So when you're in the market for some heavy weaponry, up to and including guided missiles, you don't need a friendly government. Or an arms broker. Or the dark web. You can just go to Facebook!

[Someone] hoping to buy an antiaircraft weapon in recent years needed to look no further than Facebook, which has been hosting sprawling online arms bazaars, offering weapons ranging from handguns and grenades to heavy machine guns and guided missiles.

The weapons include many distributed by the United States to security forces and their proxies in the Middle East.

Among the weapons displayed have been heavy machine guns on mounts that are designed for antiaircraft roles and that can be bolted to pickup trucks, and more sophisticated and menacing systems, including guided anti-tank missiles and an early generation of shoulder-fired heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles.

In Iraq, the Facebook arms bazaars can resemble inside looks at the failures of American train-and-equip programs, with sellers displaying a seemingly bottomless assortment of weapons provided to Iraq’s government forces by the Pentagon during the long American occupation. Those include M4 carbines, M16 rifles, M249 squad automatic weapons, MP5 submachine guns and Glock semiautomatic pistols. Many of the weapons shown still bear inventory stickers and aftermarket add-ons favored by American forces and troops.

The fellow there in the photograph above, he was offering, by way of a Facebook group in Syria, "a TOW launcher, brand new, whoever wants it should contact us via private messages or WhatsApp."

Just out of the box! Never been used! Fifty percent off original retail price! Somethin' for the little lady, somethin' for the little lady, somethin' for the little lady! Never needs ironing! Free jeep-wash! With every purchase!

And no. I am not going to, here, resist. Embedding Tom Waits' immortal ode, to commerce, and without restraint.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URp-Dbhr7EU]

Like everyone else, of big data, Facebook, it has no idea, of what it actually has.

How could it? There's just so much.

It's like the US government. Which feels the need to record everything everyone says everywhere. And so it had recorded, a couple of the 9/11 hijackers, talking out of turn, there on the phone. But, because everything, it is recorded, and there is therefore just so much, too much, no government-person, he or she, got around, to listening to this conversation. Until, days after, there came, the smoking craters.

And besides, the Facebook people—as with the government—it's a full-time job, with them, counting the coin. That rolls in.

And so, when the New York Times reporters, tipped off by the folks at Armament Research Services, toured the Facebook weapons bazaars, and then alerted the Facebook controllers to their existence, said controllers, they shrugged, and said they rely on Facebook users, to report anyone who might be using the site to sell TOW missiles, or sarin gas, or at-home black-hole generators.

Ms. Bickert said the most important part of Facebook's effort "to keep people safe" was to make it easy for users to notify the company of suspected violations, which can be done with a click on the "Report" feature on every Facebook post.

Oh. Okay.

Facebook, it don't give no shit, that the Times has publicly splashed about its weapons-dealing proclivities. Because Facebook, today, is, as John Lennon once said of The Beatles, bigger than Jesus. And it has, as example, easily survived, over the past decade, recurrent squirts of bad ink, when people have gone onto the site, and proceeded there to kill themselves, and in real time.

While the Facebook controllers, they, in complete ignorance of these people, fading away, there on their site, they just leaned back, and blithely spanked their monkeys. Lubed with the millions. Which that day. Came in.

For instance: Simone Back, 42, of Brighton, England. Who had been in a relationship. And then it had gone wrong. And then she was pretty broken up about it.

But, at least, Back, she had friends, to fall back on. Some 1,048 of them, as a matter of fact. For that is how many people, they had identified themselves, there on Facebook, as Back's "friends."

So when, at 10:53 p.m. local time, on a Christmas Day, Back logged on to her Facebook page, and there posted "took all my pills be dead soon bye bye everyone," one might think that this thousand or so friends, they would move to abort her suicide, comfort her, convince her to remain in life.

Nah. They let her die.

While the Facebook controllers, they didn't even know. Back, she was just another unknown, unseen, unapprehended, brick, in their big-data wall. Making them, all the monies.

Seven minutes after Back posted her suicide note, a "friend" posted to her Facebook page: "She ODs all the time and she lies."

In the coming couple of hours, some 148 messages were exchanged on Back's site, between Back's "friends." Most of them dissected her relationship status.

Samantha Owen, described as an actual offline friend of Back's, said:

"Everyone just carried on arguing with each other on Facebook like it wasn't happening. Some of those people lived within walking distance of Simone. If one person just left their computer and went to her house her life could have been saved.

"She sent the last message via mobile so I just imagined her sitting there, taking the pills, and listening to her phone ping as all these horrible messages came through."

Seventeen hours after Back posted her Face note, someone texted Back's mother and informed her of it. Disabled, her mother was unable to check on Back herself, and so asked the police to do so. They broke down Back's door, and there found her dead.
Of course, people have been watching their "friends" die online, since before Facebook.

On the evening of January 13, 2003, Brandon Vedas, 21, of Phoneix, Arizona, known as "ripper" online, ingested for his online friends more toxic sludge than even Elvis Presley poured into his body, before he fell off the toilet: klonopin, methadone, clonazepam, vicodin, temazepam, propranolol, marijuana, rum, etc. All live, via webcam and internet chat. Until Vedas, he passed out, and he died.

Vedas' "friends," they urged him on: "eat more," "I eat that every morning," "you pussy eat more," "fucking eat it," "takea thousant!"

People knew what might happen: "dont OD on us ripper," "i wonder if we'll see ripper ever again," "don't make me tape this video stream and ebay it later."

And then, when it did—"its sad to see you die like this"—the "friends," they declined to follow Vedas' instructions on what to do if something appeared to go wrong: call the authorities and give them the license-plate number of his car, parked in his driveway.

One "friend" did call 911, but then thought better of it midway through the call, and "talked my way out of it." Vedas' mother, she found his body, the next morning.

Sociologists speak of "the bystander effect," wherein if a group of people perceive that something is Wrong, they look to others to determine how to act. And if nobody moves to do anything, then everybody will continue to do nothing. This, I gather, is known in the trade as "pluralistic ignorance," as "diffusion of responsibility." I call it not acting like a proper human. The intertubes, they shouldn't make it easier to behave in this way. But they do.

"I think a lot of people use the social networking sites as a Band-Aid for real intimacy," says clinical psychiatrist Ilse Wendorff. "It feels like you are talking to a lot of people, but nobody really has any obligation to respond to anything you post, suicidal or not."

The Facebook controllers, as with the weapons bazaars, they say: it ain't me, babe. It's up to the users.

"We try to make it easy and intuitive for someone to quickly report something they find that's disturbing," says Heath. "We have people on staff 24 hours a day to review these self-harm reports and respond to them."

As MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle said of Back's online death, amid her "friends"—being an online "friend," it may seem "almost the real thing. It can feel like the real thing. I'm sure when the going was not tough, this woman felt very sustained and connected. But when the going got tough, no one was there."

But. Heh. Back. She had friends. Some 1,048. Of them.

making friends for the world to see
let the people know you got what you need
with a friend at hand you will see the light
if your friends are there then everything's all right

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17u9mxdvQEo]

The last time I was on Facebook, that was when I was dead. This was six or seven years ago. A modest little Face clot of people, most of whom I had not seen since high school, they had entered a Reality, in which I had died. I learned this from my mother. Who is quite the Facebooker.

She and I were never able to determine just why these people thought I was dead. Perhaps they had confused with me with my brother. Who really is dead. Though he had died several years before.

In any event, I invented some completely false persona, to satisfy the guardians of the Face gate, and then went in there and Looked. These people, they were in genuine sorrow, and had nothing but good things to say about me. Which was nice. And, like, a relief. I then backed out, and told my mother to inform them that I still drew breath. And she did that.

Now, I figure, that since I have already died, and have even been to my online funeral, that I needn't go through any of that again. Me: I'm here for good. And so I think I am going to hook up with that Wandering Jew fellow. And, together, we shall trudge on, endlessly, through this mortal coil. Till, whenever.

Back in the Kos days, I often thought that every day everyone there should pretend that someone on the site had died. Remember, and write about them, in the ritual obituary diary, as if they had actually died.

Like, just as an example, Laurence Lewis. Who, since he is now very much alive, and extremely annoying, I might now consider an anal wart, one ordinarily burrowed away in The Mad Bomber, but discharged from her sphincter, and seconded to Daily Kos, for the campaign's duration. But Lewis, if he were to be dead, I would remember him, in a way considerably more kindly.

I thought maybe this would be a useful exercise. And that it might carry over. Make people, on a day-to-day basis there, less cruel. People, including myself.

Recently a person who posted as blueyedace2 over there, he took his life. There then appeared the ritual obituary diary. Everyone therein expressed their sorrow, shared their fond memories. But if you view his last diaries, you see there a man, who was not doing at all well. As an example, he was a photographer, and he was frustrated with attempting to load his work via DK5; as a result, he said he didn't know if he could remain with the site. The diaries where he expressed this, they are splattered with the typical stone-hearted mocking and belittlement. "Dang. I'll never get that 8 seconds back." "This diary deserves what it gets." "I don't see it." "This strikes me as kinda like a Bundy sending anti-guvmint letters via USPS." "Oh calm down. He can take it." Etc. Etc.

Long-time Kos people, they may remember the sorry story of davefromqueens. This was a benign, earnest, though admittedly excitable person, whom the foul, filthy, self-appointed troll-hunters, Major Flaw and condoleaser, they slowly, but surely, through their incessant devilish flaming and pitch-forking, transformed into a troll. Eventually, they got him banned. But dave, he did not go gently, into that good night. Instead, he made it his mission, here on these tubes, to publicly out and expose various assorted Kossacks, with whom he was displeased. Then, and in the very midst of this all-consuming crusade, davefromqueens, he died, of a massive heart attack. At age 37. Shortly thereafter, Flaw and condoleaser, they rushed eyes wide shut, into a clever little banning trap. And were themselves banished from the site. Condoleaser, then, and for many years thereafter, became what he had once targeted, in several of his savage jihads: a serial zombie. He may still be. I don't know. Because I don't concern myself with such things any more.

The death of davefromqueens, that sobered people over there. For a couple of days.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1jo1gI0kJI]

The Hairball, he is dying. Not literally. Except in the sense that we all are. Except me. Because, as explained above, I have already died. And yet here I am. Eternal. Recurring. Wandering. With the Jew.

Why, you may, long ago, be asking, is this Sesame, so long, and so Openly yawning?

Because, last Saturday, I couldn't be here. Because, AT&T, then ripped out my tubes. And also because, I am afflicted with logorrhea.

And so, this week, shall Ye suffer.

But that's okay. Because, so have I.

But, yeah, he is definitely fading. The Hairball. He now, without doubt, occupies that realm that Thomas Pynchon identified, in Vineland, as Thanatopia. Where people move about, as if they are still really alive. But, really, they're not.

As an example, what flows now from The Hairball's twit machine, it is no longer so horrific, that it causes extraterrestrials to, each week, expand the "no-go" zone around this planet, an additional 50 parsecs. This is because The Hairball, he has new, and rude, controllers, who have implanted in The Hairball's body electrodes, which administer powerful electric shocks, into his being, whenever he attempts to finger his twit machine, without adult supervision.

The only disadvantage of this, is that it is depriving DeepDrumpf of material. DeepDrumpf, this is the clever creation of an MIT wisenheimer, Bradley Hayes, who has "programmed a recurrent neural network—an artificial intelligence—to study and emulate the Republican-ish candidate's speeches." DeepDrumpf, he reviews the emanations of The Hairball, and then, from these, sends out his own twits, on his own twit machine, here.

Below, I have mixed twits from The Hairball, with those from Deep Drumpf. See if you can determine which is which.

There is also one Trump-mimicking twit, I shall admit, from Sarah Silverman. Too, and to break up the monotony of these twits, I have embedded, therein, a photograph of Silverman. In the process of stealing a child. (Silverman, she has since returned the child. Allegedly.)

Politicians are all talk, no action. Nothing's going to get done. They will not bring us, believe me, to the promised land.

We are becoming a third world country because of jerks like him. Great!

We have to be unbelievable. That's the kind of mindset that you need to make this country great again.

All you haters out there, STOP trashing the only candidate @realDonaldTrump that will put ALL OF YOU & AMERICA FIRST

I'm being treated badly. Here's what's going to happen with these people. Anybody else support beatings?

@DavidGregory got thrown off of TV by NBC, fired like a dog! Now he is on @CNN being nasty to me. Not nice!

If the GOP screws Trump, his millions will walk from the GOP never to return! They better think long and hard.

I watched Ted Cruz just lose everything. We will win. I have many, many more delegates than him.

I'd like to beat that @HillaryClinton. She is a horror. I told my supporter Putin to say that all the time. He has been amazing.

Nobody is a bigger smellier more pus filled penis hole than me!

The @nytimes purposely covers me so inaccurately. I want other nations to pay the U.S. for our defense of them. We are the suckers-no more!

NATO has to be one of the dumbest I've ever seen signed ever. They take our money and the world is collapsing around us.

Looks like I was right about NATO. I had no doubt.

.@FoxNews should be ashamed for allowing experts to explain how to make a nuclear attack!

Free trade can be wonderful if you have the power of nuclear weapons.

#WISCONSIN VOTE SMART @tedcruz RECORDS R SEALED.. WHAT IS HE HIDING? SAVE AMERICA W/

I know how to get things done. Ted needs to be honest with you, who is a total disaster by the way.

Nobody beats me on National Security.

I don't have to brag. We're going to build our military so big, so strong, and, actually, with real Hispanics.

Is it possible for @megynkelly to cover anyone but Donald Trump on her terrible show. She totally misrepresents my words and positions! BAD.

End, end Common Core. Rebuild the country's infrastructure. Have a gun on every table.

"I don't care about the game, I care about the PEOPLE."

So under President Trump, here's what would happen: I've only hit her once, and that was into Mexico.

The Hairball, he is over. But not the people, that, from his fear, and his febrility, he would wall. Those people: they are ascendant. They are inevitable. And they are here. As they were. Before ever any white-ass weak-sperm mewler. Like The Hairball. Ever once. Stained their lands.

and they'll find their way
by the morning light

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJVsUMKftMo]

Recently we weighed in here about the obesification of the planet. About how the excess human poundage, it is in danger of spinning the earth, wholly out of its orbit.

Now, we learn, that the Americans, they are obesing, among the myriad of other reasons, because of their jobs.

More than half of U.S. workers—55 percent—feel they're overweight, and 44 percent say they've gained weight while at their present jobs, according to a national survey released by CareerBuilder on Thursday.

The CareerBuilder survey found a strong link between on-the-job stress levels and work-related weight gain. Fewer than half of workers with very low stress levels feel they're overweight. But 77 percent with very high stress levels consider themselves, well, fat.

Furthermore, because of their jobs, the Americans, they do not sleep.

Fully 44% of American workers say they have lost sleep because they were worrying about work, with roughly one in four saying this happens to them at least once a week, according to a survey of 3,200 workers conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder. Another survey from 2013 of more than 1,400 employees yielded even higher numbers: three in four had lost sleep over work issues.

I have never really understood jobs. As far as I have been able to determine, they are a deep sickness. A serious wrong turn. Like cities. And money.

When I was, like, 16, I think it was, my parents, they said I needed to get a Job. They were Depression people, working-class, and so could not understand, why I was not yet working. I had never had a Job—except delivering newspapers, which was Fun, and, according to my parents, not a real Job—so I had no experience. Dutifully, I looked in the paper (we had newspapers then). I found some sort of chain-spew restaurant, called Cindy's, that was opening, and hiring. I went there. And they took me on, as a dishwasher. It was stupid, and boring, but bearable. Until, about two weeks in, some sort of essential massive kitchen-fan went out. And I was assigned, every 10-15 minutes or so, to climb up onto the roof, and there push a button, to restart the fan. As I did this, I fell behind on the dish-dog duties. But that wasn't what bothered me. It was looking at the stars. In the sky. When I was on the roof. Pushing the button. The stars, the sky: they were telling me: no. And: I got the message. I realized I could not do this. Ever. I could not, ever, have, a "job." I finished my shift. And then I quit. Resolved, never, to ever, take a "job," doing something, I did not otherwise, want to do. And, lo, yea verily, I have not, since.

But next, came the problem, with the buildings. The offices. The bosses, wanting you to be in the office. So they could justify themselves. By Looking at you.

I learned, very early on, that working in the building, in the office, that was wholly unnecessary. Except to enable the boss to feel like s/he was something, other, than an appendix. And, I determined, that it could be endured, the office, the building, only because it provided, daily, the opportunity, to become entangled, romantically, and/or carnally, with my co-workers.

Though, then, the job. Becomes such a drag. Because it's such a distraction. From what is really important. The co-worker(s).

Eventually, I managed to pry myself out of the buildings, the offices. And so have not worked in one in this millennium. And meanwhile discovered that I could just as well become entangled romantically, and or/carnally, with my coworkers, when I was not in an office.

And, it's actually, freer, that way. Because then you don't have to worry about the bluenoses. Tut-tutting, ratting. Because, basically, they're jealous. That they're not having, the right, and the fun. That you're having.

The absolute, and without question, best part, of any office job, is coming back, from an extremely extended lunch hour, absolutely reeking of each other. Impatiently, then, waiting, for the close of business day. So you can, then, reek of each other, all over again. Which is something, you cannot do, through a tube. With a, Facebook-only, "friend."

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQLpRBDrhn8]

Some officious bluenose noseholes, they recently seized 136 pounds of cocaine, there in the Bronx.

"The sheer amount of cocaine seized in this case is staggering," said one law jockey.

Not really.

Because, you know: 136 pounds. That is basically a weekend. At Keith Richards' place.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps7FEXOCO4k]

And, apparently, there are not already enough, people, places, and things, that are spying on the humans.

And so, a Spanish company, it is now introducing a mattress, that will rat you out, in real time, if it determines that you are sexually congressing upon it, with someone other, than an Officially Permitted Person.

The "Smarttress" looks like any other mattress, but the manufacturer says that its concealed sensors detect suspicious movements in the bed. If the pressure matches algorithms based on research carried out on sexual motions, the worried partner will receive a warning on his or her mobile phone.

According to one of the engineers who developed the so-called Lover Detection System, when the ultrasonic sensors inside the mattress detect rhythmic movements, the communication system sends information to a server.

"If it detects suspicious activity regarding time of use, frequency, intensity or speed, it sends a notification to the phone terminal with which it is linked," said Iván Miranda.

Durmet say the technology is so advanced that the jealous app user will be able to see in real time what parts of the bed are seeing the most activity, giving him or her a mental picture of exactly what their partner is up to.

Jeebus krispies. Can this just be some shit, that is, like, just totally made up?

No.

And the people, they wonder, why, I am, at any and all times, on Medicine.

The humans, they are not meant for monogamy. They are, instead, omnisexual.

That's just the way it is.

i said there ain't no doubt about it
we done no wrong

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysS0j4XqFSg]