Wednesday, April 1, 2015

NERC Buys Tom Alrich’s Blog!


April 1, 2015: In a packed news conference in Atlanta today, a NERC spokeswoman announced that the organization has reached an agreement with Tom Alrich to purchase his popular eponymous blog for an undisclosed sum.  Reading a statement by NERC President Gerry Cauley, the spokeswoman said “I have always greatly admired Tom’s insights into the development and future enforcement of CIP Version 5.  In fact, I have ordered that his posts be printed out and delivered every morning on my breakfast table.  I am very happy that he will now be under our con…that is, part of our team, and working with us to make the rollout of CIP v5 the most successful standards rollout in NERC’s history.  I am also looking forward to finally being cured of the morning indigestion that has been plaguing me the past year or so.”

The spokeswoman further stated that Mr. Alrich had agreed to revise an undisclosed number of his previous posts to correct “certain errors which may have contributed to a misunderstanding of NERC’s actions related to the CIP v5 rollout process”.  In addition, Mr. Alrich has agreed that, going forward, he will strive to represent NERC in the best possible light as it tries hard to accomplish the difficult task of assuring a smooth, equitable rollout of this complex family of standards.

And here is my “press release”:

1.       NERC and I have been in negotiations on this deal for four months.  I am very pleased that it was announced today, exactly one year before the compliance date for CIP v5.
2.       While I have struggled until now to put out posts and still fulfill the obligations of my day job, I’m pleased to announce that I will now have the financial independence to devote full time to the blog.  In fact, to eliminate distractions, I will be moving from Chicago to Bora Bora, Tahiti, where I will reside in a beachfront house that I have had my eye on for years; the deal to purchase that house was also concluded today.
3.       As the spokeswoman mentioned, I will be revising – and in some cases removing – a number of posts that contained somewhat inaccurate depictions of NERC and the outstanding, courageous job they are doing in preparing for the monumental rollout of CIP v5.  However, I do want to emphasize that this doesn’t affect all of my posts.  I started the blog in January of 2013, and have written 135 posts.  Of this total, only about 110 will be subject to revision or removal (mostly removal).
4.       However, given my new financial independence and my wish to devote my entire time to the blog, I will be able to post much more frequently going forward, so the 100 or so posts that will be removed won’t be missed.  The topics I will address include:
a.       The great job that NERC is doing as it confronts the many challenges of rolling out CIP v5 in full by April 1, 2016.
b.      Interpretation issues in CIP v5, including which of the many NERC “interpretation” documents can be seen as absolutely authoritative, and which others should be seen as merely brilliant opinions of the writers.
c.       Other issues that go beyond NERC regulations or even cyber security in general.  These issues include i) the danger posed to humanity by the widespread belief in Mr. Darwin’s unproven theory of evolution, as well as Dr. Einstein’s wild speculations on General Relativity; ii) Who lost China?; iii) the communist-inspired effort to fluoridate the nation’s water supplies; iv)  the martyrdom of the Branch Dravidians; v) the little-known fact that the US government knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance and even aided them; vi) the fact that President Obama is a Muslim, born in Kenya; and vii) how a government program that has provided health insurance to 16 million people who didn’t have it is destroying the very foundations of the US economy, all recent encouraging economic data notwithstanding.
d.      Reviews of online cat videos.

So you see?  From now on, you will have much more than ever to look forward to in Tom Alrich’s Blog.  Stay tuned!


The views and opinions expressed here are my own and don’t necessarily represent the views or opinions of Honeywell.


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