Sic Semper Tyrannis

"Strike The Tent" trilogy by W. Patrick Lang

     

Available from:

 iUniverse

http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookSearchResults.aspx?Search=patrick%20lang

E-Book version of all three available at iUniverse

Barnes and Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/W--Patrick-Lang?keyword=W.+Patrick+Lang&store=allproducts&iehack=%E2%98%A0

Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Butchers-Cleaver-Confederate-Secret-Services/dp/0595474764/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358700423&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Butcher%27s+Cleaver

I was interviewed some time ago by the North Carolina Museum of History concerning the writing of this trilogy.

"The Confederate Secret Services, a conversation with W. Patrick Lang, novelist, retired U.S. Army colonel, and military intelligence consultant

Patrick Lang discusses his two novels, The Butcher’s Cleaver and Death Piled Hard, both of which focus on Claude Devereux, a Virginia banker who is recruited by the Confederate secret service and placed in the office of Union secretary of war Edwin Stanton. Approximate run time: 24 minutes. Podcast " 

This podcast is highly recommended

http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/civil-war-and-reconstruction

--------------------------------------------------------------

"Science currently holds that time travel is an impossibility, but readers of Down the Sky, thefinal volume of Colonel Pat Lang’s Strike the Tent trilogy will question that assertion. Code-named “Hannibal,” Confederate penetration agent Claude Devereux is firmly lodged in the upper echelons of the Federal war machine. Now a Brigadier General of the Union forces with the new Congressional Medal of Honor on his chest, Major Devereux of the Confederate Secret Service knows time is running out. His minders in Richmond may no longer trust him, his personal life is a shambles, and Union spy-catcher Lafayette Baker is determined to bring him down. Only his peculiar, personal friendship with President Lincoln holds his enemies at bay.

Claude’s missions for the Federal War Department take him to major battles, and the reader will experience Cedar Creek, and Fort Fisher as if in person. The vision of Lincoln standing in full view of the Confederate sharpshooters at Fort Stephens is indelible, as is the vignette of a severely wounded Union officer on the grounds of the Belle Grove Plantation after Cedar Creek. Such a view of battle could only have come from the author’s personal experiences.

The book stands alone, but it is a worthy successor to its two predecessors, The Butcher’s Cleaver, and Death Piled Hard. The great Shelby Foote said:

'The Civil War brings everything into a sharper focus with heightened color. Anytime you want to study human behavior, it is well to study the Civil War, because in that you study human behavior under terrific pressure and heat. So that men show what they are for good or bad more readily than in ordinary times.'

Readers of the trilogy, and of Down the Sky in particular will find this unerringly demonstrated by the historical rigor and deep creativity of Patrick Lang.

James Peak

------------------

These books are available in electronic formats to include "Kindle' from major vendors. pl

Finito Sic Semper Tyrannis

We are done here.  turcopolier.com is working now.  I have cancelled all guest author ships here.  RSS is enabled on the new blog.  Comments will no longer be moderated on SST.  pl

Hölderlin's Lyric "Love" ("Die Liebe)

 

Hölderlin's Asclepiad Stanza Lyric "Love" ("Die Liebe")

Translated by Steven Willett

 

Hölderlin's Dream

 

Note: This is one of Hölderlin's most popular poems. It has been set to music and song several times. It is also extremely difficult to translate his German, whose syntax is highly concentrated through the meter, the metaphors and the imperatives. I have taken a very few games with the accentual meter, but only where Hölderlin does.

 

Love

 

If a friend you forget, if of your closest all,

O you grateful ones, those, poets you slander on,

   God forgive it, yet honor

      Only souls of the ones who love.

 

For it’s asked, where, lives far off human life

Since the slavish one, Care, now is coercing all?

   Therefore also our God roams

      Carefree over our heads too long.

 

Yet, as always the year’s cold and remains song-less

Through its designate time, but from a field all white

   Green leaf blades are still blooming,

      Often sings just a lonely bird,

 

When the forest expands, rivers bestir themselves,

Milder breezes at last blow from the distant South

   In their exquisite season,

      So, a sign of the better time

 

We believe in, awakes solely with modesty,

Solely noble, devout over the brazen hard

   Waste of ground yet untamed, Love,

      Single daughter of God alone.

 

Blessed be, O be, heavenly plants, for me

Cultivated with song, when the Aetherian

   nectars nourish your power,

      And creative fresh beams feed you.

 

Grow and forest become! more animated for

Fully blossoming world! Speech of the lovers now

   Be the speech of our whole land,

      Their soul be the chime of the people.

 

Die Liebe

 

Wenn ihr Freunde vergeßt, wenn ihr die Euern all,

   O ihr Dankbaren, sie, euere Dichter schmäht,

      Gott vergeb' es, doch ehret

         Nur die Seele der Liebenden.

 

Denn o saget, wo lebt menschliches Leben sonst,

   Da die knechtische jetzt alles, die Sorge, zwingt?

      Darum wandelt der Gott auch

         Sorglos über dem Haupt uns längst.

 

Doch, wie immer das Jahr kalt und gesanglos ist

   Zur beschiedenen Zeit, aber aus weißem Feld

      Grüne Halme doch sprossen,

         Oft ein einsamer Vogel singt,

 

Wenn sich mählich der Wald dehnet, der Strom sich regt,

   Schon die mildere Luft leise von Mittag weht

      Zur erlesenen Stunde,

         So ein Zeichen der schönern Zeit,

 

Die wir glauben, erwächst einziggenügsam noch,

   Einzig edel und fromm über dem ehernen,

      Wilden Boden die Liebe,

         Gottes Tochter, von ihm allein.

 

Sei gesegnet, o sei, himmlische Pflanze, mir

   Mit Gesange gepflegt, wenn des ätherischen

      Nektars Kräfte dich nähren,

         Und der schöpfrische Strahl dich reift.

 

Wachs und werde zum Wald! eine beseeltere,

   Vollentblühende Welt! Sprache der Liebenden

      Sei die Sprache des Landes,

         Ihre Seele der Laut des V

turcopolier.com

My new blog is now public.  available at turcopolier.com  I will be moving all business to that blog shortly.  Authors on the new blog are being notified of their status.  I will leave this one up for a while to enable use of the archive.  pl

" ... Florida Gov. DeSantis a 'Strong Potential Presidential Candidate'" Gaetz

"Rep. Matt Gaetz on Sunday floated a potential presidential bid by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and implied the Biden administration is considering pre-flight testing and domestic air travel restrictions to "cast aspersions on the Florida experience" because DeSantis could be a rival. 

"He is a strong potential presidential candidate in 2024," the Florida Republican said Sunday on Fox News. "The Biden team knows that, and so they're trying to somehow cast aspersions on the Florida experience because you know what, throughout America, there's a lot of Florida envy right now."

Gaetz's comments came after Fox interviewed DeSantis on Sunday, with the governor accusing President Joe Biden of mulling travel restrictions to target Florida for its thriving economy and housing sector. 

According to reports, the Biden administration has been looking into imposing domestic travel restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus variants. The administration isn't targeting any particular state but is reviewing how to stop the spread of the virus mutations that are surging in some states, including Florida and California. "  Gaetz

--------------

It would be very nice if Trump would hunker down and shut up so as to clear the way for a viable 2024 candidate like DeSantis.  Do I think he will?  No.  His hubristic self destructive instincts apparently rage on even as he faces the prospect of criminal and civil legal action against him.

Do I think  the left cabal did everything fair and foul they could manage to steal the election?  I do, but the time has come to march forward and the path forward lies in backing young Republican candidates like DeSantis.  The troop of howler monkeys that is now the Democratic Party will greet my statement about their dishonesty with all the usual Goebbels style screeching about Qanon, the Proud Boys, etc., etc., ad nauseam  

To hell with them!  Ignore them.  There are 75 million actual citizens out there in the much despised flyover country who cry out for real leadership. 

The Democrats are a party that despises traditional America.  Despise them in return, but find viable leaders.  DeSantis is one such.  pl 

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/gaetz-desantis-florida-presidential-run/2021/02/15/id/1010038/

FURTHER PROOF THAT MARY FANNING AND DENNIS MONTGOMERY ARE LYING ABOUT HAMMER by Larry Johnson

Some faithful readers of SST were understandably upset when I blew the whistle on Mary Fanning’s fraudulent contribution to Mike Lindell’s latest video, Absolute Proof. I agree with Mr. Lindell that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen from Mr. Trump. But what Mary Fanning presents as “evidence” is built on a fabrication. It is not real. And actual cyber experts, including Yaacov Apelbaum, can confirm this.

Sharon Rondeau, who runs The Post & Email, just posted a voluminous report further exposing Dennis Montgomery as a fabricator and grifter. If you take time to read her latest investigative work, Hammer Hoaxer Infiltrates Lindell’s Absolute Proof (Part I) and (Part II), you will hear Dennis Montgomery admit on tape that HE WAS NOT THE INVENTOR NOR CREATOR OF HAMMER. Montgomery only started pushing the HAMMER nonsense after Edward Snowden revealed the massive scale and scope of NSA snooping on American citizens.

Many of you have wondered why I took on this story. It is not because I am a secret, CIA mole. It is true that I worked at the CIA for four years (1985-1989) and then worked at the US Department of State in the Office of the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism. It was my time at State Department that led me to work closely with the FBI and US military special operations forces. When I left the State Department in September 1993, I began working as a consultant and maintained my Top Secret clearances. I helped script and execute counter terrorism exercises for U.S. military special operations forces from 1994 thru 2018. This put me in regular contact with people in the intelligence community, law enforcement and military special operations. My prior experience with the CIA was an added boost.

Now that you know the thumbnail version of my history, you can understand why an attorney working for Ed Butowsky (who was in the middle of law suits involving the parents and brother of Seth Rich) hired me to check out leads and information that were touted as “intelligence” material.

Cuomo should be recalled, and then prosecuted ...

"Unlike California, which is petitioning to recall Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom for his coronavirus lockdowns and mismanagement, New York does not have a recall procedure.

Pataki once sought a New York amendment for just that in 2002, but then Democrat Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver swatted it down.

Gov. Cuomo is facing fire after his aide Melissa DeRosa admitted to Democrats this week the administration withheld nursing home deaths data from media and lawmakers fearing a Trump administration Justice Department investigation. Cuomo is one of five Democrat governors who issued a mandate to nursing homes at the start of the coronavirus pandemic to take in COVID-19 positive patients.

About 40% of New Yorkers supported a recall of Gov. Cuomo even before the DeRosa admission, according to the Post.

"Crime is through the roof," Pataki told the Post, adding, "You have mentally ill people on the street harassing you and this is Sixth Avenue and midtown in the middle of the day. There is a tremendous concern that things are not as they should be and it's not because of COVID.""  Newsmax

-------------

So change da law awready, Change da law!

Get this monster rotten with self-centered egotism out of Albany before he can steal, wreck or kill anything else.

This creep sat on his ass and performed for the camera everyday while old people were dying like flies in the death cells he had condemned them to even as he complained about the lack of support from Trump.

This is also the character who ignored and under used the Navy hospital ship ties up at the pier in New York and the large field hospital the Army Corps of engineers built for the people of New York City.

Women across the country thought him attractive?  Perhaps we should reconsider the 19th Amendment.  pl 

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/andrewcuomo-nursinghomes-deaths-georgepataki/2021/02/14/id/1009958/

" ... enough signatures to potentially trigger special election." foxnews

"Organizers of a campaign to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom say they have obtained the required number of signatures to trigger a special election.

The secretary of state's office will need to process the signatures and determine if they are valid.

Randy Economy, the senior adviser and official media spokesman for Recall Gavin 2020, told Fox News on Saturday that the campaign has received around 1,509,000 signatures -- more than the required amount. Organizers said they expect to have 1.6 million signatures by Sunday."  foxnews

-------------

Been busy all day learning to do Wordpress.  The devotees have developed a whole vocabulary and language of their own  The Iceland blog will run on Wordpress.

I would love to see Newsom AND Cuomo go down.  Be still my heart.  pl

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/recall-newsom-campaign-signatures-special-election

Pindar Pythian 8, Aristomenes, Wrestling 446BC

 

Pindar Pythian 8 Aristomenes of Aigina, Wrestling, 446BC

Translated by Steven Willett

 

Athenian wrestling frieze 5th century BC

 

Note: Pythian 8 is one of my three or four favorites among the odes for its strong rhythmic movement to the climax, startling metaphors, intense language and realistic depiction of wrestling. The final triad ll 81~100 is powerful in its stark depiction of what a victory or defeat means to a wrestler. All famous athletes who gloat over their accomplishments should read it carefully.

To make reading easier, here is an explanatory list of names keyed by line: Peace (Hesychia), daughter of Justice (1); Porphyrion, king of Giants (12); Xenarkes son, Aristomenes (19); Aiakidai, sons of Aeacus, the son of Zeus by Aegina (23); Theognetos, Olympic victor in wrestling (36); Kleitomachos, unknown (37); the Meidylidai, a clan to which Aristomenes belonged (38); Oikles son, Amphiaraos both a seer and fighter (cf. Ol 6.16~17) with the snake on his shield symbolizing skill in prophesy; the second war on Thebes was led by Alcman, son of Amphiaraos (39, 46); Adrastus, king of Argos (49); Abas, 12th king of Argos (55); "for you both," the Aigneten Delphinia; Apollo's sister Artemis is included in the plural (66).

 

Kindly Peace, O daughter Str. 1

of Justice, you maker of greatest cities,

holding the supreme keys

of both counsels and war,

accept the honor of Pythian victory for Aristomenes.

For you know how to give leniency and likewise

to receive it at the exact season; (7)

 

but when someone drives Ant. 1

implacable wrath into his heart,

you roughly go to encounter the might

of enemies and cast their

insolence into the bilge. Porphyrion didn't know your power

when he unduly provoked you. Gain is dearest,

if one bears it from the home of a willing giver. (14)

 

But force overthrows the vain-boaster in time. Ep. 1

The hundred-headed Cilician Typhos didn't escape it,

nor indeed the king of Giants; they were conquered by thunderbolt

and arrows of Apollo; with gracious mind he

welcomed the son of Xenarkes from Kirrha, crowned

with Parnassian wreath and a Doric victory festival. (20)

 

Not far from the Graces fell Str. 2

an island with the justcity virtues

renowned among the Aiakidai

that it has achieved, and holds consummate

fame from the beginning: for it's sung rearing in many

victorious contests and in swift

battles supreme heroes; (27)

 

and it's conspicuous for men. Ant. 2

But I'm without leisure to dedicate

the whole long winding story

by lyre and gentle voice,

lest satiety comes to grate us. But running at my feet

let your debt, my boy, of the latest glories

fly on the wings of my art. (34)

 

For seeking the trail of your maternal uncles in wrestling Ep 2

you do not disgrace Theognetos at Olympia

or Kleitomachos' strong-limned victory at the Isthmus,

but exalting the clan of the Meidulidai you earn the words

which Oikeles' son once spoke in prophic riddles as he beheld

the sons standing in spear-pointed battle at Thebes, (40)

 

when from Argos came Str. 3

the Epigonoi on their second journey.

Thus he spoke as they were fighting:

“By nature the noble resolve is conspicuous

from fathers to their sons. I clearly see

Alkman wielding the dappled serpent from his blazing shield

first at the gate of Kadmos. (47)

 

But he who suffered in a former misfortune Ant 3

is now upheld by news

of a better omen,

hero Adrastos; but in his own household

he will fare the opposite. For he alone from the Danaan army

gathering the bones of his son, by the gods' favor

will return with his people unharmed (54)

 

to the spacious streets of Abas.” Such then Ep 3

proclaimed Amphiaraos. And I too feel delighted

to cast Alkman with wreaths, and sprinkle him with song,

since as my neighbor and guardian of my possessions,

he met me going to the earth's famous navel,

and proved his hold of prophesy with inherited skills. (60)

 

And you, Far-shooter, who govern Str. 4

the famous all-welcoming temple

in the vales of Pytho,

it was there the greatest of joys

you granted, and earlier at home bestowed the alluring gift

of the Pentathlon with festivities for you both;

O lord, I pray that with a willing mind you (67)

 

look in accord with harmonious favor Ant. 4

on every step I take.

With the sweet-singng festive band

Justice has taken her stand; the gods' bounteous

favor I ask, Xenarkes, on your family's fortunes.

For if someone has gained success witout long labor,

he seems for many a wise man among fools (74)

 

to arm his life with right-councelling art; Ep. 4

such things do not rest among men; a divinity bestows them

to one man, but crushing another beneath hands.

Advance with good measure; at Megara you hold the prize

and in Marathon's plain, and Hera's local contest

with three victories, O Aristomenes, you prevailed by effort; (80)

 

and from above you fell on four Str. 5

bodies planning hostile intent,

for whom no homecoming happy as yours

was decreed in the Pythian festival,

nor returning to their mothers did sweet laughter

stir joy around them; but aloof from enemies down alleys

they slouched, bitten by misfortune. (87)

 

But he who's obtained a new success Ant. 5

in his great opulence

takes flight by hope

on the wings of manhood, having

an aspiration greater than wealth. In short time the delight

of mortals will flourish; thus it also falls to earth,

shaken by a direful purpose. (94)

 

Creatures of a day! What's someone? What's no one? A shadow's dream Ep. 5

is man. But whenever Zeus-given radiance comes,

a brilliant light rests upon men and a gentle lifetime.

Dear mother Aigina, on its voyage of freedom

preserve this city along with Zeus and king Aiakos,

Peleus and noble Telamon and Achilles. (100)

 

 

More False Covid Hysteria

Let's start with this blaring headline from the Miami Herald:

White House looks at domestic travel restrictions as COVID mutation surges in Florida

For those of you not familiar with my previous pieces on the Florida pandemic as viewed from my perch in the Sarasota/Bradenton area (A Covid Panic Update and Why Does the Liberal Media Refuse to Report Meaningful Data on COVID?), I have been a consistent critic of the scare tactics because I look at the actual facts.

Here's the latest numbers for February compared to November and December 2020. The percent of patients hospitalized with COVID at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in December was 10.3%. That number now is 6.27%. Do you call that a surge?

The 7 Day Positivity rate has gone from 5.4% in November to 3.2%. Yes, people are still being infected with COVID and a very small percentage of those are hospitalized. And even smaller number wind up in the ICU.

And what about the death rate? If you just read the Miami Herald headline you would assume they are stacking bodies. Nope. The number of people who have died at Sarasota Memorial in the last 86 days (17 November 2020 to 10 February 2021) is averaging 1 per day. (Yes, I know, two died today but none died yesterday, so it averages out).

Stumbling Joe Biden, or should I say his handlers, are pissed that Ron DeSantis, our Governor, is not playing the fear game. Florida is open for business and we have something approaching a normal, pre-COVID life (except for the brainwashed who have been bamboozled into improperly wearing masks).

Who IS Juan Williams? Re-posted 12 February 2021

"Williams was born in Colón, Panama, to parents Akin Jules Williams and Sharon Williams, who were both Panamanian. He graduated in 1972 from Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, New York where he became clerk of the student body, editor of the student paper and was captain of the baseball, cross-country and championship basketball team. He attended Haverford College, from which he graduated with a baccalaureate in philosophy in 1976." wiki

---------------

I am curious as to how JW (Foxnews' most prominent token Lefty)  got from Colon in the Republic of Panama where he was a son of the generally oppressed and typically impoverished class of  West Indian people settled in the Republic of Panama to the Oakwood Friends School and then graduated from Haverford College.  Both of these are private Quaker schools and not cheap.  I do not know the answer to my question.

I was stationed in the Canal Zone 1965 and 1966 as a member of the "8th Special Forces Group" at Ft. Gulick.  I was in the intelligence staff section of the Group Headquarters.  Because of that I spent a lot of time with the operatives of Army Intelligence and the CIA, both of whom were engaged among other things in Force Protection activities designed to make safe the Canal Zone and US forces stationed therein.

The Partido del Pueblo was the Cuban and Soviet aligned Communist Party.  The national government of Panama treated it as a deadly enemy and a conduit for Cuban subversion.  The Panamanian government encouraged the US to keep the Partido del Pueblo as weak as possible.  This party led street riots, bank robberies and looting of stores in Colon in 1964 and 1965.  Half a dozen US solders were killed by snipers in these fandangos, shot in the Canal Zone from across the border.

To get a grip on this situation the CIA and Army Intelligence and probably the FBI clandestinely recruited as assets most of the senior members of the party and the politburo of the Partido del Pueblo.  We had so many that if USI told the politburo to not attend a meeting and stay home, they lacked a quorum.  To achieve these recruitments, the standard lures were; US money, assistance for relatives to move to the States and scholarships (full ride) for their children at good US private schools and colleges whose benevolent leaders could be persuaded to help (fully funded) 3rd world kids.

Is there a connection?  I have no idea.  pl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Party_of_Panama

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Williams

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakwood_Friends_School

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haverford_College

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 11 FEBRUARY 2021 by Patrick Armstrong

WAR PLANS. US/NATO war plans always start with a heavy bombardment. The expectation is that complete air superiority will be quickly gained so that aircraft and cruise missiles will have unrestricted freedom to destroy vital infrastructure. This succeeds against countries like Iraq, to say nothing of Afghanistan. But it won't happen if the first few minutes of the war see the destruction of half of NATO's airfields, hangars, ports and EW assets in a cloud of hypersonic missiles. Russia sends another message to Washington and Brussels – don't even think of it. But, of course, they are thinking of it. Shoygu called for increased production of hypersonic missiles. Not, they say, easily detectable by radar. A US ship entering the Black Sea would have about three minutes to detect and defend against Kinzhals fired from 550 kms away in Crimea. The just-deployed Bastion system would take longer. Russia isn't trying to do everything everywhere, just defend its own territory: that's an achievable goal; the other isn't.

WAR DREAMS. Fantasy: in NATO planning the Polish Army quickly seizes Kaliningrad. Partial reality: in Polish Army war game, Warsaw is surrounded in five days. Real reality. Poland has targets: see above.

NAVALNIY. The story continues. The theory that he's being fitted up for a treason charge was given a boost when Zakharova said he should be called an "agent of influence" rather than a politician. His suspended sentence for fraud was lifted and he's off to prison. Read Yves Rocher's statement; sounds to me as if the company believes he did swindle them. The fact that there's now a campaign against the company suggests my deduction is correct. Meanwhile his wife is being set up as the new Navalniy – it's evident from the Charité report that his health is pretty bad. After the lacklustre performance of the demos, one of his people declared a moratorium but was ordered to reverse the decision.

COVID. The Sputnik vaccine received good press from The Lancet. Vaccination centre in Sochi. Russia has developed a quick PCR process. Forget all that stuff we were saying a few months ago: we want it now. All this is causing cognitive dissonance for Western propaganda organs: read this tripe: "Putin’s COVID-19 charm offensive will be transient".

FINES. Moscow fines RFE/RL for failure to declare 'foreign agent' status on material aimed at Russians. Washington will have the fantods but this is just Moscow's version of the US FARA legislation in action.

POLICE BRUTALITY. Here's the video Moscow is giving every visitor who comes to lecture it.

START Extended for five years. A good thing, but otherwise more of the same from Washington: "determination of Russia to damage and disrupt our democracy" and so on.

RUSSIA-CHINA. A piece in the Russian media suggests that the two are very close to concluding a formal military alliance and enumerates the mutual advantages to the world's largest economy and best military (too soon to call it that? Should we wait a few years when it will be obvious?). It's coming.

EU. The EU has made a mess of its COVID vaccine policy. An EU official is sent to Moscow to beg for the Sputnik vaccine. But he can't resist giving the usual moralistic lecture. (As an aside, I am sick and tired of EU flunkeys posturing about "European values"; if it weren't for the USSR – 80% – and the Anglosphere – 20% – they'd all be goose-stepping around in leather giving each other Hitler salutes: Hitler, Franco, Mussolini and the rest of them were all Europeans). Lavrov is not amused and called the EU unreliable. EU guy returns, usual sources accuse him of being feeble, and he starts talking tough again. "Headless chicken". Moscow doesn't care: the Western model is now seen as one of failure.

WESTERN VALUES™. Listen to Blinken explain why Israel can annex Golan ; one day he will explain why Crimea can't be Russian.

DAVOS. An inflection moment? Putin speaks of the failure of the "Washington Consensus" and unilateralism. Xi agrees. Merkel promises neutrality.

PUTIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. Vladimir Putin Has Become America’s Ex-Boyfriend From Hell: "a geopolitical stalker". This from the outlet that has "stalked" Putin 3000 times in four years. And never forget this demented bit of filth.

UKRAINE. Hopeless. Meanwhile, let's ban the Russian vaccine. Not that we have any from anywhere else.

THE DEATH OF IRONY. If it's Russia, it's OK to ban it. Actually they're opposition TV channels.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer

Pindar Pythian 4 Ode, Arkesilas Chariot Race 462BC

 

 

Pindar Pythian 4 Ode for Arkesilas of Cyrene, Chariot Race 426BC

Translated by Steven Willett

仕事が全部終わったら戻ってきます

 

Pindar c. 518 (Cynoscephalae, Boiotia) ~ c. 438 (Argos)

Roman copy of Greek statue 15th century BC

 

Note: In this poetic translation I have used a form of meter, called colometry, that is not found in the standard Greek editions of Pindar you might consult. For the colometry here I followed Bruno Gentili's edition Pindaro le Pitiche (1995). I will try to give you a fairly simple explanation of it and why it's so uncommon. The Hellenistic Alexandrian philologists who originally edited papyrus manuscripts had far greater knowledge of the original rhythmical and music performances available to them than we do. The cola in the melic sections of drama and choral lyric were edited into dimeters with occasional trimeters and tetrameters, that is, into fairly short verses or lines. This division continued to be found in the printed tradition for the last two centuries, but then a new theory was advocated by August Böckh (1785~1867) at the beginning of the nineteenth century. His development of the "period" as it's called produces a large continuously articulated voice segment. M. L. West in Greek Metre (1982) described it this way: "...the compositional segments can no longer be called verses or lines, because they extend over many lines of the written text; the term 'period' is used" (p. 4). It's a continuous segment of language over a large extent as sung with musical accompaniment. The period became the codified standard with Paul Maas' Greek Metre in 1923. Although the period must be taken into account, it was largely forced into serious doubt by the 1st century BC or AC papyrus manuscript in uncials of Bacchylides. His Alexandrian editors used colometry, not the period. If you'd like to read the torturous attempt to force colometry into period, review H. Maehler's edition Bacchylides a Selection (2004). Among several scholars I've also contributed to our doubts about the period: S. J. Willett "Working Memory and its Constraints on Colometry," Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 71 n. 2, s.c. 100: 7~19.

The result is that the standard Greek edition of Pythian 4 has 299 'lines' while my English translation has 533 lines.

 

 

Today you must stand beside a man dear to me, Str. 1

by the king of horse-famed Cyrene,

and, joining with Archesilaus in his victory revels,

Muse, swell the breeze of songs

owed to Leto's Twins and to Pytho,

where once the priestess sitting in honor

beside the golden eagles of Zeus,

Apollo now in his land, proclaimed

by oracle that Battos would be founder

of fruitbearing Libya,

so that he'd finally leave the holy

island and plant

a city of fine chariots

on a chalky breast of earth,

 

and redeem in the seventeenth generation [15] Ant. 1

the word of Medea

which at Thera once Aeëtes' fierce daughter

breathed from immortal lips

as the Colchean queen.

Thus she spoke to the demigods

who sailed with spearman Jason:

"Hear me, you sons

of bold-hearted men and gods:

I say that from this wave-beaten land

the daughter of Epaphus will one day

be planted with the root of other cities,

cities renowned among men,

amid the foundations of Zeus Ammon. [28]

 

"And, changing short-finned dolphins Ep. 1

for swift horses,

they shall ply reins rather than oars

and drive chariots with stormfooted teams.

That Omen shall make Thera

metropolis of mighty cities, the Omen

which once amid the stream from lake Triton,

Euphemus, descending the prow,

received from a god in human form

who offered him

a guest-gift of earth

—for him father Zeus, son of Cronus,

rang out a peal of auspicious thunder—: [41]

Brother Against Brother, Father Against Son By Walrus.

This is sad but predictable, a son informs on his father to the FBI. The father is allegedly a Capitol demonstrator.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/teenager-hiding-capitol-riots-jackson-reffitt-b1792474.htmlhttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/teenager-hiding-capitol-riots-jackson-reffitt-b1792474.html

This child identified as a social justice warrior and has destroyed his family.

My opinion is that identity politics, the toxic spawn of modern marketing, electronic media and bad academic research, is going to destroy current American society. What will replace it I know not.

People are no longer satisfied to identify themselves as "merely" Americans or Australians for that matter. We have always done so in the past. It is possible to have sub categories, like Californian, Virginian, Southerner, etc. but in my view there was always a primacy of national identity. I say "merely" and "was" because todays youth are encouraged to identify (ie: label) themselves as for example: "Cis hetero male(for the time being) anti racist feminist vegan climate change warrior". I have a big problem with this.

The problem is that labels constrain our thinking and attitudes to a set compatible with the identified self image. My example person is a globalist because climate change is an international problem. He (she?) can be mobilized to support any Government policy quite easily by couching the argument in terms that resonate with the chosen labels. For example "responsibility to protect" resonates with the human rights crowd and this one - LBGT Kurds indeed!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/in-isis-shadow-lgbt-kurds-take-a-stand_b_594e9b08e4b0c85b96c659d2

Can you see the problem? We are divided, manipulated and ruled by this crap. Nobody is talking about Americans as a national identity any more. That means that American solutions to problems won't do. Every policy is picked over by the identities to ensure their pet requirements are met. The end is no policy at all or a jumbled mess of conflicting rubbish. For example Bidens order regarding identified gender. How do you now provide "safe spaces" for abused women and children when a man decides he now "identifies" as a woman and claims right of access? How do you tell a vegan environmentalist that the grain crops he extols are protected by poisoning every living thing: birds, small mammals, etc. within a hundred miles?  That doesn't resonate with him(her) because she(he) isn't labeled as an animal lover. There are many more examples.

There are two options. You either dump the identity politics or it will dump you. Focus on National identity or watch the Nation fragment further. The purveyors of labeling have forgotten one thing; other people can make up labels too. What happens if  the current "deplorables" relabel themselves as "Patriots and freedom fighters" and social justice warriors are relabeled as "Traitors"?

If I was advising the Biden Administration, I would be throwing the extreme left under the bus politically, disowning Antifa and BLM, ordering the FBI and DOJ to back off the "domestic terrorist extremist" shtick, stop the persecution of Trump and his family, forget about firearm regulation and generally doing everything it can to defuse the current situation by bringing the deplorables into the tent. Jackson Reffitt is a sad example of where this country is headed if Biden fails to do this.  

Without us ...

"Officials in Jerusalem believe the Jan. 31 declaration by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that Iran was just months, and possibly weeks, away from obtaining sufficient fissile material for a bomb were exaggerated and deliberate. According to Israeli diplomatic and security sources, Blinken knows that the figure he mentioned was imprecise and relates only to fissile material and not to Iran’s ability to manufacture a nuclear warhead and install it on a delivery vehicle. They believe Blinken’s declaration was intended to provide a convincing rationale for a speedy return to negotiations with Iran and perhaps even a nuclear agreement, as if to say that the new administration was saving the world and rolling back Iran’s ambitious nuclear program.

Netanyahu’s people were underwhelmed by Blinken’s forecast, to put it mildly. Israeli security officials are more concerned by the gaps in perception with the Americans. “Generally speaking, the Americans want to get out of the Middle East as fast as possible,” an Israeli security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “They do not view a nuclear-threshold Iran as a threat or danger; they have the capabilities of a world power and a different timetable than ours. For us, Iran as a threshold state is very dangerous and a nuclear-capable Iran is an existential threat, whereas America can handle both options. It has different capabilities, its distance from Iran is far greater and its triggers are completely different.”"  al monitor

------------

Well, well.  Here is one issue or set of issues on which I agree with the Biden Administration.   Blinken, Malley, Bill Burns et all are a seasoned crew who have a long and bitter experience of the nasty, bullying way the Israelis treat the US.  Natanyahu once said "Don't worry about the Americans, they are easy to push around."  This is one case in which the Borg (US foreign policy establishment) has it right.  The Israelis need to be reminded that they are the tail and not the dog.  

If they want to fight Iran, let them, but without us.  No target intelligence, no air to air refueling, no supplemental funding for this, no assistance to get them access to  Iraqi airfields, no SAR anywhere.  Nothing.  If they want to fight Iran, let them, but without us!  Woof!  pl

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2021/02/israel-us-iran-joe-biden-benjamin-netanyahu-anthony-blinken.html

The Evolution of USCYBERCOM - TTG

New Thinking Taking Root 

The essays in this volume describe ways in which U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) has evolved over the decade since Secretary of Defense Robert Gates directed its establishment in June 2009. Its current commander, Gen. Paul Nakasone, divides the history of the command into overlapping chapters, or “acts.” Act 1 was standing up the command in May 2010. Act 2 was the team-building phase. In 2012, the Department of Defense (DOD) began building 133 teams - 6,187 people, both military and civilian. Over the ensuing four years, the Cyber Mission Force increased its capacity and capability, reaching full operational capability in 2018. During act 3, those teams were employed. While still building the force in 2016, Joint Task Force–Ares supported U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command by conducting operations to defeat ISIS in virtual space. In 2018, the Russia Small Group, a USCYBERCOM partnership with the National Security Agency, in coordination with other members of the interagency community, assisted in securing the 2018 midterm elections.

These organizational and operational milestones have been accompanied by an equally important “conceptual” transformation, characterized by General Nakasone in his 2019 Joint Force Quarterly article as a pivot from a “response force” to a “persistence force.” The commander writes, “USCYBERCOM initially focused on defending DOD networks[,]… executing counterterrorism operations, planning to support conventional forces in crisis scenarios, and maintaining capacity to respond to an attack of significant consequence against our critical infrastructure.” The response force concept, holding forces in reserve for war or responding to attacks after the fact, proved to be no match for increasingly capable adversaries operating continuously below the threshold of armed conflict against our critical infrastructure, government networks, defense industries, and academia. “A persistence force has a much higher chance of disrupting adversary plots and protecting Americans, compared with a force that is confined to sporadic reconnaissance” and episodic engagement.  (US Naval War College)

————

This is from a chapter in a Naval War College publication entitled “Ten Years In: Implementing Strategic Approaches to Cyberspace.” This particular chapter is by Emily O. Goldman called “The Cyber Paradigm Shift.” These two paragraphs capture the evolution of USCYBERCOM quite nicely. I will add that there is no Cyber Force as a new service to accompany this functional combatant command although the idea has been bandied about for decades. Like other combatant commands, it has service components as shown in the organizational chart above. CYBERCOM’s largest and central component is JFHQ-DODIN (Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network) comprised of all DoD computer networks, some 15,000 networks, their infrastructure and the quarter million personnel (military, civilian and contractor) who run those networks. In essence, this is CYBERCOM’s AOR. This grew from DISA (Defense Information Systems Agency) as it was known in my day.

The final component of CYBERCOM is the Cyber National Mission Force consisting of 133 Cyber Mission Force Teams. These teams are what I would consider the maneuver units of CYBERCOM. The following is from an ARCYBER fact sheet:

————

The Cyber National Mission Force plans and conducts cyber operations aimed at disrupting adversaries. The group works against specific nation-state threats and aims to engage those enemies as a means of preventing cyber intrusions. It is often described as having Cyber Command’s best operators.

The Cyber National Mission Force is considered one of the leading groups at Cyber Command in carrying out Nakasone’s philosophy of “persistent engagement.” This approach recognizes that cyber forces must be in constant contact in cyberspace with competitors day to day. A key pillar to that concept is what defense officials are calling “defending forward,” which involves operating outside U.S. networks to face threats as far away from the United States as possible.  (ARCYBER)

————

These teams are trained, equipped and maintained by the services. They appear to be platoon size elements of military and civilian personnel. I don’t know if they also have contractors assigned to these teams. Although this is a new concept to me that came about after my retirement, I see how the idea evolved. I created and ran a HUMINT collection detachment that combined clandestine collection, linguistic and technical skills to conduct long term collection operations online. We were a military, civilian and contractor mix from both DIA and NSA in near daily contact with analysts from DIA, NSA and FBI. We provided direct support to JTF-CND (Joint Task Force - Computer Network Defense) which operated under SPACECOM. While JTF-CND had numerous surveillance capabilities trying to detect attacks on our systems, we were the only reconnaissance element available to them at the time. We operated in the wild to identify threats and threat actors before, during and after attacks on our systems. We operated in cyber no man’s land and behind enemy lines… over the long haul. I believe we were a, but not the only, precursor to Nakasone’s concept of persistent engagement. My detachment operated under intelligence authorities and restrictions. These cyber mission teams operate under Title 10 authorities. My guess is that their guiding authorities will in many ways mirror those of JSOC forces. 

This cyber national mission force is a very different approach than the creation of the Space Force. One similarity will be that both forces will be comprised of a large number of specially skilled civilians, perhaps even the preponderance of personnel. Time will tell if it works. Contributing to future success is the service’s creation of officer, warrant and enlisted cyber career fields. I’m sure the highest aspiration of uniformed members of these career fields is to be assigned to these cyber mission force teams. 

TTG 

More reading:

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=usnwc-newport-papers (The full Naval War College publication)

https://www.disa.mil/-/media/Files/DISA/News/Events/Symposium-2019/1---COL-Craft_Fight-the-DODIN_approved-Final.ashx   (A short, but informative, PowerPoint briefing on JFHQ-DODIN)

https://www.fifthdomain.com/workforce/career/2017/07/25/heres-how-dod-organizes-its-cyber-warriors/

https://www.lawfareblog.com/defend-forward-us-must-strengthen-cyber-mission-force  (Contains a brief discussion of evolving of cyber resourcing concepts and authorities)

NEA Scout: the next solar sailing mission - TTG

NEA Scout is an exciting new mission that was recently selected by NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) by a team from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Marshall Space Flight Center. This innovative, low-cost concept will map an asteroid and demonstrate several technological firsts, including being the first CubeSat to reach an asteroid.

Before sending astronauts to any new space environments, it is important to send robotic scouts to survey the destination and learn about the risks and challenges they may pose to future human explorers. Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, or NEA Scout, will perform reconnaissance of an asteroid using a CubeSat and solar sail propulsion, which offers navigation agility during cruise for approaching the target. Propelled by sunlight, NEA Scout will flyby and observe a small asteroid (<300 feet in diameter), taking pictures and observing its position in space, the asteroid's shape, rotational properties, spectral class, local dust and debris field, regional morphology and regolith properties. NEA Scout's observations will directly assist in retiring the unknowns related to human exploration of asteroids and planetary small bodies. The data collected will enhance the current understanding of asteroidal environments and will yield key information for future human asteroid explorers. (NASA JPL)

————

This mission clearly doesn’t have the cachet of the trio of probes arriving at Mars this month or the idea of quantum space travel. But I’m intrigued by this next adventure in solar sailing. The Planetary Society is sharing lessons learned from their crowd sourced Light Sail 2 mission. I wrote about that mission back in July 2019. One thing discovered by Light Sail 2 was that atmospheric drag exists at 720 kilometers above earth. Even with that unexpected drag, the sail is still sailing the heavens far beyond its expected life.

The launch date for NEA Scout is set for 1 November this year. I look forward to seeing how this sail performs beyond Earth’s orbit. Perhaps the next Light Sail mission by the Planetary Society will place a solar wind propelled CubeSat into a high lunar orbit. That would be marvelous and eminently doable. I see sailing the solar winds as an excellent means of deep space exploration. Historically appropriate, I think.

TTG    

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/near-earth-asteroid-scout-neascout

https://www.planetary.org/sci-tech/lightsail

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/07/from-diana-to-lightsail-2-ttg.html

"Next stop Mars: 3 spacecraft arriving in quick succession" phys.org

"Perseverance is aiming for an ancient river delta that seems a logical spot for once harboring life. This landing zone in Jezero Crater is so treacherous that NASA nixed it for Curiosity, but so tantalizing that scientists are keen to get hold of its rocks.

"When the scientists take a look at a site like Jezero Crater, they see the promise, right?" said Al Chen, who's in charge of the entry, descent and landing team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "When I look at Jezero, I see danger. There's danger everywhere."

Steep cliffs, deep pits and fields of rocks could cripple or doom Perseverance, following its seven-minute atmospheric plunge. With an 11 1/2-minute communication lag each way, the rover will be on its own, unable to rely on flight controllers. Amal and Tianwen-1 will also need to operate autonomously while maneuvering into orbit."  phys.org

---------------

The Perseverance landing attempt is scheduled for 18 February.   pl

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-mars-spacecraft-quick-succession.html

" ... major advancements in aerospace propulsion and generating power ..."

"Among Dr. Pais's patents are designs, approved in 2018, for an aerospace-underwater craft of incredible speed and maneuverability. This cone-shaped vehicle can potentially fly just as well anywhere it may be, whether air, water or space, without leaving any heat signatures. It can achieve this by being able to create a quantum vacuum around itself with a very dense polarized energy field. This vacuum would allow it to repel any molecule the craft comes in contact with, no matter the medium. Manipulating "quantum field fluctuations in the local vacuum energy state," would help reduce the craft's inertia. The polarized vacuum would dramatically reduce any elemental resistance and lead to "extreme speeds," claims the paper.

Not only that, if the vacuum-creating technology can be engineered, we'd also be able to "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level," states the patent. This would lead to major advancements in aerospace propulsion and generating power. Not to mention other reality-changing outcomes that come to mind.

Among Pais's other patents are inventions that stem from similar thinking, outlining pieces of technology necessary to make his creations come to fruition. His paper presented in 2019, titled "Room Temperature Superconducting System for Use on a Hybrid Aerospace Undersea Craft," presents a system that can achieve superconductivity at room temperatures. This would become "a highly disruptive technology, capable of a total paradigm change in Science and Technology," conveys Pais." bigthink

--------------

Something to ponder.  pl

https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/us-navy-inventions-change-reality?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2

Giacomo Leopardi on His Lost Love

 

La Sera del dì di festa (The Evening of the Holiday)

Translated by Steven Willett

 

Leopardi's manuscript showing the opening of La Sera del dì di festa with corrections. First edition original 1820.

 

Note: This is the last poem I shall post on Sic Semper Tyrannis in original or translation. 我々は再び会うまで

 

The Evening of the Holiday

Sweet and clear is the night and without a breeze,
And silent over roofs and among gardens
Pauses the moon, and from a distance reveals
Every mountain cloudless. O my dear lady,
Silent now is every path, and across balconies
Only the rare nightlight still casts a glimmer;
You sleep, for an easy slumber received you
In your tranquil rooms; and not the slightest care
Gnaws you; and you surely don’t know or think
What a lesion you’ve opened into my breast.
You sleep: I show myself alone to salute
This sky, which appears so benign in aspect,
And that ancient all-overpowering Nature,
Who fashioned me for anguish. “To you I deny
Hope,” she said, “yes even hope; and nothing else
Will ever brighten your eyes except weeping.”
This day was holy; now from its amusements
You take repose; and perhaps you’ll remember
In dreams how many you pleased today, how many
Pleased you: not I, not once, could I ever hope,
I might appear in your thoughts. Meanwhile I ask
How much remains to live, and here on the earth
Cast myself, and cry, and shudder. O awful days
In such a green youth! Alas, along the road
I hear, not far away, the solitary song
Of a craftsman returning home late at night,
After some diversions, to his poor dwelling;
And it wrings my heart with such ferocity
To think how all in this world passes away,
And barely leaves a trace. See, the festive day
Is flown, and to the festive one another
Common one succeeds, and time carries away
Every human accidence. Where now is the sound
Of those ancient peoples? Where now is the clamor
Of those famous ancestors, and the great empire
Of that Rome, and the arms, and the ceaseless clash
That went resistlessly through earth and oceans?
All is peace and silence, and all the world lies
Deep in rest, and no one talks of them at all.
In my earliest years, when the festive day was
Greedily awaited, finding afterwards that
It had expired, I grieving, in sleepless vigil,
I lay on the down bed; and in the late night
A song heard somewhere down along the alleys,
Dwindling far off to die little by little,
Already, even as this one now, wrung my heart.

 

Larry Johnson: Absolute Proof About the Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election?--UPDATE

Let me state up front that I admire and like Mike Lindell. He is a good, decent man with an honest heart. But those qualities do not excuse the sloppiness and lack of focus in his latest effort to present "evidence'' about the electronic theft of the 2020 President election from Donald Trump. Mr. Lindell made a good start but failed to have a tight script, which produces a meandering video account that lands an occasional punch.

Notwithstanding the media and establishment mantra that there is no evidence of fraud and that anyone who insists to the contrary is either mentally ill or a conspiracy theorist keen on wearing a tin foil helmet, the facts show otherwise. Unfortunately, the full scope of this evidence has not been publicly presented and methodically briefed. I want to be perfectly clear--the election was filled with fraud and outside interference. Donald Trump and the Americans who voted for him are victims of a massive crime. This includes the use of counterfeit "mail-in" ballots that were never processed through the USPS and the use of voting machines that were connected to the internet and communicating with entities outside the United States.

I was hoping that Mike Lindell's video, Absolute Proof, would be a significant step in marshaling the evidence. But my hopes go unrealized. Mike Lindell does little in this video to move the matter forward in the compelling way required to seize the attention of America. I am not attacking Mike. His good intentions simply did not get put into action with content that would justify the title of the video.

Here is what I see as the strength and weaknesses of Absolute Proof. During the first 12 minutes of the two hour video (1:59:58 to be precise) Mike Lindell speaks extemporaneously and passionately about the fraud and promises that you, the viewer, will see"Absolute Proof." While he is truly speaking from the heart, his presentation is disjointed and rambling. He needed to hire writers and a director to put together the blockbuster presentation that he promised. He is largely preaching to the choir.

" ... she reminded reporters that Air Force One is a 'private plane.'"

"President Biden is expected to travel to Delaware this weekend, in what will be his first out-of-town trip since taking office, despite warnings from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to avoid travel.

The CDC’s guidance this week said that "travel increases your chance of spreading and getting COVID-19," and recommended "that you do not travel at this time.""  foxnews

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-flying-to-delaware-despite-cdc-warnings-to-avoid-travel

------------

I suppose Psaki meant that although Air Force One (usually a Boeing-747) is public property, it (or some other aircraft) is exclusively for the USE of the president.

It is 111 miles (179 kilometers) from DC to Wilmington, Delaware.

They took that plane up there for the weekend so that Joe could return to the shelter of the bunker/basement?  

I understand that the stress involved in trying to satisfy all those special interest groups while pumped up on Ritalin and Adderall must be appalling but, c'mon man, take a smaller plane.  C'mon man!

I include below a link to a piece enumerating Joe's EOs to date.  One of my faves is the one in which he tell the Central American governments that the US no longer wants their help in restraining waves of migrants seeking to escape their "countries."  In return for whatever it is that he and his band of illegal immigration enthusiasts think will result he has also stated that we will increase the amount of money we give them every year for "development."

The pressure on the southern border is now steadily building up.  Detention facilities built during the Golden Age of Obama are being re-opened.  The decline in illegal border crossings in the era of the Orange Devil has been reversed.  People from all over the world now understand that Joe has opened the border for them.  A favorite tactic for Line Crossers is to cross with a child, give the child a note to relatives now in the states in the knowledge that HHS will turn the child over to the "relative."  This establishes an Anchor Point useful as leverage against US immigration laws.

The re-opened detention facilities should IMO be called Bidonian Tiger Cages.  pl

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-look-at-each-of-president-biden-e2-80-99s-executive-orders/ar-BB1dqCbi?ocid=uxbndlbing

 

Jackson Lee wants your guns.

"The publicly-accessible list would contain serial numbers, owner names and gun locations. Obtaining a license would require gun owners to undergo a psychological evaluation, which would include interviewing family members or associates to determine mental and emotional states.

Applicants must also be at least 21, take 24 hours of training and pay $800 per firearm for “liability insurance.” Critics said the additional fees and requirements would restrict low-income Americans from owning guns.

Under Lee’s legislation, possessing an unregistered firearm would boast a minimum $75,000 fine and 15 year sentence. Additionally, lending a firearm without letting the attorney general know would cost $50,000 and ten years in jail."  OANN

---------------

In my wandering about Capitol Hill after I left the active employ of the US Government I visited a lot of members of Congress for the purpose of developing a set of contacts that would be valuable to me as a private consultant.

One of those was Shelia Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas.  She represents a district that is mainly in the old city of Houston.  It is wrapped around the skyscraper laden financial heart of the the "oil patch."  The inhabitants are mostly poor and minorities.  The Houston metro area has the financial district at its heart, then it is encircled by Jackson Lee's district and then outside that ring are the new, high rise dominated, mostly white areas like the Galeria to the south and places like the old, small City of Humble north of Houston.  "Houston" is really more like  a region than it is like a city.  In going from one place to another the distance seemed to me to always be about 20 miles and to involve an hour of travel by car.

My visit to Jackson Lee was a revelation.  There are a lot of members who rule their office staffs like Roman emperors.  Her place was exceptional in the degree of abject worship and fear that prevailed among her nearly all Black staff.  She wanted to know what I could do for her, what my clients, both American and foreign could do for her.  She was extremely ill informed about the world and uninterested in listening long enough to learn anything.  I never returned.

Her bill would disarm the American people, especially people of limited means.  She wants your guns.  pl 

https://www.oann.com/texas-rep-lee-under-fire-for-restrictive-gun-control-policies/

Solon on Justice for Land and Suffering Citizens

 

Solon Fr. 36. Pergit. Arist. (v. ad fr. 34) = L; hic accedit P. Berol.

Translated by Steven Willett

 

ΗΟΡΟΣ ΤΕΣ ΟΔΟ ΤΕΣ ΕΛΕΥΣΙΝΑΔΣΙ
Boundary of the Road to Eleusis 5th Century BC

 

Note:  The "boundary markers" refer to mortgaged land and thus mark impious slavery rather than free divine land. The poem is in trimeter meter rather than elegiac couplets.

Before achieving the goals that I assembled

The Athenian people, why then did I stop?

I have the best witness in the court of time

The mighty mother of the Olympian gods,

Dark Earth, whose boundary markers

Fixed in many places I once removed;

Enslaved before this, now she is free.

And many to Athens, their god-built homeland,

I brought back, some who’d been sold, one justly

Another unjustly, and those under the constraint

Of necessity, no longer the Attic tongue

Speaking, from wandering far and wide;

And those right here, who a shameful slavery

Suffer, quaking before the whims of masters,

I set free. These things by my power,

Fitting closely together strength and justice,

I accomplished, and prevailed as promised;

I wrote laws equal to the lower and upper

Classes, joining straight justice to each person.

Had another man taken up the goad as I did,

A thoughtless and greedy individual,

He wouldn’t have restrained the people;

For if I’d wanted then to please their opponents,

And in turn what the others planned for them,

This city had been bereaved of many men.

Because of this, setting up defense on all sides,

I turned around at bay like a wolf in a dog pack.

Time to leave Murdoch TV

If you think yourself a Conservative, the decline in conservative editorial policy on Foxnews and Fox Business should have been clear to you for months.

First we saw the now fired Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt and his team of eggheads call Arizona and other states very early for Joe Biden.  After doing that his academic advisers mocked news anchors who questioned their judgment.

And then we have seen people on Murdoch air who were clearly anti-Trump and pro-left.  Neil Cavuto comes to mind but there are others like Arthel Neville.

Now we have the reflexive, probably lawyer driven decision to fire Lou Dobbs because he is named along with the network in a lawsuit brought by Smartmatic, a firm much accused of fiddling electronically with election results on November 3.

Well, pilgrims, having eliminated Dobbs by threatening Murdoch TV with the possibility of a massive judgment against it, the Leftist coalition forces will undoubtedly move on in eliminating other conservative voices using the same tactic.

NewsmaxTV now has a greater audience than either Fox channel.  Vote with your TeeVee remote.  Tune Fox out.  There are a number of conservative networks rising out of the burning embers of Murdoch TV.  Try them all.  pl

Give this a read - Patrick Armstrong

Give this a read; I'm sure to most of us it sounds like a confession.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210205034403/https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/?amp=true

NASA’s Lunar Crater Radio Telescope - TTG

First, I want to give a tip of the hat to Martin Oline who posted a link to a fascinating article about a NASA concept for establishing a radio telescope on the far side of the moon. I found watching the embedded video to be a surprisingly enjoyable experience. This video presented at the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium in September 2020 by Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay, a robotics technologist at NASA JPL  at Caltech. His accent may take a little getting used to, but I was immediately transported back to the physics lab at RPI. Our lab team constructed a Satyen K. Das to English dictionary to aid in our study. 

This project is exciting on several levels. It is a unique and bold idea for space exploration. It is a challenging and intricate robotics problem. And it is a revolutionary advance for radio astronomy that may answer many questions about the origin of the universe. I find it especially exciting because it is eminently doable. I have a feeling we’ll be watching this in real time this decade.

This won’t be the first piece of radio astronomy on the far side of the Moon. The Chinese Queqiao relay satellite and Chang'e 4 lander are engaged in some radio astronomy tasks right now from the Von Karman crater, but it doesn’t come close to the scope of this NASA concept. 

TTG

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/building-earth-s-largest-telescope-on-the-far-side-of-the-moon-1.5882554

"... animals prowl in our abandoned 'ghost villages'" The Guardian

"For many years it seemed that overpopulation was the looming crisis of our age. Back in 1968, the Stanford biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich infamously predicted that millions would soon starve to death in their bestselling, doom-saying book The Population Bomb; since then, neo-Malthusian rumblings of imminent disaster have been a continual refrain in certain sections of the environmental movement – fears that were recently given voice on David Attenborough’s documentary Life on our Planet.

At the time the Ehrlichs were publishing their dark prophecies, the world was at its peak of population growth, which at that point was increasing at a rate of 2.1% a year. Since then, the global population has ballooned from 3.5 billion to 7.67 billion.

But growth has slowed – and considerably. As women’s empowerment advances, and access to contraception improves, birthrates around the world are stuttering and stalling, and in many countries now there are fewer than 2.1 children per woman – the minimum level required to maintain a stable population.

Falling fertility rates have been a problem in the world’s wealthiest nations – notably in Japan and Germany – for some time. In South Korea last year, birthrates fell to 0.84 per woman, a record low despite extensive government efforts to promote childbearing. From next year, cash bonuses of 2m won (£1,320) will be paid to every couple expecting a child, on top of existing child benefit payments.

The fertility rate is also falling dramatically in England and Wales – from 1.9 children per woman in 2012 to just 1.65 in 2019. Provisional figures from the Office for National Statistics for 2020 suggest it could now be 1.6, which would be the lowest rate since before the second world war. The problem is even more severe in Scotland, where the rate has fallen from 1.67 in 2012 to 1.37 in 2019." 

The Guardian

--------------

New York City looks like a ghost town.  COVID-19 and the machinations of state and city government have accelerated the already present influences of declining birth rates brought on by the empowerment of women and their understandable desire to have fewer children in order to live better lives.  And then, the severe limitation placed by the Trump Tax Law on deductibility of state and local taxes has caused a flight from high priced real estate markets and high local taxes.

I am a bit surprised to learn that the pressures on US population are so universally felt across the world. 

People no longer compete so strongly for space with the fauna.  You can see the effects here in Alexandria, Virginia where wildlife sightings are steadily increasing in the heart of this metropolitan area.  Deer, foxes, opossum, bird predators, coyotes and of course raccoons are caught every night on the camera records of my motion activated security system.  The raccoons climb the drain pipes leading to my roof, walk to the front of the house and sit observing traffic on this street in the heart of the city.

As someone who spent much of his life in the natural world on several continents, I confess to enjoying their company.  pl 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/24/as-birth-rates-fall-animals-prowl-in-our-abandoned-ghost-villages

A political purge that will drive people into militias.

" ... the sorts of beliefs that lead to the kind of conduct that can be so detrimental to good order and discipline and in fact is criminal."

Still, Austin said in the meeting with military leaders that while the numbers may be small, they are not as small as anyone would like. "No matter what it is, it is … not an insignificant problem and has to be addressed," Kirby said during a press gaggle in the Pentagon.

The stand down will occur over the next 60 days, Kirby said. This is so "each service, each command and each unit can take the time out to have these needed discussions with the men and women of the force," he said.

There is much that needs to be hammered out including the details of the training that will go along with the stand down and what the secretary and all in the military want to accomplish. The stand down is similar to safety stand downs that units may have, Kirby said. 

Austin called extremism in the ranks a leadership issue, and "it's got to be a leadership issue down to the lowest levels, small unit leadership all the way up to him," Kirby said. "So if you consider it a leadership issue, then maybe there will be some potential solutions there to allow us greater visibility."  defense.gov

--------------

As is mentioned in this piece there are already regulations and instructions "on the books" that prohibit radical (whatever that is) political action by members of the US armed forces.  Kirby is a retired admiral who has always been a political hack and PR creature.  He made a career in Navy as a talking head.   

Austin himself seems to be talking about the political views and actions of former military people as well as people now  in the regular forces,  and the reserve components.  Is he also talking about people like me who are retired from the armed forces?  We are still members.

He mentions that "beliefs" of a kind that he doesn't like are leading to conduct that is "in fact criminal."  Beliefs?  Really?

Austin makes it clear that for him the existence of such criminal beliefs will be a "leadership issue."  That means that if you are a squad leader (sergeant) or a ship's CO,  complaints about your command concerning criminal beliefs will be cause for destruction of your career.   Military people want to succeed in their careers.  The result of this kind of command pressure from above will be waves of secret denunciations and expulsion from the services.

IMO those most likely to be judged criminal dissidents will be in the ground combat arms; infantry, artillery, armor, SOF, combat aviation.  Why?  Simple, this is where the most aggressive and assertive are to be found.

Where will they go?  You know where they will go.  pl 

https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2492530/austin-orders-military-stand-down-to-address-challenge-of-extremism-in-the-ranks/

Hölderlin's "Sung Under the Alps" on God's Presence

 

 

Hölderlin's Sung Under the Alps (Unter den Alpen gesungen)

Translated by Steven Willett

 

1/10/1793 Friedrich Hölderlin statue paying a visit to Schiller in Ludwigsburg

 

Note: Hölderlin visited the Swiss Alps in 1801.

This is the one completed poem Hölderlin wrote in a German accent version of the Sapphic meter. It is an extremely difficult stanza to write or translate in both English and German, as I know from translating most of Horace's love poems in it.

Holy Innocence, you to both men and the

Gods are dearest trusted the most! you may in

House or out of doors at their very feet now

    Sit with the ancients,

 

Full of always gratified wisdom; for much

Good a man knows, yet he’s astonished like an

Animal, oft heavenward looks, yet pure is

    All to you, Pure One!

 

Look! the rough beast over the meadows gladly

Serves and trusts you, voiceless the forest speaks as

Once to ancients, now to you his oracles, and the

    Mountains still teach their

 

Holy laws to you, and as what we now do,

Clearly deep in wandering far, the holy

Father wants proclaimed to us, you alone may

    Brightly announce it.

 

Thus with heaven’s power to be alone, and

Light is passing over, and streams and wind, and

Time will rush the place, at their front with steady

    Eyes to contain them,

 

Nothing more blessed I know or want, so long as

Unlike willows, me too onrushing waves take,

Well supported, sleeping along the way I

    Must on the billows;

 

But he gladly stays at his home who in true

Heart holds godliness, and as I am free, so

Long’s I may, you speeches of heaven, all I'll

    Sing and interpret.

 

 

Heilige Unschuld, du der Menschen und der
Götter liebste vertrauteste! du magst im
Hause oder draußen ihnen zu Füßen
      Sitzen, den Alten,

Immerzufriedner Weisheit voll; denn manches
Gute kennet der Mann, doch staunet er, dem
Wild gleich, oft zum Himmel, aber wie rein ist
      Reine, dir alles!

Siehe! das rauhe Tier des Feldes, gerne
Dient und trauet es dir, der stumme Wald spricht
Wie vor Alters, seine Sprüche zu dir, es
      Lehren die Berge

Heil'ge Gesetze dich, und was noch jetzt uns
Vielerfahrenen offenbar der große
Vater werden heißt, du darfst es allein uns
      Helle verkünden.

So mit den Himmlischen allein zu sein, und
Geht vorüber das Licht, und Strom und Wind, und
Zeit eilt hin zum Ort, vor ihnen ein stetes
      Auge zu haben,

Seliger weiß und wünsch' ich nichts, so lange
Nicht auch mich, wie die Weide, fort die Flut nimmt,
Daß wohl aufgehoben, schlafend dahin ich
      Muß in den Wogen;

Aber es bleibt daheim gern, wer in treuem
Busen Göttliches hält, und frei will ich, so
Lang ich darf, euch all', ihr Sprachen des Himmels!
      Deuten und singen.

 

 

"Iran’s Flexible Fatwa" WINEP

"The Supreme Leader first issued an oral nuclear fatwa in 2003, and he has repeated it in numerous speeches since then. These pronouncements, which use a religious idiom to describe nuclear weapons as “forbidden” (haram), have the same legal standing as written fatwas.

The precise formulations used in these pronouncements have varied. Khamenei has at times categorically forbidden the development, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons. On other occasions, he appeared to tacitly permit their development and stockpiling, but not use. When addressing a group of top scientists on October 9, 2019, he stated, “Although we could have taken this path [of producing a nuclear weapon], we decided not to...based on Islam’s verdict; it is wrong to make it and it is wrong to stockpile it because it is forbidden to use it.”

Notably, both the initial fatwa and early Iranian efforts to highlight it followed not long after the discovery and public disclosure of the regime’s clandestine nuclear enrichment program in 2002. These efforts should therefore be seen, at least in part, as damage control. The fatwa has been used for other purposes as well:

• To legitimize the nuclear program as a strictly peaceful activity via religious justification
• To deflect potential domestic criticism for the program’s slow progress, its numerous setbacks, and the regime’s decision to eschew a rapid breakout
• To help the regime promote revolutionary Islam as a coequal system of international legitimacy alongside international law, as expressed through proposals in 2013 to get the fatwa enshrined in a UN resolution."

--------------

I would agree with the authors that Iran can be negotiated with and that the ideological shine has gone off the apple with regard to Iran's revolutionary fervor.  National interests, real or imagined, are probably paramount priorities now.

What I would not agree with or support is the notion that Iran must be made into a land locked country devoted to the cultivation of pistachios and the weaving of fine carpets.  This is the Israeli policy position which WINEP, an arm of AIPAC, supports.

This is one area in which I can be persuaded to think that Blinken/Harris/Biden would be right in returning to JCPOA.

I wonder if anyone has had a go at explaining all this to Harris.  pl

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/irans-flexible-fatwa-how-expediency-shapes-nuclear-decisionmaking

Bidonian oddities

Jen Psaki who seems an effective press secretary, was asked a few days ago if the Biden Administration supported the existence of the US Space Force.   Her response indicated that she thought the question was a joke and that she did not know of the existence of the latest addition to the armed forces of the United States. The creation of the Space Force has been widely covered in the press.  The head of the space Force has a seat in the Joint Chiefs of Staff committee and the SF is now a full member of the Intelligence Community.   A day later she announced to the WH press corps that the Biden Administration does indeed support the US Space Force.  General Raymond, the Chief of Space Operations has since offered to go over to WH to brief on the existence and missions of the SF.  It seems passing odd to me that an intelligent person like Psaki who obviously follows the news in detail would not have know of the Space Force.

 

2.  President Biden actually said yesterday  that "the great            majority of FBI agents are good people" or words to that                effect.  This was on a day when two FBI were killed and three wounded in line of duty during an attempted  search of  a dwelling.  With these words Biden endorsed the political positions of the Left rather than supporting the efforts of law enforcement in the US.  Incredible! pl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Space_Force

Open Thread - 3 February 2021

pl

Brigadier Farooq Ali has left us.

 

"After the great and good fight, at the age of 92, Brig F.B.Ali has made his final graceful bow, and walked out into the sunset and beyond.

And in so doing, he has left the world a poorer place.

If one were to pick out the finest sons of the land, such a list would be incomplete without the Brigadier being included in it among the very top..

In him intellectual brilliance, moral rectitude, courage of conviction, and professional excellence came together in rare and felicitous harmony.

I first heard of him when an officer, some years my senior, with ill-concealed relief, thanked God for making the GHQ competitive essay "open" again.

Those were the days when there used to be an annual GHQ essay competition in which all officers could participate. For years on end FB won this competition, till at last GHQ decided to "open" the contest by withdrawing FB's right to participate!."

-------------

I will see you at the last jump, brother.  pl 

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/from-the-vault.656556/page-42#post-12939298

Joe is a little weak on history - The Alliance for Progress

"The program was signed at an inter-American conference at Punta del Este, Uruguay, in August 1961. The charter called for:

• an annual increase of 2.5% in per capita income,
• the establishment of democratic governments,
• the elimination of adult illiteracy by 1970
• price stability, to avoid inflation or deflation
• more equitable income distribution, land reform, and
• economic and social planning.

First, the plan called for Latin American countries to pledge a capital investment of $80 billion over 10 years. The United States agreed to supply or guarantee $20 billion within one decade. 

Second, Latin American delegates required the participating countries to draw up comprehensive plans for national development. These plans were then to be submitted for approval by an inter-American board of experts.

Third, tax codes had to be changed to demand "more from those who have most" and land reform was to be implemented.

U.S. aid to Latin America

Because of the program, economic assistance to Latin America nearly tripled between fiscal year 1960 and fiscal year 1961. Between 1962 and 1967 the US supplied $1.4 billion per year to Latin America. If new investment is included, the amount of aid rose to $3.3 billion per year during this timespan while the total amount of aid was roughly $22.3 billion. "  wiki cited below

--------------

Guess what, pilgrims, this old man worked on the ground in that program in 1964 to 1967.  Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala.  I worked in all those countries.

Over all, the program was a total "bust."

Why?  The latifundistas and gente decente  simply dug in their heels and refused to give power to the campesinos, and also refused to implement reforma agraria but they took all the money offered by the US and stuffed it in their pockets.

Well folks, Joe doesn't seem to know that in those years and all subsequent years the US has through USAID provided massive amount of money for development in Central America and the same thing has happened in every year and every US administration. The elites there pocket the money.

Some ass will want to talk about the United Fruit Company long ago.  Long. long ago.

Should the US seize power in these miserable countries and try to impose our concept of "reform?"  Ah, we tried that in Iraq.

Does Joe think that his little contributions will be treated differently by the rulers in these places?  Sad.  pl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Progress

Hyperion's Song of Fate on Biden EO Fascist

 

 

Friedrich Hölderlin, Hyperion's Song of Fate (Hyperions Schiksaalslied)

Translated by Steven Willett

 

Hölderlin by Franz Carl Hiemer, 1792

Note: Hyperion's Song of Fate appeared in the second volume of Hölderlin's novel Hyperion in 1799. It should be clear that the staircase descent of the stanzas is intended to suggest humanity's plunge into an unknown depth.

 

You walk above in light
  Over soft earth, blessed spirits!
    Shimmering divine airs
      Play gently on you,
        Like a girl’s skilled fingers
          On holy strings.

 

Fateless, like a slumbering
  Infant, breathe the immortals;
    Chastely preserved
      In modest buds,
        Blooms forever
          The spirit within them,
            And their blessed eyes
              Gaze into calm
                Eternal clarity.

 

But for us it’s given
  Never to rest on a foothold,
     They wane, they fall
       The suffering humans
         Blindly from one
           Hour to the next
             Like water from crag
               To crag hurled
                  Yearlong into uncertain abyss.

 

Ihr wandelt droben im Licht
  Auf weichem Boden, selige Genien!
    Glänzende Götterlüfte
      Rühren euch leicht,
        Wie die Finger der Künstlerin
          Heilige Saiten.

Schicksallos, wie der schlafende
  Säugling, atmen die Himmlischen;
    Keusch bewahrt
      In bescheidener Knospe,
        Blühet ewig
          Ihnen der Geist,
            Und die seligen Augen
              Blicken in stiller
                Ewiger Klarheit.

Doch uns ist gegeben,
  Auf keiner Stätte zu ruh'n;
    Es schwinden, es fallen
      Die leidenden Menschen
        Blindlings von einer
          Stunde [zur]1 andern,
            Wie Wasser von Klippe
              Zu Klippe geworfen,
               Jahrlang in's Ungewisse hinab.

 

 

Is an Israeli air strike on Iran imminent? - TTG

Top Israeli military figures have slammed as “empty” and “inappropriate” the recent anti-Iran remarks made by the Israeli regime’s army chief of staff lieutenant general Aviv Kochavi. In his remarks on Tuesday, Kochavi said the Israeli military was revising its attack plans against Iran amid fresh efforts by the new US administration to reverse Trump’s Iran policy. He warned the Biden administration against rejoining the 2015 landmark Iran nuclear deal, which was abandoned by the Trump administration in May 2018, saying such a move “would be bad and not the right thing to do.”

“I instructed the army to prepare a number of operational plans in addition to the existing ones,” Kochavi’s said. “We are taking care of these plans and will develop them during the coming year. Those who decide on carrying them out, of course, are the political leaders. But these plans have to be on the table,” the Israeli general said.

Kochavi’s remarks were met with trenchant criticisms – even among the critics of the nuclear agreement, which was reached during former President Barack Obama’s time in office.

Amos Gilad, a former head of Israeli Military Intelligence, said the threat of military action against Iran was an empty one and such a strike would never happen without the backing of the United States. “You think you would carry out a strike without strategic cooperation with the United States? It will never, ever happen,” Gilad said in an interview on the 103FM radio station on Wednesday. “Understand that these are all just words.” He warned that harsh remarks that contradict the position of the new American administration “could be seen as defiance” by the White House, adding, “That’s not how you lead a policy.”  (PRESS TV)

————

BEIRUT, LEBANON (8:20 P.M.) – The spokesman for the Iranian armed forces, Major General Abu Fadl Shikaraji, threatened to “destroy Tel Aviv” in case Israel “makes any mistake” against Iran. “Israel’s threats are part of psychological warfare, and if they are realistic, then they are illusions,” Shkaraji said, adding that the Iranian army “will destroy Tel Aviv and erase it if Israel commits any stupidity against our nuclear facilities.”

“The Israeli army lives in a state of terror and is too weak to carry out its threats on the ground,” he said, adding that “Israel’s threat to destroy our nuclear facilities is just illusions and pipe dreams.” Shkharji stressed that the Iranian army “will destroy the Israeli missile bases as soon as Iran is exposed to any attack,” noting that “the large part of Iran’s military capabilities have not been revealed.”  (AMN)

————

“If the Zionists make a foolish move or any mistake, even the slightest one, against Iran, they will face a reaction that will destroy Tel Aviv and hasten the end of their regime,” Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi told Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam news network. He also said the Iranian Armed Forces have been strengthening their defensive capabilities day by day, and that the country is capable of carrying out strategic operations to level the enemy to the ground.  (PRESS TV)

————

These excerpts from Iranian Press TV and Al Masdar News articles capture the current state of play in the ongoing Israeli-Iranian confrontation. Israeli and Iranian verbal chest thumping is at an all time high. If blustery language were bombs, we’d be deep into WW III. However, Gilad is correct. Without US strategic cooperation, there will not be a massive conventional air attack on Iran. And that strategic cooperation is unlikely to be forthcoming under Biden, even though there are still plenty of Borg clowns in this administration just itching for just such an attack. 

Throughout the Obama and Trump administrations the most probable scenarios involved massive US air and missile strikes against Iran to obliterate Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure and bring about regime change. These strikes would be in conjunction with Israeli strikes or reluctantly launched after an insufficient initial Israeli strike. The goal, Israel’s goal, was always to eliminate Iran as a threat to Israel. There was nothing in it for us other than pleasing Israel and risking WW III.

The goal of US administrations was to prevent this, usually by placating Israel in various ways. No one, not Bush, not Obama, nor Trump wanted the US involved in a war against Iran. However, they were all plagued by swarms of Israel Firsters praying, many literally praying, for war. Obama’s approach was the JCPOA. Israel viewed the JCPOA as an existential threat to their goal. Trump had a different approach, trash the JCPOA and embark on a policy of maximum pressure to collapse the regime in Tehran. Like previous administrations, this maximum pressure policy did not envision a massive US air attack.  

Israel decided she could work with this. This became apparent when we learned of another Trump Tower meeting in 2016. This one had nothing to do with Russia. It was all about Iran and how the US, Israel, the UAE and the Saudis would force regime change in Tehran. It included a proposal to create a UAE-Saudi anti-terrorist force that would supplant the need for the US to police the region. Not that bad a plan, really. Getting rid of JCPOA was easy. It was an Obama agreement. Of course Trump would scuttle that. The same for selling weapons and ordnance to the Saudis and UAE. That’s profitable business. The assassination of Qasem Soleimani may or may not have been a part of this maximum pressure policy. 

An important part of this grand plan was a robust regional strategic realignment. Israel’s close military cooperation with the UAE began in the 1990s. It was low key, but extensive. Kushner’s grand Middle East bargain last year just made that official. The UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) appears to be the true power broker on the Arabian Peninsula rather than the Saudi Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). He was the driving force behind the Abraham Accords. MBZ is a Sandhurst graduate and has built the UAE military and intelligence into competent forces although they are largely foreign. He is measured, pragmatic and sits atop large oil reserves as well as a growing international financial hub. His hand is behind many of the events throughout the Arab world. He is definitely worth watching.

Now back to Israel and Iran. At one time the best Israel hoped for was the unhindered flight of the IAF across Saudi airspace enroute to Iranian targets. That limited hope has morphed into the possibility of the active involvement of UAE and even Saudi bases and forces in an attack on Iran. The addition of fifty F-35s to the UAE Air Force would greatly increase the strike capabilities of the current hundred or so F-16 and Mirage 2000 aircraft. Even though reaching full operational capability would be several years away, I think the IAF would be giddy with anticipation of this possibility in spite of their apprehensions about Arab F-35s. In the meantime, Israel and the UAE are building a joint intelligence base on Socotra. Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia are cooperating with Israel on missile defense, intelligence sharing, reconnaissance (both airborne and at sea) and cybersecurity. This Israeli-Emerati confidence building and integration will continue as long as MBZ sees it as advantageous.

The Saudi war on the Houthis has not helped Israel. Even though the UAE has pulled out of the conflict, Israel’s closeness to the UAE and growing cooperation with the Saudis have made Israel an active enemy of the Houthi. In response Iran has introduced the Shahed-131 and the more advanced Shahed-136 loitering munition UAVs to the northern Yemeni province of Al-Jawf. The Shahed -136 has an effective range of over 1,200 miles bring southern Israel and Gulf of Aqaba ship traffic within range. In response, Israel has had to station Patriot and Iron Dome AD systems at Eilat - the opening of an unwanted southern front in addition to the constant threat of Hezbollah to the north. This is also whatever missiles and drones Iran may have stationed in Iraq and Syria.

So, how will the Biden administration change Israeli calculations for a strike against Iran? Of primary interest to Israel is Biden’s desire to reenter the JCPOA and improve relations with Tehran. As I alluded to earlier, this is anathema to Israel. Will this make Israel antsy enough to strike? I don’t think so. Biden is also withdrawing support from the Saudi war in Yemen. He halted logistical and munitions support to the Saudis and paused the effort to provide F-35s to the UAE. The latter may even give MBZ pause for further open military cooperation with Israel. He wants those F-35s. We’ll never abandon Israel, but can we be relied on to provide logistical, intelligence and strike support to an Israeli initiated attack on Iran? In my opinion, it is no longer a sure thing.

And then there is Russia. The last thing she wants is an expanded war in the Middle East. Russia has recently signed several agreements to bolster Iranians defenses both air defenses and cyber defenses. Lavrov said that the construction of new units of the Bushehr nuclear power plant was discussed during his recent meeting with his Iranian counterpart. He also said "Russia hopes that the United States will return to the JCPOA and that this will be a condition for Iran to implement the JCPOA" and that "Moscow will continue its efforts to ensure that Iran and the United States fully comply with their obligations to the JCPOA in the near future." Russia’s demonstrated expertise in radio-electronic combat should make Israel think twice about a first strike. Not only would this expertise bolster Iran’s defenses, but Russia could hamper Israel’s strike capabilities from her bases in Syria and her ships in the Mediterranean. Russia would not sit this one out. 

In my opinion, an Israeli strike on Iran is not imminent. Nor is it in the cards in at least the next several years. Israel has to be sure of a convincing victory. A draw would further damage Israel’s aura of invincibility. Without that, Israel’s best and brightest will fly away leaving nothing but Talmudic scholars and angry Palestinians to hash things out. There will be conflict as well as more big talk and selling of wolf tickets like I posted at the top of this article. The political maneuvering will continue. Military capabilities will continue to be developed. The intelligence conflict will continue. The cyber conflict will continue. All this will continue until something breaks… one way or the other.

TTG 

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/01/29/644100/Israeli-figures-slam-Kochavi-empty-rhetoric

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/iranian-army-spokesman-threatens-to-destroy-tel-aviv-if-israel-attacks-irans-nuclear-facilities/

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/01/28/644011/Iran-Israel-threat-Dehqan-Shekarchi 

       

"BIDEN PLAGIARIZES AGAIN AFTER BLOOMBERG POINTS OUT VIRUS PLAN IS BASICALLY TRUMP’S" Blomberg/Zerohedge/SF

(We'll catch'em wit' spaghetti on their forks)

"Biden – who has a history of plagiarism – was essentially lying, especially when one considers the mammoth effort involved in distribution efforts which would make major changes costly and risk setbacks to the program. Bloomberg adds that “some aspects of the program don’t offer much wiggle room to begin with, while the trickiest part are yet to come.”

Bloomberg does toss Biden a bone, however, reporting that Trump ‘undercut’ Biden’s efforts to shape the program by delaying the transition while disputing the results of the election. Trump’s team, however, says they had over 300 transition briefings with health officials – which Biden officials claim contained little useful information until just days before the inauguration.

Meanwhile, officials from the Operation Warp Speed – the joint effort between the Trump administration’s Departments of Health and Human Services and DoD, say the partisan sniping from Biden’s team is hurting morale among career staff who are handling the vaccine rollout.

“The transition is happening less well than I, and my team, had been hoping,” said Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed. “The team doesn’t understand why the Operation is being criticized as it is. It is so unfair and unjustified.”

“If it wasn’t for this Operation, we may not have as many vaccines as we will now.”

Also pushing back against the Biden team’s besmirchments is Anthony Fauci, the highest-paid employee in the federal government and ongoing COVID-19 advisor to the Office of the President.

“We certainly are not starting from scratch,” Fauci said earlier this month. “It’s taking what’s gone on, but amplifying it in a big way,” he added. Even Biden said that “credit is absolutely due” to the Trump administration for launching the vaccine program."  SF

--------------

He is a demented liar and plagiarist pumped up on Aderall and Ritalin, head of an Irish crime family reminiscent of the one in the movie, "State of Grace,"  What should you expect of the guy?

THIS!!!

I hope I am still around for his post presidential impeachment and trial.    pl

https://southfront.org/biden-plagiarizes-again-after-bloomberg-points-out-virus-plan-is-basically-trumps/