the worse they behave, the deeper they dig themselves, the sillier we make them look ultimately. ..At least if we have them glued to their computers ranting and screaming theyre not out hurting people and we have a pretty good chance of getting through to them in the end.”

It takes all sorts I suppose

This says it all really. ..To be able to read this and watch this on your own internet connection you are likely in the most privileged 3% of the world.

lets think ourselves very very lucky.

Have you ever pondered how life swings entirely around timing?

Every event, without exception is fundamentally based around the timing of all of the other events that ultimately lead to it. Just consider that properly for a moment if you haven’t before.

Timing has played a critical role thoughout the entire history of the universe, every tiny little individually insignificant event, leading to every single interaction between every single living creature on our planet, right throughout the whole evolution of life, leading up to where you sit reading this right now. ..and beyond, ad infinitum.

A matter of a few moments can, and more importantly to understand, always does make the difference between things going spectacularly well, or spectacularly badly in any given situation, and in any outcome in between, it’s always all about the timing.

Win or lose by milliseconds, to even be here at all, you already won your own little “sperm dash” lottery, against all the odds, and beat the hundreds of millions of others dashing to the prize, maybe only by a few milliseconds or two.

The game of life plays out with timing as the random element of chance, a few moments earlier and you could meet the most important person in your (alternative) life (you never had, because you were running just a few moments later.) ..Or you could be a just few moments earlier home, and disturb your future murderer.

Or of course, any slightly less significant events in between

but its always a sobering thought to me that plan as we might, strive and work towards our goals, ultimately it’s little better odds than a game of random roulette with timing acting as the croupier, banker and casino security guard.

If… like me you’ve been on the internet for a long time, since the first days of AOL in the UK early 90’s in fact, and partaken in internet communities of any kind, you will have definitely come across internet trolls, whether you knew it at the time or not. The latest incarnation to hit the headlines is the “Stumbletroll” from the popular Stumbleupon network, but as I said on another blog a week or so ago, a troll is a troll, or is it?

Most of these are usually sad lonely people, often with lots of personal problems, and far too much time spent at a computer warping their realities. They feed on others emotions and play games to try and get people to bite.There are however another breed of trolls, uber-trolls of a very different sort.

Most trolls thrive on winding up good people and will pick on specific people on forums or the net and just say anything that is required to get their response, whether they believe it or not.

They’ll throw out their lines baited with outrageous statements, racist, religious (or anti) sexist, or what-have-you and wait to see who bites.

This is trolling v1.0. troll-tactics ..apparently trolling v2.0 is a different thing altogether.

I was randomly chatting to someone I met the other night at length about this, who is an active member of one of the groups I am going to describe, and obviously wants to remain anonymous.

“there are whole underground groups of intelligent individuals who use secret meeting boards to organise plan and laugh about our activities outside of it. Our average age is 28, with ages ranging from 21 to mid 40’s..”

He also maintained that they are actually a surpisingly ethical bunch in some ways and generally go to great lengths to make sure that potential victims thoroughly select themselves.

In my experience on the internet this would always seem to be fairly easy, as much like when driving a car, people suddenly become much braver, in the safety of their own space, and will say things and behave on the internet they would never dream of saying in person. He said that the self-selecting victims were always given “escape routes” all through the process whereby they could back down and preserve face, along with heavy hints all along the way, and that if they were just step back from their monitor induced rage for a moment, it would be very clear to most.

He continued..

“…we are an international group, from 9 countries, of relatively intelligent, accomplished people in the real world, mostly good jobs, some with ex miltary and ex police experience, and a lot of experience in life generally, but we all share in common a dark sense of humour and a love of watching the warped parts of people’s true personalities show themselves online…”

He continued on, that they attempt to take the previous definition of “strategic trolling” to new levels and have been known to set up whole fake forums and back-up websites run by themselves to lure in anyone stupid enough to fall for it. Apparently martial arts forums are often the easiest pickings

“…they are mostly full of stupid gullible kids who are ready to fight anybody over an internet dispute at the drop of a hat, or older and more sinister types who hang around these places trying to extend their youth and impress people with their half truths and exagerations.”

Exactly what their gratification for this type of behaviour is exactly I couldnt really understand from him but at one point he stated:

” ..we will go to what others may see as extreme lengths to setup stings, but you have to remember we are a highly skilled bunch with an excellent range of interpersonal and technical skills and can more or less orchestrate whatever we need to make it happen quickly and effortlessly.

…You also have to remember the nature of the internet and some of the unsavoury charactors on it, we are just enablers, making it possible or even easy, for people’s true natures to show themselves, and what people are never ready for is that internet moment when it all suddenly turns from internet to real” ..the adrenaline drop is just as powerful as if you were suddenly placed in severe danger and it can be a very sobering experience. Its a powerful kind of psychological warfare, and so you have to be very careful to let people bring it to you, rather than pick on innocents. We take our ethical repsonsibilities pretty seriously, considering some of the way-out stuff we get up to.”

He told me about a recent operation by another group known only as “The ACA” who recently embarassed the self styled “Martial Arts Police” forum “Bullshido” www.bullshido.net who are known for publicly harassing suspected Martial Arts frauds with their “investigations” and having challenge matches to prove who is right.

He finished the conversation with this:

“there is a certain justice in this to us, if people are stupid enough or macho bravado enough to drop everything and travel across the country to fight people they have only ever met on the internet, then they should be goaded into it at every opportunity until they learn their lesson. Of course there will be no fight, the troll opponent will never be there.

It is better for them that its us trolling them, than a real psycho who may shoot them when they turn up. We’re just trying to help people learn lessons the easy way mostly…”

In these days of predators stalking the internet, groups like these could well evolve into early warning systems to lure potential offenders to expose themselves (pardon the pun) before they get too far down their dark paths.

It certainly made me think about trolling in a whole new light apart from how I had previously seen these people (below) He almost made it out to be an artform.

The more usual type of trolling nuisance are now being addressed by certain technical programs such as Cave your Trolls which allow forum and blog owners to let the trolls continue their rantings, but unknown to them, they are hidden to everyone else, which is an amusing option because the troll is then by definition only trolling himself, and wasting only his own time.

But I very much doubt that would be much use against the new breed of super trolls to whom the web merely is one big playground with endless opportunities for amusement.

Ultimately arguments on the internet are still usually more like this..