Category: Media

The New York Times Uses the “L” Word

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By the “L” word, I mean that the Times is calling Donald Trump a liar, and they are actually using that word:

America has just lived through another presidential campaign week dominated by Donald Trump’s racist lies. Here’s a partial list of false statements: The United States is about to take in 250,000 Syrian refugees; African-Americans are responsible for most white homicides; and during the 9/11 attacks, “thousands and thousands” of people in an unnamed “Arab” community in New Jersey “were cheering as that building was coming down.”

In the Republican field, Mr. Trump has distinguished himself as fastest to dive to the bottom. If it’s a lie too vile to utter aloud, count on Mr. Trump to say it, often. It wins him airtime, and retweets through the roof.

It’s nice that they are calling a lie a lie, but there are a lot of other cases where the word, “lie”is completely justified.

It be a real public service if they were to call other liars out in no uncertain terms.

Human Sacrifice, Dogs and Cats Living Together… Mass Hysteria!

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In the realm of “Real end of the world stuff, Sarah Palin just showed some introspection, and assigned herself some blame.

It only took 7 years:

Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said in an interview that aired Sunday that the question CBS anchor Katie Couric asked her about what publications she read to form her views on foreign policy was “fair,” but that she gave a “crappy” answer.

Couric’s infamous interview with the former Alaska governor grabbed headlines because of Palin’s lackluster responses.

Couric asked Palin about the newspapers and magazines she read to form her views on foreign policy.

Palin responded that she had a “great appreciation” for the media, but when Couric pressed her to name some of the publications she read, Palin said “all of ’em, any of ’em that have been in front of me over all these years.”

Palin later said she was “taken aback” by the question.

In the interview that aired Sunday, Palin said the question was “fair.”

“I had a crappy answer,” she said. “But it was a fair question.”

It’s rare to see any politician to have this level of self awareness and humility.

To see it from “Caribou Barbie” is mind boggling.

This S%$ Keeps Popping Up

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This S%$ Keeps Popping Up
I keep hearing about a super Russian jammer that blocks all NATO Sensors at 600 km.

The reports are crap.

First the claims are literally incredible, by which I mean that they are impossible to believe.

They are supposed to hit all radars, sonars, electro-optical sensors, and navigation systems: (in Comic Sans font, no less)

From the combat zone in northern Syria comes news of the deployment of a new Russian electronic jamming system which can reportedly blind radar, disrupt electronic guidance systems, and interfere with satellite imagery as well. As a result, NATO is effectively blinded inside a bubble of 600 km in diameter centered on the Russian base at Latakia, reports, Thierry Meyssan from Damascus.

The technology in question seems similar to the KRET Richag-AV system, although it apparently functions on a larger scale. A tactical version of this system was presented to journalists in the Russian city of Back in April 2015. As Sputnik reported then:

“The Richag-AV system, mounted on the Mi-8MTPR1 (a variant of the Mi-8MTB5-1 helicopter) is said to have no global equivalent. Its electronic countermeasures system is designed to jam radar, sonar and other detection systems in the aims of defending aircraft, helicopters, drones, ground and naval forces against air-to-air and surface-to-air defense systems within a radius of several hundred kilometers. It can be mounted on units from any branch of the armed forces, including helicopters and airplanes, as well as ground and ship-based forces. The Mi8-MTPR1-based Richag-AV platform, using multi-beam antenna arrays with DRFM technology, is designed to actively jam and thus ‘blind’ radar systems in order to defend against radio-electronic guided weapons systems. In a combat situation, the system would operate as part of an aviation shock attack group aimed at breaking through virtually any defense system, blinding everything up to and including the US MIM-104 ‘Patriot’ anti-aircraft missile system.” (OSNET DAILY)

Even a cursory examaminatin reveals this to be patently false.

The physics shows that it cannot work.

First, of course, is the curvature of the earth:  at 600 km, you can operate at significant altitude while the signal ia attenuated by rock and dirt.

Signal power decreases as the square of the distance, so if you are using brute force jamming, you would need to 100 times more power if the jammer were at a full distance and the sensor was at a distance of 60 km.

In terms of jamming communications, modern military communications signal hop, so any jammer would have to determine the frequency and respond.

Assuming that the jammer could instantly shift frequencies, it would be 4 milliseconds before it could jam a new frequency because of the speed of light.

With 10 frequency changes per second, and a base speed of 56 kbps for nostaligia’s sake, you end up with 2 kbps, which would have been stunning to me when I was using a 300 baud modem in the early 1980s.

Realistically, you could get more than 10x that out of any communications system, because the base rate would be higher, and the jammer could not respond instantly.

Not enough speed for full time video, but enough for video stills.

Finally, you also have created a huge beacon that would just says to a potential enemy, “Shoot me now.”

The whole idea reads like the Cylon cyberattack in the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

I just got to the bottom of this, with help from an Aviation Week article from over a month ago by the indispensable Bill Sweetman.
The system is far more limited, and does not hit things like satellites and sonar. It jams AWACS, which is eminently doable, and tactically significant:

Russian defense electronics conglomerate Kret (Concern Radio-Electronic Technology) introduced a range of new electronic warfare (EW) systems at the 2015 MAKS air show at Zhukovsky, near Moscow, including a new helicopter-borne jamming system and a high-power ground-based system designed to blind the widely used Boeing E-3 Airborne Warning & Control System (AWACS) and other systems using the S-band (2-3 GHz). According to Kret, the Krasukha-2 AWACS jammer can act as a high-power microwave weapon, with enough power to damage target hardware. It is developed by Kret’s Gradient subsidiary and is mounted on a BAZ 6909 8 X 8 truck.

The 9-ft.-dia. parabolic reflector focuses energy from a battery of feed horns and at least two secondary side feeds, and sits, with the radio-frequency signal generators, on a 360-deg.-rotatable platform, with up to 5 deg. elevation. It is claimed to be effective over a 45-deg. angle to the main radar beam, jamming through the radar’s sidelobes, and able to mask a target from an AWACS that is 150-300 km (93-186-mi.) from the jammer. The 100-kW-plus generator and power-conditioning system is built into the truck chassis and is driven by a spur from the transmission.

It is an impressive piece of kit, but it does not violate the laws of physics as claimed in the other article.

If they manage to integrate this with an electronically scanned antenna, it would be even more formidable, but it isn’t a world beater.

It is notable in that it is a capability that NATO does not possess, our doctrine is predicated on a system where we always have air superiority.

Russian doctrine does not operate under this assumption.

Brownshirt Much?

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Ernst Röhm Jim Pasco, executive director of the of the PBA, the Police Union has taken to physically threatening director Quentin Tarantino over his statements regarding the police:

On Wednesday, the Free Thought Project reported on the remarkably brave stance Academy Award-winning film director Quentin Tarantino, has made in owning his comments condemning police brutality.

After police across the country had announced their plans to boycott his films, Tarantino refused to be bullied and remained steadfast in his decision to call the police who murdered people “murderers. ”

Tarantino was not calling all cops murderers, nor was he purporting that he “hates cops.” However, these facts are not important to those throwing bricks from the other side of the blue wall.

In fact, during a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Tarantino responded, “All cops are not murderers. I never said that. I never even implied that.”

 And what is the response of the PBA?

In a veiled threat, the largest police union in the country says it has a “surprise” in store for Quentin Tarantino.

 Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, would not go into any detail about what is being cooked up for the Hollywood director, but he did tell THR: “We’ll be opportunistic.”

 “Tarantino has made a good living out of violence and surprise,” says Pasco. “Our officers make a living trying to stop violence, but surprise is not out of the question.”

The FOP, based in Washington, D.C., consists of more than 330,000 full-time, sworn officers. According to Pasco, the surprise in question is already “in the works,” and will be in addition to the standing boycott of Tarantino’s films, including his upcoming movie The Hateful Eight.

“Something is in the works, but the element of surprise is the most important element,” says Pasco. “Something could happen anytime between now and [the premiere]. And a lot of it is going to be driven by Tarantino, who is nothing if not predictable.

“The right time and place will come up and we’ll try to hurt him in the only way that seems to matter to him, and that’s economically,” says Pasco.

When asked if this was a threat, Pasco said no, at least not a physical threat. “Police officers protect people,” he says. “They don’t go out to hurt people.”

Yes, that disavowal of violence is so convincing.

What a story for the 68th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

My guess is that we are going to see law enforcement shutdowns of showings of The Hateful Eight using flimsy “public safety” pretenses all around the country.

F%$# Rupert Murdoch

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Less than a week after taking control of the magazine, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has instituted huge layoffs at National Geographic:

National Geographic informed employees Tuesday it would lay off about 9% of its staff, months after announcing it would partner with Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox as part of an expanded joint venture.

That would amount to about 180 people out of the total 2,000 employees under the new partnership with Fox.

In September, 21st Century Fox announced a for-profit venture in which it paid $725m for control of the National Geographic Society, to create National Geographic Partners, which includes National Geographic Channels.

Magazine staffers received an email from CEO Gary Knell on Tuesday morning with instructions to make themselves available throughout the day and monitor their inboxes for information about their employment status.

“The National Geographic Society and the National Geographic Channels are in the process of reorganizing in order to move forward strategically following the closing [of] the National Geographic Partners deal, which is expected to occur in mid-November,” a spokesperson for National Geographic Society said in an emailed statement.

According to the statement, layoffs will represent about 9% of the overall workforce reduction. A “voluntary separation” offer has been made to other eligible employees.

“All staff have been advised as to their status as of closing,” the spokesperson said.

It’s like Murdoch bought Nat Geo just to kill it.

It’s like amusing yourself by pulling the wings and legs off of flies, and then putting them in the water and watching them sink.

And thus an American treasure is destroyed.

Quote of the Day

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What we have seen take place is nothing less than a feral and unhinged scream from the swamp of reaction that resides in our culture, where every crank with a computer resides, consumed with bitterness and untreated angst, much of it in the form of self loathing over their own inadequacies and lack of talent – not to mention in some cases a jump from the extreme left to extreme right of the political spectrum, with all the psychological dysfunction such a metamorphosis describes.

—John Wight at Counterpunch on observing the torrent of abuse that Seumas Milne has endured since become Jeremy Corbyn’s communications chief

Seriously, the public freak-out over Labour being run by a guy who is ……… Labor ……… is kind of a major mindf%$#.

I Preferred the Olivier, and Branagh, and the Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson Versions

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It is interesting how Shakespeare on the screen has changed over the past 60 years

I am sick to death of Joe Biden’s “Hamlet” act about running for President.

Thankfully, this play’s run has finally ended:

Vice President Biden on Wednesday announced he is not running for president in 2016, forgoing a primary battle against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and likely signaling an end to a political career that has spanned four decades.

 Ending months of speculation about his plans, Biden said he could not see a path forward for his candidacy. The window of opportunity, he declared, “has closed.”

 “Unfortunately, I believe we’re out of time — the time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination.”

 The 72-year-old vice president made the announcement from the White House Rose Garden with his wife, Jill, and President Obama at his side.

I understand that this is an emotionally fraught decision, coming less than 6 months after the death of his son, but the general media freak-out over this has really gotten old.

I am so glad that we won’t have to be hearing pundits speculate over this crap any more.

More Thoughts on the Last Night’s Debates

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In terms of debate performance, I will have some observations:

  • I think that Martin O’Malley had the best debate performance, even my son who dislikes him felt that, but that Sanders “won” the debate, because he accomplished his positive objectives more completely.  Clinton played defense, which is not surprising for a front runner. I do not think that she “won”, but she clearly did not “lose”, which is even more important to her.
  • If CNN had to use the hapless Don Lemon, giving him the do nothing role of introducing questions from social media was the least bad way of using him.
  • Dana Bash was literally asking questions that were taken directly from the Chamber of Commerce.  As a journalist, you should at least rephrase the questions.
  • I was unimpressed with Cooper as moderator, but he wasn’t bad, which is actually a good place for a debate moderator to be.
  • His question about which enemy the participants were proudest of was a very good one. It seemed gimmicky, but it meant that the responses were relatively short, but that they were also illuminating.
  • O’Malley’s answer to this question, “The National Rifle Association,” was arguably the best answer of the evening. It was short, to the point, and created the impression that he was willing to stand up to an organization that is widely loathed by the vast bulk of the people who would have the slightest inclination to vote Democrat.
  • A close second for the best answer was when, in response to Chafee citing the 99-1 vote for the Patriot act, Bernie Sanders said, with no small amount of pride, that he was that one Senator.
  • Jim Webb’s answer to the “enemies” question was arguably the worst of the evening. I understand how he wanted to highlight that he was the only one on stage who did active duty, but his pride on killing a former opponent on the battlefield was just kind of squicky, particularly with the grin that followed.
  • A close second on bad answers was the two times (repealing Glass-Steagall & the Patriot Act) that Chafee tried to justify a vote because there was nearly unanimous support in the Senate.
  • Chafee’s debate performance did nothing to convince me that he has a coherent reason for running for the Presidency.
  • Webb was trying to troll his way to the presidency. This is not a winning strategy when the troll of trolls, Donald Trump is in the race.

In any case, my opinions, and five bucks, will get you a small latte.

My Predictions on the Democratic Debate

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Actually, my predictions at about what the press will do.

Seeing as I am waiting to pick up my wife from an OSA board meeting, I’ll give you my predictions.

The moderators will be asking the most banal questions, with way too much meta. (…How does your campaign respond to ….)

Also the moderators all have at least one completely irrelevant Bernard Shaw type question to spring on one of the participants.

As to the rest of the press:

James Webb will be lauded for his performance, because pundits love “Democrats” who were former Reagan cabinet members who resign because the Gipper was insufficiently bellicose.

Also, since Webb will go big on the non-existent “crisis” in “entitlements”, so they will declare him brave.

Unless there is an extended discussion about marijuana, Chaffee will be largely ignored.

O’Malley will be depicted as running for Vice President, and he will be criticized for “running to the left”.

Additionally, the former Maryland governor’s will be declared effectively dead within a half hour of the debate ending.

Hillary Clinton will be portrayed as calculating and distant, and any attempt for her to humanize herself will be portrayed as as just another ploy.

Bernie Sanders will be treated as a combination of dinosaur and clown with his liberal views widely mocked.

What I want to see is Joe Biden streaking across the stage …. dressed as a Victoria’s Secret model …. Who is dressed as an angel.

But I am evil that way.

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Tervor Noah’s Debut

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I watched his debut as host of The Daily Show, and it was a real stem winder.

I am seriously impressed.

It was funny, he made some fun of himself, and he was a bit bluer than John Stewart.

Obviously, this show was the product of many weeks of prep, so I expect some hiccoughs as they go from debut to routine, but it is a very good start.

I will note that he has not yet made my list of People I Do Not Want to Piss Off yet though.

Pass the Popcorn

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Please Implicate Rupert ……… Pretty Please?

Mark Hanna, who used to work security for Rebecka Brooks, the former (and current) head of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper publishing in the UK, has promised to blow the whistle on her:

The former head of security for Rebekah Brooks has said he will blow the whistle on Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspapers, the day after it was confirmed she had been re-hired as chief executive of News UK.

 In a video uploaded to YouTube, Mark Hanna, who was acquitted last year along with Brooks and her husband, Charlie, of plotting to pervert the course of justice, claims he was “extremely close” and trusted by executives at News International and he now wanted to show how “underhanded” they had been.

Hanna was the director of security at the company, now known as News UK. Unlike Brooks, who received a payout of more than £16m after resigning from News Corp in 2011 and has been reinstated, Hanna was made redundant after the trial and received £30,000 from the company.

 “I am now standing up against those that sit back and treat us all with contempt – the Murdochs and Brooks of the world,” Hanna said in a two-minute video released on Friday.

 Hanna, who is unemployed and living on benefits, said the decision by Murdoch to reinstate Brooks four years after the phone-hacking allegations and the closure of News of the World had infuriated him and many others.

………

He claims that during the trial at the Old Bailey he sat with Brooks, Andy Coulson, Ian Edmondson, Clive Goodman, Charlie Brooks, Cheryl Carter and Stuart Kuttner and witnessed what went on behind the scenes.
“To me, her previous director of group security, this is Murdoch’s middle finger being shoved right in my face after standing trial with her, and others, in what was classed as the trial of the century during which it was widely accepted that I should never have been involved.”

I really don’t expect anything to happen to any of the people at News UK, at least not while the Tories are running the government. They are too close to Murdoch, as evidenced by the fact that Andy Coulson, who was deputy editor of the News of the World during the phone hacking, went on to be Tories Communication Director, and then Cameron’s Director of Communications after he won election.

If Coulson becomes a disgruntled ex employee whistle blower, it could get ……… inconvenient ……… for Prime Minister Cameron.

Au Revoir, Mr. Stewart

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I just saw his final show as host as The Daily Show.

I think that it did a decent job of balancing between acknowledging the history, and memories, and not being a downer.

Spoiler:  Springsteen played at the end.

It is the end of an era.

I’m sure that I’ll get used to Trevor Noah in a few months.

Safe Journey, Roddy.

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“Rowdy” Roddy Piper, nee Roderick Toombs, has died of a heart attack at age 61.

To the degree that I’ve followed wrestling, I had a house mate who was big into it, it was after Piper’s move to acting, so I do not have much of a comment on this, but I do recall his performance in the iconic John Carpenter film They Live:

“Rowdy” Roddy Piper, the kilt wearing trash-talker who headlined the first WrestleMania and later found movie stardom, died Friday. He was 61.

The WWE confirmed the death. The wrestling organization provided no additional details.

Piper, born Roderick Toombs in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is the second WWE Hall of Famer to die this summer, following the June death of Dusty Rhodes. ………

In addition to his celebrity in the ring, Piper appeared in John Carpenter’s 1988 cult classic “They Live.” In that film, he delivered the memorable line: “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass — and I’m all out of bubblegum.”

If you haven’t seen They Live, do so.

It is a rather irreverent commentary on the Reagan era, and is perhaps even more relevant now.

Well, I Don’t Give to NPR Anyway

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My brother made an interesting observation about the NPR obituary for Theodore Bikel: There was no mention whatsoever of the fact that Bikel was Jewish:

There is a word missing from NPR’s obituary for Theodore Bikel (Theodore Bikel, Who Starred In Broadway’s ‘Fiddler On The Roof,’ Dies).

That Jew. Or for the squeamish, Jewish.

 The piece was delivered (and one assumes written) by Lynn Neary, described as having” develop[ed] NPR’s first religion beat. [And] As religion correspondent….covered the country’s diverse religious landscape”.

 ………

 The closest NPR came to hinting that Bikel might have a Jewish connection was that his family fled Vienna to the Palenstine Mandate. All NPR chose to say was that Bikel’s family fled.

 I am curious why it was so hard for NPR to say the word Jew, or even Jewish?

It is interesting.

I will note that I have been leery of NPR’s religion beat reporters since the ties between NPR religion reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty and the religious right hit the blogosphere over a decade ago.

Please note, I don’t think that there is some sort of secret agenda in what NPR is doing here:  I think that public broadcasting is being driven by their abject terror of what the Congressional Republicans might do to them.

It’s been that way since Gingrich was speaker.

One final note:  Nice catch by my bro.  I missed the omission completely.

Aka Stephen Saroff      o o  The Bear who Swims      
                        (_)_____o      
                     ~~~~(______)~~~~~~~~~~
                         oo    oo

Sh%$ Like This Makes Me Feel Unreasonably Smug

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It appears that the New York Times has finally had enough of right wing publishers manufacturing data for its best seller list, and it’s first target is the Ted Crux Book A Time For Truth:

Conservatives are furious at the New York Times for refusing to allow Ted Cruz and his publisher, HarperCollins, to game the system and “earn” his way on to the bestseller list via “strategic bulk purchases.”

 In an email to Politico’s Dylan Byers, Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy explained why Cruz’s “A Time For Truth” was omitted, noting that the company has “uniform standards that we apply to our best seller list, which includes an analysis of book sales that goes beyond simply the number of books sold.”“In the case of this book,” she added, “the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases.”

 Conservatives are complaining that “bulk purchases” should still count as sales:

 ………

 And while they might have ground to stand on there — if by “bulk purchases,” the Times meant “10,000 copies purchased to be sold at Walmart” — but the Times specified that it believes HarperCollins engaged in “strategic bulk purchases.” In essence, The Times accused Cruz’s publisher of trying to buy its way onto the bestseller list by having a firm like Result Source hire thousands of people across America to individually purchase a copy of “A Time For Truth,” in the hope that some of those retailers are on the secret list of booksellers who report their sales to the Times, or that the aggregate purchasers will simply be too high for the Times to ignore.

 In other words, conservatives are upset that HarperCollins got caught trying to rig the system in order to make “A Time For Truth” a bestseller, though that’s not quite how they see it:

 ………

Wingnut tears are salting my soup as we speak.