My Analytic Tools

Epistemology:

1-Duck Rule: If it walks like a duck, squawks like a duck and has feathers, it probably is a duck.

2–Sherlock’s Rule: When considering a problem, remove everything from consideration which seems untrue. What is left is probably the truth.

3-Occam’s Razor: In considering a complex phenomenon with many factors and a variety of explanations, remember that the simplest explanation that accounts for the factors is probably correct.

4- The KISS principal” “Keep it Simple, Stupid.” (Army Rule) pl

Comments

[Chiron]

Hey Colonel, what do you make of Thierry Meyssan from Voltairenet?

http://www.voltairenet.org/article199874.html

“the two armed factions present in East Ghouta (pro-Saudi and pro-Qatari) are run by Al-Qaïda. They will be discreetly exfiltrated. The officers of the British MI6 and the French DGSE (who are operating under cover of the NGO Médecins sans Frontières) will be repatriated.”

[turcopolier]

chiron

Thierry who? IMO you have the identity of the rebels right but the notion that the French and Qataris are going to exfiltrate the leaders so that they can be used again in some demonic plot is just latrine rumor. One of the soldiers can explain that to you. pl

[turcopolier]

james

Are you not capable of thinking for yourself at all? IMO there was a criminal conspiracy among various parts of the government, the Clinton Campaign and the MSM to rig the election against Trump, and it continues. pl

[Duck1]

Obama snooping failed when agent Orange screwed the pooch by being victorious. 2 step retrospective alphabet sniffing with tainted oppo smears is slowly caving in. Best case scenario for the oligarchs everybody fuggedabout it. Look the world series.

[Peter AU]

1. It walks like a hegemon. It squawkes like a hegemon. it has around a thousand bases around the world like a hegemonic empire.

2. Documents released through FOI, whistle blowers ect are a good baseline for judging other reports.

3 and 4. The US dollar and the US military are the hegemons tools for enforcing its power. The hegemon cannot be brought to account without first getting past the US military. An attack on the US military will most likely bring about MAD. Bringing down the US dollar will also bring down the US military, and may or may not bring about MAD.

I tend to look at the borg, as thery are termed here, as the US and most powerful sect of the hegemon which I think is global. Brit borg next behind US in terms of influence within the hegemon but perhaps holding second place alongside zionists of all nationalities.

That's Duck, Sherlock, Occam and KISS as I see it.

[notlurking]

Rules to live by.....

[DianaLC]

That's the same "duck" I've been seeing.

[English Outsider]

Colonel,

Your rules for analysts keep our feet on the ground. So does your superb site.

Unfortunately you have opposition. Here is the BBC report on East Ghouta:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43154146

Main points:-

- "Whole neighbourhoods in Syria's Eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus have been flattened and thousands of families displaced, amid a government assault to retake it from rebels.

"Daily "humanitarian pauses" - ordered by the government's ally, Russia - have failed to stop the bloodshed in the enclave, where hospitals, schools and shops have been pounded by air and artillery strikes."

- "The Syrian government has denied targeting civilians and insisted it is trying to liberate the Eastern Ghouta from "terrorists" - a term it has used to describe both jihadist militants and the mainstream rebel groups that dominate the enclave."

Those, at least as I read it, are the main points in the BBC report.

We are not told the numbers and composition of the claimed "mainstream rebel groups", nor whether these are the groups responsible for the artillery fire from East Ghouta into civilian areas.

We are not told the numbers and composition of the "jihadist militants", nor whether they have been offered a ceasefire and transport to Idlib as was done in Aleppo, nor whether they had been offered a similar deal that seemed to have been arrived at in Raqqa.

We are not told why the civilians are not taking advantage of the humanitarian pauses, or whether the reason for this is that, as in Aleppo, civilians who tried to escape the area were fired on by the Jihadis.

This BBC report is not an attempt to arrive at the truth. It is clear that for our news outlets at least rules for analysts have been replaced by rules for PR apologists.

[nard]

I am surprised you're not aware of this Frenchman...I hold him in similar regard as Elijah Magnier...both well-informed commentary with extensive on-the-ground sourcing.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article199781.html regarding the latest Munich Security conference

[turcopolier]

Lyttencugh

I grieve for you. These rules, taken together, have served me well in a long life occupied in part with understanding reality. pl

[turcopolier]

Diana LC

The rules must all be used to get a probable answer that looks both to the surface phenomena and inner truth. Otherwise you will fall into the Lyttenburgh Error and become a navel contemplator or perhaps someone who looks to the statements of canines for truth as to what has occurred. pl

[Anna]

Paul Craig Roberts' inventive against the "riggers:" https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/03/01/washington-sufficiently-intelligent-trusted-independent-foreign-policy/
"The stupid Samantha Vinograd [who served as a staffer on Obama’s National Security Council] repeats the lie that Russiagate was Putin’s plot “to destabilize the United States.” So, how is the US a superpower when Russia controls US elections? Doesn’t this mean that Americans are of no relevance whatsoever in the world? ... With intelligence levels this low on Obama’s National Security Council, no wonder the neoonservatives were able to run over the Obama regime and resurrect the Cold War, thus returning the world to a high chance of nuclear Armageddon."
The "riggers" have exposed their incompetence again and again and again...

[Anna]

Sorry, should be "invective"

[turcopolier]

nard

i was joking. I know who Thierry Meyssan is as well as Elijah Magnier. Are their sources good? Are their opinions sound? I prefer my own and those of my guest authors. pl

[turcopolier]

Lyttenburgh

"Positivism" insists that conclusions can only be reached on the basis of surface and tangible evidence. You seem to have missed the word "probably" in the Duck Rule. pl

[Matthew]

Col:

5. Avoid Confirmation Bias.
6. Avoid Availability Bias.

IMHO, the two biggest analytical obstacles. (Particularly, for me.)

[Ken Roberts]

Ducks ... if it looks, etc ... Operationally ok as an approximation, and ones response can also be approximate -- don't need to know if bird is "really" a duck. Marxian approach: make duck soup -- if turns out to be swan or goose, still edible. Or try to breed it with another duck, get source of future eggs. And so on.

[LeaNder]

Thierry who?

Caught some people's attention as one of the post 9/11 experts. At least he he caught mine. Then. Is rarely referred to here, usually via Volairenet articles. Were he seems from a somewhat subjective assessment to often cross the frontier between comment and facts: comment is free, facts are sacred.

On the other hand, I admittedly found only one article on a US web, on a journalism review, discussing objectivism. I also cannot pretend I ever looked how well C. P. Scott did in separating the two. Or for that matter to what extend it is possible at all in journalism from the time I decided to not join the trade in the late 60s ...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/apr/04/data-journalism-facts-are-sacred

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._P._Scott

[Babak Makkinejad]

No.

Positivism posits that the Duck is an empirically derived conception - solely based on sense data - and its comprehension does not require the existence (or the assumption ) of a metaphysical system.

It is a form of Scientism - elevating "Science" to the level of Metaphysical Truths - ignoring the shaky metaphysical basis of empirical sciences themselves.

[Charles]

It could help you tell the difference between Duck a la Orange and Trout Almandine.

[Karel Whitman]

Lyttenburgh,

yes, admittedly this surely sounds a bit provocative.

But, how else then trusting our perception could we ever judge on matters? Everyday life? Should we start to consider that something that walks like a duck, squawks, and has feathers could be a camel too? Never mind if Bactrian Camel or Dromedary?

[jpb]

Comedic genius! I like to start the day with a good laugh, before Occam's Razor and the Duck Decoys (ex)plain everything. Thank you, sir!

[turcopolier]

FM

What is "toast" in Spanish" pl

[Sid Finster]

The Iron Law of Oligarchy and the Iron Law of Institutions.

All institutions are corruptible and all institutions eventually will be corrupted, because institutions = power and power is to sociopaths what catnip is to cats.

Some corollaries of this are:
1.The people who want power the most are the most inclined to abuse that power.
2. The principal function of any institution is to keep sociopaths out of power as much as possible for as long as possible.
3. There are no political or economic systems that work everywhere or at all times. Rather, a system works in a given time and place, to the extent that they further the above principles.

[turcopolier]

FM

Entonces el modismo commun es que "La tostada siempre calle al lado de la mantequilla?" pl