Month: March 2018

“Under Pressure”

By now the world has witnessed the protests being lead by students of the school last visited by gun violence…….too many are bad mouthing the students for their activism even to the point of claiming that they are puppets or even actors….

One FOX anchor person even went so far to try and bully a 17 year old…..it backfired miserably (but what can you expect from anyone on FOX)…in case your nose picking got in the way of your current events…

Laura Ingraham offered an apology to Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg Thursday—after multiple major advertisers heeded his call to pull their ads from her Fox News show. Hogg, who has become a prominent gun-control advocate since the mass shooting, called for the boycott after Ingraham taunted him for “whining” about being rejected from colleges, the New York Times reports. “On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland,” Ingraham tweeted Thursday, inviting the 17-year-old to appear on her show.

At least nine advertisers have announced their intention to boycott Ingraham’s show, including TripAdvisor, Nestle, Hulu, Wayfair, Nutrish, and Stitch Fix, reports the Hill. “In our view, these statements focused on a high school student cross the line of decency,” TripAdvisor said. Hogg rejected Ingraham’s apology, noting that it was only issued after advertisers started pulling out. “I will only accept your apology only if you denounce the way your network has treated my friends and I in this fight,” he tweeted. “It’s time to love thy neighbor, not mudsling at children.” The Washington Post notes that the episode shows the Parkland survivors have power “not just in organizing rallies but in spurring corporate America to act.”

BTW in about 24 hours she lost 4 sponsors and she offered an apology…but it was a typical Right Wing apology….tried to toot their horn and not a heart felt apology just trying to save their butts…did she mean her apology?  Only to the point that her career would suffer….so NO not sincere.

When I saw this and read the news I immediately thought of the Queen song…..

The grand kids of the 70’s protesters…..so activism must be like male baldness….skips a generation…..

The vile response of Right Wingers to these kids has me worried for their safety……in the same thought I am proud of their activism.

Some even claim some protesters want to kill gun owners…..

A Republican state lawmaker in North Carolina claimed this week that speakers at the March For Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C. on March 24 — many of them shooting Parkland shooting survivors — wanted to “murder” gun owners. She provided no evidence to support her outlandish accusation.

“They’re out to take your guns, and our freedoms,” State Rep. Beverly Boswell wrote in a Facebook post on Monday, above a photo of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students Tyra Hemans and Emma Gonzalez, who lived through a mass shooting at their school last month that left 17 people dead.

My time is nigh…..sorry had to wax poetic……be well, be safe….hope to see you guys tomorrow….chuq

PS:  After I wrote this draft news has been leaked that Laura will take next week off from her gig on FOX.  Is she being punished or is she going into hiding to wait this storm out?

Plus the total number of lost sponsors has hit a dozen probably more by now…..

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The Red Snake

It is Saturday and I am in an historic frame of mind…..

I am a member of a program that takes mere civilians to analyze satellite images for possible archeological sites…..while looking at an image of Northern Iran I spotted a long line that looked like a wall of about 120 miles in length…..I know that there are a few walls that are very long…the Great Wall of China and Hadrian’s Wall in Britain……being the geek I started researching for a possible explanation and after awhile I found one……

The ‘Red Snake’ in northern Iran, which owes its name to the red colour of its bricks, is at least 195km long. A canal, 5m deep or more, conducted water along most of the Wall. Its continuous gradient, designed to ensure regular water flow, bears witness to the skills of the land-surveyors responsible for marking out the Wall’s route. Over 30 forts are lined up along this massive structure.

Their combined size is about three times that of those on Hadrian’s Wall. Yet these forts are small in comparison with contemporary fortifications in the hinterland, some of which are around ten times larger than the largest Wall forts. The ‘Red Snake’ is unmatched in so many respects and an enigma in yet more. Even its length is unclear: its western terminal was flooded by the rising waters of the Caspian Sea, while to the east it runs into the unexplored mountainous landscape of the Elburz Mountains. An Iranian team, under the direction of Jebrael Nokandeh, has been exploring this Great Wall since 1999. In 2005 it became a joint Iranian and British project.

http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/_The_Red_Snake_The_Great_Wall_of_Iran.htm

So I did not find a new site but I got to do what I enjoy…..research….

Your history lesson is complete……

Enjoy your day….chuq

Closing Thought–31Mar18–#2

I had to break with my tradition of one closing thought on week days……I break it because of the news of another American death in Syria….

A roadside bomb in northern Syria killed two coalition personnel, including an American, and wounded five others in a rare attack since the US-led coalition sent troops into the war-torn country, a US defense official said Friday. The military didn’t say where the attack took place, but it came hours after a Syrian official said a roadside bomb exploded in the tense, mixed Arab-Kurdish town of Manbij not far from the border with Turkey, per the AP. A US military statement said the attack happened Thursday night and that the wounded were being evacuated. A DOD official in DC said one of the two killed was an American service member and the other was of another nationality that the official wouldn’t specify. No other information on the American was immediately available.

Earlier Friday, US military rep Col. Ryan Dillon couldn’t yet say who was behind the attack. “We have our initial assessment and thoughts … but we won’t provide [them] until [an] investigation is complete,” he said. Dillon added the coalition has had other fatalities in Syria over the past three years, though “perhaps by different means.” The head of the Manbij Military Council, an Arab-Kurdish group backed by the US, said the bomb went off around midnight hundreds of yards from a security headquarters that houses the council. The town has seen small explosions, protests, and an assassination attempt on a council member in recent weeks. Local officials blame Turkey and other adversaries for trying to sow chaos in the town that was controlled by ISIS militants until the summer of 2016.

Sad news indeed…..IST sends our condolences to his family.

I wish that these posts were a thing of the past….we are reporting too many deaths in too many endless wars.

Closing Thought–31Mar18

Yesterday (I believe) Trump made a speech to some union types in Ohio and as usual he rambled on and on, a campaign type speech of ad libs he even gave a shout out to Rosanne’s new show and her ratings…..what made him think that workers in Ohio would give a crap about Roseanne and her new show?

AS I said he rattled on and on but then he did say something that many news outlets missed…..it made my ears perk up…..

The U.S. will be leaving Syria “very soon”, President Donald Trump said Thursday.

“We’ll be coming out of Syria like very soon. Let the other people take care of it now,” he told supporters during a speech in Ohio about his infrastructure proposal. “We’re going to have 100 percent of the caliphate, as they call it — sometimes referred to as land. We’re taking it all back quickly.”

Trump continued to slam U.S. spending in the Middle East, calling it futile and argued that it detracts from domestic spending.

“We spent seven trillion dollars in the Middle East and you know what we have for it? Nothing,” he said.

I find that I am in agreement with him but that is not unusual I agree with him on many foreign policy ideas during his campaign…..but that soon disappeared.

My question is…..is this a new policy or his usual bullsh*t that Trump is noted for?

As an opponent to our endless wars I find this statement encouraging but then I have heard him make so many promises and done so little of them that I am skeptical…..my money is on just more Trumpian BS.

I bow out for the day to begin my weekend…..may you have a enjoyable one also….chuq

Once And Future Infowars

Well first the Infowars in this post has nothing to with the site from the uber-conspiracist, Alex Jones….or the tin foil hat crowd…..

We have seen how social media has played into our elections and the spread of crappy world views….some might even say “fake news”…..but the future of social media is in question….maybe not by everyone but some at least……

A new book covers this subject……..

Violence, like Twitter, is a means of communication. If we do not understand it as such, its place in international relations makes no sense. As Thomas Schelling wrote in 1966: “The power to hurt is bargaining power. To exploit it is diplomacy — vicious diplomacy, but diplomacy.” Thinkers such as Joseph Nye and John Arquilla have argued that future wars will be determined by “whose story wins” more than who wins on the battlefield. Any analysis of narratives affecting war, however, must explain how violence itself shapes and destroys narratives. Violence may be a terrible way of communicating, but it will always be the ultimate way for states to signal their intentions and capabilities when discourse fails.

Journalist David Patrikarakos’ War in 140 Characters is an extremely rewarding, yet hopeless attempt to argue that new information technology — specifically, social media — has fundamentally “destabilized classic forms of war” and suggest that something new is upon us. According to Patrikarakos, social media is “one thing above all else: effect without cause.” As a result, it has given actors without any resources the ability to have an impact on what he calls the “narrative” and “discursive” levels of war, at which actors interpret the truth and political meaning of military action. Since the narrative and discursive levels of war have a greater impact on the political outcome of a war than military operations, effective tweeting can make battles irrelevant. And since non-state actors are better at tweeting than the West’s discredited institutions, they have gained an unprecedented advantage. The pernicious effects of battlefield social media thus threaten “the very idea that wars between state and non-state actors are asymmetric.”

https://warontherocks.com/2018/03/the-once-and-future-infowars/

It is up in the air on the future of social media….Facebook has called into question the security on these sites and points to ways they can be exploited.

Personally, I have never trusted any of them as far as I could spit them….my footprint on social media is very small to the point of being damn near none existent.

I have no confidence still and will continue to use them sparingly.

What The Hell Happened To ISIS?

#######Warning:  Strong language to follow######

The question pertains to Al-Qaeda also…..

The news these days is a porn queen and lawyers and Russia….what the fuck happen to those darn pesky radical Islamic extremists?  Did we kick the a/holes back to the Stone Age?

First of all, if you have ever been to Iraq or Syria these days that Age would not be a very long goddamn trip.

But really…what the shit is going on with our well funded War on Terror?

These are the question that a well informed American should be asking…..but Nooooooo they are too goddamn busy slobbering over some large boob blonde and her duel with the Donald.

If you have had enough of this damn silly lawyer fest then let me take you to where the rubber hits the road…..

The Middle East is far from fucking rid of the terrorists……..

No amount of money, reconstruction, or reconciliation will undo the cumulative effects of decades of collective war in Iraq and Syria. Once this conclusion is accepted, it is productive to define what the current insurgency evolves from and may become. To provide a baseline of understanding, an insurgency can be defined as an “insurrection against an existing government, usually one’s own, by a group not recognized as having the status of a belligerent.” The next generation of belligerents will give a sense of unpleasant familiarity to those they face as they redefine ways and means to unchanged ends. This article will explore the vague future for insurgencies in the region and attempt to add clarity to what the insurgencies that may rise from the ashes of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) could look like. This article will also prescribe ways the Iraqi government, local governments in western Iraq and eastern Syria, and the international community, can mitigate the drivers of these insurgencies.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/03/15/post-isis_antagonists_and_the_looming_struggle_113201.html

Then there is AQ…….the lack of news would have you believe that we have kicked their asses and the death of Big Bad Bin Laden has ended their stranglehold on the terror genre…..if so then you are so fucking wrong…..

While the self-proclaimed Islamic State has dominated the headlines and preoccupied national security officials for the past four years, al-Qaeda has been quietly rebuilding. Its announcement last summer of another affiliate—this one dedicated to the liberation of Kashmir—coupled with the resurrection of its presence in Afghanistan and the solidification of its influence in Syria, Yemen, and Somalia, underscores the resiliency and continued vitality of the United States’ preeminent terrorist enemy.

Although al-Qaeda’s rebuilding and reorganization predates the 2011 Arab Spring, the upheaval that followed helped the movement revive itself. At the time, an unbridled optimism among local and regional rights activists and Western governments held that a combination of popular protest, civil disobedience, and social media had rendered terrorism an irrelevant anachronism. The longing for democracy and economic reform, it was argued, had decisively trumped repression and violence. However, where the optimists saw irreversible positive change, al-Qaeda discerned new and inviting opportunities.

https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/al-qaedas-resurrection

On so many levels this is far more important than the lawyers and the Russian accusations…..

Saudis: Masters Of BS

Since the beginning of our newest president he has been coddling the Saudis….his first international trip was to gravel to the Saudis and now he is floating the idea that the Saudis can be trusted with nuke power…..

Administration reports on President Trump’s discussions with the Saudi Crown Prince neglected a major topic of discussion: Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions. Subsequent reports reveal that the nuclear program was a topic of discussion, though to what extent still isn’t totally clear.

In recent days, the crown prince has talked openly of wanting nuclear arms “as soon as possible” if they believe Iran will get them. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir confirmed this, and used virtually identical language in doing so.

Now Iran isn’t attempting to get nuclear weapons, but President Trump’s expected blowing up of the P5+1 nuclear deal could mean Iran withdraws its civilian program from certain obligations under the treaty, and that’s likely to set off a bunch of wild speculation that they are. The Saudis are clearly laying the groundwork for their own reaction.

Officials say President Trump is considering allowing Saudi Arabia to enrich its own uranium with US-made centrifuges. There is also talk of the US building nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia. All this would purely be civilian use.

(antiwar.com)

Really?   The Saudis are not acting as a responsible leader for the Middle East…..but rather as a loose cannon…….

Saudi Arabia’s thirty-two-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is touring the West seeking to buy arms and encourage investment. A stop in Washington was mandatory.

The de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, known as MbS, has been busy wreaking havoc internationally, punishing political enemies domestically, loosening social controls at home, and burnishing his image abroad. Amid rising opposition to Saudi-generated carnage in Yemen, the Trump administration appears to be abandoning proliferation concerns in seeking to sell nuclear reactors—even as it complains about Iran’s presumed nuclear ambitions.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/saudi-arabia-has-become-geopolitical-loose-cannon-24982

What price did Trump demand for siding with the Saudis?  Or is the nukes for the Saudis the price that the US must pay for some reason or another?

Closing Thought–29Mar18

Since the president fired Tillerson at State via Text the replacement has gotten lots of press…..the replacement would be John Bolton….a war monger from the word go…..but there are a few things that we all should know about our SecState……

1. Bolton wants to shred the Iran nuclear deal…and bomb Iran. Bolton hates the nuclear deal that was signed under Obama’s watch not only by the U.S. and Iran, but also by Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the EU. Although the deal is working and even Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said it is in our national interest, Bolton calls the Iran deal a massive strategic blunder. On May 12, when Trump is required to re-certify that Iran has been complying with the deal, Bolton makes it more likely that the US will pull out of the deal, triggering a major international crisis. Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, says, “People, let this be very clear: The appointment of Bolton is essentially a declaration of war with Iran.”

2. Bolton is in bed with an Iranian terrorist organization called MEK, a fringe group that was listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States until 2012 and is still considered a terrorist organization inside Iran. Bolton routinely meets with and accepts payments from the group, which has been responsible for the murder of American soldiers, the attempted kidnapping of a U.S. Ambassador, and many violent attacks inside Iran. Bolton considers the MEK a ‘viable opposition’ that he wants to use to overthrow the Iranian government. With Bolton in power, one of the most detested Iranian cults will be treated by the US government as legitimate representatives of the Iranian people.

3. Bolton will jeopardize talks with North Korea. The world breathed a sigh of relief at the announcement that Presidents Trump and Kim Jung-un would meet in May. But with Bolton, that meeting may never take place, or could be disastrous. Bolton says, “Talking to North Korea is worse than a mere waste of time. Negotiations legitimize the dictatorship, affording it more time to enhance its nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities.” Instead of talks, Bolton has called for the United States to launch a preemptive strike against North Korea, a strike that could spark a nuclear war.

4. Bolton hates the United Nations and international law. When George Bush nominated Bolton to be UN ambassador in 2005, he proved so controversial to even the Republican-controlled Senate that Bush had to sneak him in as a “recess appointment” when Congress was not in session. It is one thing to be critical of the UN but Bolton opposes its very existence. “There is no such thing as the United Nations,” he once said, adding, “If the U.N. Secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a lot of difference.” More than that, he is hostile to the concept of international law, having once declared, “It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so—because over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrain the United States.”

5. Bolton was a key instigator of the Iraq war and has no regrets. He was a major figure (along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld) pushing for the invasion of Iraq. During the Bush presidency, when he was Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control, he helped fabricate evidence about weapons of mass destruction that led to the March 2003 invasion. And he is one of the few original advocates for that war who still insist it was a good idea.

6. Bolton provided false information about Cuba. As Undersecretary of State, Bolton claimed that Havana was attempting to develop biological weapons and sell them to rogue regimes. Then he tried to fire two intelligence analysts who challenged his erroneous allegations. Bolton has also urged that stronger sanctions be imposed on Cuba, and put Cuba on his “axis of evil” list.

7. He is no friend of the Palestinians. When he was at the United Nations, he constantly protected Israel by vetoing all UN resolutions targeting Israel. Bolton praised Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, breaking with decades of international consensus that the disputed city’s status must be negotiated between the two sides. He opposes a Palestinian state, saying, “I don’t think there are institutions on the Palestinian side that can live up to the commitments of a treaty with Israel….or could resist takeover by terrorist elements.” His solution? Get rid of Palestinians by merging Gaza with Egypt and the West Bank with Jordan.

8. Bolton will create new problems with China.  He has been an ardent supporter of diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, and was paid by the Taiwanese government. He advised the Trump administration to reconsider the “One China” policy, an agreement made in 1972 that requires countries to choose between diplomatic relations with China or diplomatic relations with Taiwan. His antagonistic stance toward China could have a negative impact on issues ranging from North Korea and the South China Sea to cyberspace and trade.

9. He hangs out with Islamophobes. Bolton has a decade-long history of associating with anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller, appearing on her internet radio program “Atlas on the Air” and on her video blog. Geller is well-known for her inflammatory public comments about Muslims and the idea that they are trying to impose Sharia law in the US. Bolton wrote the foreword to the book she co-wrote with fellow anti-Islamist Robert Spencer called “The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America.”

This next one is silly but should hold some validity….it is just cheesy!

10. His white walrus mustache should immediately disqualify him. According to former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, president-elect Trump passed on nominating John Bolton to a senior Cabinet position because he didn’t like Bolton’s signature mustache. With his hairy upper lip, Bolton just didn’t “look the part.” We agree. Trump should immediately rescind the offer in favor of someone with less facial hair.

If you would like a more in-depth profile then I have a site for you……

http://lobelog.com/john-bolton-the-essential-profile/

Now you know…..peace out my friends…..

The American Way Of War

Think back to what was once called The Cold War……that period of time after WW2 when the US and the USSR were engaged it a influence peddling……

The American way of war — using overpowering industrial might, crushing firepower, and owning the sea and skies — may have come to an end, a top Pentagon official says.

For the past two decades, “the Chinese and the Russians have been working to undermine that model,” said Elbridge Colby, deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development. By spending billions on modernizing their militaries and fielding new technologies like artificial intelligence and hypersonic missiles at a faster clip than the Americans, the two countries have changed the way the United States must approach future conflict.

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/03/the-end-of-the-american-way-of-war-the-cold-war-really-is-over/

In the 1990’s they say that the Cold War ended when the USSR collapsed and the country sunk into chaos……and out of that chaotic period the US and Russia are still playing the same games that they played during the hay days of the Cold War.

We cannot keep using tactics from the 1950’s……the playing field has changed and the US needs to re-think its foreign policy…..

What kind of job can you have where you are consistently wrong, yet get to still go on TV talking endlessly and making more wild predictions that will no doubt lead to the same failed result?

If you guessed “TV Weatherman” you’re close…but the job I’m referring to is “Neocon Foreign Policy Expert”

Being a neocon means never having to say you’re sorry, even trillions of dollars and decades into doomed wars.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/rand-paul-its-time-new-american-foreign-policy-24862

Yes sports fans we need to stop playing a crappy game and formulate a system that works…..

Let’s Go To The Speculation

For decades I have bitched about the endless speculation by the media when our elections roll around…..their predictions have been really wrong in the past….the last couple of elections have proven just how wrong they can be…..I Have witnessed it first hand and so have most Americans yet they allow the MSM to dictate to them or better yet they allow the confusion to keep them from exercising their right to vote…..

The WaPo has decided to cover this tactic in a recent article…..

Where were you on the night of Nov. 8, 2016? If you’re like many political junkies, you were watching election night coverage and wondering not whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would win but might Clinton do so well that she’d win in places like Texas and Arizona.

When she lost, many on both sides of the aisle were shocked. After all, forecasters gave her odds of winning that ranged from 70 to 99 percent. These statistical win-forecasts are increasingly prominent and widely shared — thanks in part to the work of sites like FiveThirtyEight, the Huffington Post, the New York Times Upshot and the Princeton Election Consortium.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/03/22/how-election-forecasts-confuse-americans-and-may-lead-them-not-to-vote-at-all/

We are only a few short months from the mid-terms and the MSM has been bombarding the airways already…all in prep work for the vote….I agree that all this speculation is turning off people from voting……I mean think about it…..about 49% of the voting public actually votes anymore…that is a sad stat….DO NOT let the endless speculation turn you off from voting…..exercise your right and maybe then we can get a government that we can be proud of…we have seen what happens when we allow crap to be elected.  DO NOT allow it to happen again!

Please do not depend on the media and its speculation when you vote…you see what we got this last general election….weak minds produce candidates like Trump…..