Glenn Greenwald's take on the media allegations of Trump's collusion with Russia.
"Over and over, major U.S. media outlets have published claims about the Russia Threat that turned out to be completely false — always in the direction of exaggerating the threat and/or inventing incriminating links between Moscow and the Trump circle. In virtually all cases, those stories involved evidence-free assertions from anonymous sources that these media outlets uncritically treated as fact, only for it to be revealed that they were entirely false. "
Caroline Glick's take on US intelligence leaks. Her analysis of what is going on looks good, but I find her proposed solutions too simplistic.
the goal of this week’s leaks was to harm Trump. Israel was collateral damage.
The key point is that the leaks are coming from the same places in both cases.
All of them are members of the US intelligence community with exceedingly high security clearances. And all of them willingly committed felony offenses when they shared top secret information with reporters.
Russia seems to be planning military intervention in Libya, in addition to its newly strengthened positions in Syria and Egypt. This will have ramifications in Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Iran and Israel.
The dangers of secondhand smoke have been used to justify banning smoking in public places. This article reviews the evidence and finds the dangers wildly overstated. Using faulty science to stigmatize smokers has pushed them out of society and ignored their rights.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified new markings on the surface of the Red Planet that are believed to be related to ESA’s ExoMars Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing technology demonstrator module.
Schiaparelli entered the martian atmosphere at 14:42 GMT on 19 October for its 6-minute descent to the surface, but contact was lost shortly before expected touchdown. Data recorded by its mothership, the Trace Gas Orbiter, are currently being analysed to understand what happened during the descent sequence.
Now that acanuck has been outed as Justin Bieber (see "Would You Vote for Ted Cruz..."), I wonder what other celebrities are lurking behind Dagblog monikers. Suspected all along that "Ramona" was actually Kim Kardashian, but who really is behind the "Michael Wolraich" tag?
THE Oregon Shakespeare Festival has decided that Shakespeare’s language is too difficult for today’s audiences to understand. It recently announced that over the next three years, it will commission 36 playwrights to translate all of Shakespeare’s plays into modern English.
The article goes on to bemoan this, claiming that it doesn't matter if the audience doesn't understand the English. I'm curious about Doctor Cleveland's opinion.
Caroline Glick may be an avatar of the Angel of Death, but she writes well and convincingly. This article is a good example of the incredulity and scorn that US policy arouses in the outside world.
"Perhaps the shooters in San Bernadino were just mad at their boss. Maybe Farooq suffered from clinical depression or ADD, or PTSD, or something.
The writer claims that an Israeli nuclear strike on Iran is now likely, even inevitable.
An Israeli nuclear pre-emption is thus eminently thinkable. Every other option has been stripped away by Obama's decision, concealed from Israel, Congress and our allies until it was too late to challenge....
The die is now cast. Nuclear pre-emption becomes attractive to a nation in
extremis, where Israel is now
Using the Philadelphia derailment as a starting point, an Israeli editor tries to explain to his readers the lamentably decrepit state of American public institutions.
Yet the people who prevent investment in safety systems for trains are the same people who prevent investment in preventative health-care systems and other systems that ultimately save lives. They are Republicans.
Why is so much news coming out of Israel distorted and one-sided? The author, a former AP Jerusalem reporter and editor, gives many reasons. Partly, because reporters accept NGO press releases uncritically; partly, because reporters fear for their own safety; but mostly because of a sort of herd instinct.
"Most consumers of the Israel story don’t understand how the story is manufactured. But Hamas does."
Caroline Glick has been rightly described as "a world-class pessimist". I think she may be an avatar of the Angel of Death: her recommendations would nearly always lead to war. Nevertheless, she is coherent, interesting, and (sometimes) provides sources.
"Watching the undoing, in a week, of victories that US forces won in Iraq at great cost over many years, Americans are asking themselves what, if anything, should be done." (....)
Commentary has a summary of the Obama administration's record in the Middle-East. It makes for dismal reading.
I'd been wondering why Dagblog pays so little attention to foreign policy. The world outside is burning, but Dagbloggers are rolling around with their heads up their arses fighting over the US Civil War of 150-years ago (should whites pay reparations? Should southerners fly the flag?)
I thought it was because Wolraich was away writing a book, and Acanuck was seeing stars, but now I think there's a simpler explanation: embarrassment.
The author claims to have discovered that right-wingers are decent, pleasant, intelligent people. Someone will have to convince me that the same applies to left-wingers....
