Generational Dynamics World View

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-24-2020, 05:11 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: More garbage.

The withdrawal was announced in May, with the actual withdrawal to take place in six months, which is now.  The reason is that Russia kept on violating the agreement.  So it wasn't revenge, and it makes sense.  Let's now watch and see if Biden appeases Russia.

Do you happen to know in what way they violated the treaty?  The article seems to skip that part.  It is obvious why an expansionist nation still involved in tribal thinking would want to mess up a treaty that detected the build up for invasion.  They would have an interest in blowing up the treaty.  No surprise there.  I could see lines in the treaty saying the overflights would be by unarmed planes not messing up existing flight patterns.  Having one country launching invasions, of course that country would try to void the treaty.  Repeated violations would be expected.  In this case, most everyone else just grins an bears it except the one lead by someone who acts as a Putin stooge.

But if you believe in tribal thinking, do you actually advocate violence, invasion and xenophobia?

[John J. Xenakis]

** 25-Nov-2020 World View: Open Skies Treaty research

(11-24-2020, 11:31 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > Do you happen to know in what way they violated the treaty? The
> article seems to skip that part.

Hey troll, do your own research. Just search for "Open Skies Treaty"
and find out for yourself. My experience is that you have to read
about 20-30 articles from a variety of different sources to figure out
what's going on. Write up the results of your research, and let us
know what you find out. Don't forget to show the links to the sources
you used.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-25-2020, 11:00 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(11-24-2020, 11:31 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Do you happen to know in what way they violated the treaty?  The article seems to skip that part.

Hey troll, do your own research.  Just search for "Open Skies Treaty" and find out for yourself.  My experience is that you have to read about 20-30 articles from a variety of different sources to figure out what's going on.  Write up the results of your research, and let us know what you find out.  Don't forget to show the links to the sources you used.

Not a troll.  I explained that already.  Don't you have the memory to avoid faulty analysis that has already been corrected?  As usual, you prove your inability to judge motivations and thus a flaw in Generational Dynamics.

It only took one article from Brookings.  It is taking longer to write to this site than it took to satisfy my curiosity.

The Russians put Improper limitations on where the flights could take place over its territory, and the United States put reciprocal limitations on US overflights. As the objective is to detect nukes detonating and invasion preparations, the reciprocals seem unnecessary.  Do they think they will pick up preparations for an invasion of Canada?

The thing I missed was that the country being overflown has a right to put an observer on board.  Thus, replacing the old 1950s pre-707s with a drone won't work.  Using a newer plane would expose some of our fancier stuff.  It will take a bit of time to equip a new airframe with observable stuff.  Other than that, my conjecture stands.

I did visit a WIKI page on the Joint Stars aircraft, which is used to detect tanks beyond the front lines of modern battlefields.  Would you believe they use modified 707 airframes, not much newer than the planes being removed?

[John J. Xenakis]

** 25-Nov-2020 World View: Research

(11-25-2020, 03:36 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > Not a troll. I explained that already. Don't you have the memory
> to avoid faulty analysis that has already been corrected? As
> usual, you prove your inability to judge motivations and thus a
> flaw in Generational Dynamics.

Oh, you're definitely a troll, the worst kind of troll. And you're a
clone of Sean Love, who ties with you for first place as "Worst Troll
Ever" in this forum. I explained that already. Don't you have memory
of things that have previously been patiently explained to you? No
wonder you never learn anything.

Wikipedia and Brookings are both far left-wing web sites. If you
actually want to do research, you need to also read right wing and
conservative news sites, as well as government web sites. You should
also look at Russian and Chinese news sites, as they've both been
commenting on this issue.

Keep in mind that it's very hard to find conservative news sites these
days, since google is blocking them and apparently has made their
blocking even more severe since the election. I don't know if
Breitbart or or ZeroHedge have commented on this issue, but you might
start there. Also, bing.com and duckduckgo.com are more reliable
search engines than google, which is blocking anything but far left.
I've had it with google, and I'm switching to bing as my default.

If you want to know what's going on, then it takes time.
If you don't want to know what's going on, and all you
care about is left-wing garbage, then continue restricting your
information sources to google and CNN.

[Warren Dew]

(11-25-2020, 07:23 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Keep in mind that it's very hard to find conservative news sites these
days, since google is blocking them and apparently has made their
blocking even more severe since the election.

It's not hard; just have RCP as your home page, as it always includes links to new from both left and right perspectives.  Also agreed about duckduckgo, which I've been using for my primary search site for years.

I do grant it's easy to stay in the leftist bubble if one wants to, though.  It's much harder as a conservative to avoid leftist sources, which is why we're so much better informed about both sides of the debate.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 25-Nov-2020 World View: News sources

(11-25-2020, 07:23 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: > Keep in mind that it's very hard to find conservative news sites
> these days, since google is blocking them and apparently has made
> their blocking even more severe since the election.

(11-25-2020, 08:32 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > It's not hard; just have RCP as your home page, as it always
> includes links to new from both left and right perspectives. Also
> agreed about duckduckgo, which I've been using for my primary
> search site for years.

> I do grant it's easy to stay in the leftist bubble if one wants
> to, though. It's much harder as a conservative to avoid leftist
> sources, which is why we're so much better informed about both
> sides of the debate.

There certainly is a big difference between Fox News and msnbc.
I don't listen to cnn very much, since it's a total sewer, but I
do listen to MSNBC sometimes to get the left-wing slant on the news.
On MSNBC you get only left wing news, but on Fox News you get all
the news, pretty much fair and balanced. Another interesting thing
is that there are a number of black analysts on FNC who praise
Trump for lowering black unemployment, creating opportunity zones
in black neighborhoods, funding black colleges, and who are
extremely contemptuous of Democrats who do nothing for blacks
except make them victims, and who just listen to "old black men"
telling them what to do.

The problem with RCP and Fox News is that they only cover domestic
political news, and I need international news. So I go to the BBC,
but unfortnately the BBC also mostly covers American poltical news.
And it's almost entirely left-wing because the BBC receives funding
from the Democrats through NPR. I wrote several months ago about how
the BBC simply lied in their coverage of impeachment hearings, and I
knew they were lying because I had watched the hearings live. The BBC
completely lied, over and over and over, repeating what shithead Adam
Schiff told them to say. The BBC obeyed its lord and master.

So it's hard to find good international coverage. American news sites
like MSNBC and Fox News are worthless. Al-Jazeera is also left-wing
in covering American politics, though it's a lot better than the BBC.
Also, the BBC even covers international stories with an American
left-wing slant, while al-Jazeera covers international stories pretty
much straight.

Among news services coverage of international news, I find AP is
slanted left but, much to my surprise, I find that Reuters is
actually pretty straight most of the time.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-25-2020, 07:23 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Oh, you're definitely a troll, the worst kind of troll.

Not a troll.  More interested in seeking a good idea of what is going on, and correcting people who have a bad idea of what as going on.  Not much interested in getting a kick out of others emotional failings, but if people have them they get involved in emotions rather that logical rational argument.  That seems to be the problem here, your constantly switching away from logical arguments to your emotional hang ups.  Ask yourself how well the defense mechanism is working?

The basic problem is that I attempt to understand both the red and blue mindsets, and both the WEIRD and tribal ways of thinking.  You do some fine research.  In areas where tribal thinking dominates your stuff is well worth reading.  You do not grok WEIRD.  You are absurdly partisan, which makes your view of both the red and blue biased.  This makes Generational Dynamics absurdly incomplete.  Since visiting this thread frequently I have taken advantage of your research which is useful quite often, but rejected the alleged parody, ideologically biased and straw man motivations involving those with WEIRD, red and blue leanings.  What you present on those subjects is just junk.  There are other sites with real WIERD, red and blue contributors that do so much better.

You wonder how you got to be a social misfit, why nobody that doesn't share your ideological biases takes you seriously?  

One of my basic rules is that everyone has a mindset which they can defend as the correct one.  By assuming your own mindset is the only correct one, there is a basic flaw in your methodology.  So much baby is thrown away with the bathwater that it just doesn't work.  I'll give you a hint.  Assume there is no bathwater.  Just a whole lot of babies.

You might as well assume the Bible is literally correct.  If you cling to one mindset without attempting a pretty dang good understanding of the relevant others, your understanding is poor indeed.

Mind you, I loose patience a times with those who dwell in the Marxist reality, but some are a lost cause.  Well, you likely are too, but if you throw up bad stuff you have to expect in a forum with diverse people, you have to be able to defend what you say.  Sorry that you can't.

[John J. Xenakis]

You wrote that pile of crap and you think you're not a troll? Lol!

=eod

[pbrower2a]

Are there objective means of determining the credibility of media? Yes.

h

Yes. At the top are such entities as the AP wires and Reuters, news often reported in a 'blitz' style in which reporters relate what they see or transmit official statements. This is almost stenographic reporting which says nothing more than the story at hand. This is minimal news, news at its purest. Putting bias into such reports is practically impossible because the reporter has little time in which to analyze or spin what he* gets. This is no zone for any crusading journalist out to  change the world.  There is no possibility of bias other than from cited sources. 

So what is the fault of such reporting? If you can do your own thinking, you can do your own analysis. Few people are able to do that effectively. ABC, CBS, and NBC might have ongoing coverage of a story that has some moral concerns. The three main broadcast networks, PBS, and NPR might ride a story longer than AP or Reuters. At best one gets more depth to stories as the result of a continuing effort to get more detail on a story. Because these are mass sources of news they are generally closer to the political mainstream than would be those media that have smaller constituencies. Fact reporting is still significant, but analysis enters.  The green rectangle is precious. Differences in constituency may lead to obvious bias: because the Wall Street Journal pays more attention to issues relevant to investors (and that is a legitimate objective in reporting) it has validity for that. It may not be as relevant to people who are not investors or to people who either do not see business activity as the driving force in the economy or think it out of their league...  well, Scientific American has a very different clientele than Seventeen.  At the bottom of this rectangle, but toward the middle, is Time Magazine, arguably shallow -- but accessible.  


The yellow rectangle offers more analysis but little original reporting, The Economist and Financial Times  do excellent work at this but are seen slightly right of center while the Guardian is slightly Left. In this zone polarization between Left an Right becomes marked. Personal values largely dictates what sort of media one would read in this category.  People who read Slate generally do not read the Weekly Standard.  

You will notice that at the bottom of this category is CNN. From here down, the best advice is "read at your own risk". Maybe one reads the Huffington Post or Daily Kos because it isn't behind a pay-wall. I would not trust anything close to original reporting from either. Journalistic quality deteriorates rapidly as one goes down into the orange rectangle, and polarization between Left and Right becomes more severe.  News stories here are highly selective in fitting readers' or viewers' biases. 

The bottom, red rectangle typically does more harm to one's credibility than good. Here is extremist bilge such as the Palmer Report and Info Wars... or the sorts of media such as the National Enquirer that educated people contend that "the maid reads" -- the "Man bears lion cub" stories.  

*Any use of male pronouns of course can include females unless there is a specific reference to a male.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-25-2020, 11:42 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: You wrote that pile of crap and you think you're not a troll?  Lol!

See? An emotional reaction and inability to respond with logic. That happens when your worldview becomes so dominant as to defy reality.

Granted, to cause someone to change a deeply locked in worldview, you need a sledgehammer. Something on the scale of Atalanta in the US Civil War, Hiroshima in World War II, or other examples of loosing a crisis war. It has to become painfully obvious that one's old values have failed. As I have no crisis wars in my pocket, the only alternative is pointing out how absurd the old values can get. How blind can someone get when totally committed to a worldview? How blatant can he get in disregarding reality, ignoring the facts?

As demonstrated on this site, quite blatant. Just check in the mirror.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-26-2020, 01:22 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Are there objective means of determining the credibility of media? Yes.

One could quibble the placement of a few 'news' organizations.  I suspect for instance the Wall Street Journal leans more than a little in the direction of the elites.  Still, they mix in a lot of reporting on the facts.

Overall, a good place to start.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 26-Nov-2020 World View: Emotion

(11-26-2020, 04:01 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > See? An emotional reaction and inability to respond with logic.
> That happens when your worldview becomes so dominant as to defy
> reality.

No, troll, I made a factual appraisal, completely unemotional.

You're the one who's completely emotional, troll. Don't forget,
you're totally ignorant, as if you were a child, and you have no clue
what's going on anywhere. Your initial post on the Open Skies treaty
is a good example. You simply made up emotional left-wing "facts,"
based on your vitriolic, emotional hatred of Trump and his 74 million
enthusiastic supporters. Your emotions are completely out of control,
with nothing factual in sight.

You only listen to CNN and MSNBC, so you know nothing about such
things as antifa-blm looting, riots, and burning down businesses, and
violent attacks on Trump supporters, you know nothing about the
massive evidence of criminal behavior by Hunter and Joe Biden, you
known nothing about Trump's 74 million supporters, and of course you
know less than nothing about Generational Dynamics, although you're
totally obsessed with it as if it were a lover that had spurned you.

So you have no idea what's going on, and everything you write is from
complete ignorance. You don't have a brain anymore, troll. What
brain you have is a bunch of neurons drenched in the most vile liquid
form of hatred of Trump and his 74 million supporters. Any "fact"
that comes into your brain is dissolved in this vile liquid and
reformed into some ridiculous accusation of Trump, based on your total
ignorance of whatever subject you're discussing.

You are definitely, and factually, a troll. In fact, you're one of
the purest and most emotional trolls I've ever run into, with no
redeeming factors. And that's well illustrated by the pile of garbage that
I was responding to last time, and by your "Open Skies Treaty"
posting, both of which are pure hate-filled emotion, with no redeeming
qualities.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 26-Nov-2020 World View: News sources

(11-26-2020, 01:22 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Are there objective means of determining the credibility of media?
> Yes.

>

> Yes. At the top are such entities as the AP wires and Reuters,
> news often reported in a 'blitz' style in which reporters relate
> what they see or transmit official statements. This is almost
> stenographic reporting which says nothing more than the story at
> hand. This is minimal news, news at its purest. Putting bias into
> such reports is practically impossible because the reporter has
> little time in which to analyze or spin what he* gets. This is no
> zone for any crusading journalist out to change the world. There
> is no possibility of bias other than from cited sources.

First, this really isn't true. Yes, AP and Reuters write blitz
articles, but most of their articles are analytical. And you can
always slant any article by selecting what facts to include. So my
experience is that AP stories include mostly "left-wing facts," while
I've found that Reuters stories are more balanced in their selection
of facts.

The chart you've posted is far from objective. It's a piece of garbage.

Let's take Bloomberg for example. The chart shows Bloomberg as the pinnacle
of neutrality. That's ridiculous. Anyone who watches Bloomberg TV knows
that isn't true.

It's even worse than that. Mike Bloomberg is a committed Democrat and has
donated tens of millions of dollars to the Democrats, and is probably
still donating. When Bloomberg was running for president, BB announced
a corporate policy of investigating and attacking Trump, but not doing
investigating any Democrat candidates. And believe me, their bias is
obvious if you listen to them, or read their news stories.

And this is just one example. The chart is ridiculous. It shows CNN
as neutral, which is a joke, but Fox News as hyper-partisan
conservative, despite the fact that it's far more balanced. The whole
chart is a ridiculous joke.

There's one more dimension not shown on the chart -- purposeful
censorship, which goes beyond simple ideological bias. Bloomberg has
a stated policy of censoring news critical of Democrats, but CNN,
MSNBC, NYT, WaPost etc. are the same. Because of Stalinist
censorship, readers of these sources know nothing about antifa-blm
looting, burning down cities, and violent attacks on Trump supporters.
They know nothing about the growing support among blacks and Latinos
for Republicans. FNC covers these stories and also the stories you
see on CNN and MSNBC. That's what "fair and balanced" means.

So in the chart you've posted, Fox News and Fox Business Network should be
at the top center, and most of the others should be moved waaaaayyyy over
to the left. And there should be another column to the left of "Most extreme
liberal," and it should say, "Full on left-wing Stalinist censorship of the
news."

So your claim about an "objective means of determining the credibility
of media?" is total bullshit, and the chart that you posted is a
total piece of left-wing crap.

(11-26-2020, 01:22 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > So what is the fault of such reporting? If you can do your own
> thinking, you can do your own analysis.

I think the mainstream media censorship is a disaster. You're
delighted and thrilled by it, of course, since the censorship is far
left, but I can assure you that one day you'll regret it. These
things always turn out very badly.

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

by Martin Niemöller

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-26-2020, 06:49 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: You're the one who's completely emotional, troll.

Then why is it you who fails to respond to the logical and fact full argument except with personal attacks and emotional tantrums?  You seem to do that whenever your world view is challenged.  No wonder you are a social pariah.  If you take an extreme perspective and get emotional and generally lose it when you are contradicted.  People won't want to interact.

The bad motivations you dwell on are real.  If you don't come to really understand WEIRD, blue and red perspectives, people will quickly learn the flaws in your stuff and turn elsewhere.  Not seeing exactly where you go wrong, they won't trust your extensive analysis involving the tribal perspective of areas of the world it still dominates.

While once the tribal perspective was cost effective, somewhere between the machine gun and the nuke it became much less so.  Nations that don't have to deal with nukes or proxy wars sill deal with the violence that crisis wars bring, but even in the most tribal areas they don't go tribal when the last time is within living memory.  People won't make the same old tribal mistake again... at least until the memory of what happened last time fades.

Some people just don't let the memory fade.  The results of nukes and the instability that results from proxy wars make tribal thinking very questionable.  Dwelling on xenophobia, minimizing other ways ways to seek wealth and power, dwelling thoroughly in the patterns of earlier ages, Generational Dynamics is just stuck in the past.

Now why do you shun logic in what you so obviously want to believe?  Why don't you create a logical rational argument that one should not take seriously perspectives other than your own?  Why do you resort to temper tantrums and insults rather than trying logic and understanding?

Oh.  Changing allegiance to a deeply held worldview is hard.  Humans will reject fact and logic in defense of their worldview.  It is too hard to learn and grow.  It is better to lock onto one's perspective than to seek to make your perspective mesh with reality.

At least when you are clinging to a political world view.  You ought to try a scientific one.  If the theory doesn't mach the data, you come up with a better theory rather than ignoring the data.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 26-Nov-2020 World View: Emotional garbage

(11-26-2020, 11:15 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > Then why is it you who fails to respond to the logical and fact
> full argument except with personal attacks and emotional tantrums?
> You seem to do that whenever your world view is challenged. No
> wonder you are a social pariah. If you take an extreme
> perspective and get emotional and generally lose it when you are
> contradicted. People won't want to interact.

Oh no, troll. You're the one who responds to every logical and
factual argument with personal attacks and emotional garbage. You
particularly do that whenever you see a chance to reinterpret the news
in some bizarre way to attack Trump or his 74 million supporters,
people who have obviously driven you to the edge of insanity. If you
never produce anything but troll garbage, people will not want to
interact with you.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-26-2020, 02:04 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Oh no, troll.  You're the one who responds to every logical and factual argument with personal attacks and emotional garbage.  You particularly do that whenever you see a chance to reinterpret the news in some bizarre way to attack Trump or his 74 million supporters, people who have obviously driven you to the edge of insanity.  If you never produce anything but troll garbage, people will not want to interact with you.

Again, Trump’s followers lost.  Trump was fired.  He is among a bunch of losers.  They lost in both the popular and electoral collage vote.  If the demographic shifts continue, they will continue to lose.  That doesn’t surprise me.  In a crisis, the old conservative values generally do fade.

I have endorsed Generational Dynamic’s strengths in intensive research in parts of the world where tribal thinking is still dominant.  I have warned of the weakness.  It has partisanship against WEIRD thinking, a lack of understanding of many perspectives, basically any perspective which conflicts with your own.  I have repeated that to understand a problem, a working understanding of all perspectives associated with the problem is needed or you will misunderstand the problem.  I believe most people read your junk and intuitively understand this.

What is the responding relationship to my thinking?  I suppose you have a red partisan’s belief that I should be more of a red partisan.  The red and blue perspectives have been debated often enough in these forums that you should understand that a shift is unlikely and hard to argue.  The red position is loaded with elitism, racism, voodoo economics, and a well beyond the point of diminishing return favoring of small government.  The Republicans do understand the need to deter autocratic military expansionism, basically tribal thinking.  I have sympathy in some areas.  Still, since Trump has come in they have pushed Russian interest and been hostile to China.  

But overall, I am far more with the urban, equality, roundhead tradition rather than the rural, pro WASP cavalier view.  Both, however, have contributed heavily to the United States.

But basically I believe you can’t understand a problem until you make an honest attempt to understand the way all participants in the situation view it.  Generational Dynamics is a decent perspective, but it fails in its assigning of false parody straw man views of what various people are trying to do.  If you retain the blatant partisanship, people will reject you as a partisan and not take anything you write seriously.

At any rate, I do not have trouble interacting.  I am not the social pariah between us.  My rejection of elitist, racist, voodoo economics and all the other Republican traditions could be defended easily enough if you really wanted me too.  It would be certainly more constructive than your emotional tantrums.

Basically, tribal thinking worked great for Genghis Kahn.  It worked less well for Napoleon, though he managed to kill a lot of people and retain power in France for a time.  It really didn't work for Hitler.  Conquest was cost effective in the Agricultural Age.  With machine guns, nukes, insurgency and proxy war, not so much today.  Generational Dynamics with its obsession with xenophobia and ignoring the role of leaders and elites in maximizing power will be able to make good predictions in ever shrinking parts of the world.  It works fine where people don't remember what happened last time tribal thinking was tried.  Eventually, people will remember.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 27-Nov-2020 World View: Iran vows revenge after nuclear scientist is assassinated

• Mohsen Fakhrizadeh (Mehr News)

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, allegedly the leader of Iran's nuclear
development program, was ambushed and killed earlier today (11/27).
His car was approached by a pickup truck, leading to an explosion,
followed by gunfire by a number of assailants.

Iranian officials are blaming Israel. According to Iran's foreign
minister Javad Zarif:

Quote:> "Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist
> today. This cowardice—with serious indications of Israeli
> role—shows desperate warmongering of perpetratorsIran calls on
> int'l community—and especially EU—to end their shameful double
> standards & condemn this act of state terror."

An IRGC commander, Hossein Dehghan, also blamed Donald Trump:

Quote:> "In the last days of the political life of their
> ... ally (US President Donald Trump), the Zionists (Israel) seek
> to intensify pressure on Iran and create a full-blown war. We
> will strike as thunder at the killers of this oppressed martyr and
> will make them regret their action."

Iran says that it will investigate, and will get revenge.

The assassination is a major blow to Iran for a couple of reasons.
First, Fakhrizadeh was well protected by Iran's national security
apparatus, the assassination reveals a major failure. Second,
Fakhrizadeh was believed to be leading Iran's effort to develop a
nuclear bomb.

Although Israel is the obvious suspect in the assassination, the BBC
is suggesting another possibility. The hardliners in Iran's
government executed the assassination in order to increase tensions
and prevent a new deal with the Biden administration.

---- Sources:

-- Israel / Iran's top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh
assassinated near Tehran
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-55105934
(BBC, 27-Nov-2020)

-- Iranian nuclear scientist 'Mohsen Fakhrizadeh' assassinated
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/166416/Iran...sassinated
(Mehr News, Tehran, 27-Nov-2020)

-- Top Iranian nuclear scientist killed – Iran defence ministry
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/2...med-forces
(Al-Jazeera, 27-Nov-2020)

-- Suspected Iranian nuclear mastermind Fakhrizadeh assassinated near
Tehran
https://www.reuters.com/article/iran-nuc...SKBN2871OE
(Reuters, 27-Nov-2020)

-- Factbox: Attacks on scientists in Iran
https://www.reuters.com/article/iran-nuc...SKBN28720X
(Reuters, 27-Nov-2020)

-- Factbox: Who is the Iranian scientist killed in Tehran?
https://www.reuters.com/article/iran-nuc...SKBN2871XI
(Reuters, 27-Nov-2020)

-- Iran's nuclear program chief Mohsen Fakhrizadeh assassinated
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/iran...ort-650457
(Jerusalem Post, 27-Nov-2020)

-- Alleged head of Iran’s nuclear weapons program is assassinated near
Tehran
https://www.timesofisrael.com/head-of-ir...ar-tehran/
(Times Of Israel, 27-Nov-2020)

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 28-Nov-20 World View -- Australia-China relations become more toxic through boycotts and accusations

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Australia-China relations become more toxic through boycotts and accusations
  
• China's bribery and extortion
  
• China's official list of 14 blunt complaints about Australia's government
  
• National security threat of China's Huawei 5G networks
  

****
**** Australia-China relations become more toxic through boycotts and accusations
****


Australian crayfish are one of the products targeted by China (9News)

The toxic relationship between the government of Australia and the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has become incresingly apparent after a
blunt verbal CCP attack on Australia's government, accusing it of
"poisoning bilateral relations," at the same time the China is
escalating its economic boycotts and blacklisting of imports from
Australia.

Commenting on China's action, a CCP official said to Australian
officials: "China is angry. If you make China the enemy, China will be
the enemy."

On Friday, China announced 107% to 212% tariffs on wine imported from
Australia. This is only the latest economic attack by China on
Australia. In recent months, China has been blacklisting one
Australian product after another, including lobster, cherries, beef,
sugar, cotton, barley and timber. Another blacklisted import is coal.
More than 50 ships have been anchored off Chinese ports for months
waiting to deliver $500 million of Australian ports.

However, the most important commodity that China imports from
Australia remains untouched -- the $60 billion worth of iron ore that
Australia exports to China annually, and which China desperately
needs.

Although these disputes have been simmering for years, China began an
extremely agressive series of economic attacks on Australia in April,
when Australian officials called for a joint international
investigation of the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Australia's
announcement was thought to be targeting China, which has repeatedly
tried to dodge responsibility for the Wuhan Coronavirus.

Earlier this year, the CCP was blaming the US army for developing the
virus and somehow secretly spreading it in China's Wuhan wet markets.
Lately, CCP officials have been promoting a bizarre claim that
the virus originated elsewhere and arrived in China on frozen
food packaging.

So an Australian call for an international investigation on the
origins of the virus has brought about the CCP's usual hysterical
rantings and threats and demands that everyone shut up and do as China
tells them. However, this time, the CCP has backed up its hysterical
rantings with the boycott of Australia's products.

The CCP has also been infuriated by Australia's criticisms of China's
National Security Law, which has effectively ended the Hong Kong
democracy that was supposed to last until at least 2047.

****
**** China's bribery and extortion
****

Bribery and extortion are the CCP's standard foreign policy tools, and
China has used these tools for years to force dozens of countries to
involuntarily end diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Now China is
using the same techniques against a much larger country, Australia.

Australia’s former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says that China's
tactics fail will only damage China's standing abroad.

<QUOTE>"The fundamental point is this: when someone tries to
coerce you or bully you, threaten you, you can’t take a backward
step.

If you do, then all that will do is invite more coercive activity.
The best thing that can happen, frankly, is for this episode to
come to an end, and for Australia and China to get back to a
traditional, businesslike relationship.

Has it won China more influence? No. Has it won China more
friends [or] persuaded other countries to be more compliant? No
... if the object of your foreign policy is, among other things,
to win friends and increase your influence in the world, how is
any of this helpful?"<END QUOTE>

Turnbull is saying in calm diplomatic terms the same thing that I've
been saying for years: That the CCP policies are insane, and always
make any situation worse.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, mutual relations
between China and Australia have become increasingly hostile for the
last few years, and as the populations of both countries are becoming
increasingly nationalistic and belligerent in the generational Crisis
era, this worsening situation will lead to war.

This is also a good time to respond to the frequently heard statements
like, "Countries A and B will never go to war, because trade between
the two countries is good, and war will be bad for business." If this
were true, there would never have been a war. What actually happens
is that trade does not prevent a war. Instead, trade makes the
situation worse, because the stronger trading partner uses trade as
one more weapon of war, as we're seeing now in the case of China and
Australia.

****
**** China's official list of 14 blunt complaints about Australia's government
****

Last week, in another incredibly bizarre CCP move, a sheet of paper
containing 14 blunt complaints about Australia's government was leaked
to three Australian news agencies. In other words, these were
official complaints by the CCP, but instead of notifying Australia's
government directly, or instead of posting them on a web site, the
Chinese Embassy called up reporters and scheduled meetings, but said
nothing at the meetings except to hand over, in each case, the sheet
of paper.

The list included complaints about Australia's banning Huawei's 5G
routers on national security grounds, complaints about speaking out
about the South China Sea, and complaints about "siding with the US"
anti-China campaign.

The following is the official list of 14 complaints, as they were
printed on the Embassy officials sheet of paper:

• foreign investment decisions, with acquisitions blocked on
  opaque national security grounds in contravention of ChAFTA/since
  2018, more than 10 Chinese investment projects have been rejected by
  Australia citing ambiguous and unfounded "national security concerns"
  and putting restrictions in areas like infrastructure, agriculture and
  animal husbandry.
  
  
• the decision banning Huawei Technologies and ZTE from the 5G
  network, over unfounded national security concerns, doing the bidding
  of the US by lobbying other countries
  
  
• foreign interference legislation, viewed as targeting China and in
  the absence of any evidence.
  
  
• politicization and stigmatization of the normal exchanges and
  cooperation between China and Australia and creating barriers and
  imposing restrictions, including the revoke of visas for Chinese
  scholars.
  
  
• call for an international independent inquiry into the COVID-19
  virus, acted as a political manipulation echoing the US attack on
  China
  
  
• incessant wanton interference in China's Xinjiang, bong Kong and
  Taiwan affairs; spearheading the crusade against China in certain
  multilateral forums
  
  
• the first non littoral country to make a statement on the South
  China Sea to the United Nations
  
  
• siding with the US' anti-China campaign and spreading
  disinformation imported from the US around China's efforts of
  containing COV1D-19.
  
  
• the latest legislation to scrutinize agreements with a foreign
  government targeting towards China and aiming to torpedo the Victorian
  participation in B&R
  
  
• provided funding to anti-China think tank for spreading untrue
  reports, peddling lies around Xinjiang and so-called China
  infiltration aimed at manipulating public opinion against China
  
  
• the early dawn search and reckless seizure of Chinese jounalists'
  homes and properties without any charges and giving any explanations
  
  
• thinly veiled allegations against China on cyber attacks without
  any evidence
  
  
• outrageous condemnation of the governing party of China by MPs and
  racist attacks against Chinese or Asian people.
  
  
• an unfriendly or antagonistic report on China by media, poisoning
  the atmosphere of bilateral relations

In other words, shut up and do as you're told.

****
**** National security threat of China's Huawei 5G networks
****

This is a good time to repeat the situation with China's 5G routers.
It is absolutely certain that these routers contain "backdoors" that
permit China's military not only to spy on any traffic traveling
through them, but also to control them, possibly shutting down entire
networks in time of war.

First off, I'm the expert on this subject, not some reporter or
politician who majored in sociology or women's studies in college. I
spent five years of my career developing board-level operating systems
for embedded systems, so I know how easy it would be to install a
"backdoor" into a device that would allow the device to be controlled
remotely by China's military. Furthermore, an implementation that
uses public/private key encryption technology could be designed in
such a way that the backdoor could not be detected, even by someone
who suspects that the backdoor is there.

I have the skills to do this fairly easily, and there are undoubtedly
many Chinese engineers with the same skills. So it would be very easy
for Huawei to install undetectable backdoors into all its devices,
allowing the devices to be controlled by China's military.
Furthermore, in 2017, the CCP passed the National Intelligence Law,
which demands that all organizations, including Huawei, "support,
cooperate with, and collaborate with" China's military in collecting
intelligence, even when doing so is illegal. That makes it certain
that Huawei's routers can be controlled remotely by China's military.

So any country or company that has installed Huawei networks and
devices can be easily spied on by China's military, and the network
can be controlled or shut down by China's military, for example at
time of war.

Sources:

• China says relations with Australia are in 'a sharp downturn' -- and it's all Canberra's fault (CNN, 18-Nov-2020)
  
• China to impose temporary anti-dumping measures on Australian wine imports (Reuters, 26-Nov-2020)
  
• Satellite images appear to show China developing area along disputed border with India and Bhutan (CNN, 26-Nov-2020)
  
• Column: China's crackdown on Australian coking coal hurts its steel industry - Russell (Reuters, 26-Nov-2020)
  
• With frozen food clampdown, China points overseas as source of coronavirus (Reuters, 26-Nov-2020)
  
• What is the Quad and can it counter China’s rise? (Al-Jazeera, 25-Nov-2020)
  
• Australia and China: It’s Complicated (Diplomat, 24-Nov-2020)
  
• Australia Seeks to Break China Coal Stalemate as Tensions Rise (Bloomberg, 25-Nov-2020)
  
• China-Australia relations: termination of free trade deal ahead of review unlikely despite tensions, experts say (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 26-Nov-2020)
  
• In an On-brand Move, China Issues Diktat to Australia (Diplomat, 18-Nov-2020)
  
• 'If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy': Beijing's fresh threat to Australia (Sydney Morning Herald, 18-Nov-2020)
  
• China Gives Explanation for Pummeling Australia on Trade (Bloomberg, 17-Nov-2020)
  
• Woodsize / Scarborough / Australia-China Spat Threatens LNG Deal (Oil Price, 12-Nov-2020)
  
• China Blacklist Strands More Than 50 Australia Coal Cargoes (Bloomberg, 24-Nov-2020)
  
• Papua New Guinea / Chinese fishing plant in Torres Strait raises alarm for Australian industry and islanders (Guardian, London, 27-Nov-2020)
  
• Alarm over discovery of hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels near Galápagos Islands (Guardian, London, 27-Jul-2020)
  
• Prime Minister Scott Morrison ‘enhances co-operation’ with Europe over ‘destabilising’ South China Sea (News.com, Australia, 26-Nov-2020)
  
• 'There it was, China's list of grievances': How 9News got the dossier at the heart of the latest diplomatic scuffle between Canberra and Beijing (9News, Australia, 23-Nov-2020)
  
• China shows official list of reasons for anger with Australia (9News, Australia, 18-Nov-2020)
  
• The China-Australia Crisis From China's Perspective (Memri, 25-Nov-2020)
  
• Australia-China relations: attempts to strong-arm Canberra only damage Beijing’s standing, ex-PM Malcolm Turnbull warns (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 27-Nov-2020)
  
• China sharply ramps up trade conflict with Australia over political grievances (Washington Post, 27-Nov-2020)
  
• Australia’s coronavirus disputes with China are growing. So are debates over its deep economic ties to Beijing. (Washington Post, 1-May-2020)
  
• China slaps up to 200% tariffs on Australian wine (BBC, 27-Nov-2020)
  
• How Australia-China relations have hit 'lowest ebb in decades' (BBC, 11-Oct-2020)
  
• China slaps 200% tax on Australia wine amid tensions (AP, 27-Nov-2020)
  
• China–Australia Free Trade Agreement (Dept. of Foreign Affairs and Trade, DFAT, Australia)

Related articles:

• Trump administration will block chip shipments to China's Huawei (17-May-2020)
  
  
• Australia passes foreign influence laws, targeting China (29-Jun-2018)
  
  
• Australia-China relations in crisis after revelation of Chinese bribery scandal (24-May-2018)
  
  
• New book documents extensive Chinese infiltration into Australia's organizations (26-Feb-2018)
  
  
• Concerns grow over China's covert infiltration into New Zealand's government (16-Feb-2018)
  
  
• China-Australia relations plummet over China's illegal militarization of South China Sea (16-Dec-2017)
  
  
• Australian MP Clive Palmer shocks country with anti-China rant (21-Aug-2014)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Australia, China,
Wuhan Coronavirus, Hong Kong, National Security Law,
Taiwan, Malcolm Turnbull, Huawei Technologies, 5G

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John J. Xenakis
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[pbrower2a]

(11-26-2020, 06:58 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 26-Nov-2020 World View: News sources

(11-26-2020, 01:22 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   Are there objective means of determining the credibility of media?
>   Yes.

>  

>   Yes. At the top are such entities as the AP wires and Reuters,
>   news often reported in a 'blitz' style in which reporters relate
>   what they see or transmit official statements. This is almost
>   stenographic reporting which says nothing more than the story at
>   hand. This is minimal news, news at its purest. Putting bias into
>   such reports is practically impossible because the reporter has
>   little time in which to analyze or spin what he* gets. This is no
>   zone for any crusading journalist out to change the world. There
>   is no possibility of bias other than from cited sources.

First, this really isn't true.  Yes, AP and Reuters write blitz
articles, but most of their articles are analytical.  And you can
always slant any article by selecting what facts to include.  So my
experience is that AP stories include mostly "left-wing facts," while
I've found that Reuters stories are more balanced in their selection
of facts.

Everyone has values, and those include political and moral positions. High Times is obviously pro-drug. I hate drugs, so I am unlikely to looks sympathetically upon High Times as a news source. It's obvious that as an original wire that TASS was in Soviet times would have an obvious bias. Would it have been useful? Of course -- to the extent that other reporting lacked access. Of course at some point it was questionable whether the Soviet Union was revolutionary or reactionary. Revolutionary ideologies that change little obviously go stale... and reactionary. 
his chart shows few foreign sources: the BBC is the only one aside from the Daily Mail (there is always a better source than that tabloid), and it is shown as left-of-center by American standards. Maybe this changes after Joe Biden supplants Donald Trump. AFP, Deutsche Welle, and NHK are not shown.

The center is where the political median lies, even if that median is largely an average between two polarized distributions of the people.    

OK... a first article on the topic by the AP or Reuters  

Quote:The chart you've posted is far from objective.  It's a piece of garbage.

Then show yours!

Quote:Let's take Bloomberg for example.  The chart shows Bloomberg as the pinnacle
of neutrality.  That's ridiculous.  Anyone who watches Bloomberg TV knows
that isn't true.

It seems to be close enough. It is far closer to neutral than One America News or FoX News.   

Quote:It's even worse than that.  Mike Bloomberg is a committed Democrat and has
donated tens of millions of dollars to the Democrats, and is probably
still donating.  When Bloomberg was running for president, BB announced
a corporate policy of investigating and attacking Trump, but not doing
investigating any Democrat candidates.  And believe me, their bias is
obvious if you listen to them, or read their news stories.

If one investigated Obama one found nothing shady. Donald Trump has a record in business (OK, Obama has never been a profit-and-loss businessman, but that is not good preparation for politics except to be a stooge of ideologues if one isn't a right-wing ideologue oneself because businesses and government have very different purposes and objectives), and his relationships with contractors, suppliers, and others are open to scrutiny. This is not to say that highly-successful entrepreneurs have as much dirt on them. Most want nothing to do with Mafia-like organizations. So if someone tries to investigate Warren Buffett or Bill Gates one finds no juicy stories. Trump has a reputation for extensive adultery... and the stories are salacious. Yes, I know about John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, and I am not going to excuse them. 

Good people do not get cited on tape saying "I grab 'em by their (kitty-cats)".  Good people would find porn stars repugnant instead of enticing.

Good people also were not Soviet assets in the 1970's. They are careful to avoid making judgments of alleged offenders (like the supposed attackers of the Central Park jogger) before the courts of law do, let alone suggesting a sentence before a verdict is found. In my experience, jury verdicts in civil and criminal courts are capricious enough to defy personal judgment. Maybe foreign leaders who have much death associated with them (like Bashir Assad) entice one to make judgments. In the past I once said that there was nothing wrong with Saddam Hussein, and earlier Idi Amin, that a well-tied rope and a seven-foot rope wouldn't solve.  But death emanates from such people. 

I have been burned. I thought that OJ Simpson murdered his ex-wife and Ron Goldman -- and that Scott Peterson probably did not murder his wife.  We have jury trials for good reason. 

Donald Trump is a slimy person. He's not even a good businessman. They fellow lost money in the operation of a casino, dammit!  His only successes in business are as a landlord in a high-value area (New York City as opposed to Detroit -- an NYC landlord has tenants bidding to keep renting the cash cows that the landlords own, while landlords in Detroit struggle for every penny that they get) and some really-awful reality TV that I could never tolerate. When it comes to television, H. L. Mencken said that one can never go broke underestimating the taste of the American public. (Trump's taste in decorating his skyscrapers is awful. I have my idea of what constitutes good taste: restraint and sophistication. I see bad taste as evidence of either limited learning or poor character. Limited learning explains many farm laborers.

Quote:And this is just one example.  The chart is ridiculous.  It shows CNN
as neutral, which is a joke, but Fox News as hyper-partisan
conservative, despite the fact that it's far more balanced.  The whole
chart is a ridiculous joke.

The chart suggests that CNN skews definitely liberal and that it isn't a particularly good source for news. FoX News is widely known to skew Right in its reporting. I have been priced out of cable TV lately, but I recall that at one time its political stories were often placed between crime stories. Get angry, folks! That is the idea! Although some of FoX News' journalists are objective enough (Chris Wallace) these are the people to whom FoX News turns when it  can no longer give a right-wing spin on a story, as after Presidential elections of 2008, 2012, and 2020. FoX News is definitely to the right of the American mainstream.  

Quote:There's one more dimension not shown on the chart -- purposeful
censorship, which goes beyond simple ideological bias.  Bloomberg has
a stated policy of censoring news critical of Democrats, but CNN,
MSNBC, NYT, WaPost etc.  are the same.  Because of Stalinist
censorship, readers of these sources know nothing about antifa-blm
looting, burning down cities, and violent attacks on Trump supporters.
They know nothing about the growing support among blacks and Latinos
for Republicans.  FNC covers these stories and also the stories you
see on CNN and MSNBC.  That's what "fair and balanced" means.

Liberal media sacrificed Governor Rod Blagojevich,  Senator Al Franken, Representative William "Cold Cash" Jefferson, and movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Liberal media showed looting at BLM/Antifa demonstrations and called it looting or violence. People who commit violent acts at what are intended to be peaceful demonstrations are easy people to sacrifice. 

The drift of African-Americans toward the GOP is slight... and for good reason. Blacks in professions are more likely than whites to be in government employment. Even if blacks own businesses, those are most likely to involve fellow blacks, often poor ones using government aid of some kind (Medicare, Medicaid, TANF, Section 8 housing subsidies, legal aid). Although white people doing similarly well are much more to the Right they are less likely to have clients getting government aid and are more concerned with taxes than an income stream. If one's income stream comes significantly from the government, then one is unlikely to bite the hand that feeds one. If one's income comes from other means than the government, then one has more concern about taxes as a drain of income than as a source of income. Blacks are increasingly finding themselves in private employment not related directly to government spending, so that can explain the drift. 

With Hispanics, much the same can be said of Mexican-Americans, Dominican-Americans, and Puerto Ricans. With Cuban-Americans and now Venezuelan-Americans, Trump did extremely well by GOP standards, at least in Florida, by smearing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for being sympathetic to the Marxist socialism in Cuba and Venezuela. Cuban-Americans did drift toward Obama as he promised better diplomatic relations with the Castro regime and making visits to Cuba by Cuban-Americans easier. I have not seen the Trump ads directed at Cuban-Americans and Venezuelan-Americans, but I did see the canard "Joe Biden es por el Chavecismo". It was introduced late. Trump has been extremely confrontational toward the Commie regime in Cuba and the near-Commie regime in Venezuela. 

I wonder if he was planning aggression... we will never know.       

Quote:So in the chart you've posted, Fox News and Fox Business Network should be
at the top center, and most of the others should be moved waaaaayyyy over
to the left.  And there should be another column to the left of "Most extreme
liberal," and it should say, "Full on left-wing Stalinist censorship of the
news."

The political center is where it is for good reason. Pinochet was clearly on the Right, and Fidel Castro was clearly on the Left. I look at the electoral results of the last few Presidential elections, and even if I see a bimodal distribution (America does not have much of a political center) there is a position in between those distributions FoX News Channel is very much on the Right for its presentation of news, and MSNBC is much on the Left for its presentation of the news. MSNBC is of course much more analysis than its usual sources (NBC News, of course; the New York Times and the Washington Post). FoX News does original reporting, but much less than does ABC, CBS, or NBC News, or for that matter the BBC, PBS, or NPR. But tell people that you saw the story on FoX News, and even if it is true, you might be asked for some other source. 

Story selection is important. It can set the mood and thus reception by the audience, which is very important in presentation of news.    

Quote:So your claim about an "objective means of determining the credibility
of media?"  is total bullshit, and the chart that you posted is a
total piece of left-wing crap.

(11-26-2020, 01:22 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   So what is the fault of such reporting? If you can do your own
>   thinking, you can do your own analysis.

I think the mainstream media censorship is a disaster.  You're
delighted and thrilled by it, of course, since the censorship is far
left, but I can assure you that one day you'll regret it.  These
things always turn out very badly.

All media select stories. All media decide at some point whether sources are reliable or otherwise. (As an example, news sources from authoritarian regimes such as China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea are suspect). All media have filler, and if the filler is stories of violent crime, such tends to prepare people for an authoritarian slant on a story.

Quote:First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

by Martin Niemöller

First the German media excluded Jews at the behest of Hitler while the egregious Der Stürmer accused Jews of horrible crimes, including the absurd, impossible, and discredited (such as the infamous Blood Libel, debunked centuries ago by the Roman Catholic Church) before their means of escape are no more. Nothing good could be said of Jews, and any slander of them would be beyond challenge. Its editor Julius Streicher eventually called for the extermination of Jews in his vile rag during the war... Silence people, take away their opportunities, isolate them, and vilify them at every turn... and then a tyrannical regime can do what it wants. We all know the modus operandi of the Third Reich. 

[John J. Xenakis]

** 27-Nov-2020 World View: Do it yourself dentistry

Higgenbotham Wrote:> When I was in Belarus in 2006, I was able to go into a government
> run dental clinic. It was explained to me that there are 3 levels
> of care available. There was a private dentist from another
> country. That was separate from the government run dental
> clinic. Within the government run dental clinic, there were two
> levels of care. One was to pay a nominal fee and get seen
> sooner. This was thought to be one step below the private
> dentist. The lowest level of care was the free care in the
> government run clinic. While I was in there, there was an old
> woman pleading to get dental care because she had a toothache for
> about a year that was very severe. As I recall, she did not
> receive any care that day.

Britain's dentistry services have already become so bad that many
people are buying "do-it-yourself (DIY) dentistry kits" that can be
obtained from local stores. According to one resident, "DIY dentistry
is fairly common round here. They sell a lot of those first aid kits
... and you’ve got people taking care of their whole family’s teeth
with them."

** 5-Aug-15 World View -- Britain's National Health Service (NHS) faces existential financial crisis
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e150805