"Je me suis entretenu avec le président américain Donald Trump de la situation en Méditerranée orientale, en Libye et au Liban. Nos vues sont convergentes. Notre intérêt à la paix et à la sécurité y est commun. Nous le ferons respecter."
Showing posts with label Stupidity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stupidity. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Thursday, August 8, 2019
Turkmenistan's travails - redux
In September 2002 I penned an OPED bemoaning the unfortunate fact that the antics of 'Turkmenbashi' ("Head of all Turkmen," the then "Perpetual President of Turkmenistan," Sapamurat Niyazov) obscured the miserable lot of the ordinary folk of Turkmenistan...
I said: "... The total and utter ridiculousness of this situation makes an observer
want to smile. But that is an unfortunate reaction. The buffoonery masks
repression and misrule, under which the vast majority of Turkmenistan's
citizens live a life of grinding poverty, while the country has vast
reserves of natural gas and is the world's tenth largest producer of
cotton. While the masses are hungry, Turkmenbashi spends money on
grandiose projects (a 10 meter high gold-plated statue of Turkmenbashi
atop a 72 meter tall tower surrounded by fountains, ornate palaces,
Berzengi - a hotel and business center in the desert outside Ashkhabad
that has 22 empty 5-star hotels built completely from imported
materials), jails any opposition (some in psychiatric wards), has a tame
and muzzled press, etc. As there are shortages of staples and hunger
increases, Turkmenbashi has said, "Anyone who complains about going
without sausage or bread for a day is not a Turkmen."
When he passed away in 2006 his Vice President, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, took over in his stead, and a May 2008 blog entry noted that he had rolled back a couple of Turkmenbashi's actions. However, as time passed it became clear that not much was changed, as reflected in this November 2009 blog update entry.
We are now mid-way through 2019 and apparently not much has improved, see: Crazy-Ass President Of Turkmenistan Proves He's Not Dead By Doing Donuts Around 'Gateway To Hell.'
Also view the video on YouTube: Watan Habarlary 04.08.2019
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Random quote - bedrock principle
"Russia, through its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and its attempted
annexation of Crimea, sought to undermine a bedrock international
principle shared by democratic states: that no country can change the
borders of another by force. The states of the world, including Russia,
agreed to this principle in the United Nations Charter, pledging to
refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial
integrity or political independence of any state. This fundamental
principle — which was reaffirmed in the Helsinki Final Act — constitutes
one of the foundations upon which our shared security and safety rests.
As we did in the Welles Declaration in 1940, the United States reaffirms as policy its refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over territory seized by force in contravention of international law. In concert with allies, partners, and the international community, the United States rejects Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored.
The United States calls on Russia to respect the principles to which it has long claimed to adhere and to end its occupation of Crimea. As democratic states seek to build a free, just, and prosperous world, we must uphold our commitment to the international principle of sovereign equality and respect the territorial integrity of other states. Through its actions, Russia has acted in a manner unworthy of a great nation and has chosen to isolate itself from the international community"
Source: U.S. State Department "Crimea Declaration"
US drops 'Israeli-occupied' designation from Golan Heights
As we did in the Welles Declaration in 1940, the United States reaffirms as policy its refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over territory seized by force in contravention of international law. In concert with allies, partners, and the international community, the United States rejects Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored.
The United States calls on Russia to respect the principles to which it has long claimed to adhere and to end its occupation of Crimea. As democratic states seek to build a free, just, and prosperous world, we must uphold our commitment to the international principle of sovereign equality and respect the territorial integrity of other states. Through its actions, Russia has acted in a manner unworthy of a great nation and has chosen to isolate itself from the international community"
Source: U.S. State Department "Crimea Declaration"
US drops 'Israeli-occupied' designation from Golan Heights
Saturday, June 10, 2017
Non-sequiturs, etc.
As I read reporting on the news, politics, science, and all manner of subjects it is quite amazing to me to see so many of what I consider to be untruthful, inaccurate, illogical, and sometimes even nonsensical items... replete with non-sequiturs, leaps of logic, full of misunderstandings (sometimes unintentional, sometimes perhaps intentional), etc. Here are a few examples:
I. Apparently a new subject for litigation is the 'follow' and 'block' functionality of various social media vehicles such as Twitter, Facebook, etc., see: Trump’s Not the Only One Blocking Constituents on Twitter.
Apparently a number of people are annoyed at various politicians have 'blocked' them after they "voiced dissent." They are claiming that "losing this form of access to public officials violates constituents’ First Amendment rights to free speech and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." In fact, they supposedly claim that "it’s akin to being thrown out of a town hall meeting for holding up a protest sign."
The Executive Director of The Knight Institute said "Though the architects of the Constitution surely didn’t contemplate presidential Twitter accounts, they understood that the president must not be allowed to banish views from public discourse simply because he finds them objectionable,”
The Executive Director of The Knight Institute said "Though the architects of the Constitution surely didn’t contemplate presidential Twitter accounts, they understood that the president must not be allowed to banish views from public discourse simply because he finds them objectionable,”
Hmm, I'm not exactly sure how blocking someone on Twitter (note: I routinely block all accounts that 'follow' me that appear to be bots, purveyors of MLM, and other accounts that do not appear to be "real"people... and since there are so many of these I have blocked hundreds of accounts!) in any way abridges their access to public discourse. Hell, it does not even stop their use of Twitter, it just means that they don't show up in the blocker's timeline! And, after having been blocked by others, one may not to able to follow them, but one can still go and look at their tweets any time he/she feels like it, via direct navigation to the blocker's feed...
Apparently some folks not only want to vent their frustration on Twitter/Facebook, they also expect the person they are venting at to be obliged to see/read their tweets/posts (at least if they are an elected representative). That seems to be quite a stretch!
II. Next up is this article: 'Trump Administration Returns Copies of Report on C.I.A. Torture to Congress.' It would have you believe that the Trump administration is working to deep-six Congress' "torture report" by conspiring with the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Apparently, "The Senate Intelligence Committee, which was run by Democrats when the executive summary was released, sent copies of the entire report to at least eight federal agencies, asking that they incorporate it into their records — a move that would have made the documents subject to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. That law, which allows citizens, the news media and other groups to request access to information held by the federal government, does not apply to congressional records..."
Contrast the scummy Republicans (working to let the report "remain hidden") with the virtuous Democrats (working to make sure that the report becomes available to the general public). One small problem with this characterization... the President referred to in the first paragraph, the one fighting a "pitched battle over how the history is told" is President Obama, and he was on the side of keeping the report a secret. Had he been on the side of disclosure, the report could have been declassified and released! Something you would never understand from this article, which, while recounting factual details, at the very least has glossed over a significant part of the truth!
III. On to the next article, 'This is what would happen if North Korea launched a real attack.' The article begins as follows:
"President Trump would have “maybe 10 minutes” to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike against North Korea — should it ever fire a missile that’s capable of reaching the US mainland, experts say.
Speaking to the Associated Press about what would happen in the event of a nuclear strike from the North, scientist David Wright, of the UCS Global Security Program, and rocket analyst Markus Schiller, of ST Analytics in Germany, described how the drama would unfold.
“The timelines are short,” Wright explained. “Even for long-range missiles, there are a lot of steps that go into detecting the launch and figuring out what it is, leaving the president with maybe 10 minutes to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike.”
So, according to this expert the President has "maybe ten minutes to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike" on being informed of a North Korean ballistic missile launch (once they have a credible, working missile that is)! What a load of codswallop! Say North Korea launches a nuclear-tipped ICBM, say even a half dozen... why exactly does the President have only 10 minutes to make a decision? He could wait an hour, a day., a week, a month... and then order a retaliatory strike.
Now if it was a case of hundreds of ICBMs coming from Russia, then there may be a very short timetable, because it could be case of "use them or lose them!" Even in such a scenario, given the nuclear triad with resources around the globe, it is highly likely that the U.S. could absorb an attack.. and still maintain a second-strike capability, even if you buy the 'end-of-life-as-we know-it EMP' scenarios!
The bottom line? The 'only ten minutes to respond to a North Korean nuclear missile' meme is risible, and the so-called 'expert' should be ashamed of peddling such nonsense!
IV. On to the latest leaked NSA document on Russian "hacking" of the U.S. presidential "election" as detailed by an article published by The Intercept.
One problem with this article was its use of multiple, different characterizations of exactly what the scope of the attack consisted of. In the article this was variously characterized as a "cyber effort against elements of the U.S. election and voting infrastructure" and "...Russian hacking may have breached at least some elements of the voting system..." and also "...targeting voter registration software..." among others.
Another problem is the article simultaneously included a number of (mild) reassurances from the leaked document (e.g."unknown whether the aforementioned spear-phishing deployment successfully compromised all the intended victims, and what potential data from the victim could have been exfiltrated") with various speculations from "experts" about worst-case scenarios. However, at least The Intercept covered it all, clearly doing a better job than much of the other reporting which lost all nuance and turned it into "The Russians hacked the elections"
Apparently some folks not only want to vent their frustration on Twitter/Facebook, they also expect the person they are venting at to be obliged to see/read their tweets/posts (at least if they are an elected representative). That seems to be quite a stretch!
II. Next up is this article: 'Trump Administration Returns Copies of Report on C.I.A. Torture to Congress.' It would have you believe that the Trump administration is working to deep-six Congress' "torture report" by conspiring with the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Apparently, "The Senate Intelligence Committee, which was run by Democrats when the executive summary was released, sent copies of the entire report to at least eight federal agencies, asking that they incorporate it into their records — a move that would have made the documents subject to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. That law, which allows citizens, the news media and other groups to request access to information held by the federal government, does not apply to congressional records..."
Contrast the scummy Republicans (working to let the report "remain hidden") with the virtuous Democrats (working to make sure that the report becomes available to the general public). One small problem with this characterization... the President referred to in the first paragraph, the one fighting a "pitched battle over how the history is told" is President Obama, and he was on the side of keeping the report a secret. Had he been on the side of disclosure, the report could have been declassified and released! Something you would never understand from this article, which, while recounting factual details, at the very least has glossed over a significant part of the truth!
III. On to the next article, 'This is what would happen if North Korea launched a real attack.' The article begins as follows:
"President Trump would have “maybe 10 minutes” to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike against North Korea — should it ever fire a missile that’s capable of reaching the US mainland, experts say.
Speaking to the Associated Press about what would happen in the event of a nuclear strike from the North, scientist David Wright, of the UCS Global Security Program, and rocket analyst Markus Schiller, of ST Analytics in Germany, described how the drama would unfold.
“The timelines are short,” Wright explained. “Even for long-range missiles, there are a lot of steps that go into detecting the launch and figuring out what it is, leaving the president with maybe 10 minutes to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike.”
So, according to this expert the President has "maybe ten minutes to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike" on being informed of a North Korean ballistic missile launch (once they have a credible, working missile that is)! What a load of codswallop! Say North Korea launches a nuclear-tipped ICBM, say even a half dozen... why exactly does the President have only 10 minutes to make a decision? He could wait an hour, a day., a week, a month... and then order a retaliatory strike.
Now if it was a case of hundreds of ICBMs coming from Russia, then there may be a very short timetable, because it could be case of "use them or lose them!" Even in such a scenario, given the nuclear triad with resources around the globe, it is highly likely that the U.S. could absorb an attack.. and still maintain a second-strike capability, even if you buy the 'end-of-life-as-we know-it EMP' scenarios!
The bottom line? The 'only ten minutes to respond to a North Korean nuclear missile' meme is risible, and the so-called 'expert' should be ashamed of peddling such nonsense!
IV. On to the latest leaked NSA document on Russian "hacking" of the U.S. presidential "election" as detailed by an article published by The Intercept.
One problem with this article was its use of multiple, different characterizations of exactly what the scope of the attack consisted of. In the article this was variously characterized as a "cyber effort against elements of the U.S. election and voting infrastructure" and "...Russian hacking may have breached at least some elements of the voting system..." and also "...targeting voter registration software..." among others.
Another problem is the article simultaneously included a number of (mild) reassurances from the leaked document (e.g."unknown whether the aforementioned spear-phishing deployment successfully compromised all the intended victims, and what potential data from the victim could have been exfiltrated") with various speculations from "experts" about worst-case scenarios. However, at least The Intercept covered it all, clearly doing a better job than much of the other reporting which lost all nuance and turned it into "The Russians hacked the elections"
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Great quotes - stupidity
"Did you seek the names of people involved in — to unmask the names of
people involved in the Trump transition, the people surrounding the
president-elect in order to spy on them and expose them?”
- Andrea Mitchell of NBC to Susan Rice...
Eh? Not "Did you ask for the unmasking of people involved in the Trump transition?" followed by "For what purpose?," but as above; prompting the only possible answer ("No.")...
Eh? Not "Did you ask for the unmasking of people involved in the Trump transition?" followed by "For what purpose?," but as above; prompting the only possible answer ("No.")...
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Another historic agreement!
Talks wrapped up at the climate summit in Paris with an agreement and politicians rushed to congratulate themselves - hailing the 'historic' agreement and (no doubt completely coincidentally!) emphasizing the importance of their specific roles and the actions taken by their governments... (see, for example, Prime Minister David Cameron and President Obama).
OK, so looking at criticisms of what was achieved e.g. here, here, and here, it appears that there is rather less to this agreement than meets the eye, with "the theory" outpacing "the actual." In sum, a very Obama agreement. See this blog entry looking at the trend of "Obama agreements," from Copenhagen 2009 to the 2010 NPT Review Conference, from New START to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1887, and the Honduras "Tegucigalpa/San Jose" agreement.
Speaking of Copenhagen 2009, in his address President Obama also referenced it, claiming "In 2009, we helped salvage a chaotic Copenhagen Summit and established
the principle that all countries had a role to play in combating climate
change." Back in 2009 I deconstructed the account of Copenhagen 2009 provided by "senior administration officials" and found it patently ridiculous and "incredibly amateurish" at best!
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Vulture down
Photo credit: Radio Sai
Earlier blog entries had looked at the unfortunate demise of vultures in Asia (specifically the Indian subcontinent), e.g. blog entry here.
Having decimated the vultures there, apparently it's now the turn of Africa, see: "Almost half the vultures in Africa are on the brink of extinction
because they scavenge on meat poisoned by farmers, a report by BirdLife
International has warned..."
Friday, April 10, 2015
Great quotes - Yemen
"We’re well aware of the support that Iran has been giving to Yemen. And
Iran needs to recognize that the United States is not going to stand by
while the region is destabilized, or while people engage, you know, in
overt warfare across the lines, international boundaries and other
countries."
- John Kerry opining on Iran's "interference" in... Yemen, which consists mostly of public support...
All the while the KSA is actively bombing Yemen with robust U.S. support (e.g. intelligence, logistics, bombs, aerial refueling!). Yup, the United Stats is not going to stand by while people engage in overt warfare across international boundaries; being an active participant is different, mind you...
Monday, March 9, 2015
Great quotes - eh?
“Those who are with us deserve everything, but those who are against us deserve to have their heads chopped off with an axe.”
- Avigdor Lieberman, Foreign Minister of Israel, see here.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Follow up - Tweedledum & Tweedledee
The blog entry from July of 2008, 'The Powell rehabilitation project?', discussed the subject of Colin Powell and his knowledge of "enhanced interrogation tactics' (EIT a.k.a. torture), and how his aide Colonel Larry Wilkerson gave Powell 'cover' on this issue. This even though there was plenty of evidence that Powell knew what was going on despite his lack of "sufficient memory recall" about meetings he had attended where the subject was discussed in detail.
Then in 2014 any dissembling about his knowledge should have ended when John Rizzo specifically recalled Powell's involvement, see 'Confirmed! (Powell & torture)'. And yet, Powell appears to have escaped any opprobrium, for example see: 'Apparent success!'
Wilkerson continues his coverup, for example see this recent panegyric to him in Vice from January 2015 - 'The Bush Administration Whistleblower Who Says the US Has Not Closed the Door on Torture'. Whistleblower? Sure, if you a) ignore the contrary evidence, and, b) define 'whistleblower' as someone who kept quiet at the time and only spoke up much later (and then has been very selective in what he discloses)!
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Great quotes - stupidity
“We have nothing against the job of garbage collectors, but their sons
belong in other fields than the judiciary, because it’s a sensitive
job”
- "Justice" Ahmed Abdelrahman.
The subject? In Egypt "... officials refused to reinstate dozens of young prosecutors who were sacked because their parents lacked a university education. Just months after they were appointed, 138 new prosecutors were removed from office in September 2013 following a ruling from the judiciary’s governing body that said only those born to parents with undergraduate degrees could join the state prosecution..."
The subject? In Egypt "... officials refused to reinstate dozens of young prosecutors who were sacked because their parents lacked a university education. Just months after they were appointed, 138 new prosecutors were removed from office in September 2013 following a ruling from the judiciary’s governing body that said only those born to parents with undergraduate degrees could join the state prosecution..."
The esteemed "Justice" (his picture is above) is apparently "... a senior judge and former member of the board that banned the
prosecutors..." who "... said the decision was aimed at upholding the quality of the
judiciary..."
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Rinse and repeat
Act V of 'Anatomy of an Incident' - Hero First-Year Teacher Facing School Shooter Acted 'Instinctively.' How many times can we get to Act XIV - The Next Horror.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Friday, July 18, 2014
Monday, July 7, 2014
Recycle...
In September 2013 we were treated to an expose of the "... very mysterious..., very powerful..." commander of Iran's Quds Force, General Qassem Suleimani. The Shadow Commander ostensibly stripped the mask off this shadowy figure involved in acts of terrorism around the world, many targeting Americans.
However, there had already been plenty of coverage of this "shadow commander" characterized as being the "... single most powerful operative in the Middle East today, and no one’s ever heard of him.", including for example:
An exhaustively sourced and foot-noted three-part report on Suleimani, from January, March, and July of 2011:
And now, almost a year later, we get Iran’s Top Spy Is the Modern-Day Karla, John Le Carré’s Villainous Mastermind, which recycles the "... single most powerful operative in the Middle East today, and no one’s ever heard of him" quote/meme while also throwing in film and literary allusions ("Keyser Soze", John le Carré’s characters...)
Sunday, July 6, 2014
More nonsense
Came across this article, How the Pentagon Can Track the Taliban 5 Apparently releasing the five Taliban prisoners in exchange for Bowe Bergdah is no big deal, because:
"... researchers say not to worry, big data and a formula that predicts
terrorists’ movements gives the U.S. the ability to forecast some of the
key places where the dangerous former detainees would go next...
Subrahmanian said that the U.S. should be able to track the Taliban 5 by combining the techniques in the Lashkar-e-Taiba study with new data on the family, friends, and associates of the former prisoners...
That predictability is borne of a key network theory phenomenon, our habits become more predictable when we visit people who also have habits, which are predictable. As the Taliban 5 return to their old ways in Afghanistan, their movements will become easier to anticipate because they will have to re-establish contact with known associates...
So long as U.S. had some idea of who the Taliban 5 were, the networks and the people that they worked with, there is no reason why the U.S. shouldn’t be able to predict the likelihood of the gang going to certain key places, or meeting up with certain associates, with as high as 80 percent accuracy, Subrahmanian said..."
Subrahmanian said that the U.S. should be able to track the Taliban 5 by combining the techniques in the Lashkar-e-Taiba study with new data on the family, friends, and associates of the former prisoners...
That predictability is borne of a key network theory phenomenon, our habits become more predictable when we visit people who also have habits, which are predictable. As the Taliban 5 return to their old ways in Afghanistan, their movements will become easier to anticipate because they will have to re-establish contact with known associates...
So long as U.S. had some idea of who the Taliban 5 were, the networks and the people that they worked with, there is no reason why the U.S. shouldn’t be able to predict the likelihood of the gang going to certain key places, or meeting up with certain associates, with as high as 80 percent accuracy, Subrahmanian said..."
What malarkey!
This blogger has already pooh-poohed FAST ("Future Attribute Screening Technologies") to detect 'malintent', or PCASS ("Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System") to detect truth/lies, "Robocop glasses" for facial detection and the distance identification of suspects, and thermal imaging cameras w/software to detect lies... Along with the "Predictioneer" Bruce Buena de Mesquita to forecast the future and Palantir Technology software to investigate terrorist networks, this latest technological silver bullet is probably more sales job than anything else!
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