{"id":6621,"date":"2012-06-30T14:04:04","date_gmt":"2012-06-30T21:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/?p=6621"},"modified":"2014-01-09T10:16:16","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T17:16:16","slug":"hello-from-the-shut-down-imperial-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/hello-from-the-shut-down-imperial-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Hello From The Shut Down Imperial City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>W<\/b>e&#8217;ve always maintained that D.C. is a weird amalgamation of First World Starbuckian smugness and Third World dreariness and incompetence.  Nothing makes that point better than the regional utility companies. Or Metro. But today let&#8217;s go with the utilities.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s true that every American is convinced that <i>their<\/i> utility is uniquely incompetent.  Dominion, PEPCO <i>et al.<\/i> actually are.  Once one leaves the federal enclaves the infrastructure, particularly the electric grid, is beyond feeble.  It&#8217;s not that the grid failed so broadly after this violent storm.  Rather, it predictably fails after almost every storm.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Seriously, who in NW or Bethesda has actually seen a Pepco  truck? Let me know. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/whereispepco?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#whereispepco<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PepcoConnect?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@pepcoconnect<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Matt Bai (@mattbai) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mattbai\/status\/219493032188317696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 1, 2012<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n(Dominion, too. Bueller? Bueller?)<\/p>\n<p>Right before the utilities folded like a paper napkin a TV personality friend sent an email about a DHS report detailing domestic incidents of Stuxnet contaminating U.S. computer networks.  Which naturally prompts one to imagine the post-storm quasi-apocalytpic landscape (SUVs forlornly waiting outside dark Wholefoods, drivers unable to overpay for prosciutto) as D.C. under a foreign power&#8217;s decision to &#8216;take down the lights&#8217;.  <i>Via<\/i> their version of a less discriminating Stuxnet or even kinetic fire strikes like Belgrade 1999. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a stretch, of course.  Only the electric grid collapsed. Other than a stray tree in the road here or there, the transportation remained intact.  Communications continued; cell networks, while congested and slow, eventually did work. And psychologically, a storm as culprit is easier to process than a foreign adversary.<\/p>\n<p>But only a stretch.  For as sure as Dominion, PEPCO <i>et al.<\/i> will fail again soon, we will as a nation reap the whirlwind we have sown from 2001-2012. <\/p>\n<p><b>Update<\/b><br \/>\nNewt on Italian vacation plugs utility incompetence as prelude to EMP attack ala Frank Gaffney.  <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Friend and coauthor bill forstchen notes washington-baltimore blackout mild taste of what an emp (electromagnetic pulse) attack would do<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/newtgingrich\/status\/219714142943186944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 2, 2012<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>His next tweet underscored how the storm aftermath proves the need for East Coast BMD installations but got lost in Italian packet networks.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve always maintained that D.C. is a weird amalgamation of First World Starbuckian smugness and Third World dreariness and incompetence. Nothing makes that point better than the regional utility companies. Or Metro. But today let&#8217;s go with the utilities. It&#8217;s true that every American is convinced that their utility is uniquely incompetent. Dominion, PEPCO et [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[122,162,22],"class_list":{"0":"post-6621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-pop-culture","7":"tag-imperial-city","8":"tag-washington-dc","9":"tag-wotan-steel","10":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}