CGI Democracy

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 tyrannizing in secret. Low observable technology goes beyond stealth airplanes.

Ordinary people are losing the political arms race against their rulers. Digital manipulation, mass surveillance and individual targeting have tipped the scales against publics that rely on traditional protest tactics like marches and rallies. These old methods are increasingly ineffective against an administration that can call on the technical help of China.

Hence protesters are adopting the tactics of the elite and forging international alliances, waging information warfare and reducing rather than amplifying their signature. One bad turn deserves another.

Can the ‘true’ result, if one can call it that, be recovered? The one constant is reality. Duterte’s fraud was primarily digital. The original paper ballots are the scam’s weakness because they are real and therefore harder to change.

Wholly virtual electoral systems are like CGI where anything is possible. Paper ballots and physical artifacts introduce an element of live action requiring an actual something. We have to step back from CGI politics and go back to live action. Just now

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday after a meeting with FBI officials that Russian hackers successfully penetrated the election systems of two Florida counties in 2016.

“Two Florida counties experienced intrusion into the supervisor of election networks, there was no manipulation or anything but there was voter data that able to be gotten,” said DeSantis. “It did not affect any voting or anything like that.”

But it could have. Virtual systems are far more vulnerable than ones based on stubborn physical artifacts like paper ballots.

Now the spying probe

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

Too quiet

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 the garage


RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – The prevalence of keyless ignitions is growing, and so too are concerns about carbon monoxide.
Drivers who forget to turn them off in an enclosed garage could be killed by the buildup of the colorless, odorless gas.
Congress is now trying to force the government agency in charge of vehicle safety to act.
Keyless ignitions are now standard on millions of cars. In many cases, the engines run so quietly that drivers forget its running once it’s pulled into a garage.
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – The prevalence of keyless ignitions is growing, and so too are concerns about carbon monoxide.
Drivers who forget to turn them off in an enclosed garage could be killed by the buildup of the colorless, odorless gas.
Congress is now trying to force the government agency in charge of vehicle safety to act.
Keyless ignitions are now standard on millions of cars. In many cases, the engines run so quietly that drivers forget its running once it’s pulled into a garage.
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – The prevalence of keyless ignitions is growing, and so too are concerns about carbon monoxide.
Drivers who forget to turn them off in an enclosed garage could be killed by the buildup of the colorless, odorless gas.
Congress is now trying to force the government agency in charge of vehicle safety to act.
Keyless ignitions are now standard on millions of cars. In many cases, the engines run so quietly that drivers forget its running once it’s pulled into a garage.
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – The prevalence of keyless ignitions is growing, and so too are concerns about carbon monoxide.
Drivers who forget to turn them off in an enclosed garage could be killed by the buildup of the colorless, odorless gas.
Congress is now trying to force the government agency in charge of vehicle safety to act.
Keyless ignitions are now standard on millions of cars. In many cases, the engines run so quietly that drivers forget its running once it’s pulled into a garage.

Boston.com


The prevalence of keyless ignitions is growing, and so too are concerns about carbon monoxide.
Drivers who forget to turn them off in an enclosed garage could be killed by the buildup of the colorless, odorless gas.
Congress is now trying to force the government agency in charge of vehicle safety to act.
Keyless ignitions are now standard on millions of cars. In many cases, the engines run so quietly that drivers forget its running once it’s pulled into a garage.

WKRN

Chicken in the Gulf

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 the city of Isfahan as saying: “Their billion(-dollar) fleet can be destroyed with one missile.
“If they attempt any move, they will … (face) dozens of missiles because at that time (government) officials won’t be in charge to act cautiously, but instead things will be in the hands of our beloved leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei),” he said.
‘SANCTIONS HAVE NO EFFECT!’
Separately, Yadollah Javani, the elite Revolutionary Guards’ deputy head for political affairs, said: “No talks will be held with the Americans, and the Americans will not dare take military action against us.”

Reuters

Restaurants to offer penance at meals

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 for a good cause, and money thus raised was used for many righteous causes, like building abortion clinics and sanctuary cities.”

Dining out isn’t the most eco-friendly activity, thanks to the carbon footprint of food brought in and the waste inherent in running a restaurant. Now, an effort by California restaurants wants diners to help fight climate change – by paying more.
Concerned eateries can join the Restore California Renewable Restaurant Program and add an optional 1% surcharge to diners’ checks. The money will go towards a public fund to help farmers reduce carbon in their food production practices.

Guardian

Iran revisited

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 this is because both the Dems and Republicans don’t want to draw attention to the withdrawal from Iraq or entering Iraq in the first place, which seems to have destabilized the Arabs and given Iran and Turkey their big chance.

Tehran is virtually certain that Trump will not — indeed politically cannot — return to the Middle East in force and that the Arabs are presently too scattered to oppose them. At the same time Iran must see Israel benefiting from the same Arab weakness.

This, plus the growing realization that by using hybrid warfare Trump need not return to MENA is probably driving a sense of urgency among the Ayatollahs, who must move now lest the tides turn against them.

In this context the Iran nuclear deal, which was supported by Europe and Obama, can be seen as a strategic attempt to buy off Tehran, thereby forestalling more refugees, a course of action deemed more realistic and cheaper than trying to stop them.

Sending the pallets of cash was seen as more economical than gearing up to stop the Army of the Guardians.

Not a good indicator

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 increases in spending” by the two countries drove total global military spending up 2.6% from 2017, researchers said.

“The spending boom is driven, above all, by the contest between America and China for primacy in Asia,” writes The Economist in summarizing the report. America’s increase “reflected the Trump administration’s embrace of what it calls ‘great power competition’ with Russia and China — requiring fancier, pricier weapons — in place of the inconclusive guerrilla wars it had fought since 2001.

NPR