Author Archives: Richard Fernandez

The question is always who will bell the cat. Sometimes the truth is not in vogue. NYT

New at the Belmont Club If the globalization meant China could turn off your fridge would you still like it?

Max Boot, remarking on Duterte’s midterm poll victory in the Philippines tweeted “undermining democracy is popular”. It’s more than’undermining’ but rather fake democracy. The new tactic in hybrid warfare is for strongmen to make dictatorship look like democracy. Just as politicians have learned the art of making war in secret they have perfected the skill …

Continue reading “CGI Democracy”

Attorney General William Barr has appointed a U.S. attorney to examine the origins of the Russia investigation and determine if intelligence collection involving the Trump campaign was “lawful and appropriate,” a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Monday. AP

Family and colleagues mourned Sunday the deaths of the first woman to lead Massachusetts’ university system and her husband,a retired MIT professor, after the couple were found Friday in their Florida home overcome by carbon monoxide from a car they had purchased for its modern safety features, family members said .. accidentally left running in …

Continue reading “Too quiet”

Hotel staff discovered the bodies in a room alongside two crossbows, the German news agency DPA reported. …“There was no evidence to suggest that another person was involved in the deaths.” BBC Although it is little remembered now, the OSS developed a crossbow called Big Joe for covert assassinations.

New at the Belmont Club

“What’s he worried about?” Giuliani told NBC News in a text message in response to Murphy’s call for an investigation NBC

Iran’s probably think it’s in their interest to try pull US forces back to the Middle East by engaging in asymmetric provocation. It is something Trump will resist. But some damn fool thing can always happen. History shows that once escalation occurs it becomes unpredictable. The semi-official ISNA news agency quoted hardliner Ayatollah Tabatabai-Nejad in …

Continue reading “Chicken in the Gulf”

As the world continues through a conflict that has yet to receive history’s name the fight — between whom and whom — continually intensifies. The culture wars have become vicious, uncompromising. The antipathy is open. A new stage may be starting.

By blocking certain users social media assumed the responsibility of publishers. This may destroy them. The law bans falsehoods that are prejudicial to Singapore or likely to influence elections and requires service providers to remove such content or allows the government to block it. Offenders could face a jail term of up to 10 years …

Continue reading “Singapore outlaws fake news, allows govt to block, remove it”

Selling indulgences to Gaia. A future historian might write: “Indulgences became increasingly popular in the 21st century as a reward for signaling virtue, hugging rough trees, and going on pilgrimage to environmental summits; for putting on processions and marches; associations demanded that their meetings be rewarded with indulgences. Good deeds included tax donations of money …

Continue reading “Restaurants to offer penance at meals”

The Iran nuclear deals seems to have represented a fundamental strategic choice which the Obama administration made and which Trump has now rejected without either really explaining why. The lack of public debate is reflected in the non-ratification of Obama’s Iranian nuclear deal and the lack of Congressional consensus behind Trump’s actions toward Iran. Maybe …

Continue reading “Iran revisited”

And yet you hear less about China and Iran than Russia. That’s not to say Russia isn’t a factor but what a strange sense of proportionality the media have. Together, the U.S. and China make up half the world’s military spending, expending as much as the rest of the world combined. In fact, the “significant …

Continue reading “Not a good indicator”

“The phenomenon is feeding on itself,” said Peter Langman, a psychologist who is the author of “Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters” and who runs the website SchoolShooters.info. “It’s gaining momentum, and the more there are, the more there will be.” National Review

Had California and Germany invested $680 billion into new nuclear power plants instead of renewables like solar and wind farms, the two would already be generating 100% or more of their electricity from clean (low-emissions) energy sources, according to a new analysis by Environmental Progress. Forbes

It sounds like ‘when’ not ‘if’. The reality of the Iranian threat means whoever the US backs in the Islamic civil war that they will be backing a “bad guy”. The only escape from this dilemma is to make both Iran and KSA irrelevant but the Greens through their policies will ensure they both remain …

Continue reading “Iran threat inflated say sources”

We will hold social media platforms responsible for the hate infiltrating their platforms, because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy. And if you profit off of hate—if you act as a megaphone for misinformation or cyberwarfare, if you don’t police your platforms—we are going to hold you accountable …

Continue reading “Kamala Harris Wants to Be Your Online Censor-in-Chief”

Something took over. An intellectual generation scornful of “thoughts and prayers ” were wholly defenseless against a hostile meme. Like the proud Martians in the War of Worlds they proved vulnerable to a virus against which humble men had been inoculated. Tablet

“The second mistake I made was to listen too carefully to the British government. Cameron. Because the then prime minister asked me not to interfere, not to intervene in the referendum campaign,” Hill