Secret Laboratory
Music, News, & Global Affairs
Rick Perry prayed for guidance before his latest campaign event. Answering an audience member’s question regarding the role that prayer plays in his life, the candidate said, “Well, I prayed right before I walked over here that I wouldn’t make any mistakes that my friends in the media would be able to put on...
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I would be amiss in my duties if I didn’t report on the death of Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s portly communist leader, who never failed to get a kick out making the rest of the world nervous. Sources close to the dead despot have confirmed that he “died with his sunglasses on.” He...
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The Occupy Wall Street website was down for a number of days—I don’t know why and there has been no mention anywhere of an interruption—but I checked moments ago and it is once again live. Even with progressive news sources such as RT America and MSNBC, it is easy to lose track of the...
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Thousands of people are converging on our nation’s Capitol; those who can’t make it all the way to Washington D.C. are showing up at the doors of their representatives’ local offices for discussions and sit-ins. “We came to tell members of Congress that they should represent the 99 percent not just corporations and the...
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I’ve always enjoyed Adam Carolla’s brand of humor—especially when he was hosting Love Line with Dr. Drew Pinsky—but his opinion regarding the Occupy Wall Street protests is repugnantly small minded. He has called them “fucking self-entitled monsters” and “self-entitled pricks who think the world owes them a living.” Mr. Carolla is referring to the...
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Massachusetts’ Attorney General Martha Coakley has filed suit against Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and GMAC, charging that they foreclosed illegally on homes in the state and used deceptive loan servicing practices, including robo-signing. According to an article on MSNBC’s website: “The 50 state attorneys general had been trying to negotiate a settlement with...
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Aaron Schmidt, an 18-year-old student from South Dakota, hopped on a bus and joined the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City. Eventually, his family tracked him down and he has returned to his hometown in Wisconsin, where he is working on having the governor tarred and feathered … … which hardly matters,...
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Thanksgiving has come and gone, Black Friday is finally over, and now it’s time to gear up for Christmas. I enjoy Christmas—not in any religious sense, and certainly not because of the giving and taking, but because it is a chance to visit with family and friends. I like the trappings of Christmas: eggnog,...
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The holiday season is upon us; tomorrow is Thanksgiving. For a lucky few, it is a chance to stay home and break bread with family and friends—for everyone else, it is just another (if not a harrowing) day to work. The Black Friday contagion continues to spread, with many stores opening between 8 p.m....
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Major cities all across the U.S. are participating in the November 17 Occupy Wall Street Day of Action. As many as 35,000—perhaps more—citizens are protesting in New York City. I’ve added a couple of additional live feeds to the side of this page and have been following the action for most of the day....
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A song came on the radio tonight that I hadn’t heard in a while; it was Ted Nugent belting out “Stranglehold” and it made me think of simpler times when we had nothing better to do than smoke dope and polish the anarchy buttons on our black leather jackets. Life is infinitely more complicated...
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Just today, there have been many new developments with regards to the Occupy Wall Street movement—which is hardly surprising, since the thing just keeps rolling right along. I’ve devoted a lot of coverage to it since it started—and I’m not going to stop. This is the most important thing going on in the world...
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First of all, I’d like to apologize for neglecting my column for the last week. I’d like to think that there are plenty of people out there who have missed me; whether or not that’s true remains to be seen. As I said on October 29, this site is undergoing a transformation of sorts....
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Herman Cain has adjusted his 9-9-9 plan so it would be slightly more palatable to … well … to anyone. Republicans and Democrats alike have called it ludicrous ever since he stole the ill-conceived proposal from a video game; in fact, the only people who thought that it was a good idea were those...
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I had the idea that I’d like to crank out a column tonight with my left hand. It’s Saturday night and we have company—just my wife’s friend so far, but that’s okay. I’m drowning myself in 16-ounce cans of Busch Light as usual; Megan is drinking Newcastle because she has expensive tastes; and Leeann...
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For those of us here in Minnesota, winter is not quite over. May is half gone and a few hours ago, it was 40 degrees outside. I had the fireplace on and the space heater going. Then the sun came out, the temperature jumped about 30 degrees, and I had to open the windows.
These days we hear a lot of talk about Global Warming. Whether or not there is any truth to it remains to be seen—and frankly, it doesn't make a damned bit of difference either way. Climate change is real—warmer, colder, whatever—but it has nothing to do with us and we're never going to prevent it. And since we got a foot of snow last week and it's going to be 90 on Tuesday ... well ... I'm not sold on Global Warming. The weatherman can't even predict rain, let alone tell us whether or not we're facing an inferno and/or an ice age.
This weekend is the fishing opener. This means very little to me, as I never bother with a license anyway. It's also Mother's Day. Recently I've been bombarded by emails from an online florist, suggesting that I send Ex-wife #2 a beautiful bouquet.
Never in hell. Maybe if they had an option to have the arrangement stuffed with angry bees; but barring that ... no.
To hell with holidays and bees and everything else. For the last 24 hours, Terencio and I have been plotting the future of this magazine. He even wrote his column and published a couple of articles. The next order of business is for me to write something.
And I might. I have plenty to say—none of it important, of course—but a meandering essay with no direction whatsoever is probably the best way to ease back into my routine. Politics? Not to start. Not today.
And ... meh.
—John T. Schmitz
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Founder, Maple Hills Press
editor@secretlaboratory.org
"I wanted my own column in the sidebar ... but now I don't know what to do with it."
"But sure you do! You write in it! That is what most people who claim the moniker of writer would likely do."
"But what do I write?"
"The resolution to that parable, my friend, lies upon the path that you must seek."
"Who are you?! And where did you come from?!"
"I am...the part of you that is, and will be, in all that we are..."
Hello Lab!
The voices are becoming louder and the cries ever more commanding. I hear them and I am working the best I can to whip myself into some kind of respectable shape and take back my claim to authorship.
So, I have been signaled to action from the Lab's headquarters. There has been much waking from many deep slumbers and now the drowsiness is fading and the challenges of the day are dutifully materializing before my conscience in their daily summons to contest.
No fear, Secret Laboratory! Power down the Bat Beacon, John.
John. John? Wherefore art thou? Come quickly and hear ye: The Lab is scheduled to receive a bright and refreshing burst of content! I have plans for at least one new category: Network Security
In the recent weeks I have become familiar with penetration testing software such as Backtrack and Kali Linux. These are Linux based Operating Systems that are used by network security professionals for white hat constructive hacking; and network exploiting operators for black hat destructive hacking. Writers of Secret Laboratory are free to show interest in this new category if you so choose. I will be producing content regarding how to crack WEP/WPA/WPA2 wireless encryption and how to protect yourself from such attacks, for starters. It only gets interesting from there.
For those of you interested in preparing yourself for this new world of fun and adventure, I recommend you go ahead and get the tools: Kali Linux
It can be downloaded at - http://www.kali.org/downloads/
The Secret Laboratory is in the grueling process of churning old gears and installing new ones to bring life into our world of journalistic comedy and tragedy. Sink or swim, this boat is headed out to sea.
I'm headed off to write a column now that the voices in my head have stopped...
But I can't seem to find John.
John?
Oh shit. Really? He's in the bathroom? Again? Geez, I'm glad I didn't have whatever he did. Must have been the pills. I'm glad I only had the purple ones...
"Hey John! Can you reach the mini fridge from in there? I think I need another beer!"
—Terencio Safford
Editor, Secret Laboratory
terencio@secretlaboratory.org
