Monday, November 30, 2015



James Franklin– Verified account ‏@coachjfranklin

Want 2 take the time 2 wish a member of OUR FAMILY Happy B-day, @WelcomeToMyCoop, hope u enjoy ur day! #PSUnrivaled #107kStrong #WeAreFamily



James Franklin– Verified account ‏@coachjfranklin

Want 2 take the time 2 wish a member of OUR FAMILY Happy B-day, @Chris01rock, hope u enjoy ur day! #PSUnrivaled #107kStrong #WeAreFamily



James Franklin– Verified account ‏@coachjfranklin

Want 2 take the time 2 wish a member of OUR FAMILY Happy B-day, Joe Berg, hope u enjoy ur day! #PSUnrivaled #107kStrong #WeAreFamily




James Franklin– Verified account ‏@coachjfranklin

Want 2 take the time 2 wish a member of OUR FAMILY Happy B-day, Chris Gulla, hope u enjoy ur day! #PSUnrivaled #107kStrong #WeAreFamily



James Franklin– Verified account ‏@coachjfranklin

Want 2 take the time 2 wish a member of OUR FAMILY Happy B-day, @mannybowens3, hope u enjoy ur day! #PSUnrivaled #107kStrong #WeAreFamily



James Franklin– Verified account ‏@coachjfranklin

Want 2 take the time 2 wish a member of OUR FAMILY Happy B-day, @angelomangiro66, hope u enjoy ur day! #PSUnrivaled #107kStrong #WeAreFamily



James Franklin– Verified account ‏@coachjfranklin

Want 2 take the time 2 wish a member of OUR FAMILY Happy B-day, @GoPSUTony, hope u enjoy ur day! #PSUnrivaled #107kStrong #WeAreFamily



James Franklin– Verified account ‏@coachjfranklin

Want 2 take the time 2 wish a member of OUR FAMILY Happy B-day, Dianna Weaver, hope u enjoy ur day! #PSUnrivaled #107kStrong #WeAreFamily



James Franklin– Verified account ‏@coachjfranklin

Core Values 1. Positive ATTITUDE 2. Great WORK ETHIC 3. COMPETE In Everything You Do 4.
Must Be Willing to SACRIFICE


Enough. I hold that this is not another sports post but rather a post on psycho-pathology in the mold of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the Reverend Jim Jones, and Saint Joseph Vincent of "Happy Valley." Brother Franklin, who bolts out of bed each morning to do a back flip of positivity as start to his day is the perfect coach for his milieu and I'm going to call my client's friend and see if I can wrangle an invite for him to the church where my childhood trauma will be discussed so that Franklin can aid me in escaping my wretched life and infuse my spirit with his relentless message of postitivism and so I may take in the full, florid manifestations of his own affliction(s).
I am sorry that I am not still at work talking to a client for three hours one hour of which was about the existence of God part of that hour on the telephone with a friend of his who he called to explain to me the evidence of God's existence who told my client afterwards that my client should bring me to church as soon as possible as it was clear to him that something must have happened to me in my childhood to cause me to doubt the evidence of God's existence. 
It is Cyber Monday. 

Sunday, November 29, 2015

I disagree that those were sports posts, they were...popular culture posts.
These guys, it's like in tennis, right? How long as Serena Williams been the best women's player? Before her it was Martina Navratilova, before her Billy Jean King...Probably somebody else in between. Or in men's it's Roger Federer, before him Pete Sampras. These people are just around FOR EVER. It gets boring. How does Brady never get hurt? Derrick Rose is hurt all the time, disappears for entire seasons, you forget who he is, That's...that's Jalen Rose, he's back?. He plays basketball. Fucking Brady plays professional tackle football and hasn't missed a game, or an ESPN front page, in 37 years. Brady, GO AWAY! You're at risk for chronic enceph...What is that thing? You're chronic, Brady, GO AWAY!
We need one for him, too. Oh no we don't. Just the memory eraser pills.
How long has that guy been playing? We need a mandatory retirement age in the National Football League. One for teams, too. After awhile you never see them again, they just disappear. And we need a cap on the number of times a player can appear on the front page of ESPN, like fifteen times your whole life. And we need to make the cap retroactive. Also memory erasers.

Sport.

My goodness gracious.

The University of Georgia has fired head football coach Mark Richt.

Rutgers has fired head coach Kyle Flood and athletic director Julie Hermann.

Pennsylvania-ISIS head coach James Franklin has fired offensive coordinator...I forget...John Donovan, that's his name.

The University of Virginia has fired head coach Mike London.

Louisiana State did not fire head coach Les Miles.

Before today there were thirteen, I think it was, head coaching vacancies in college tackle football. Add a couple more to that!

(Sorry non-sports people, I usually cease and desist after Saturdays and I did ignore the Miles non-firing last night and the Donovan firing today but it was Donovan, Flood/Hermann, Richt, back-to-back-to-back, boom, boom, boom, so that's that.)

To get the rest of this topic over with in one post, one of the biggest business stories this past week was that ESPN had lost 3,000,000 subscribers in the last year, 7,000.000 in two years. ESPN is owned by Disney. A couple weeks ago ESPN shuttered its acclaimed Grantland. ESPN is in a tight spot. Their business model for the last several years was to buy up, in a lot of cases create, live programming properties. Most spectacularly, they created a separate television network for the University of Texas. They threw money at the college conferences to televise their games, created bowl games so they could televise them. ESPN/Disney money was one of the driving forces behind the disrupting conference realignment a few years ago. The thinking was that live programming is always at a premium, it is highly popular with television viewers, and like land, they ain't making any more of it. Except ESPN did make more of it, like the Chinese creating those islands. As a consequence of all this creating and buying ESPN's fixed costs way into the future are humongous. The deals they signed with Texas and the conferences are for many years. On top of that they lose 7,000,000 subscribers. That is a wicked combination.

Arsenal drew at Norwich today in the EPL. After City's loss to Liverpool, and I think Arsenal got a poor result that day as well, I emailed my Arsenal friend that I thought it was embarrassing, that's the word I used, that Leicester was in first place. I thought it made all of English football look bad. The traditional Big Four, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, are the face of English football. Only Man City has cracked that Big Four and now the world is used to them, they are viewed as one of the world's Big Clubs. But all of the traditional Big Four and Manchester City are down this year,--so far--and the struggles in Europe continue. After thirteen matches when a Spanish, Italian, or Chinese soccer follower looked at the EPL table and saw Leicester City at top-I didn't think that was a good thing. My Arsenal friend responded "yeah, but." Yeah, but it makes watching the games involving one of the have-nots more exciting. I'm glad he was excited today watching Arsenal draw at the "Canaries"

The NBA "Warriors" won their eighteenth straight last night. They haven't had their head coach all year. (?) Steve Kerr has missed the entire season so far recovering from back surgery. Luke Walton, the assistant coach, has led them this entire amazing start. That is amazing.

A Not So Humble Hawk.

I was an enthusiastic backer of the second Iraq War.

I was wrong.

Last week I heard President Obama say that the American military was the finest in the world. It is true. Secretary Albright said that all the time. It was what informed her critique of the Powell Doctrine and the formation of her own "doability doctrine."

I thought, when I heard Obama, what I have thought and written many times before, "Does America still work?" I had heard that so many times before-I believe it is true-but I look around me at the world and all around me, wherever I look, I see the evidence that the finest military in the world has not worked.

And this morning I wondered why.

Take Iraq. America won that fucking war. Donald Rumsfeld's transformation of the American military was on full display; General Tommy Franks' execution of the war plan was flawless and regime change was affected in something like thirty-four days. It was amazing.

Sure doesn't feel like we won that war, does it?

What happened? According to the Pottery Barn codicil to the Powell Doctrine, "If you break it, you own it." We had to "win the peace." We couldn't leave a "power vacuum" in Iraq.

I thought we could. I never bought the Pottery Barn rule. Who is "we" anyway? Under the doability doctrine is it the military's job to win the peace? To "nation build?" Can the finest military in the world do that? It did not seem to me then that winning the peace was the job of the military. My own plan for nation building in Iraq was to throw them a copy of the Federalist Papers on our way out.

Bush 43 believed in the Pottery Barn rule; his plan was to transform Iraq into a democracy. To have that democracy be a model for the Arab world. That failed-but not by much. Iraq got off to a pretty darn good start, held elections in the midst of Taliban threats and attacks; everyone walking around proudly displaying the purple ink on their fingers that they had voted. I was thrilled. Even though I did not think we should try to transform Iraq into a democracy, I was thrilled.

But we didn't win the peace; Iraqi civil society was not reconstructed sufficiently, there was a power vacuum, the Iraq central government was not strong enough to enforce the peace and into the vacuum came ISIL.

Rumsfeld told the Times of London this past summer that he thought the Iraqi democracy project was a mistake from the beginning.

America, through the American military, has obeyed the Pottery Barn rule at some times in the past: after World War II most famously and successfully. Not at other times: not after the Civil War, not after the Indian Wars. We kept slaughtering the Indians until there was nothing to transform.

I like the example of the Indian Wars best. My own thought for the military's role in post-war Iraq was to continue bombing and slaughtering whoever was fool enough to rush into that vacuum. That would be ISIL.

Well, we didn't do that. I don't know what the plan is now. My not so humble plan's the same.
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Saturday, November 28, 2015

Happy/Sad-urday.

In reverse chronological order:

Rivalry Week? Aren't the games supposed to be close? Lotta unrivaled rivals today. Clemson-South Carolina and STANFORD over Notre Dame were the exceptions. Amazing "reading" (as opposed to "sounding" or "looking") game, Stanford-ND: I checked the score frequently and it was back and forth the whole game. Notre Dame scored with :35 left to take the lead and Stanford, with the help of a 15 yard face mask penalty, got down to the Irish 28 yard line with :06 left and kicked a field goal for the win. Orgasmic happiness for Stanford, crushing sadness for Notre Dame. That's what happens on Happy/Sad-urdays.

In games involving ranked teams this week Ohio State, North Carolina, ALABAMA, MICHIGAN STATE, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, Houston, Oregon, NORTHWESTERN, TEMPLE, MISSISSIPPI, FLORIDA STATE and Washington were unrivaled. Only one top 25 game left, Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, and I'm calling it a blowout for the "Sooners;" they're up 51-23 going into the 4th quarter. Earlier in the week TCU-Baylor was close, UTAH and Iowa had close wins and WESTERN MICHIGAN upset Toledo in a close game. That's 5-13 close scores vs blowouts. That's not good, too many unrivaled winners in Rivalry Week this year.
...
It is an excellent university academically and its tackle football team plays in a 100,000 seat stadium nicknamed the “Big House;” their winged helmet design is iconic; their team fight song is “The Victors;” their head coach has been called a “genius.”

The University of Michigan, #13, was BLOWN OUT of their Big House today by eighth-ranked OHIO STATE.

CLEMSON, #1, almost clemsoned.

NORTH CAROLINA, #14 defeated North Carolina State.

MANCHESTER CITY beat Southampton and are now in first place in the English Premier League.

LEICESTER and Manchester United drew. The "Foxes" are behind City only on goal difference.

Newcastle. Oy vey, Newcastle. Newcastle got BLOWN OUT of Selhurst Park today by CRYSTAL PALACE. Those wearing prison-striped sweaters are 19th in the table, in the relegation zone.


This is a BIG one in college tackle football-Rivalry Week :o Yeah, man. BIG. Before we get to that though, and it's already started, the "Warriors" NBA franchise just won their 17th straight game. The NBA right now epitomizes the extremes of happiness and sadness in sports for the Philadelphia "76'ers" are the perfect mirror image of the "Warriors": they are 0-17 this season, 0-27 going back to last season, can break the record for sadness to start a single season if they lose their next game and so, yeah. Cleveland won again tonight and I was blinded by the "Warriors" supernova and didn't see San Antonio quietly sitting there at 13-3. The "Spurs" are the model sports franchise in every way. And a waist-level "five" to the New York "Knickerbockers" who are 9-8 although they lost their third straight game tonight. Phil Jackson's creation is, so far, much improved from last year's debacle. Rookie Kristaps Porzingis has had a feel-good first season for NY.

Now briefly to scholarly tackle football:

#15 Navy, you have a HOUSTON problem. The "Cougars" ran all over the "Midshipmen" tonight, although we point out that the game was played on land.

Pittsburgh got hit with a hurricane today. MIAMI led 23-3 and held on for a 29-24 win. Pitt was favored by Vegas and all the cognescenti. First time Pitt was upset this year.

IOWA. My God, Iowa. #4 Iowa beat Nebraska to finish their regular season 12-0. Could not be happier for the university, the entire state, "Hawkeye" supporters, and good-guy coach Kirk Ferentz. First time in their history the football team has been 12-0. First perfect regular season in school history. A magical season. And twitter magic from @fauxpelini, super-supporter of Iowa's twelth victim, Nebraska:
WE LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE IOWA IS 12-0 PLEASE THROW ME DOWN THE STAIRS

.@realDonaldTrump if you were president how would you fix the Iowa football problem



.@Pontifex 12-0 dude are you kidding me

#19 TEXAS CHRISTIAN just beat #7 Baylor.

#17 OREGON beat Oregon State.

WASHINGTON murdered #20 Washington State.

Updates frequently in about twelve hours. Night-night termites.
Amb Bass—Shocked, deeply saddened by murder of Tahir Elçi. A champion for all seeking a future where citizens can live in peace & dignity
7:02 AM - 28 Nov 2015
141 RETWEETS71 LIKES


"Why did we give this information to the Americans if they did not pass it along to the rest of the coalition?"

This is an official statement by the government of Turkey through its embassy in Washington, D.C. on the downing of the Russian warplane. The bolded typeface is added by me for emphasis. Twice in a simple release Turkey waves the flag of NATO, also for emphasis.

NATO drags the U.S. into this and that is the problem with military alliances. Putin has said that Russia will not retaliate militarily. Today however a Russian official said that Putin was 'mobilized, fully mobilized" in response to the Turkish "threat." Another Russian official said to expect air engagements with Turkey and naval engagements. If any one of those materialize all Turkey need do is invoke Article Five of the NATO treaty and the U.S. and every other NATO member country is obligated to come to Turkey's military defense.

The problem with an all-for-one, one-for-all military treaty, therefore, is this automatic effect. The automatic effect means that you can't call a member country wrong. When the treaty is bilateral or trilateral there is enough commonality of interests-of identity-to prevent absurd conflicts triggered by a rogue member. But NATO is not bilateral, not trilateral, it is 28 laterals. The automatic effect means that NATO, as it has, must take Turkey's position, right or wrong. And that if shoot comes to down it must shoot with Turkey against Russia. The problem also manifests itself in reverse. That is, in all-for-one, one-for-all, the actions of one member are the actions of all. Knowledge by one is knowledge by all. The alliance as a whole, and individually, naturally are held responsible for the irresponsible actions of one. This is how Putin put it:

"The American side, which leads the coalition that Turkey belongs to, knew about the location and time of our planes' flights, and we were hit exactly there and at that time."

"Why did we give this information to the Americans if they did not pass it along to the rest of the coalition?"


Checkmate.

Since NATO was, and continues to be, aimed at Russia the NATO treaty means that no NATO country, such as the U.S., nor NATO as a whole, can say that Russia was right-on anything-if the party in the wrong is a member of NATO. You don't have to call Russia paranoid to feel the hostility that Russia feels from NATO and towards NATO.

The problem with multi-lateral treaties, what Woodrow Wilson warned against, is one of "entangling alliances." The European security arrangements prior to World War I were supposed to weave each of the major powers so closely to the others that conflict could not occur. But, if you pull on the right strand of the strongest, most intricate weave, the whole thing unravels quickly and once Germany attacked, then by automatic effect this country was entangled and since that one was entangled this one was obligated to get involved and since that one, this one and that one and the other. Voila! General war in Europe.

Related

Today, an Israeli official said that Russian aircraft have "at times" violated Israeli air space in bombing targets in Syria but that "excellent security coordination" between the two countries prevent the incursions from escalating.

Today a Turkish lawyer, an advocate for the Kurds, was murdered during a press conference.

On October 10, 102 people attending a peace rally in Ankara were killed.

On November 2, President Erdogan's political party won national elections giving Turkey one-party rule. Erdogan is Islamist.

Today Erdogan said he was "really saddened" by the shootdown, wished it had not happened.


Embassy Announcement


Press Release On Violation Of The Turkish Airspace , 25.11.2015

On 24 November, Turkish radars detected two SU-24 type aircraft of unidentified nationality flying very close to Turkish border near Yayladağı region of Hatay Province.

The two aircraft were warned 10 times by our radar over a period of 5 minutes, via emergency “Guard” channel to change their heading south immediately so as not to violate the Turkish national airspace.

Both aircraft, flying at an altitude of 19.000 feet and following each other with a distance of 5 miles, violated Turkish airspace from east to west by 1,15 miles depth and 1,36 miles length for 17 seconds starting from 09.24¢.05² (9 hours, 24 minutes, 5 seconds).

The radar track records indicating the flight pattern and violated air space have been shared with Allies at the North Atlantic Council meeting. 

Upon continued warnings, one of the aircraft left the Turkish airspace. However, the second aircraft continued to violate the Turkish airspace
and was shot down by the Turkish F-16’s conducting air patrolling in the area. The intruder was still in Turkish airspace when hit and then crashed into the adjacent territory in Syria.

We have repeatedly communicated and explained in very clear terms our rules of engagement for all unidentified aircraft approaching from Syria in violation of Turkish airspace to all concerned parties, including Russia.

Therefore, the incident is essentially an implementation of our existing rules of engagement towards an aircraft of unidentified nationality, which violated Turkish airspace in spite of repeated warnings.

We have informed the P-5 countries through their Embassies in Ankara. We have also circulated a letter at the UN and informed the UN Secretary General and the Security Council.

Upon our request, NATO Council met on 24 November. We have informed our Allies about the incident at that meeting. All Allies expressed their strong solidarity with Turkey.

The violated airspace is also NATO airspace. As Secretary General Stoltenberg underlined at the press conference he held following the Council meeting, we appreciate and value the solidarity our Allies have been displaying. 

We would like to stress that we have no intention whatsoever to escalate the situation. Our contacts with the Russian authorities are ongoing to this end.

"Winter Storm Cara: Ice and Flood Warnings..."-Christian Science Monitor.

And now for the weather news. Winter Storm Cara...Winter Storm Cara? What do you mean "Winter" "Storm" "Cara," when did we start naming winter storms? We need to nip this shit in the bud or pretty soon we're going to have Summer Breeze Seth and I don't want to be thinking "Feel that? Oh that's Seth blowing on my cheeks." Damn people, what do they think they're doing. 

Friday, November 27, 2015

And so Article Five of the NATO treaty obligates the twenty-seven other members to come to the defense of that nut if Russia attacks Turkey. 


China.

Miss Canada has been denied entry to China to attend the opening ceremony of the Miss World pageant.






What do you imagine that possibly could be about? Hint: think in Chinese, not as a normal person. Hint-hint: her name is Anastasia Lin.

Miss Lin was born in China. She is an outspoken human rights activist on Chinese matters. The Chinese government has not given a reason in this specific case but has commented generally:

“China welcomes all lawful activities organized in China by international organizations or agencies, including the Miss World pageant. But China does not allow any persona non grata to come to China.”

That would have been enough itself but I don't think that is the only reason. If you are ethnic Chinese, you are always Chinese, wherever you are and whatever you become. The former U.S. ambassador to China, Gary Locke, was third-generation American but his great-greats had emigrated from China. Locke got official shit for that. China is the most ethnically homogeneous of the world's major countries. Chinese are racist; in addition to not arguing well they are racist. Once Chinese, always Chinese. And the reverse, too. If you are not Chinese, you can never become: "You will never be Chinese."

"Putin Rejects Overtures from Erdogan Over Downed Jet Fighter."-Wall Street Journal.*

“We see a lack of readiness from the Turkish side to offer an elementary apology for the incident with the aircraft,” [Yuri] Yushakov said.

There you go.

*UPDATE: I want to add that immediately after the quote above the Journal begins its next paragraph with this:

"Russia’s unforgiving response to Tuesday’s incident has plunged relations between Moscow and Ankara into uncharted territory."  Amazing. The anti-Russia propaganda in America is a close, more subtle second only to the anti-American propaganda in Russia. Can you imagine if Russia had shot down a Turkish NATO warplane? The Wall Street Journal would be calling for World War III on Russia--and that's with an apology. Apologize, we will nuke you and then accept your apology. Amazing.

Sport.

Manchester City lost at Juventus in the UCL Tuesday. The "Angels" have now been outscored 5-1 in their last two games. No idea.

The University of Texas lost, at home, to Texas Tech yesterday. UT is now 4-7, second straight losing season for coach Charlie Strong. Their last game is at #7 Baylor so make that 4-8. Very puzzling situation in Austin. Texas beat one of the top teams in America, Oklahoma, several weeks ago. Looked like they had gotten over the hump. Two weeks later they lost to bad Iowa State who have since fired their coach. Texas' other three wins are against three of the worst teams in college tackle football, Rice, Kansas and Kansas State. How can you beat Oklahoma and get shut out by Iowa State? I don't know.

The Carolina "Panthers" of the National Football League are undefeated through eleven games :o How did that happen? I don't know.

The Cleveland "Cavaliers" have a gaudy 11-4 record, tops in the Leastern Conference. They lost the day before Thanksgiving to Toronto, their third straight away loss. Is there something not quite right with Cleveland? I don't know.
Islam hasn't attacked yet! It's only 10:00 a.m. but I thought they might want to get it done early. Maybe Black Friday is too obvious for them, they want to be more subtle. But now I'm just rationalizing, I did really think this was a perfect spot for them.

Erdogan's Meeting Request With Putin.

Man, I hate meetings. Talk, talk, talk, nothing gets decided, and another meeting is set. They give the appearance that you're doing something--"I'm going to Paris, for godssake, that's what I'm doing!"--when you're really not. If I have the choice, I will not go to a meeting unless a decision is going to be made. I'm not going to a meeting just to talk.

So why does Erdogan want this meeting and why would Putin agree to meet with him or not meet with him? Erdogan wants the meeting because he fucked up, because Putin won the verbal chess match yesterday, because Putin is cutting economic links as response to the shootdown. Erdogan wants to privately express regret,--apologize--without apologizing, and wants no economic ties cut--no consequences for the shootdown.

Now, if I'm Putin there is no way in hell I would agree to this meeting. That mother-fucker Erdogan chose to play the chess match in public by giving interviews and making official public statements. Putin responded in the venue chosen by Erdogan and checkmated him. Now Erdogan wants a rematch in private. If I'm Putin, I'm not going to let Erdogan get away with a private "statement of regret" or something, Erdogan is not going to apologize even in private and then have him maintain his public posture of "We did nothing wrong! No apology!"

It is remarkable to me that all Putin wants is a public apology to cancel the economic sanctions. Erdogan won't even do that. If I'm Putin I have my people tell Erdogan's people to tell Erdogan the nascent economic sanctions will be rescinded if Erdogan makes a public apology to cancel out his public bluster. See? No meeting necessary.

If Erdogan does not publicly apologize and they still meet, things could get worse; they would get worse if it was me and not Putin at that meeting. I would demonstrate on Erdogan my black belt karate skeels. That would be worse, see?

"Kremlin Cutting Economic Links With the Turks."-Quasis.


Erdogan called up the Kremlin and requested a meeting with Putin on Monday in Paris. Climate change conference there. Putin hasn't gotten back to him.

That's what Americans do. Makes 'em happy.
hi

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Tony Romo Done for Season.


Really sad. Tony Romo, star quarterback for the Dallas "Cowboys" professional tackle football franchise broke his shoulder last year and missed the first seven games of the current season. He took a hit last week against Miami but was okay. Today, however, playing against the Philadelphia "Eagles" Romo was sacked and fell hard on the left shoulder again, with a big ol' "Eagle" on top of him. He's done for the season. Dallas was 12-4 last season with Romo. This year, 3-8. Very too bad. 
@fauxpelini makes the world a little happier place:
HI KIDS WOULD YOU LIKE A BISCUIT OR PERHAPS SOME MURDER
Embedded image
8:44 AM - 26 Nov 2015
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Do I make the world a little happier place? No.
Louis CK?
Man Scales White House Fence as Obamas Celebrate Thanksgiving Inside-New York Times.

Groundhog Day, not Turkey Day, my bad.

"If it was an American aircraft, would they have struck?"-Vladimir Putin.

There has been a verbal chess match going on between Putin and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and today Erdogan got checkmated.

Yesterday, Erdogan said Turkey would not apologize for the downing of the Russian fighter as it had done nothing wrong:

"If the same violation occurs today, Turkey has to react the same way."

Demonstrably Turkey had not shot down other aircraft that had violated its airspace previously nor had Greece, a fellow NATO member, shot down Turkish aircraft for violating Greek airspace in the past. This opened Erdogan up to what "the same violation" would be.

Then Erdogan exposed his king with this statement:

"However, he told France 24 television: 'If we had known it was a Russian plane, maybe we would have warned it differently'".

That entire sentence is in quotes because the modifier "however" is the BBC's. The BBC knows that with that statement Erdogan uncovered his king: allies do not shoot down allies and friends do not shoot down friends. Turkey did not shoot down other aircraft because those belonged to allied or friendly governments. Now Erdogan was saying that Russia fit into the friendly category and if he had known it was a friend violating Turkish airspace for 30 seconds he would not have shot it down. Erdogan was saying he didn't know that the fighter was Russian? If Erdogan did not know he would not have shot the fighter down. Putin pounced: 

"But Mr Putin insisted it was "impossible" for Turkey not to have known it was shooting at a Russian plane. 'It's got insignia, and you can see that very clearly'.

"He went on: 'In advance, in accordance with our agreement with the US, we gave information on where our planes would be working - at what altitude, and in what areas. Turkey is part of that coalition and they had to know it was the Russian airforce working in that area.'"

Turkey did have to know and Turkey did know; they would never have risked shooting down a NATO aircraft.

"If it was an American aircraft, would they have struck?"

That was checkmate. Poor chess by Erdogan; well-played match by Putin.
Putin has ruled out military retaliation for Turkey's military shoot-down of its military jet and is going the economic route, for example curbing grain imports. That is big of Putin. Bigger than I expected of Putin, who is a notorious saber rattler, bigger than I would be in his shoes. Given the de minimis, if any, violation of Turkish airspace, in the context of other airspace violations in Europe, Erdogan's rash reaction, resentment toward NATO,-the whole history here-know what I'd do if I were Putin? Order my jets to fly the identical flight path claimed by Turkey. Dare Turkey, and by extension all of NATO, to shoot down another one.

Un-believable.

I just "amazoned" China Cultural Revolution, sorted by newest arrivals and up came:

Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution (Harvard Contemporary China Series)-Jie Li and Enhua Zhang.

Jie Li:

Friday, December 04, 2009



China's Great Wall of Silence: Jie Li.

On Saturday October 3, 2009 Jie Li,(1) Ph.D candidate at Harvard University, asserted the following:
 
-The film Morning Sun provided an “exculpation” of Song Binbin’s involvement in any Cultural Revolution violence.
-Morning Sun also exculpated Song of volitional change of her surname from Binbin, meaning “gentle and refined” to Yaowu, “be militant.”
-“Outrage” by Chinese toward Song after Morning Sun is due to her violation of expected Chinese gender roles (submissiveness and repentance).
-It is Song “the symbol and not the person” that is responsible for her demonization.
-Song is “a scapegoat and victim” of the Cultural Revolution.

Jie Li is highly intelligent, extremely articulate, Chinese-American, female, and scholar. As these are all valuable qualifications for discussion of the topic let it be said that this writer is only minimally equipped with some and is entirely lacking in the equipment of others.

The following assertions made by Jie Li, Ph.D candidate at Harvard University, are untrue:
 
-Morning Sun provided an “exculpation”* for Song Binbin’s involvement in any Cultural Revolution violence.
-Morning Sun exculpated Song of volitional change of her surname from Binbin, meaning “gentle and refined” to Yaowu, “be militant.”
-“Outrage” by Chinese toward Song after Morning Sun is due to her violation of expected Chinese gender roles (submissiveness and repentance).
-It is Song “the symbol and not the person” that is responsible for her demonetization.
-Song is “a scapegoat and victim” of the Cultural Revolution.

One does not have to be schooled in Western criminal jurisprudence to recognize the sweep of Ms. Li's assertions: Song Binbin is innocent, which is an entirely different matter than being not guilty.

Further, according to Ms. Li, there is positive evidence of Song's innocence, as there often is in instances of actual innocence.

Ms. Li asserted that that evidence is to be found in Morning Sun, in fact it is the sum of the evidence of actual innocence asserted by Ms. Li. This is a verbatim transcription of the entirety of Song Binbin's statements onMorning Sun. They begin with her appearance on the rostrum with Mao Zedong on August 18, 1966:

"The Red Guards were all excited. They went around putting armbands on party leaders. Someone said 'Binbin why not give one to Chairman Mao.' So I went up to him."

"I was very naive and took it to be a casual remark [i.e. Mao's suggestion that she change her name]. But an article soon appeared in the newspaper with the title 'I put a Red Guard armband on Chairman Mao.' It was written in the first person and signed Song Yaowu with my name Song Binbin in brackets. I couldn't believe the press would fabricate a new name for me and put words in my mouth for their propaganda purposes."

"My name didn't belong to me anymore. I had to change it so my friends helped me find a new single-syllable name by randomly picking a word out of a dictionary."

"I didn't take part in smashing the Four Olds or the house searches but rumors were everywhere: 'Song Be-Militant, the one who put the Red Guard armband on Mao, who brutally beat people up.' I was very upset because I had been always against violence."

"Red Guards from other schools would come to check me out. 'You're the one? You're not what we expected.' I didn't fit their idea of a Revolutionary. My name and my image were hijacked. I had lost control of my identity. I was furious but I was also sad that people suffered because of what that name stood for."

"When I first joined the Cultural Revolution I thought we were going to repudiate bourgeois policies in education but it turned into something altogether different."

"Rumors about me reached the village [during the Great Link-Up] before I arrived. 'Song Be-Militant is coming to settle here, the one who burns, loots and rapes.' The villagers were afraid and they didn't want me there but by working hard with them I was able to gain their acceptance and they came to treat me with great kindness."

"My father named me Binbin because he wanted a daughter who was gentle and refined and I was indeed like that. If my name hadn't meant "gentle" Mao wouldn't have said 'better to be militant' and there wouldn't have been all these rumors. The name Song Be-Militant is totally against my beliefs. It's sad how history could have played such a bad joke."

The reaction among Chinese to these statements, accurately characterized by Ms. Li as outrage, had nothing to do with with "expected Chinese gender roles" but rather with expected human intelligence. Song's statements are an insult to this latter.

Even at a facial level of credibility Song's statements are suspicious.

One need know nothing about the merits of her guilt or innocence to read the transcript and think "Hmm, that is a little too total a denial." In fact that was the reaction of many.

Second, and again without even getting to the merits yet, there is the specific denial of specifics. An actually innocent person is innocent generally and will enter a general denial. So for example we would expect an actually innocent person accused of armed robbery to say "I didn't do any robbery!"

If on the other hand, he (or she) says "I did not hold a 9mm Beretta semi-automatic to that person's head!" a dispassionate auditor would wonder (1) Who said anything about a semi-automatic, as opposed to a revolver, or (2)Who said anything about a 9mm Beretta as opposed to a Ruger or Smith & Wesson?, or (3) Who said anything about a firearm at all, as opposed to a knife?, or (4) Who said anything about holding whatever weapon it was to the person's head as opposed to the neck or heart? If Song had begun and ended her denial with paragraph four above she would not have run afoul of this common sense rule for judging credibility. But she didn't.

There's another problem with the specific denial of specifics: the unexpected. And here, I will use an anecdote--absolutely true--from my experience. A jailer friend of mine told me--this was in the past year or two--that he had become curious about why an older Latin inmate was constantly being picked on by the other inmates. So finally the jailer asked him. The inmate's response was, "I did not leek that turtle, I did not fock that turtle." My friend's reaction was, "YOU DIDN'T FUCK WHAT?!!"

As it is possible for men to have sex with turtles it is possible for a woman to rape a person, but it is not expected. My reaction when I heard Song's denial was: "RAPE?!!" To this day this is the first and only time I ever heard mention of that specific accusation against her.

With just a little familiarity with the period Song's statement further dissolves. She makes this statement:

"Someone said, 'Binbin,' why not give [a Red Guard armband] to Chairman Mao."

Maybe some PBS viewers took that statement at face value but probably not many. I think Mao Zedong, like Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Fidel Castro, is known generally not to have been "a people person," unless those people were dead. One did not just "go up to him" then (as one can now, now that he is dead), much less do something physical, like pin an armband onto him.

Song speaks uninterrupted in Morning Sun, a point addressed previously in Publocc and again below, so she didn't get "tripped up" by some Mike Wallace-like bulldog of an interviewer. It is in this light that the following statement should be judged:

"When I first joined the Cultural Revolution..."

I would bet most PBS viewers didn't find that statement strange. People joined the American Revolution, right? And the French, Russian, and Sexual Revolutions, too. However, it is strange. It is strange because one did not join the Cultural Revolution like those others. The Cultural Revolution was inflicted on Chinese, quite unsuspecting Chinese in fact, by Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong alone. Even his closest Party colleagues didn't "join" the Cultural Revolution.

Song Binbin knew exactly what she was saying here and Carma Hinton knew exactly what Song was saying: Song is saying she didn't join the Red Guards... without saying she didn't join the Red Guards. Throughout her Morning Sun statement Song uses words, as here, that subtly distance herself from the Red Guards. In the first paragraph she says, "The Red Guards were all excited." "The Red Guards"-those other people-"were all excited," implicitly not Song.

Song makes the Cultural Revolution sound like a school textbook fight:

"I thought we were going to repudiate bourgeois policies in education..."

Evolution Out! Creationism In! No, that wasn't what the Cultural Revolution was like.

As one goes deeper into the history of the C.R. and of Song personally there is more:

"My name didn't belong to me anymore. I had to change it so my friends helped me find a new single-syllable name byrandomly picking a word out of a dictionary."

The oddity of this statement was not apparent when Morning Sun was released. As when she denied a rape that on one had accused her of, this is an instance of Song giving away a detail that few knew anything about.

Song immigrated to the United States after the Cultural Revolution. She got her Ph.D in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The name on her diploma reads "Yan Song." Yan is the single-syllable name Song is referring to; it means "rock" in Chinese.

*We think it not inappropriate to add that between 2009 and 2015 Song apologized for the violence that led to the murder of Bian Zhongyun, thus rendering obsolete any further attempts at "exculpation," whether from her or her friends. Chinese do not argue well.

1. Jie Li, presenter of “China’s Salvation through Women’s Soul? Reception of Documentary Images of Lin Zhao, Chia Ling, and Song Binbin,” N.A.A.S., Brown University. Ms. Li was sent a link to this post and invited to respond.


more
Christmas is chapter 3.3.
Ah yes, home for the holidays cometh Ukraine 28, Portugal 17 and Curacao 12.
As you'd expect the most read post in the last 24 ending at 8:30 am on Thanksgiving is "The Chinese Cultural Revolution," Zhang Mu, chapter 3.2, June 19, 2011. Fourteen pageviews.

It is Turkey Day in America. Happy Thanksgiving to all Americanoids. 

Şükran Günü Kutlu Olsun, Amerika, silip süpürmek , gonble

Bu Türk Hava Kuvvetleri tedbirli konuşuyor . Sen Türk hava sahasını yaklaşıyor . Güneyinde hemen yönünüzü değiştirin! 

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Below are excerpts from an article on CNN online by Nic Robertson. The points Mr. Robertson makes are, in my view, valid and consistent in substance with what is written elsewhere, including here. However, the tone is different, it is too dire, in my view. The NATO alliance is not "shattered" by Turkey's rash shootdown of the Russian fighter jet. I do not believe that President Erdogan of Turkey is trying to reconstitute the Ottoman empire; I do not believe that Vladimir Putin is trying to reconstitute the Soviet empire, although there is more reason to think that. To call this a "gain" for Putin is to attribute a demoniacal far-sightedness to him that overstates his vision and demoniacal side. Putin seems to me a pragmatist who seizes opportunities, picks low-hanging fruit, as it were, not one whose every move is part of a grander scheme. He is not Hitler. He probes at NATO because he is surrounded by it to his West. He wishes its disappearance because it should have disappeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union, because the Soviets were told that NATO certainly would not expand; my God, the thought; would expand "not one inch" eastward, and now is confronted with a a hostile alliance that did expand and right to the Baltic Sea. He wishes its disappearance in other words because the Soviets were lied to. He is suspicious and paranoid of NATO because expansion was aimed at Russia and he and his predecessors were told it was not, in other words because they were lied to. He is suspicious and paranoid because the U.S. pulled out of the ABM treaty.

As for Erdogan. Remember him ripping Pope Francis over the Armenian genocide? The still unsolved bombing of the peace rally? Remember that he's an Islamist? Who won election that furthers Turkey toward one-party rule? Sounds like Putin! I was surprised to read that Turkey had been a NATO member since 1952! This is a such an awkward grouping, too little in common, and yet there is the reality that it is a military alliance, aimed at Russia:

"Article Five of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it should be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.[1]"-Wikipedia


"The cool, calm, clear thinking that kept the NATO alliance intact as it weathered the Cold War with the Soviet Union has been shattered.

Decades of careful diplomacy and nail-biting inaction during the potentially world-annihilating nuclear arms race of the 1950s, 60s and 70s appears to have been sacrificed in a few brief seconds by Turkey.

That all changed when Turkish air force jets shot down a Russian bomber Tuesday -- the first time a NATO country has taken such action since 1952. And in those moments, Russian President Vladimir Putin was given a strategic goal: Destabilize and divide NATO.

But, already, German and Czech officials are expressing surprise at Turkey's action -- taken after the Russian plane was inside Turkish airspace for 30 seconds or less, according to U.S. calculations."
...
"[ISIL's attacks on KGL9268 and on Paris presented] a rare moment in international diplomacy and some diplomats were beginning to think Russia's policy on Syria and its support for Bashar al-Assad could be changed. Not quickly, or easily, but the chance was there.

And Erdogan has squandered it.

And that's why -- at first analysis -- this looks like a disaster, beyond the loss of life of one pilot and a would-be rescuer.

It may also be a gain for Putin.

For all those years he has was trying to undermine NATO unity, Erdogan's hasty move has handed it to him on a plate.

Erdogan's NATO partners can now only look at him as a loose cannon, an unstable element in a very combustible situation. Not a steady partner capable of calm nerve that saw the alliance last the Cold War. Erdogan has thrown the whole card table in the air."
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey and Russia promised on Wednesday not to go to war over the downing of a Russian fighter jet, leaving Turkey’s still-nervous NATO allies and just about everyone else wondering why the country decided to risk such a serious confrontation.-New York Times.

Sporting News.

Been waitin' to write this. The "Warriors," the defending NBA champions, set the league record for most consecutive wins to start the season last night by beating the Los Angeles "Lakers." They are now 16-0.

Count me among the doubters last year-that a team in its first try at a championship would do it. Too "soft" mentally. An exciting collection of dead-eye shooters. Offense doesn't win championships, defense does. Finals pressure did get to nonpareil Stephon Curry a bit. If Cleveland hadn't been down to £ they would have won it. But then I read during last year's run that they were the the best, or at least among the very best defensive teams, also. I was really surprised. Now that is a deadly combination.

Count me among the doubters that they would repeat this year. I was joined in that doubt by Las Vegas who never had the "Warriors" as favorites to repeat, the "Mistakers" had that distinction.

I am convinced. The 16-0 start is historic although other teams have had exceptional entire regular seasons only to wilt or be exposed in the playoffs. Atlanta last year. San Antonio's nonpareil coach is famous, infamous, for discounting the regular season, giving games away in order to rest his perpetually aging stars for a playoff run. One injury to one of the "Warriors" key players and that might be that. That might be that with every championship contender. The "Warriors" are young, they have a superstar-in-the-making coach and they play offense and defense. Even historic achievements can be flukes sometimes but on the evidence this is no fluke.

I have been waiting to write this because of what others have written and said about this year's "Warriors." " "Dominance" is the word that comes up again and again. Fivethirtyeight has written more than one awestruck article demonstrating the "Warriors" statistical dominance, their "efficiency" among other buzzwords. Miami president Pat Riley has compared the Curry-Klay Thompson backcourt to the nonpareil "Lakers" backcourt Riley played with, that of Jerry West and Gail Goodrich. Fivethirtyeight took a statistical look and indeed Curry-Thompson is their equal.

I don't know the Western Conference in the NBA, geographical propinquity being what it is, I don't follow the teams out there until the Finals when they play the Eastern Conference champ in Normal People time. I know that the West is best. Cleveland has gotten off to a marvelous start themselves but...there is something, I cannot put my finger on it. £ himself has said that the "Warriors" are hungrier, whereas it should be Cleveland who is hungrier. Their start beats the hell out of their start last year though and they still don't have Kyrie Irving. But there was at least one game when the "Cavs" just didn't show up. Played atrociously. The "Warriors" have shown up every game, hoo-doggie. I don't know what it is but I am having doubts that Cleveland will win the NBA championship apart from the "Warriors" historic start.

But, the last time I had doubts about who the NBA champs would be I was proven wrong, by the "nonpareil" "Warriors."
It is amazing that the FBI is pro at finding teenagers who deface websites but not known terrorists using SMS, rental cars and Facebook. GG.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

      They violate my anoose without bear grease.

"I told Putin 'Feel free to fly over,' heh-heh-heh. "'I give you my WORD,' I said!" Heh-heh-heh.

"Thank you, Mr. President." "You're welcome, man. I think we're hitting the reset button."



"I've secured promises from Erdogan that de minimus Russian overflights will be ignored.
On the other hand...Washington Post:

A U.S. military spokesman confirmed that Turkish pilots issued 10 notifications to their Russian counterparts warning that they were in Turkish airspace and that the Russians did not respond. 
“On the radio . . . we were able to hear everything that was going on,” said Col. Steve Warren, spokesman at the Baghdad headquarters for U.S. forces operating in Iraq and Syria.
New York Times:

NATO countries have been concerned about Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies for some time, and NATO officials acknowledge that Turkey’s agenda in Syria does not always match that of Washington, Britain or France — let alone Russia.
arstechnica.com:

Was a Russian Su-24 strike bomber over Turkish airspace earlier today when it was shot down by a Turkish F-16 fighter, as the Turkish government claimed? Or did it, as the Russians have claimed, fly in Syrian airspace and never cross the Turkish border? The Turkish and Russian governments have published conflicting evidence on the plane's location as accusations fly between the two sides. But it's entirely possible both sides are right—based on different data sources.

With precision satellite navigation and radar systems available to both sides, one might think that it would be relatively simple to both know where the border was and avoid it or know for certain which side of the border the plane was on when it was shot down. But the Russians have published their own version of navigational tracking data that shows the Su-24 flying south of a part of the Turkish border that juts southward into Syria. The Turks claim that the jet, while clearly not mounting an attack against Turkey, was over a mile into Turkish airspace and had been repeatedly warned that it was on a course that would cross the border.

But given the Russian aircraft was only in Turkish airspace for a few seconds (and only penetrated, even by the Turks' accounting, by a little more than a mile), it's still possible that the GLONASS system used by the Russian military for navigation may have given the aircrew different information than the Turks had. GLONASS has fewer satellites than GPS, and more of its satellites follow the same orbital path. That makes positioning errors more likely. And with the complex border between Syria and Turkey (and Russia's operations against Syrian rebels taking them extremely close to that border), a slight miscalculation in flight path could put Russian pilots in Turkish airspace.