Scary scenarios in a scary era

I was recently informed by an old pal that I have a bad case of TDS—Trump Derangement Syndrome. Well, ddduuuhhhhhhh!!!!! I’ve only been raving about Agent Orange for four friggin’ years now (yes, that escalator ride of Dum Dum Doom took place in June ’15). If you’re reading this column, chances are excellent that you, too, have a pernicious case of this nasty bug.

Here are the symptoms. (1) You believe that this FA is lying literally every time he opens his hideous piehole. (2) You get your information about the world from “fake news,” such as the NYT, WaPo, major daily newspapers, and major TV networks (except, of course, Fux). Is this you? Well, congrats, and welcome to the club! It’s pretty easy to get infected, and indeed, there’s a bleeping pandemic underway.

Scariest thing in the news this past week may well have happened not in D.C., Tehran or Moscow, but way down south in Argentina and Uruguay. On Sunday morning of the 16th, the power went out. The power to everybody, which is about 50 million people. Do they know why? Nope. Not a clue.

Sure, there could be a completely natural explanation for this event, which was of an unprecedented size for those two countries. Sure, it could have happened due to a completely innocent freak series of coincidental circumstances. It’s possible, I guess. But it’s also possible this was one malicious bit of hanky panky. A practice run, so to speak, just to see what exactly that new E.N.U. (Evil Nerd Unit) can actually do. The question is—whose ENU? Was somebody somewhere was sending a message to somebody? Maybe the Russians sending a howdy-do to us? Us sending a techno shout-out to Vlad? North Korea firing off a warning shot? China, perhaps? A 400-pound dweeb living in his parents’ basement? Who the hell knows? But at this point, nobody in Argentina knows WTF happened. If they do, they ain’t talkin’. It’s all rather mysterious and not exactly comforting.

So I’m thinkin’ it may well be time to get a decent generator. Just in case. Because here in the Modern Age of Cyber Whack, you and me can suddenly become collateral damage, right here on Elm Street, USA. Who needs to blow big dough on bombs any more? Or bombers? How old, tired and lame. If you can creep on into the computers of your adversary, freeze his grid, freeze his communications, and freeze his money, that’s what you call leverage, baby. Drop a big bomb on me? Oooh, scary! How about I just make it so you’re dark? For, say, a month? Have fun!