Reverie

We haven't yet learned how to stay human when assembled in masses. -Lewis Thomas, physician and author

 
From around 2009 to 2013, the U.S. intelligence community experienced crippling intelligence failures related to the secret internet-based communications system, a key means for remote messaging between CIA officers and their sources on the ground worldwide. The previously unreported global problem originated in Iran and spiderwebbed to other countries, and was left unrepaired — despite warnings about what was happening — until more than two dozen sources died in China in 2011 and 2012 as a result, according to 11 former intelligence and national security officials.

Who was ....Sharon Tate?

The mainstream left-wing media, along with left-wing Jewish organizations and media, told us every day for months after Trump's election that anti-Semitism had greatly increased. They cited the great number of Jewish Community Centers that received bomb threats. It turned out, however, that about 90% of those threats were called in by a mentally disturbed American Jewish teenager living in Israel, and the other 10% were made by a black radical seeking to frame his ex-girlfriend. So, the claim eventually vanished from the news..--Prager

 

A new study released by the Urban Institute found that “18 percent of Arkansas residents lack internet access at home or through their cell phones, adding to the challenges many low-income individuals face in trying to meet Medicaid work requirements.”

Insurance is a business of risk prediction, regardless of the subject in question. By pooling risk, it provides individual protection against low-probability, high-risk events — an essential need fulfilled by catastrophic coverage plans. In contrast, comprehensive coverage constitutes a pre-payment plan and should fall outside the scope of insurance.

European Court of Human Rights upheld an Austrian court verdict that a woman should be punished for casting aspersions on the Islamic biography of Muhammad, the Muslim prophet, who married a child bride named Aisha. The ECHR cited the woman as having said that Muhammad "liked to do it with children." The court also quoted her as saying: "A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? ... What do we call it, if it is not pedophilia?" She was fined about $550. A panel of seven judges from Germany, France, Ireland, Latvia, Azerbaijan and Georgia ruled unanimously that "the domestic courts comprehensively assessed the wider context of the applicant's statements and carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected." (Emphasis added.)

What are the Saudis doing in Yemen?

The Left has apparently decided not to like the Russians, this after generations of support. There are some real reasons, aside from their homicidal philosophy, their homicidal history and their homicidal behavior. The Brits are rightly furious at the Russian assassination on their soil. This is interesting in that context:

Russians have invaded more than 100 electric power companies in the U.S. in the last four years. DHS reports that these Russians "got to the point where they could have thrown switches" and shut off power. But they did not.

In the Ukraine, they did. They flipped the switches on three Ukrainian utilities on Dec. 23, 2015.

The U.S. is harder to cripple than the Ukraine. America has not one but rather three power grids fed by 8,000 generating plants and several thousand distribution utilities. Con Edison uses different software from Pacific Gas & Electric. That decentralization means even a successful attack would likely affect only a region, not the entire nation.

It will be interesting to see if the Americans take this as seriously as they take "public opinion meddling."

America’s net petroleum imports during the first half of this year reached a 60-year low of less than 15%, the lowest level since 1958, the year when Eisenhower was president.

Sharon Tate and four others were killed by Manson's people in 1969 in a very strange event that looked a lot like group madness. But the hallmark of madness is its inability to bond, to relate.

A second atom bomb was dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan’s unconditional surrender.

The devastation wrought at Hiroshima was not sufficient to convince the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference’s demand for unconditional surrender.

Even though the War Council still remained divided (“It is far too early to say that the war is lost,” opined the Minister of War), Emperor Hirohito, by request of two War Council members eager to end the war, met with the Council and declared that “continuing the war can only result in the annihilation of the Japanese people…” The Emperor of Japan gave his permission for unconditional surrender.

Despite our confidence in analysis and numbers, the number of deaths is uncertain, somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000.

“The rights of individuals to their Millian liberties [are] directly opposed to the basic social commitment to a deliberately embraced collective moral goal… Under socialism, every dissenting voice raises a threat similar to that raised under a democracy by those who preach antidemocracy.” --from the socialist economist Robert Heilbroner

So democracy will permit the speech of bigots, fascists, revolutionaries and communists but socialism will not permit the speech of their opponents. This sounds like a very serious distinction, closer to theocracy than politics.

Regarding the Saudi-Canada kerfuffle: "It's pretty clear that [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] is using Canada to send a message to the rest of the world that if you want to trade with Saudi Arabia, then you need to shut up on human rights," said Nader Hashemi, director of the University of Denver's Center for Middle East Studies at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies. 

It will be interesting to see how the activists respond to this clear affront of human rights. Will they support the Canadians? Will they fly off to Saudi Arabia and let their voices be heard? Or maybe a nice event in Des Moines followed by a Starbucks.

Golden oldie:

https://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2013/09/amleth-hamlet-and-host-of-characters.html

Amleth, Hamlet and a Host of Characters An 11th-12th century Danish saga entitled "Amleth" tells the tale of Feng murdering his brother, Horwendil, in order to marry Gerutha, H... steeleydock.blogspot.com

Debt allows you to enjoy a higher standard of living today, at the expense of having a lower standard of living tomorrow.

Saving allows you to have a higher standard of living tomorrow, at the expense of having a lower standard of living today.

In justifying American independence, Jefferson drew generously from the political philosophy of John Locke, an advocate of natural rights, and from the work of other British theorists. The declaration features the immortal lines “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It then goes on to present a long list of grievances that provided the American rationale for rebellion.

The US is now the third-most indebted country in the world (as measured by total debt-to-GDP), behind Japan and Italy. If debt is borrowing from the future, that means these three countries should have a lower standard of living in the future--unless they can grow out of it.

According to Mom, (and Quora), the Europeans hate the Americans' politeness as artificial and insincere. But isn't politeness a simple extension of manners, an arbitrary and harmless grease in the social wheels? Is this really worth indignation?

The Taliban in Pakistan has opposed the polio vaccine as a polluting Western intrusion. Polio, declared officially ended in 1980, is making a resurgence in Pakistan now.

In a similar vein, the SARS infection was allowed to become a pandemic when the Chinese hid evidence of the infection. Like Chernobyl, the totalitarians see everything in a different light and, consequently, fear all light.

Shapiro challenged Ocasio-Cortez to a debate. She said she did not need to respond, that such a request, with bad intentions, was "like catcalling." I think that is just a great line. But it is interesting that she turned Shapiro's essentially intellectual challenge into harassment. Very clever--and telling.

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (ie the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (ie the standards of thought) no longer exist.”--Arandt

This is a very important idea.

Scarcity and its discontents: Recently in Portland, an “intersectional” feminist bookstore (“intersectionality” postulates that society’s victims — basically, everyone but white males — suffer interlocking and overlapping victimizations), which appeared in the television series “Portlandia,” closed. It blamed its failure not on a scarcity of customers but on an excess of “capitalism,” “white supremacy” and “patriarchy.”

In the Manafort trial, Washington insiders are admitting to a wide array of crimes. Shocking.

In their criminal Biopreparat project, the Russians tried to combine Ebola with smallpox to increase its staying power. Ebola killed too quickly and required contact to spread; and most people under 30 were not vaccinated in the U.S. against smallpox. (Think about that for a second. They were targeting children. They were not trying to defeat their enemies, they wanted to depopulate them.) It never quite worked. There was a defector from the program, a  Ken Alibek nee Colonel Kanatzhan  Alibekov. He was a physician and ran one of the five Russian units. (They called the Nazi commandant at Treblinka "the doctor" because he knew where the pain nerves were.) He lives in Georgetown now and seems to be quite the popular dinner guest.

Urban Meyer being held to probity standards of the NCAA football programs is like Trump being held to the high standards of politics.

"Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. . . . That is why idiots are always in favour of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favour of equality." GB Shaw said this in a revealing self-congratulatory moment. So...sometimes you're not smart enough to be a socialist.

Brazil has blocked its border with Venezuela. I can't wait for the next step by the righteous in this country.

The Economist's Adrian Wooldridge says that historically liberals understood that conflict was inevitable and tried to foster freedom based on their distrust of power, faith in progress and belief in civic respect. But today, Wooldridge writes, "liberalism as a philosophy has been captured by a technocratic-managerial-cosmopolitan elite."  They have moved from making "a critique of the existing power structure" to becoming "one of the most powerful elites in history." In response, we see "a revolt of the provinces against the city": Brexit, Donald Trump.

I saw an interview with someone named Owens after she was attacked at breakfast by a group calling itself Antifa. They should not call attention to her; she was terrific. (I don't know who she is or why she merits attention. It looks like she is a "commentator," or maybe a YouTube lady.)

This is the first year in 60 that Dick Lebeau was not at a professional football camp, 14 as a professional player, 46 as a coach. 60 years in pro ball.

aaaaaaAAAANNNNNDDDD......a graph: