Category Archives: Privacy

Is It 20 January Yet?

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It’s always someone else’s fault with these Democrats.

At a final press conference in Washington, DC Thursday….

Kerry disagreed with the narrative that Obama failed to enforce the red line, however, saying the president did intend to act—but was steered off course after the British Parliament narrowly voted against bombing Syria in August 2013.

The motorboat skipper said this:

The president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, did decide to use force. And he announced his decision publicly and said we’re going to act, we’re going to do what we need to do to respond to this blatant violation of international law and of warnings and of the red line he had chosen[.]

Now, we were marching towards that time when, lo and behold…before the Friday decision, Prime Minister David Cameron went to Parliament…and he sought a vote of approval for him to join in the action that we were going to engage in. And guess what? The Parliament voted no. They shot him down.

They shot him down.  !?  It’s the Brits’ fault?  No, not a bit of it.  President-On-The-Way-Out Barack Obama (D) and his motorboat pilot were too timid to act on their own.  Obama and Kerry were so used to popping off that they never thought they’d actually be expected to honor their commitment, and so when al Assad called their bluff, they cut and ran for their desk bottoms.  (Would it have helped if James Taylor had sung, in the Rose Garden, about having a friend?)

Say, though, arguendo, that the Parliament vote was somehow legitimately influential in getting Obama to walk away from his proudly announced red line.  The outcome remains: Obama failed to enforce the red line.  Full stop.

Nile Gardiner, Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom Director, had this:

[Kerry’s remarks are] a reflection of a broader disdain for Britain that runs through the Obama presidency[.]

No, it’s much worse and much broader than that.  How despicable can one administration be?

Slow-Motion Surrender

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Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian industrialist and philanthropist, seems to want one.  Here’s his suggestion in a Wall Street Journal op-ed with the subheadline Crimea should not get in the way of a deal that ends the war. The lives that will be saved are worth it.  In particular, Pinchuk recommends the following for Ukraine to agree:

  • Ukraine should consider temporarily eliminating European Union membership from our stated goals for the near future. We can build a European country, be a privileged partner, and later discuss joining.
  • While we maintain our position that Crimea is part of Ukraine and must be returned, Crimea must not get in the way of a deal that ends the war in the east on an equitable basis. It will take Ukraine 15 to 20 years to generate enough economic growth and stabilize our infrastructure, social safety net and financial system. Everyone from Crimea will then want to live in this future Ukraine—just as East Germans wanted to become part of West Germany.
  • Conflict in the east was initiated from abroad and is not a genuine autonomy movement or civil war. There will not be conditions for fair elections until Ukraine has full control over its territory. But we may have to overlook this truth and accept local elections. Such compromises may mean letting down Ukrainians from the east who have suffered enormously. But if this is what it takes to demonstrate Ukraine’s commitment to peaceful reunification, then we may have to make this compromise to save thousands of lives.
    We must focus on helping those who had to leave their hometowns, and cannot return to live under repressive and unsafe conditions, by offering them all possible support to rebuild their lives in a new reality.
  • Finally, let’s accept that Ukraine will not join NATO in the near- or midterm. The offer is not on the table, and if it were, it could lead to an international crisis of unprecedented scope. For now, we should pursue an alternative security arrangement and accept neutrality as our near-term vision for the future.

No.  This is nothing but slow-motion surrender.

And give up Crimea, even for “only” those 15-20 years—a generation—as the price of peace?  Neville Chamberlain tried that, and got Anschluss.  That’s what Russia is doing today with its partition of Crimea and its occupation of two oblasts and parts of a third in eastern Ukraine.

Crimea should not get in the way of a deal that ends the war. The lives that will be saved are worth it.

No, surrendering seized territory, whether Crimea or those other oblasts, just rewards the invasion and occupation, and it encourages further such invasions and occupations—at the cost not just of sovereignty of the victim nations but of far more lives, as well.

Federal Green Expenditures

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Watts Up With That has some ideas for budget cutting in the next administration.  Or, actually, these ideas come from Salon (!) via WUWT (never mind that cutting isn’t what Salon meant).

  • Energy Department

2017 climate-related budget: $8.5 billion

  • Interior Department

2017 climate-related budget: $1.1 billion

  • State Department

2017 climate-related budget: $984 million

  • NASA

2017 climate-related budget: $1.9 billion

  • Environmental Protection Agency

2017 climate-related budget: $1.1 billion

  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

2017 climate-related research and development: $190 million

That works out to $13.8 billion of “useless waste.”  Yes, indeedy.

While we’re about it, let’s cut the “green” subsidies, too.  Every single one of them.  The fossil fuel (coal, oil, and gas) enterprises don’t need the $3-$5 billion (depending on who gets asked) in subsidies they get, either.  That’s yet more budget cutting.19+, although fossil fuels get much less than the “green” money being tossed down rat holes.

Why Trump Needs To Stop Ditching The Press Pool

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At least that’s what Juan Williams thinks in his Fox News piece last Thursday.  He’s far from the only pressman who thinks so, too.

It seems that President-elect Donald Trump was rude enough to want to have dinner out with a few folks without the madding crowd of papparazi and other reporters hanging over their shoulders.  So he and his group evaded the press pool that was following him around.

“THERE’S GUNFIRE—WE’RE MOVING THE PRESIDENT.”

I heard those scary words from a Secret Service agent on October 23, 1983. I was covering President Reagan for The Washington Post and happened to be near the tiny group of journalists—the so-called “presidential press pool,” as he attended the Master’s golf tournament.

Then, as the president was leaving the Augusta National Golf Club the news broke that 241 American servicemen had been killed when terrorists bombed the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.

Those were chaotic moments.

Those were the chaotic paragraphs with which Williams opened his screed over Trump’s presuming to decline to not cater to the self-important press.  This sort of thing is an outlier, too, and unlikely to be missed just because a President wants a (relatively) quiet dinner on the town.

Similarly, Trump did not take a press pool with him when he went to the White House last week for his first sit-down with President Obama. He did not have reporters on the plane he used during the campaign.

How rude!  He didn’t bring a gaggle with him to a business meeting.  Cluck, cluck.

These pressmen choose not to consider factors involved in Trump’s decision to ditch the press so he and his family could enjoy a steak dinner, to take one of these plaints.  Personal, individual decisions (which don’t matter to the NLMSM, since they don’t see Americans as individuals, they only see us as either cookie cutter, interchangeable, correct consumers of their stuff or as cookie cutter, interchangeable racists and homophobes who disagree with them), like other folks wanting to go to a restaurant to enjoy a steak dinner.

Now, when a President wants to go anywhere—a steakhouse, let’s say—he unavoidably must be accompanied by his Secret Service protection detail.  These additional six men and women (to pick a number for discussion’s sake) are going to take up space in that restaurant, but that’s unavoidable, and these men and women know how to be discrete and unobtrusive—that’s part of their protection job.

But the press?  They’re crowding around asking questions—loudly, so as to be heard above their fellows—pushing microphones and cameras aggressively, so as to get the audio and the video.  It’s their job to be heard and to be as disruptive as necessary in order to get their question(s) to be the one the President answers.  They’ll even try to get “reaction” shots and questions asked of the other patrons in that restaurant.  And that’s enormously disruptive, to the restaurant, to those other diners trying to enjoy their steak dinners, even to the passersby on the sidewalk outside.

Do the pressmen care?  Not a bit.  These self-important ones care only about their stories and their bylines.

Don’t ditch the press all the time, Mr President.  But unhesitatingly ditch them on occasion when you want to be out and about and don’t want to interfere with the doings of others who also want to be out and about and happen to be near you at the time.

Honeypots

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In the cyber world, a honeypot

consists of data (for example, in a network site) that appears to be a legitimate part of the site but is actually isolated and monitored, and that seems to contain information or a resource of value to attackers, which are then blocked.

Of course, nothing prevents nefarious persons or entities from using honeypots to draw in honest folks for nefarious purposes.  Purposes like the following.

The trove of leaked Democratic National Committee emails posted to Wikileaks on July 22 has sparked concerns about malware as users access the vast trove of documents.
…
On the day of the leak, Google’s Transparency Report warned users of dangerous downloads from Wikileaks.org. Google has not revealed specifically what was detected….

Malware was detected in the Global Intelligence Files dumped last year by Wikileaks, too.  Further, Wikileaks actually could be a victim in this malware ploy, too: they do little of their own hacking, getting their stuff from other sources.  One of their sources already has been implicated in the recent hacks of Democratic Party IT facilities like the DNC, DNCC, and Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign email servers, along with Clinton’s official State Department business personal email server: Russia is suspected of conducting these particular hacks.

Are these guys—Russians, Chines, ordinary thieves—setting up other botnets?  Setting up sources for stealing personal financial data or data useful for blackmail or data useful for espionage, with these sources to be tapped at a time of convenience in the future?  Setting up something else?