Month: December 2017

More On Bitcoin

Bitcoin has made the news in a big way….I even did a post recently trying to help my readers understand just what Bitcoin is and how it works……

https://lobotero.com/2017/12/14/what-the-hell-is-bitcoin/

The Bitcoin craze gets crazier….

It had to happen sooner or later.

Digital cryptocurrencies have been on a rocket ride in 2017. The most famous, bitcoin, rose from under $1,000 at the start of the year to $5,000 in October. Then it blasted off to nearly $20,000 per bitcoin by mid-December. Other cryptocurrencies were carried along by the craze.

The thing is, it’s always been hard to identify a “there” there. Digital cryptocurrencies like bitcoin aren’t very good mediums of exchange or stores of value. Nothing seems to be fueling the price rise other than, well, excitement over the price rise.

http://theweek.com/articles/744889/when-bitcoin-craze-becomes-panic

Bitcoin is making in roads in the shadowy world of terrorism……it is a grand way to launder money but can it be used to finance terrorist networks?

Signs are increasing that jihadist groups are looking to capitalize on the rising value of bitcoin, as massive price increases for the cryptocurrency in recent months garner growing public attention. Cold, hard, untraceable cash remains their preferred medium for transmitting funds, but new online activity shows that some jihadist groups are soliciting bitcoins, which can be acquired and spent without any government or banking intermediary.

Terrorist networks cannot easily transact in the formal banking system, so they often employ innovative methods to gain resources. Multiple media outlets that promote al-Qaida or Islamic State (IS) propaganda have asked supporters in recent weeks to send funds to specific bitcoin addresses. In some cases, these have been Salafi Jihadist news websites purportedly seeking donations for site maintenance. But one campaign–still live as of Dec.20–asks for funds to support fighters in Syria.

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/international/terrorist-networks-eye-bitcoin-cryptocurrencys-price-rises

Just another aspect of terrorism that must be monitored……but with the turmoil in DC are our Intel agencies capable of watching everything they need to watch?

What will be the future of the Bitcoin craze?

This is a financial bubble….kinda like the tech stocks in the 90’s……

Closing Thought–27Dec17

How embarrassing!

The US has the F-35 as an embarrassing moment and now the UK has one to call their very own…..

It’s an egg-on-your-face story out of Britain, where the $4 billion spent on a new aircraft carrier was apparently not enough to eliminate all leaks. The BBC reports the HMS Queen Elizabeth was found to be taking on as much as 50 gallons of water an hour due to a faulty shaft seal. The Royal Navy ship was commissioned in early December, and the issue surfaced during sea trials. Though the BBC’s defense correspondent calls it a “highly embarrassing” development, the repair will not delay the sea trials schedule, says a rep for the Royal Navy, which believes the repair can occur while the ship is in the water.

Though one naval officer allows that it’s an embarrassing development, “in reality [it’s] no big deal. You expect to take some water in when you’re operating a warship at sea.” The Press Association describes the aircraft carrier, the first of a new generation of them for the UK, as “the biggest and most powerful” the country has built; it’s expected to have a 50-year working life. The Telegraph has the defense secretary’s characterization of the ship: “the most magnificent aircraft carrier in the world. …

Buy a cork and move on……

Time to shut IST down for the day…..see you guys tomorrow….chuq

What To Do With The Elderly?

We have a hit squad on the environment, we have the rich doing a jig because they will get richer, we have an assault on education, health care will be denied to most Americans soon….all in all a total assault on society as we know it and there is an inexcusable thing happening…..

Most of us have heard the stories of the mistreatment of the elderly in some nursing homes….and most of us think it is disgusting…..but now it appears that our Fearless leader has given nursing homes a pass on how they treat the elderly…..

A nursing home can abuse an elderly resident to the point of death and not be subject to a fine, thanks to the Trump administration.

Reacting to the demands of lobbyists, the Trump administration has struck down several regulations that have governed the nursing home industry. The New York Times reports that this now means several common citations that used to result in fines will either see reduced penalties or no penalties at all.

https://shareblue.com/trump-gives-nursing-homes-shocking-green-light-to-abuse-elderly-to-point-of-death/

At every turn Trump keeps making this country into a third world nation for most of us…..this is inexcusable….the elderly deserve more respect than this president wants to give them.

The War On Terror

We have effectively (arguable point) been at war with terrorism for almost 17 years….we have seen AQ slink away into the shadows and ISIS is all but a thing of the past….so can we say that we are close to winning the war on terror?  Not even close and if it were not so sad it would be a laughable premise……

There’s a playbook for committing atrocities and being absolved of them. It wasn’t written by George W Bush, now a retired painter of dogs in the US state of Texas, but it was popularised and legitimised by his administration at the dawn of the 21st century. And the world today, with its multiple bloody wars on terror fought by allies and foes of Washington alike, sometimes begrudgingly together, reflects this bequeathment.

Terrorism is a useful foe. Wars against it need not be declared, and combatants need not be defined. Traditional warfare, with a uniformed opponent, brings with it the not always avoidable bureaucracy of international law; lawyers saying you can’t shoot this or that. No conflict is outside the law, at least on paper. However, an amorphous tactic can’t file a petition at The Hague, and when every power of note is on the same page with respect to the need to kill shadowy non-state actors, extrajudicially, it’s smart statecraft to adopt the rubric of the war on terror, with modern flourishes.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/09/war-terror-won-george-bush-doctrine-170911082005701.html

If anything this so-called war is ever expanding even to parts of the world we had no idea existed……

If national-security reporters are ever replaced by robots writing boilerplate stories, blame it on the fact that U.S. military policy has become so predictable and repetitive.

Consider this New York Times story from 2011:

“The Central Intelligence Agency is building a secret air base in the Middle East to serve as a launching pad for strikes in Yemen using armed drones. . . . The construction of the base is a sign that the Obama administration is planning an extended war in Yemen against an affiliate of Al Qaeda. . . . The clandestine American operations in Yemen are currently being run by the military’s Joint Special Operations Command.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/11/14/the-ever-expanding-war-on-terror/

This War on Terror will be a complete failure like the War on Drugs…..the only thing that it is capable of doing is siphoning funds away from needed programs to keep fueling their failed efforts.

And thanx to Fearless Fosdick and his latest announcement he has just made it even more dangerous for this country worldwide.

This is what we get for electing a mental midget with a ego problem.

Face Of Protest

I have written a lot about the situation with Palestine in the past…..with good reason….when I was working in the Middle East I had an associate that was Palestinian, Rafiq, and when I was doing research on the West Bank I was summoned by the Israeli authorities for questioning….I ignored the summons and was told I was to be arrested….Rafiq’s family hide me until I could get away across the border to Jordan.  I owe the family.

I am sure that most Americans are aware of the protest going on in the Occupied Territories simply because Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel…a lame ass move.

There have been many arrests some have been children…like this brave young lady…Ahed al-Tamimi…..

Ahed Tamimi was just 14 when she rose to international prominence through the release of a video and a series of photos capturing her desperate attempts to save her 11-year-old brother, Mohammad, from the grips of an Israeli soldier in 2015.

Many Israelis threatened me on social media after the video was released, demanding that I be detained or even killed,” 16-year-old Ahed told Al Jazeera from her family’s home in the village of Nabi Saleh, where the distinct, red-tiled roofs of illegal Israeli settlement housing dot the adjacent hilltop. “The harassment handcuffed my life. I was scared to even go outside or visit my friends.”

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/07/nabi-saleh-silent-ethnic-cleansing-170702123734851.html

Hers is not a unique story….sadly it is all too familiar….

Junaidi was detained during clashes that erupted in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Dec. 7, the day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

http://mondoweiss.net/2017/12/palestinian-sentenced-conviction/

His arrest has gone viral……

Then IDF had to go a killed a wheel chair bound Palestinian protester and his death has gone viral…..

One of the men killed was Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, a wheel chair-bound 29-year-old who was a regular presence during Palestinian protests against Israel. Thuraya has spoken to the media regularly in recent years, and claimed he had lost both his legs in a 2008 Israeli missile strike in Gaza.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-troops-shot-dead-wheelchair-214045011.html

The IDF had an investigation and found no one guilty for the shot….(does that sound at all familiar?)….these Palestinians are becoming the face of civil disobedience against Israel….

Closing Thought–26Dec17

The deaths just keep mounting up….the latest is in Iraq….

A 20-year-old soldier from Turlock died in Iraq on Wednesday in a noncombat-related incident, according to a Department of Defense news release.

The release identified the soldier as Spc. Avadon A. Chaves. The incident is under investigation, and his family declined to comment upon the circumstances of his death. Chaves was a specialist in the infantry.  Chaves died at Al Asad, Al Anbar Province, Iraq, according to the news release. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Fort Bliss, Texas.

IST wishes the family well and may their loved one rest in peace.

The Death Of Gen. Patton

All America fell in love with Patton after the movie, starring George C. Scott…of course the movie gave a Hollywood lean to history which is not necessarily accurate.

I remember that after the movie there was a made-for-TV movie about the death of Patton…..that he may not have died in a car wreck.

the mysterious death of George S. Patton, Jr., one of the most famous generals in U.S. military history. The life of George Patton was brought to the big screen in the blockbuster 1970 movie Patton, starring George C. Scott, which told his story to a mass audience. Another movie based on the circumstances surrounding the death of Patton was Brass Target, based on Frederick Nolan’s novel The Algonquin Project. The theme of Brass Target is that there was a vast conspiracy to kill Patton, part of which was the auto accident that he was involved in after the war.

http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/was-george-s-patton-murdered-new-light-on-an-old-conspiracy/

Well, it seems that the movie, circa mid to late 70’s, may have been working from some “real” facts…..

The newly unearthed diaries of a colourful assassin for the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, reveal that American spy chiefs wanted Patton dead because he was threatening to expose allied collusion with the Russians that cost American lives.

The death of General Patton in December 1945, is one of the enduring mysteries of the war era. Although he had suffered serious injuries in a car crash in Manheim, he was thought to be recovering and was on the verge of flying home.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3869117/General-George-S.-Patton-was-assassinated-to-silence-his-criticism-of-allied-war-leaders-claims-new-book.html

I am fascinated by these types of stories….conspiracy theories are always interesting to see how people can take given info and turn into something more.

A disgraced FOX News anchor O’Reilly wants the case of the death of Patton re-opened….

Bill O’Reilly, the opinionated host of The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, is about to shake up the world of history with his latest bold claim — that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered the assassination of Gen. George S. Patton.

“We found compelling evidence,” O’Reilly says. Readers can decide for themselves with the publication of Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II’s Most Audacious General (Henry Holt), co-written with Martin Dugard.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2014/09/22/bill-oreilly-killing-pattton-martin-dugard/15828297/

Of course O’Reilly was trying to sell books….but he may have an idea….should the case of the death of Patton be re-opened?

The Future Of Justice

AS we draw closer to the end of the year the situation here in the US has gone from bad to worse.  I am not talking about society as a whole although for some this year has been long and unproductive but not for the news.

Our president and all his men have given the MSM a well spring of info to cover.  All of society is being impacted by this past election….some are making out like bandits while some are not doing so well.

But for this post I want to talk about the future of justice in this country…..not an indictment of the president’s person.

Everyone by now has heard and formed their opinion about the investigation that is all the rage right now.  We have an investigation into the actions of the president and some of his people.  Of course all seem to think there is nothing to see.

The rhetoric has picked up first they tried to discredit the lead man of the investigation and now the Trump loyalist are trying to bring the FBI down for their investigation basically the FBI and the technique of deciding guilt.

Let me stop here and inject…..at this point whether the president colluded or anything is of no matter.  This is about what this is doing to the FBI.

The FBI is not high on my list but they are the agency that is tasked to make sure that the rule of law prevails….after all it is a a pillar of our republic.

Trumpians is calling the FBI as partisan and ineffective and in tatters whatever that means (Trump’s observation not mine)….all these accusations are doing damage to the reputation of the FBI that will take years to repair, if ever.

What happens down the road when evidence acquired by the FBI is presented in trial?  Will this effect the views of a a judge?  How many felons could go free when the evidence is provided is questioned thanks to all the doubt brought into the courtroom?

If this hatchet job is successful then I ask….what will justice look like?

Who Are The Houthis?

Recently UN ambassador Haley held a “show and tell” in a warehouse for the UN and the media….she showed what she said were Iranian missile parts that were fired into Saudi Arabia by the Houthis…..and now we should point out just who the Houthi are and why they are pissed at Saudi Arabia……

or over two-and-a-half years, the United States has supported Saudi Arabia in a war against the Houthi movement in Yemen. The war has created the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world and threatens to turn into the largest famine in decades.

Yet very few Americans know who the Houthis are, what they stand for, and why they are our de facto enemies. Two administrations have backed the war against the Houthis without a serious campaign to explain why Americans should see them as our enemies.

Yemeni politics are incredibly complex and volatile—rather than get drawn into a quagmire against an enemy they hardly know, the United States and its partners should get serious about finding a political solution

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/12/18/who-are-the-houthis-and-why-are-we-at-war-with-them/

Might be a good idea to learn what you can for someone in your family may have to fight Yemen and possibly the Houthi.

Just a thought.

When Did National Security Become A Joke?

Hoping everyone had a good Christmas and is looking forward to a new year…..

Just the other day the president gave a short speech on the National Security Strategy….it was not worth my time to listen to a campaign speech so I did the next best thing….I read the speech on-line…..let me say it was a good speech to read and a terrible speech to listen to, but I should have known that off hand.

For your information if you care to read it……

http://documents.latimes.com/read-full-text-president-trumps-national-security-strategy/

His speech needs to be decoded……

In speaking at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington today, President Trump sought to delineate a new foreign-policy strategy for America. Trump alluded to his election victory, noting that “you spoke loud and you spoke clear. On November 8, you voted to make America great again. You embraced new leadership and new strategies and also a glorious new hope.” The most interesting part of the speech may be the fact that Trump delivered one at all, in contrast to his predecessors. If his administration uses the strategy as a true lodestar, then it would mark a break with a liberal internationalism based on the idea that economic and political cooperation, not confrontation, is the best way to protect American interests.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/decoding-trumps-new-national-security-strategy-23707

There Are 5 main things to take away from the speech….

After nearly a year in office, President Trump will unveil his National Security Strategy Monday in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.

The document, said to run 70 pages, is more than twice as long as the previous strategy document published by the Obama administration in 2015. It is an attempt to flesh out the president’s vision of U.S. foreign policy, which he has shorthanded as “America first.”

Here are five things you should know about the strategy:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/5-things-you-should-know-about-trumps-new-national-security-strategy/article/2643649

I could not find anything different in his speech from an Obama speech…all in all it was the least credible speech so far….

The Trump administration’s just-released National Security Strategy (NSS) is, unsurprisingly, the least credible document in the history of US foreign policy-making. Its words are a poor match with US actions since January. They also bear little resemblance to the speech Trump gave for the rollout of the NSS itself, which emphasised nativist tropes about America as a victim on the world stage. Pundits anticipated as much even before the NSS was released, and they were right.

But just because what the document says cannot be taken at face value does not mean the document is devoid of worth. America’s new NSS reveals much to those who might look to it for meaning rather than guidance or expectations of policies to come.

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/what-least-credible-document-us-strategic-history-reveals

The US has done nothing but make matters internationally worse for almost a year and this document does little to change to course.