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galaxyofmyown · 4 years

Note

Hi!! I'm not sure if you'll take it (and that's 100% okay!!) but as a request can you write hotch x younger, shy reader? I'm just all about that age gap with him (yes, that's my daddy issues speaking up). Have a nice day!! ❤

hi! this was so fun to write. i was aiming for like, idk, 500 words? and then oops! i wrote almost 2000. i accidentally made it specifically for a female reader, so let me know if that doesn’t work for you and i can tweak it. also, sorry if the end feels rushed, but i’m about to fall asleep and i wanted to wrap this one up so i could write the other requests tomorrow. let me know what you think! xx

aaron hotchner x reader - surprise me

“Hey, (Y/N). Drinks? Everyone’s going.” You hear Derek ask. You smile before spinning around in your desk chair.

“God, yes. I was hoping you’d ask, I really need to blow off some steam.” You reply, getting up and grabbing your bag, having already packed up for the night. The team had just gotten back from Middle-of-Nowhere, Kansas, and to say the case was intellectually challenging was an understatement. It felt a lot like piecing together a never-ending puzzle, but you had saved the lives of countless innocent people. There was no better feeling.

Drinking is a close second, however, which is why you were impatiently pacing near the elevator as the rest of your team gathered their things. As soon as everyone arrived, you filed into the elevator.

“You look excited, (Y/N).” Emily said with a smile, knocking her shoulder into yours. You laugh.

“Why wouldn’t I be? Any excuse to spend more time with my favorite group of people!” You say, your voice taking on a teasing tone as you poke a pink-polished finger into Reid’s side. Reid yelps and jumps away, blushing slightly. The rest of the team laughs, Morgan reaching to ruffle his hair. You smile at the sight. They were truly a second family to you. The elevator doors were nearly closed when a large hand reached in and caused the doors to jerk and reopen.

And there he was.

Your boss, Aaron Hotchner. You tensed despite yourself as he slid in right next to you. Rossi clapped him on the shoulder.

“Nice of you to join us.” He said. Hotch nodded, professional as ever. Everyone looked as surprised as you felt.

“You’re coming out with us, sir? You never come.” Garcia said, not unkindly. You all understood his commitment to his son, so you couldn’t really blame him for always being too busy for drinks. Unlike everyone else, your surprise was less pleasant and more panicked. Even though you’d been on the team for well over a year, you still found it extremely difficult to talk to Hotch outside of a case.

It might have something to do with you being head over heels for the older man.

“Jack is with his aunt for the weekend, so JJ convinced me to tag along. I hope that’s alright with everyone.” He said, looking directly at you. You nod and force a tight smile, missing the way your discomfort makes his brows furrow.

There goes your plan to let loose. You can’t help but monitor every word, every movement you make when you’re around Hotch. You found him attractive the moment you met him, the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that you realized you actually had feelings for the man. You loved how caring and loyal he was, and you appreciated every smile and laugh he allowed himself. He was also a natural leader, solid in a way no other man in your life had been. You understood, however, that Hotch would never settle for someone as young and inexperienced as you. Aside from the odd celebrity crush, you had never felt so attracted to an older man. It left you floundered, constantly at a loss for words. He probably thought you were an immature girl who couldn’t control her feelings at 28.

You rode with Emily to the bar, who couldn’t stop laughing at your nerves. She was your best friend, so she knew all about your unfortunate crush. Hopefully she was the only one.

“He’s really a nice guy, (Y/N). Not intimidating at all. Well, not when you actually talk to him. You should try it sometime.” She said, pulling the bar door open for you. You rolled your eyes.

“I do talk to him. That’s the problem. The more I’m around him the more likely it is that I die of a broken heart. Do you want me to die, Prentiss? Is that what you want?” You said. Emily barks out a laugh at your theatrics. Your conversation is cut short as you approach the large round booth your team is occupying for the night. Emily sneaks over to sit next to Rossi, leaving only the seat next to Hotch. She smiles with false sweetness and you slide in across from her, and you kick her lightly under the table. You stay as close to the edge of the seat as you can manage, trying your hardest not to impinge on Hotch’s personal space.

You’re about to ask if anyone wants a drink when Hotch slides your favorite drink, a Moscow Mule, over to you.

“It’s your favorite, right?” Hotch asks, his voice soft over the noise of the bar. You falter. How did he know that? You probably haven’t ordered a drink in front of him in months.

“Um, uh, yeah. Thank you.” You say. He nods curtly. You both turn away from each other, and you sip at your drink, hoping it’ll take the edge off soon enough.

Despite the pleasant conversation you have with your team, you can’t shake your nerves. Three drinks deep and still feeling like you’ve had the breath knocked out of you every time you see Hotch laugh.

“So, Hotch. Anyone special in your life?” Garcia asks boldly, trying to shake the attention off her and her current love life.

Nope. Not happening. You get up from the table abruptly, shaking the table slightly as you do so. Great, now everyone is looking at you.

“Um. Anybody want another drink?” You ask. JJ requests another vodka soda and Hotch politely asks for a beer. You never drink beer, but you’re too nervous to ask which kind. You rush off to the bar, where a bartender about your age is wiping down the counter.

“Hi! Can I get a vodka soda, a glass of water, and a beer, please?” You ask, feeling your nerves dissolve. The bartender looks up, his blonde hair falling over his eyes.

“What kind of beer?” He asks. You shrug, defeated.

“Honestly, just surprise me.” You say. He smiles, clearly amused, and turns to get your drinks. You don’t even notice someone approaching until you hear a familiar voice clear his throat.

“(Y/N).” He says. You turn, trying not to shy away as Hotch towers over you.

“Yes?” You say, willing your voice to not sound squeaky.

“Can we talk?” He asks, pulling at his tie.

Fuck.

“Sure. Let me just…” You trail off, motioning at the bartender. Hotch nods in understanding. Just as he does, the bartender slides the drinks over to you. Hotch grabs JJ’s drink and walks it over to her. Emily sends you a suggestive look from across the room. You flip her off and turn to the bartender.

“Please add these to Emily Prentiss’ tab. That’s P-R-E-N-T-I-S-S.” You say, and the bartender laughs.

“No problem, um-” He says. You smile.

“(Y/N).” You say, filling in his blank.

“Well, nice to meet you, (Y/N).” He says before being flagged down by another customer.

You turn around with your water and Hotch’s beer, only to bump right into the older man.

“Jesus fuck!” You exclaim as ice water stings your hand. Hotch laughs, a deep rumbling sound that completely entrances you.

“Sorry.” He says, freeing up one of your hands by taking his beer.

“I hope you like that kind. I’m not much of a beer drinker.” You say, trying for a smooth recovery. Hotch nods appreciatively.

“This is perfect,” He says, and you unclench slightly, “could we talk outside? It’s a bit loud in here.”

You nod, and he guides you out of the bar with his hand on your elbow. The crisp evening air takes some over the edge off. Hotch leans against the brick wall and you do the same. You’re only illuminated by the purple neon “open” sign hanging over you.

“I wanted to apologize.” Hotch blurts out, taking you by surprise. You tilt your head to the side, asking a silent question. Hotch almost dies on the spot.

“I- I’ve acted inappropriately towards you, and for that I apologize. I value your expertise and think you’re an invaluable member of this team. I never intended to make you uncomfortable.” He says in a rush, throwing you completely off guard. It takes you a moment to remember how to talk, but when you do all that comes out is-

“What are you talking about?”

Hotch runs a hand through his hair and smiles, but it looks painful.

“Please, (Y/N), don’t make me say it.”

“Say what?” You ask, completely bewildered.

“That I have feelings for you.”

And then you wake up.

Well, this is the part where you should wake up, but you’re still here, outside with Hotch. Hotch. Aaron Hotchner. Who likes you.

“What?” You said, not trusting yourself to say anything else. Hotch smiles again, resigned.

“Please. You must’ve noticed. I haven’t been exactly inconspicuous. And again, I’m sorry. It must make you very uncomfortable for someone more advanced than you in both age and position to be so blatant in their feelings for you.”

“What is happening?” You whisper, mostly to yourself. “You- you like me?” You ask as if he hasn’t made it obvious enough. Hotch actually has the audacity to look ashamed as he nods. After you’ve had a moment to process, you can’t help the world-stopping, blinding smile that graces your face. You tentatively reach for his hand. Hotch looks up at you in disbelief as you entwine your fingers with him.

“(Y/N)?” He asks carefully, not fully trusting the scene unfolding before him.

“I had no idea,” You say, feeling elated, “I always thought I was the one being obvious about my feelings.”

Hotch jerks his hand away, and your face falls.

“But- you shouldn’t have any feelings. Not for me.” He says, his face turning stony before your eyes.

“Why not?”

“Because, (Y/N)! I’m too old for you. I can’t give you what I want. You deserve to be with someone your age, someone who can give you all of his time.” He says, taking a step away from you. You take another step towards him.

“Hey, no. Is your name Aaron Hotchner?” You ask, pulling him towards you.

“What? Yes.” He says, clearly confused. You slowly and gently take his face in your hands, bringing his forehead down to yours.

“Then you are what I want, Aaron.” You whisper, the name tasting sweet in your mouth. Hotch practically melts, pulling you into a hug by your waist. You wrap your arms around his neck and revel in the warmth of his body and fast beat of his heart.

“(Y/N), my darling girl,” He says softly, pulling back slightly. “Can I kiss you?” He asks. You nod eagerly, and he pulls you to him. He kisses the way he loves, carefully yet passionately. When you pull away you feel like a new woman, and you wrap your arms around him once again.

“You are amazing.” He says, his words warming you even more than his touch. You kiss him again.

“Let’s go home, Aaron.” You say. And you do.

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner imagine #hotch imagine #hotch x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds imagine #ssa hotchner

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whatdoesshedotothem · 2 years

Text

Thursday 5 December 1839

8 ½

fine hard frosty morning F59 ¾ now at 9 ¾ and breakfast – no! could not take anything – returned to my room – sick – brought up a little merely bile – lay down, after drinking a glass of warm water, till count Panin came about 11 – too unwell to go out – he sat with us till after 1 – having had the man for me for the sledge carriage a sort of covered kibitka price 190/. instead of 140 as I understood before – he had paid 20/. in advance which 20/. I repaid to him and paid the hundred and seventy additional! – afterwards came the man who offered himself as travelling servant the one I was to have seen a day or 2 ago – asked 150/. per month 5/. per day – then came down to 100/. per month which count P- said was too much – his eating and drinking would cost him one rouble a day, and his cloak etc. for the voyage winter and summer 150/. en tout – longish talk – has been a soldier – a Russian – native of Moscow, but learnt French in the campaign in the time of Napoleon – asked count P- if I should write to Lord Claurickard for a letter from him to count Woronzow, and to Lord Ponsonby at Constantinople – no! not necessary – this led to some anecdotes of Lord C- not esteemed our 1st rate diplomat and surely not the most elegant of men if I made no mistake as to his se couchait à cheval at a review where he was at the moment within sight of the empress’s carriage she leaning back s’enfonçait dans la voiture pour éviter observing such a gaucherie, for, after all as I remarked, such a thing could only have happened thro’ gaucherie – mauvaite [mauvaise] honte – or anything but mauvaise volonté one of our attachés likewise appeared at Borodino in a singularly mal à propos undress-dress! – How mortifying all this! Fonelmont (Austrian ambassador at St. P-) seemed to be thought the cleverest of the foreign Dipolmates, and next to him the Swedish ambassador – Lord G- at Paris is not thought likely, I should guess, to set the Thames on fine - ......... what a pity our diplomacie est si faible! count P- really good humoured, useful, and agreeable – we must try what we can do for him when he goes to England – he was hardly gone when princess Barbe Ourousoff called – I apologised and left her and her young Russian girl while I went to the woman from chez Mathias who had been waiting 2 hours said Grotza – la robe allait très bien, but, as they afterwards told me, was for summer, not winter, and looked starvation. should have been white gros d’afrique, or silk of some sort much better than muslin si claire it would have done for a ball over satin had it not be brodée with scattered light sprigs – Returned to princess B.O. dressed – she wished to see Grotza – (I called her in to speak to her) – and on leaving us, went as she afterwards said to Mrs. Howard, found her at dinner and ate beefsteak with her! – dressed I en mousseline claire blanche and coiffée par Larne en fausse matten de Paris that I have not worn almost since leaving there – A-

SH:7/ML/E/23/0145

in her evening, last Paris, pretty brown and pretty little pink-flowery stripe – arrived about 3 20/.. dinner in about ¼ hour – countess Kutaisoff gone – princess Gortchakoff ill in bed – her daughter and sons (children) there and princess B.O. and Miss Delamine and some men, - one a young officer who is obliged to (under obligation to) the old princess O- dinner over and coffee and had sat some time princess B- O- gone when came away and home about 6 or soon after – princess R- with us the whole time before retiring to her room – has had another consultation – ordered to remain here 6 weeks longer – her 3 rings given set à l’anglaise, one in England by her husband – a little square emerald (emerald) 3 good topazes, and a hoop of 2 or 3 small diamonds and as many rubies – should buy Emeralds at Constantinople – unset – countess Nesselrode bought stones for 2 parures to give to her 2 daughters on their marriage – her uncle gave her her 4 gold bracelets she wore – not exceeding ½ in.? wide – neat – solid – à l’anglaise – given her at Vienna by her uncle Tatischeff Russian ambassador there – old princess O- told me when she was here on Tuesday that her brother said he had never seen a woman of princess R-s’ age ‘plus raisonable [raisonnable]’ – (spirituelle discrète, belle, il voulait dire) – tea before 7 – sat talking – then till 10 read over the last batch of newspaper (St. James’s chronicle) sent us by Mr. Camidge (except the latest from Tuesday 8 to Thursday 10 October read before) i.e. read tonight 5 papers from Thursday 27 to Saturday 28 September and to 1, 3, 5, and 8 October last – nothing very particular – nothing worth noting – our friend this morning said Tatischeff not liked or respected un homme venal – asked to dine at the O-s’ tomorrow Ste. Catherine – four de Fête of the old princess – Ste. Sophie is 17 September O.S. princess R-s’ day – asked if it was the custom in Russian for all the ladies and all the gentlemen to sit together in Russia – no! not now – this merely a family party, and on these occasions the custom of the house – ‘tis now after 11am F61° on the table in my salon – fine hard frosty day but not cold R -7° or 8° not more – but cold east wind – still bilious headache – bilious all the day – afraid I have not done with it yet

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yobaba30 · 5 years

Text

per Seth Abramson ~

Mueller's *biggest* revelation is being ignored: the SCO confirms that in the weeks before the 2016 election, Trump believed Kremlin agents held videos of him from a 2013 Moscow trip that could end his candidacy.

1/ It doesn't require proof of criminality beyond a reasonable doubt to impeach a POTUS, though we have that now as to obstruction—an impeachable crime that can't be indicted because Trump is president—and campaign finance felonies (ditto). A national security risk is sufficient.

2/ Counterintelligence investigations of Trump remain outstanding—their findings haven't yet been disclosed, though they eventually will be to the House and Senate intelligence committees—but Mueller's report does include corroborated information that is *central* to those cases.

3/ A president *must* be impeached if—in counterintelligence terms—there's "high confidence" intel that he is "compromised" by a foreign power, meaning not that he is necessarily an agent of any foreign power, but that he cannot uphold his Oath of Office (and loyalty) to America.

4/ The primary ground under which a POTUS could be impeached for an inability to uphold his Oath of Office— and secure the national defense—that *isn't* criminal is if he has been "compromised" by a foreign power via blackmail that provably puts him in thrall to a foreign power.

5/ In January 2017, a major BBC investigative report confirmed the following: the CIA believes Trump to be compromised by the Kremlin due to the Kremlin's possession of "multiple" tapes, from "multiple" locations/dates, involving Trump and sexual conduct

6/ Almost immediately thereafter, I passed on this internationally available BBC report to the American public because—as a curatorial journalist—that's one of the main things I do: find reliable international reporting that links up to domestic stories in a way that's critical.

7/ To the extent you've ever heard me called a "conspiracy theorist," it was this *BBC* reporting—which American media for some reason attributed to me—that earned me that erroneous title. So I wrote a book, PROOF OF COLLUSION, with all the British reporting on Kremlin kompromat.

8/ PROOF OF COLLUSION has an entire chapter on Kremlin kompromat called "Kompromat," and it amasses a wealth of internationally reported information on Trump being blackmailed by the Kremlin that was *all* from the reliable overseas major media outlets that many of us read daily.

9/ These outlets found ten witnesses (inclusive of—but not limited to—dossier witnesses) who could confirm the brief section of Steele's dossier that indicated the Kremlin was holding video blackmail material ("kompromat") over Trump's head. Most Americans never saw the evidence.

10/ The evidence included BBC-confirmed witnesses from the Ritz Moscow who saw a "row" in the lobby of the Ritz on the night in question—as a group of women argued with the hotel staff about whether they would need to sign in or give their names in order to go up to Trump's room.

11/ The evidence included a whistleblower from within Trump Org who confirmed the events, as well as multiple Ritz staff members besides the American staying at the Ritz who saw the row. The evidence included contradictory stories given by Trump and his bodyguard, Keith Schiller.

12/ The evidence included the fact that the best friend of a key member of Trump's Moscow entourage runs Moscow's largest "dark web" brothel; the evidence included actual dollar-amounted payoffs to Trump's bodyguard Schiller and much more—including spycraft evidence—of the event.

13/ The presumption of *all* these stories was that the blackmail had been coordinated by Trump's Kremlin-connected Moscow business partner, Aras Agalarov, the man who runs the "Crocus Group" (a Russian business entity) and is known for being Putin's favorite real estate builder.

14/ Vladimir Putin had *personally* given Agalarov Russia's highest civilian honor just 10 days before Trump arrived in Moscow to be surreptitiously taped by Agalarov. (NOTE: major-media citations for all these statements are in PROOF OF COLLUSION, which I here merely summarize.)

15/ One of the witnesses who spoke to British media said it was Agalarov's son who arranged for the women to go to Trump's room—a Ritz Moscow room often used for surveillance of foreigners that Trump himself (quite oddly, very *publicly*) *admitted* was wired for sound and audio.

16/ Emin Agalarov is close with—and was in Trump's entourage with—Artem Klyushin, whose best friend, Konstantin Rykov, runs Moscow's largest dark-web brothel and has boasted of being involved in a conspiracy with Klyushin whose details he wouldn't reveal but which involved Trump.

17/ We know that, in fall 2016, Trump's fixer for video, audio, or (well) *women* who could harm Trump was Michael Cohen. And we know that after the Access Hollywood tape, many Republicans wanted to withdraw their support from Trump. A Kremlin tape would have ended his candidacy.

18/ We know that in October 2016, Trump was lying to America about whether he had any ties to the Kremlin—even as he was planning the unilateral removal of all sanctions on Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea—a policy whose basis or utility to the U.S. he never explained.

19/ Trump's foreign policy in October 2016 was a *trillions*-of-dollars giveaway to Putin that'd *bless* its unilateral European military aggression, too. So if the Kremlin held *blackmail* on Trump in October 2016—and could end his candidacy—he was a fully compromised candidate.

20/ Here's what Mueller found: 1) The videos the CIA, BBC, and this writer said existed *did exist*; 2) Trump *knew* they existed; 3) Trump's "blackmail fixer"—Cohen—negotiated with a Kremlin agent their suppression in October 2016, when they could have ended Trump's candidacy.

21/ This is *the* top story in America, indeed the *most significant story* in U.S. political history: a President of the United States with a historically pro-Russia foreign policy was being actively and knowingly blackmailed by Russia in the lead-up to his election—and *still*.

22/ That Trump and Cohen *discussed these tapes* suggests *they believed*—as did the Kremlin agent they were dealing with—that they existed, and that the Kremlin was (through an intermediary) reassuring Trump that the Agalarov-held (Kremlin agent-held) tapes would be suppressed.

23/ So Trump was being blackmailed; *knew* he was being accurately blackmailed; knew that blackmail could—at that moment—*end his candidacy*; *hid* that blackmail from the country; and was secretly advancing a plan to benefit the Kremlin to the tune of *trillions* at that moment.

24/ And all of this *confirms* that Trump *believed the tapes to be damaging enough that he needed to keep them suppressed*—which means he is *being blackmailed right now by the Kremlin*, as all Rtskhiladze did was stop the *flow* of those videos. They *still exist fully intact*.

25/ Mueller *only* put "high confidence" intel in his Report—so we *know* US law enforcement holds that Rtskhiladze was *telling the truth* about the videos. And *no* US president can stay in power—avoid impeachment—if they are compromised. So impeachment is *mandated* here. /end NOTE/ "Rumored" appears in the story twice: 1) FROM CNN, as they're worried about being attacked for reporting CIA, BBC and SCO intel just as I was; 2) FROM RTSKHILADZE, but in a way that makes no sense—i.e. he may have said "rumored," but he also *acknowledged* the tapes exist.

NOTE2/ In other words, RTSKHILADZE was saying that he "stopped the flow" of the *actual tapes* which had been (at that point) "rumored" to exist—by which statement Rtskhiladze, acting as a Kremlin agent (which Agalarov also is) was confirming the tapes to be authentic and extant.

NOTE3/ There's *not one revelation in the Mueller Report* as important as this one, as it *confirms* Trump was compromised by the Kremlin not just by his lies about the Trump Tower Moscow deal (themselves blackmail material), but *hard evidence* that would've ended his candidacy.

NOTE4/ I'm ultimately OK with the fact that my reputation took a hit for two years because, unlike me, US media refused to acknowledge a BBC report, but now that Special Counsel Mueller—whose work even Trump has called "honorable" in the past—has said it, media *must* report it.

NOTE5/ What you can do—as reader and citizen—is (a) RETWEET/REPOST tweet/post, so that media can no longer ignore this top-line result of the Mueller Report, and (b) TWEET AT MEDIA the name "Rtskhiladze" and ask them if they only reason they won't say it is they can't pronounce it.

PS/ The term "national security impeachment" should be on the lips of *every voter and politician*. We do have other crimes—at least two—now confirmed to add to any articles of impeachment, but *national security* is more important than all else. Impeachment is *mandatory* now.

REFERENCE/ In June 2017, this is how The New Republic covered my *retweeting of a BBC story*. (The very story I linked to in this thread.) When I asked @newrepublic to correct its story to say it wasn't my "theory" but a BBC report, they refused.

*That's* what's wrong with media.

#collusion #impeachtrump

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jaggedheartstrings · 5 years

Text

Hope To See You Again || Chapter 3

Read it on AO3.

Summary:

Natasha Antonia Stark was a thriving scientist in the 1940's. Alongside her brother, Howard, they build a whole world of technology and science for themselves.

Up until a fatal night in 1947.

She was announced dead in 1949.

* * *

Toni wasn’t going anywhere with him as long as she had anything to do about it.

“I was hoping to do this the easier way, but the best ones do put up the best fight at first, don’t they?”

It was the last thing she remembered before darkness overtook her.

Chapter 3:

1948, New York, Hydra Base

The heels clicked on the floor of the cold and barren looking base. The woman was carrying a file, important, need-to-know information she had to take to her superiors. She had been warned quite brutally to not look in the file or risk facing a bullet in her skull- though she was almost sure about what the file was about. Everything regarding the Companion was almost all she knew. The woman had studied and listened, learned everything there was to know about the young woman they had taken. She wished to help her, but she had to worry about other people first, before even giving her a thought.

She knocked on the door and stepped inside when one of the guards opened it.

“Ah, Mrs. Winfrell, I was waiting on your arrival.” The man sitting behind the table told her. It was a rare occurrence to not see him ranting on about. “I hope you have what I wanted. Or have those fools once again failed me?”

“Uh, no, sir.” She gulped and breathed deeply. “Here, if you will take it.” She handed the file and the dark-haired man nodded once.

“Thank you, Mrs. Winfrell.” He pondered for a moment. “I got word from Moscow. They’re ready to move the Companion. I was hoping that you’d go with them. I believe you are in place of a raise.”

“Sir?” She questioned. The woman hoped it was not what she thought it would be.

“I want you there. Help the Companion settle. The Doctor was asking for you to be at his side when Phase Three was green light.” He rubbed his hands together. “The Companion has been given green light a week ago, but seeing as you were not here, he wished not to start it yet. They’ve kept her under heavy sedation until then, so she won’t know of a break from her training.”

“I- of course.” She nodded at him and started to turn towards the door, before coming to other thoughts and turning back towards the base leader. “Are we leaving, when exactly?”

The leader smiled at her, “Tomorrow morning. I suggest you pack your bags and tell your family goodbye for a while. I don’t know if the Companion will be coming back to America at all.”

“Of course. Thank you, sir.” She smiled in a hopefully convincing way. This was far from what she wanted, but she knew better than to turn it down. She hurried out the door and towards her chambers, cursing everything to hell inside her head. She wished to stay as far from the Companion as possible. She knew she was attached to her. It. Goddammit. She needed to get her head straight.

~ Read more under the cut ~

* * *

1948, Moscow, Hydra Main Base

Toni walked quietly besides the Doctor. She didn’t know where she was. They’d gotten on a plane back in New York and she hadn’t known where it was heading to. All she knew was that it had taken a long time and she was immensely tired. She couldn’t sleep on the plane. Her nervousness was basically jumping off the walls. Despite her being ready for Phase Three, she knew she couldn’t trust these people and had to get away. The problem was she didn’t know where she was. And she was sure she wasn’t in America anymore.

They had driven in a windowless (or at least the part of the car she was in was windowless) car for hours. Until they had stopped, and she was stabbed once again with a needle, soon falling asleep. And now she was here, a bustling base- surprise, surprise- though lacking in furniture and full of colourless concrete walls. She was being escorted by the Doctor and three guards- they didn’t trust her at all, did they? It wasn’t long since coming inside that they came across the elevator (-ish?) machine. They went down at least nine levels before stopping, the rattling cage quieting down and stopping with a screech. Two sets of doors opened and a long corridor with steps leading up to a higher point. She was directed to the left, through a metal door to a corridor of doors. Then into a metallic door on the right side of the room. It was the third door, labeled товарищ/Aссистент (Companion/Assistant).

She walked in, but the Doctor nor any of the guards followed her. She turned and looked at them. “You should rest. Phase Three will start tomorrow morning. After you complete Phase Three, I’ll take care of you.” His smile made her believe that “taking care of her” would be not any caretaking she was familiar with.

“And my… handler, was it?” She questioned. She wasn’t sure what Phase Three would be, but a handler didn’t sound right in her ears. She needed to get out and she needed to be out yesterday.

“Apparently that task lies now on my shoulders.” He simply said, not bothering to elaborate. It only made her feel worse about tomorrow and whatever horrors she might face. The Doctor nodded once and one of the guards- she now realized they were for the Doctor- slammed the metal door closed. She heard a clank and assumed that meant it was locked now. She didn’t hear any echo of steps, but she hadn’t expected to.

The room followed the same style as the rest of the base. Bare and made complete of concrete, even the floor, and very, very cold. There was a bed- if you could call it that- in one of the corners. And a wardrobe next to the door. Curiously she opened the wardrobe door and found it empty, except for one grey-greenish blanket. The texture was rough and uncomfortable, Toni couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose at the material. Where they got all this unbearably uncomfortable items, she had no clue.

She took the blanket- well, more like sandpaper- and took it to the bed-like thing. It didn’t have a pillow or any sheets, but she guessed she could make do. Better than the floor anyway, right? She looked around in the dull room once again, this time noticing the camera in one of the corners- of course, why would there not be a camera. She huffed in irritation. Fuckers wouldn’t trust her to not do anything. She had to give it to them, they were quite smart about the whole situation so far. Toni had no idea where she was and how to get out. There were guards and scientists around every corner and crevice.

She realized with a start that she didn’t even know how long she had been captured for- Howard. Oh, dear God, poor Howard. Not only had he lost one of his good friends in the war, he’d also lost Steve and now his sister. Tears sprang to the corners of her eyes. Howard barely knew how to live before everything went to shit, how would he fare now? She knew he wasn’t hopeless, and he was almost as smart as her, but Toni couldn’t help but worry for her brother. Being intelligent and smart didn’t mean either of them knew how to take care of themselves. Taking a deep calming breath, she sat on the edge of the bed and dropped her head in her hands.

This was really happening.

* * *

The next morning came bright and early. The woman dressed in a black dress- as she always was- walked towards the room of the young woman. Stark was sitting on the bed, lost in her thoughts. The woman nodded to the guards and they opened the door for her. As she slipped in, she also slipped on her mask, a cool expression hiding everything she felt. Once the door was closed, Stark’s head rose, slowly.

The woman tightened her grip on the file and finally looked into Star- the Companion’s eyes. And it was almost like she forgot how to breathe. An exact match to her six-year-old daughter’s eyes. The same shade of brown, though her daughter’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree whereas the other pair looked dull and pained.

“Товарищ.” The woman addressed her- it- by its new name. The young woman tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. And it suddenly hit her. She wouldn’t know Russian. She wasn’t even near Phase 5. But her direct orders were to only talk to her in Russian. “Вы следовать мной.”

Despite not knowing the language, the Companion could obviously guess what she meant. The Doctor had informed her of the happenings that would take place in the morning after all. St- It rose from the bed and stepped closer to the woman. “Стоп!” The dark dressed woman shouted in almost panic. Stark stopped immediately. “Вы следовать мной но остаетесь запредохранителями. Не придите около меня, ребенка.” (You will follow me but stay behind the guards. Do not come near me, child.) Momentarily forgetting that all of that would go over her head, the woman turned to leave expecting her to follow. When no such thing happened, anger and fear surged through the woman. “Follow.” She ordered in perfect English. The young woman followed her, sluggishly but followed, nonetheless.

They walked through the corridors and the closer they got, the more afraid the woman became. She knew what would happen next, knew her to lose all her memories. Sucking in a deep breath, she pushed open the doors leading to the chair. The large open room was filled with machinery, advanced and old mixed together to create a terrifying chair in the middle of the room. The woman turned towards the Doctor and flicked her hand towards the guards, who immediately complying took hold of Stark.

“Господин, я принес ее.” (Sir, I brought her) At her words the Doctor turned, a menacing grin finding its place on his face. He effortlessly glided towards the young woman held by her arms. Stark hadn’t yet lost her fire, as she glared into his eyes, defiance clear.

“Ah, my дорогой, welcome to your new second home.” He grinned at her, baring his teeth. His hand caressed her cheek and she trashed in the hold of the guards. He took hold of her neck and bend down to her face. “See that?” He pointed towards the Chair. Stark’s eyes flicked to the Chair and back to his face. “It’s one of my innovations actually. It’s unfairly efficient. We’ll keep you in it for 30 minutes, then talk a little. After that an hour. Slowly increasing it, until you learn what we want you to learn. Don’t worry, we have all day and night all to ourselves. Asset is currently enjoying some well-earned sleep.”

The woman saw Stark’s eyes open wide with fear. “What does it do? The Chair?” The Doctor suddenly erupted in a high pitched, hyena like laughter. The woman couldn’t help but cringe.

“You’ll find out soon enough, моя марионетка.” He flicked his hand and without a word the guards dragged the trashing young woman into the Chair. They put her in the chair and held her still as the various doctors and technicians worked to strap her in. The Doctor looked annoyed at the resistance. “My darling, I thought you trusted me with your worthless self.”

“I trust you with nothing!” Stark yelled as she trashed in the chair. “You do this, and nothing will stop me from tearing you all apart once I get free!” She fiercely spat the words towards the Doctor and in a split second he was moving. Next the woman knew the Doctor was seething above the girl, his hand still raised, her cheek coloured with a hand print.

“Worked yourself some courage and defiance over the night, didn’t you?” He seethed into her face while holding her chin in a harsh grip. “I guess I shouldn’t have left you that carelessly all alone with your pretty little head.” He threw her face to the side and pulled himself upright, turned and stomped all the way up to the platform where the control panel was. “I want this over with and I want it now! Start Phase Three.”

“Но нет попирание плохая черта, которыйнужно выйти под обработку?” (But isn’t defiance a bad trait to be left under the treatment?) The woman asked with curiosity.

“Я делал все я могу разрушить ее попирание. Если это не делает его, то мы не имеемникакую пользу для ее.” (I have done all I can to destroy her defiance. If this doesn’t work, we have no use for her.) The Doctor grits out and motions for the man handling the controls to start. His fingers fly on the buttons and soon the spiky straps that lead the electricity cover her forearms and place themselves around her head. Another doctor puts a biting strap into her mouth and then the screams start as electricity pushes itself around her fragile body.

As thirty minutes pass, it all stops, and the Doctor simply asks Stark who she is and what is her purpose.

When she answers incorrectly, the Doctor furiously slaps her and slides a knife up her arm, making it bleed.

“Вы товарищ, ваш полет помочь имуществу ипозволить гидре контролировать вас. Выответите: Подготавливайте для того чтобыисполнить и сделайте все и все мы говорим, что вы делаете. Отсутствие спрошенныхвопросов!” (You are the Companion; your mission is to assist the Asset and allow Hydra to control you. You will answer: Ready to comply and do everything and all we tell you to do. No questions asked!)

It continues the same way until almost twelve hours later, she- it says the right thing.

“Подготавливайте для того чтобы исполнить.” (Ready to comply.)

And the Companion is born.

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nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany · 5 years

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John Helmer: MH17 Evidence Tampering Revealed by Malaysia – FBI Attempt To Seize Black Boxes; Dutch Cover-Up of Forged Telephone Tapes; Ukrainian Air Force Hid Radar Records; Crash Site Witness Testimony Misreported

Digital Elixir John Helmer: MH17 Evidence Tampering Revealed by Malaysia – FBI Attempt To Seize Black Boxes; Dutch Cover-Up of Forged Telephone Tapes; Ukrainian Air Force Hid Radar Records; Crash Site Witness Testimony Misreported

Yves here. Hoo boy. The idea that eastern Ukrainian insurgents or Russia would target a passenger plane never made any sense (unless the plane had high-priority targets or cargo), although it’s always been possible that the downing of MH17 was an accident, and some efforts to explain what happened are based on that idea. For Malaysia, starting with Prime Minister Mahathir, to stand up and say the US tried to cook the record to pin the crash on Russia is remarkable.

By John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears

A new documentary from Max van der Werff, the leading independent investigator of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 disaster, has revealed breakthrough evidence of tampering and forging of prosecution materials; suppression of Ukrainian Air Force radar tapes; and lying by the Dutch, Ukrainian, US and Australian governments. An attempt by agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to take possession of the black boxes of the downed aircraft is also revealed by a Malaysian National Security Council official for the first time.

The sources of the breakthrough are Malaysian — Prime Minister of Malaysia Mohamad Mahathir; Colonel Mohamad Sakri, the officer in charge of the MH17 investigation for the Prime Minister’s Department and Malaysia’s National Security Council following the crash on July 17, 2014; and a forensic analysis by Malaysia’s OG IT Forensic Services of Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU) telephone tapes which Dutch prosecutors have announced as genuine.

The 298 casualties of MH17 included 192 Dutch; 44 Malaysians; 27 Australians; 15 Indonesians. The nationality counts vary because the airline manifest does not identify dual nationals of Australia, the UK, and the US.

The new film throws the full weight of the Malaysian Government, one of the five members of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), against the published findings and the recent indictment of Russian suspects reported by the Dutch officials in charge of the JIT; in addition to Malaysia and The Netherlands, the members of the JIT are Australia, Ukraine and Belgium. Malaysia’s exclusion from the JIT at the outset, and Belgium’s inclusion (4 Belgian nationals were listed on the MH17 passenger manifest), have never been explained.

The film reveals the Malaysian Government’s evidence for judging the JIT’s witness testimony, photographs, video clips, and telephone tapes to have been manipulated by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), and to be inadmissible in a criminal prosecution in a Malaysian or other national or international court.

For the first time also, the Malaysian Government reveals how it got in the way of attempts the US was organizing during the first week after the crash to launch a NATO military attack on eastern Ukraine. The cover story for that was to rescue the plane, passenger bodies, and evidence of what had caused the crash. In fact, the operation was aimed at defeating the separatist movements in the Donbass, and to move against Russian-held Crimea.

The new film reveals that a secret Malaysian military operation took custody of the MH17 black boxes on July 22, preventing the US and Ukraine from seizing them. The Malaysian operation, revealed in the film by the Malaysian Army colonel who led it, eliminated the evidence for the camouflage story, reinforcing the German Government’s opposition to the armed attack, and forcing the Dutch to call off the invasion on July 27.

The 28-minute documentary by Max van der Werff and Yana Yerlashova has just been released. Yerlashova was the film director and co-producer with van der Werff and Ahmed Rifazal. Vitaly Biryaukov directed the photography. Watch it in full here.

The full interview with Prime Minister Mahathir was released in advance; it can be viewed and read here.

Mahathir reveals why the US, Dutch and Australian governments attempted to exclude Malaysia from membership of the JIT in the first months of the investigation. During that period, US, Dutch, Australian and NATO officials initiated a plan for 9,000 troops to enter eastern Ukraine, ostensibly to secure the crash scene, the aircraft and passenger remains, and in response to the alleged Russian role in the destruction of MH17 on July 17; for details of that scheme, read this.

Although German opposition to military intervention forced its cancellation, the Australians sent a 200-man special forces unit to The Netherlands and then Kiev. The European Union and the US followed with economic sanctions against Russia on July 29.

Malaysian resistance to the US attempts to blame Moscow for the aircraft shoot-down was made clear in the first hours after the incident to then-President Barack Obama by Malaysia’s Prime Minister at the time, Najib Razak. That story can be followed here and here.

In an unusual decision to speak in the new documentary, Najib’s successor Prime Minister Mahathir announced: “They never allowed us to be involved from the very beginning. This is unfair and unusual. So we can see they are not really looking at the causes of the crash and who was responsible. But already they have decided it must be Russia. So we cannot accept that kind of attitude. We are interested in the rule of law, in justice for everyone irrespective of who is involved. We have to know who actually fired the missile, and only then can we accept the report as the complete truth.”

On July 18, in the first Malaysian Government press conference after the shoot-down, Najib (right) announced agreements he had already reached by telephone with Obama and Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian President. “ ‘Obama and I agreed that the investigation will not be hidden and the international teams have to be given access to the crash scene.’ [Najib] said the Ukrainian president ‎has pledged that there would be a full, thorough and independent investigation and Malaysian officials would be invited to take part. ‘He also confirmed that his government will negotiate with rebels in the east of the country in order to establish a humanitarian corridor to the crash site,’ said Najib. He also said that no one should remove any debris or the black box from the scene. The Government of Malaysia is dispatching a special flight to Kiev, carrying a Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team, as well as a medical team. But we must – and we will – find out precisely what happened to this flight. No stone can be left unturned.”

The new film reveals in an interview with Colonel Mohamad Sakri, the head of the Malaysian team, what happened next. Sakri’s evidence, filmed in his office at Putrajaya, is the first to be reported by the press outside Malaysia in five years. A year ago, Sakri gave a partial account of his mission to a Malaysian newspaper.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/

“I talked to my prime minister [Najib],” Colonel Sakri says. “He directed me to go to the crash site immediately.” At the time Sakri was a senior security official at the Disaster Management Division of the Prime Minister’s Department. Sakri says that after arriving in Kiev, Poroshenko’s officials blocked the Malaysians. “We were not allowed to go there…so I took a small team to leave Kiev going to Donetsk secretly.” There Sakri toured the crash site, and met with officials of the Donetsk separatist administration headed by Alexander Borodai.

With eleven men, including two medical specialists, a signalman, and Malaysian Army commandos, Sakri had raced to the site ahead of an armed convoy of Australian, Dutch and Ukrainian government men. The latter were blocked by Donetsk separatist units. The Australian state press agency ABC reported their military convoy, prodded from Kiev by the appearance of Australian and Dutch foreign ministers Julie Bishop and Frans Timmermans, had been forced to abandon their mission. That was after Colonel Sakri had taken custody of the MH17 black boxes in a handover ceremony filmed at Borodai’s office in Donetsk on July 22.

US sources told the Wall Street Journal at the time “the [Sakri] mission’s success delivered a political victory for Mr. Najib’s government… it also handed a gift to the rebels in the form of an accord, signed by the top Malaysian official present in Donetsk, calling the crash site ‘the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic.’…That recognition could antagonize Kiev and Washington, which have striven not to give any credibility to the rebels, whose main leaders are Russian citizens with few ties to the area. State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a briefing Monday that the negotiation ‘in no way legitimizes’ separatists.”

The Australian state radio then reported the Ukrainian government as claiming the black box evidence showed “the reason for the destruction and crash of the plane was massive explosive decompression arising from multiple shrapnel perforations from a rocket explosion.” This was a fabrication – the evidence of the black boxes, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, first reported six weeks later in September by the Dutch Safety Board, showed nothing of the kind; read what their evidence revealed.

Foreign Minister Bishop, in Kiev on July 24, claimed she was negotiating with the Ukrainians for the Australian team in the country to carry arms. “I don’t envisage that we will ever resort to [arms],” she told her state news agency, “but it is a contingency planning, and you would be reckless not to include it in this kind of agreement. But I stress our mission is unarmed because it is [a] humanitarian mission.”

In Kiev on July 24, 2014, left to right: Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop; Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin. Source: https://www.alamy.com/ The NATO intervention plan was still under discussion, but the black boxes were already under Malaysian control.

By the time she spoke to her state radio, Bishop was concealing that the plan for armed intervention, including 3,000 Australian troops, had been called off. She was also concealing that the black boxes were already in Colonel Sakri’s possession.

The document signed by Sakri for the handover of the black boxes is visible in the new documentary. Sakri signed himself and added the stamp of the National Security Council of Malaysia.

Col. Sakri says on film the Donetsk leaders expressed surprise at the delay of the Malaysians in arriving at the crash site to recover the black boxes. “Why are you so late”, [Borodai] said…I think [that was] very funny.” Source: https://www.youtube.com/Min. 05:47.

Sakri goes on to say he was asked by the OSCE’s special monitoring mission for Ukraine to hand over the black boxes; he refused. He was then met by agents of the FBI (Min 6:56). “They approached me to show them the black box. I said no.” He also reports that in Kiev the Ukrainian Government tried “forcing me to leave the black boxes with them. We said no. We cannot. We cannot allow.”

The handover ceremony in Donetsk, July 22, 2014: on far left, the two black boxes from MH17; in the centre, shaking hands, Alexander Borodai and Mohamad Sakri.

Permission for Colonel Sakri to speak to the press has been authorized by his superiors at the prime ministry in Putrajaya, and his disclosures agreed with them in advance.

Subsequent releases from the Kiev government to substantiate the allegation of Russian involvement in the shoot-down have included telephone tape recordings. These were presented last month by the JIT as their evidence for indictment of four Russians; for details, read this.

Van der Werff and Yerlashova contracted with OG IT Forensic Services, a Malaysian firm specializing in forensic analysis of audio, video and digital materials for court proceedings, to examine the telephone tapes. The Kuala Lumpur firm has been endorsed by the Malaysian Bar. The full 143-page technical report can be read here.

The findings reported by Akash Rosen and illustrated on camera are that the telephone recordings have been cut, edited and fabricated. The source of the tapes, according to the JIT press conference on June 19 by Dutch police officer Paulissen, head of the National Criminal Investigation Service of The Netherlands, was the Ukrainian SBU. Similar findings of tape fabrication and evidence tampering are reported on camera in the van der Werff film by a German analyst, Norman Ritter.

Left: Dutch police chief Paulissen grins as he acknowledged during the June 19, 2019, press conference of JIT that the telephone tape evidence on which the charges against the four accused Russians came from the Ukrainian SBU. Minute 16:02 Right: Norman Ritter presented his analysis to interviewer Billy Sixt to show the telephone tape evidence has been forged in nine separate “manipulations”. One of the four accused by the JIT last month, Sergei Dubinsky, testifies from Min. 17 of the documentary. He says his men recovered the black boxes from the crash site and delivered them to Borodai at 2300 hours on July 17; the destruction of the aircraft occurred at 1320. Dubinsky testifies that he had no orders for and took no part in the shoot-down. As for the telephone tape-recording evidence against him, Dubinsky says the calls were made days before July 17, and edited by the SBU. “I dare them to publish the uncut conversations, and then you will get a real picture of what was discussed.” (Min. 17:59).

Van der Werff and Yerlashova filmed at the crash site in eastern Ukraine. Several local witnesses were interviewed, including a man named Alexander from Torez town, and Valentina Kovalenko, a woman from the farming village of Red October. The man said the missile equipment alleged by the JIT to have been transported from across the Russian border on July 17 was in Torez at least one, possibly two days before the shoot-down on July 17; he did not confirm details the JIT has identified as a Buk system.

Kovalenko, first portrayed in a BBC documentary three years ago (starting at Min.26:50) as a “unique” eye-witness to the missile launch, clarifies more precisely than the BBC reported where the missile she saw had been fired from.

BBC documentary, “The Conspiracy Files. Who Shot Down MH17” -- Min. 27:00. The BBC broadcast its claims over three episodes in April-May 2016. For a published summary, read this.

This was not the location identified in press statements by JIT. Van der Werff explains: “we specifically asked [Kovalenko] to point exactly in the direction the missile came from. I then asked twice if maybe it was from the direction of the JIT launch site. She did not see a launch nor a plume from there. Notice the JIT ‘launch site’ is less than two kilometres from her house and garden. The BBC omitted this crucial part of her testimony.”

According to Kovalenko in the new documentary, at the firing location she has now identified precisely, “at that moment the Ukrainian Army were there.”

Kovalenko also remembers that on the days preceding the July 17 missile firing she witnessed, there had been Ukrainian military aircraft operating in the sky above her village. She says they used evasion techniques including flying in the shadow of civilian aircraft she also saw at the same time.

On July 17, three other villagers told van der Werff they had seen a Ukrainian military jet in the vicinity and at the time of the MH17 crash.

Concluding the documentary, van der Werff and Yerlashova present an earlier interview filmed in Donetsk by independent Dutch journalist Stefan Beck, whom JIT officials had tried to warn off visiting the area. Beck interviewed Yevgeny Volkov, who was an air controller for the Ukrainian Air Force in July 2014. Volkov was asked to comment on Ukrainian Government statements, endorsed by the Dutch Safety Board report into the crash and in subsequent reports by the JIT, that there were no radar records of the airspace at the time of the shoot-down because Ukrainian military radars were not operational.

Volkov explained that on July 17 there were three radar units at Chuguev on “full alert” because “fighter jets were taking off from there;” Chuguev is 200 kilometres northwest of the crash site. He disputed that the repairs to one unit meant none of the three was operating. Ukrainian radar records of the location and time of the MH17 attack were made and kept, Volkov said. “There [they] have it. In Ukraine they have it.”

Last month, at the JIT press conference in The Netherlands on June 19, the Malaysian representative present, Mohammed Hanafiah Bin Al Zakaria, one of three Solicitors-General of the Malaysian Attorney General’s ministry, refused to endorse for the Malaysian Governnment the JIT evidence or its charges against Russia. “Malaysia would like to reiterate our commitment to the JIT seeking justice for the victims,” Zakaria said. “The objective of the JIT is to complete the investigations and gathering of evidence of all witnesses for the purpose of prosecuting the wrongdoers and Malaysia stands by the rule of law and the due process.” [Question: do you support the conclusions?] “Part of the conclusions [inaudible] – do not change our positions.”

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alexsmitposts · 5 years

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Europe in Irreversible Decay, EU Elections are Proof of It! Europe, an “old” colonialist continent, is decaying, and in some places even collapsing. It senses how bad things are going. But it never thinks that it is its own fault. North America is decaying as well, but there, people are not even used to comparing. They only “feel that things are not going well”. If everything else fails, they simply try to get some second or third job, and just survive, somehow. On both sides of the Atlantic, the establishment is in panic. Their world is in crises, and the ‘crises’ arrived mainly because several great countries, including China, Russia, Iran, but also South Africa, Turkey, Venezuela, DPRK and the Philippines, are openly refusing to play in accordance with the script drawn in Washington, London and Paris. In these nations, there is suddenly no appetite for sacrificing their own people on the altar of well-being of Western citizens. Several countries, including Venezuela and Syria, are even willing to fight for their independence. Despite insane and sadistic embargos and sanctions imposed on them by the West; China, Russia and Iran are now flourishing, in many fields doing much better than Europe and North America. If they are really pushed any further, China, Russia and their allies combined, could easily collapse the economy of the United States; an economy which is built on clay and unserviceable debt. It is also becoming clear that militarily, the Pentagon could never defeat Beijing, Moscow, even Teheran. After terrorizing the world for ages, the West is now almost finished: morally, economically, socially, and even militarily. It still plunders, but it has no plan to improve the state of the world. It cannot even think in such terms. It hates China, and every other country that does have progressive, internationalist plans. It smears President Xi Jinping and his brainchild, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but there is nothing new and exciting that the West is able to offer to the world. Yes, of course, those regime changes, coups, military interventions and theft of natural resources, but anything else? No, silence! * During my two weeks long working visit to Europe, in the Czech Republic (now renamed to Czechia), a country that enjoys a higher HDI (Human Development Index defined by UNDP) than Italy or Spain, I saw several young, decently dressed men, picking through garbage bins, right in front of my hotel, looking for food. I saw young Europeans kneeling and begging in Stuttgart, the second richest city in Germany (where both Mercedes and Porsche car are produced). What I observed in all seven countries of the EU that I visited, was confusion, but also indifference, extreme selfishness and almost grotesque idleness. In great contrast to Asia, everybody in Europe was obsessed with their ‘rights’ and privileges, while no one gave a slightest damn about responsibilities. When my plane from Copenhagen landed in Stuttgart, it began to rain. It was not heavy rain; just rain. The Canadair jet operated by SAS is a small aircraft, and it did not get a gate. It parked a few meters from the terminal and the captain announced that ground staff refused to bring a bus, due to lightning and the downpour. And so, we stayed inside the plane, for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour. The lightning ended. The drizzle continued. 40 minutes, no bus. One hour later, a bus appeared. A man from the ground staff emerged leisurely, totally wrapped in plastic, protected hermetically from rain. Passengers, on the other hand, were not even offered umbrellas. “I love myself”, I later read graffiti in the center of the city. The graffiti was not far from the central train station, which is being refurbished at the cost of several billion euros, and against the will of the citizens. The monstrous project is marching on at an insanely lazy pace, with only 5-6 construction workers detectable at a time, down in the tremendous excavations. Stuttgart is unbelievably filthy. Escalators often do not work, drunkards are all over, and so are beggars. It is as if for decades, no one did any face-lift to the city. Once free museums are charging hefty entrance fees, and most of the public benches have disappeared from parks and avenues. The decay is omnipresent. The German rail system (DB) has virtually collapsed. Almost all trains are late, from the ‘regional’; to the once glorified ICE (these German ‘bullet trains’ are actually moving slower, on average, even in comparison to some Indonesian inter-city expresses). The services provided everywhere in Europe, from Finland to Italy, are grotesquely bad. Convenience stores, cafes, hotels – all are understaffed, badly run and mostly arrogant. Humans are often replaced by dysfunctional machines. Tension is everywhere, the bad mood omnipresent. Demanding anything is unthinkable; one risks being snapped at, insulted, sent to hell. I still remember how Western propaganda used to glorify services in the capitalist countries, when we were growing up in the Communist East: “The customer is always treated like a god”. Yes, right! How laughable. For centuries, “European workers” were ‘subsidized’ by colonialist and neo-colonialist plunder, perpetrated in all non-white corners of the world. They ended up being spoiled, showered with benefits, and unproductive. That was fine for the elites: as long as the masses kept voting for the imperialist regime of the West. “The Proletariat” eventually became right-wing, imperialist, even hedonistic. I saw a lot this time, and soon I will write much more about it. What I did not witness, was hope, or enthusiasm. There was no optimism. No healthy and productive exchange of ideas, or profound debate; something I am so used to in China, Russia or Venezuela, just confusion, apathy and decay everywhere. And hate for those countries that are better, more human, more advanced, and full of socialist enthusiasm. * Italy felt slightly different. Again, I met great left-wing thinkers there; philosophers, professors, filmmakers, journalists. I spoke at Sapienza University, the biggest university in Europe. I lectured about Venezuela and Western imperialism. I worked with the Venezuelan embassy in Rome. All of that was fantastic and enlightening, but was this really Italy? A day after I left Rome for Beirut, Italians went to the polls. And they withdrew their supports from my friends of the 5-Star-Movement, leaving them with just over 17%, while doubling the backing for the extreme right-wing Northern League. This virtually happened all over Europe. UK Labor lost, while right-wing Brexit forces gained significantly. Extreme right-wing, even near-fascist parties, reached unexpected heights. It was all “me, me, me” politics. An orgy of “political selfies”. Me had enough of immigrants. Me wants better benefits. Me wants better medical care, shorter working hours. And so on. Who pays for it, no one in Europe seems to care. Not once did I hear any European politicians lamenting about the plundering of West Papua or Borneo, about Amazonia or the Middle East, let alone Africa. And immigration? Did we hear anything about that nuisance of European refugees, millions of them, many illegal, that have descended in the last decades on Southeast Asia, East Africa, Latin America, and even Sub Continent? They are escaping, in hordes, from meaninglessness, depressions, existential emptiness. In the process, they are stripping the locals of land, real estate, beaches, everything. “Immigrants out”? Fine; then European immigrants out from the rest of the world, too! Enough of the one-sidedness! The recent EU elections clearly showed that Europe has not evolved. For countless dark centuries, it used to live only for its pleasure, murdering millions in order to support its high life. Right now, it is trying to reshuffle its political and administrative system, so it can continue doing the same. More efficiently! On top of it, absurdly, the world is expected to pity that overpaid and badly performing, mainly right-wing and lethargic European proletariat, and sacrifice further tens of millions of people, just in order to further increase its standard of living. All this should not be allowed to happen. Never again! It has to be stopped. What Europe has achieved so far, at the expense of billions of lives of “the others”, is definitely not worthy of dying for. Beware of Europe and its people! Study its history. Study imperialism, colonialism and the genocides it has been spreading all over the world. Let them vote in their fascists. But keep them away. Prevent them from spreading their poison all over the world. They want to put the interests of their countries first? Wonderful! Let us do exactly the same: The people of Russia first, too! China first! And, Asia, Africa, Latin America first!

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artusarda · 5 years

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Charles Darwin was twenty-nine years old and single. Two years earlier, he had returned from his voyage aboard H.M.S. Beagle with the observations that would eventually form the basis of “On the Origin of Species.” In the meantime, he faced a more pressing analytical problem. Darwin was considering proposing to his cousin Emma Wedgwood, but he worried that marriage and children might impede his scientific career. To figure out what to do, he made two lists. “Loss of time,” he wrote on the first. “Perhaps quarreling. . . . Cannot read in the evenings. . . . Anxiety and responsibility. Perhaps my wife won’t like London; then the sentence is banishment and degradation into indolent, idle fool.” On the second, he wrote, “Children (if it Please God). Constant companion (and friend in old age). . . . Home, & someone to take care of house.” He noted that it was “intolerable to think of spending one’s whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working. . . . Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire and books and music perhaps.”

Beneath his lists, Darwin scrawled, “Marry, Marry, Marry QED.” And yet, Steven Johnson writes, in “Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most,” “we have no evidence of how he actually weighed these competing arguments against each other.” Johnson, the author of “How We Got to Now” and other popular works of intellectual history, can’t help but notice the mediocrity of Darwin’s decision-making process. He points out that Benjamin Franklin used a more advanced pro-and-con technique: in what Franklin called “Prudential Algebra,” a numerical weight is assigned to each listed item, and counterbalancing items are then eliminated. (“If I find a Reason pro equal to some two Reasons con, I strike out the three . . . and thus proceeding I find at length where the Ballance lies,” Franklin explained to a friend.) Even this approach, Johnson writes, is slapdash and dependent upon intuition. “The craft of making farsighted choices—decisions that require long periods of deliberation, decisions whose consequences might last for years,” he concludes, “is a strangely under-appreciated skill.”

We say that we “decide” to get married, to have children, to live in particular cities or embark on particular careers, and in a sense this is true. But how do we actually make those choices? One of the paradoxes of life is that our big decisions are often less calculated than our small ones are. We agonize over what to stream on Netflix, then let TV shows persuade us to move to New York; buying a new laptop may involve weeks of Internet research, but the deliberations behind a life-changing breakup could consist of a few bottles of wine. We’re hardly more advanced than the ancient Persians, who, Herodotus says, made big decisions by discussing them twice: once while drunk, once while sober.

Johnson hopes to reform us. He examines a number of complex decisions with far-reaching consequences—such as the choice, made by President Barack Obama and his advisers, to green-light the raid on Osama bin Laden’s presumed compound, in Abbottabad, Pakistan—and then shows how the people in charge drew upon insights from “decision science,” a research field at the intersection of behavioral economics, psychology, and management. He thinks that we should apply such techniques to our own lives.

I’ve never had to decide whether to launch a covert raid on a suspected terrorist compound, but I’ve made my share of big decisions. This past summer, my wife and I had a baby boy. His existence suggests that, at some point, I decided to become a father. Did I, though? I never practiced any prudential algebra; rather than drawing up lists of pros and cons and concluding, on balance, that having kids was a good idea, I gradually and unintentionally transitioned from not particularly wanting children to wanting them, and from wanting them to joining my wife in having them. If I made a decision, it wasn’t a very decisive one. In “War and Peace,” Tolstoy writes that, while an armchair general may imagine himself “analyzing some campaign on a map” and then issuing orders, a real general never finds himself at “the beginning of some event”; instead, he is perpetually situated in the middle of a series of events, each a link in an endless chain of causation. “Can it be that I allowed Napoleon to get as far as Moscow?” Tolstoy’s General Kutuzov wonders. “When was it decided? Was it yesterday, when I sent Platov the order to retreat, or was it the evening before, when I dozed off and told Bennigsen to give the orders? Or still earlier?” Unlike the capture of Moscow by Napoleon, the birth of my son was a joyous occasion. Still, like Kutuzov, I’m at a loss to explain it: it’s a momentous choice, but I can’t pinpoint the making of it in space or time.

For Tolstoy, the tendency of big decisions to make themselves was one of the great mysteries of existence. It suggested that the stories we tell about our lives are inadequate to their real complexity. Johnson means to offer a way out of the Tolstoyan conundrum. He wants to make us writers, rather than readers, of our own stories. Doing so requires engaging with one of life’s fundamental questions: Are we in charge of the ways we change?

Ideally, we’d be omniscient and clearheaded. In reality, we make decisions in imperfect conditions that prevent us from thinking things through. This, Johnson explains, is the problem of “bounded rationality.” Choices are constrained by earlier choices; facts go undiscovered, ignored, or misunderstood; decision-makers are compromised by groupthink and by their own fallible minds. The most complex decisions harbor “conflicting objectives” and “undiscovered options,” requiring us to predict future possibilities that can be grasped, confusingly, only at “varied levels of uncertainty.” (The likelihood of marital quarrelling must somehow be compared with that of producing a scientific masterwork.) And life’s truly consequential choices, Johnson says, “can’t be understood on a single scale.” Suppose you’re offered two jobs: one at Partners in Health, which brings medical care to the world’s neediest people, and the other at Goldman Sachs. You must consider which option would be most appealing today, later this year, and decades from now; which would be preferable emotionally, financially, and morally; and which is better for you, your family, and society. From this multidimensional matrix, a decision must emerge.

Professional deciders, Johnson reports, use decision processes to navigate this complexity. Many of the best processes unfold in stages—a divergence stage might precede a convergence stage—and are undertaken by groups. (Darwin might have divided his friends into two opposing teams, in the divergence stage, and then held a debate between them.) The decision might be turned into an iterative adventure. In a series of meetings known as a “design charrette”—the concept is borrowed from the field of product design—a large problem is divided into subproblems, each of which is assigned to a group; the groups then present their work to the whole team, receive feedback, regroup, and revise, in a cycle that loops until a decision has been made. (For architects in nineteenth-century Paris, working en charrette meant revising until the very last minute, even in the cart on the way to deliver a design to a panel of judges.) Charrettes are useful not just because they break up the work but because they force groups with different priorities and sensibilities—coders and designers, architects and real-estate developers—to interact, broadening the range of available viewpoints.

At firms like Royal Dutch Shell, where growth requires investing in expensive ventures, such as ports, wells, and pipelines, deciders use “scenario planning” to imagine how such investments might play out. (A scenario-planning starter kit, Johnson writes, contains three possible futures: “You build one model where things get better, one where they get worse, and one where they get weird.”) Military planners use immersive war games, carried out in the field or around a table, to bring more of the “decision map” into view. In such games, our enemies discover possibilities that we can’t foresee, ameliorating the poverty of our individual imaginations. And since the games can be played over and over, they allow decision-makers to “rewind the tape,” exploring many branches of the “decision tree.”

It would be strange to stage a war game about a prospective marriage. Still, Johnson writes, decision science has lessons for us as individuals. Late in “Farsighted,” he recounts his own use of decision-scientific strategies to persuade his wife to move, with their two children, from New York City to the Bay Area. Johnson starts with intuitions—redwoods are beautiful; the tech scene is cool—but quickly moves beyond them. He conducts a “full-spectrum analysis,” arriving at various conclusions about what moving might mean financially, psychologically (will moving to a new city make him feel younger?), and existentially (will he want to have been “the kind of person who lived in one place for most of his adult life”?). Johnson summarizes his findings in a PowerPoint deck, then shows it to his wife, who raises objections that he hasn’t foreseen (all her friends live in Brooklyn). Eventually, they make a contract. They’ll move, but if after two years she wants to return to New York they’ll do so, “no questions asked”—a rewind.

Seven years later, they’re happy with a bicoastal existence. Would Johnson have benefitted from “conducting a multidisciplinary charrette” to explore his family’s move? Probably not. Still, he writes, the principles of decision science—“seeking out diverse perspectives on the choice, challenging your assumptions, making an explicit effort to map the variables”—constituted “a step up” from the pro-and-con lists that Franklin and Darwin would have made. Looking back on his decision, Johnson can at least feel confident that he made one.

Johnson’s book is part of a long tradition. For centuries, philosophers have tried to understand how we make decisions and, by extension, what makes any given decision sound or unsound, rational or irrational. “Decision theory,” the destination on which they’ve converged, has tended to hold that sound decisions flow from values. Faced with a choice—should we major in economics or in art history?—we first ask ourselves what we value, then seek to maximize that value.

From this perspective, a decision is essentially a value-maximizing equation. If you’re going out and can’t decide whether to take an umbrella, you could come to a decision by following a formula that assigns weights to the probability of rain, the pleasure you’ll feel in strolling unencumbered, and the displeasure you’ll feel if you get wet. Most decisions are more complex than this, but the promise of decision theory is that there’s a formula for everything, from launching a raid in Abbottabad to digging an oil well in the North Sea. Plug in your values, and the right choice pops out.

In recent decades, some philosophers have grown dissatisfied with decision theory. They point out that it becomes less useful when we’re unsure what we care about, or when we anticipate that what we care about might shift. In a 2006 article called “Big Decisions: Opting, Converting, Drifting,” the late Israeli philosopher Edna Ullmann-Margalit asked us to imagine being one of “the early socialist Zionist pioneers” who, at the turn of the twentieth century, dreamed of moving from Europe to Palestine and becoming “the New Jews of their ideals.” Such a change, she observed, “alters one’s life project and inner core”; one might speak of an “Old Person” who existed beforehand, browsing bookshops in Budapest, and a “New Person” who exists afterward, working a field in the desert. The point of such a move isn’t to maximize one’s values. It’s to reconfigure them, rewriting the equations by which one is currently living one’s life.

Ullmann-Margalit doubted that such transformative choices could be evaluated as sound or unsound, rational or irrational. She tells the story of a man who “hesitated to have children because he did not want to become the ‘boring type’ ” that parents tend to become. “Finally, he did decide to have a child and, with time, he did adopt the boring characteristics of his parent friends—but he was happy!” Whose values were maximized—Old Person’s or New Person’s? Because no value-maximizing formula could capture such a choice, Ullmann-Margalit suggested that, rather than describing this man as having “decided” to have children, we say that he “opted” to have them—“opting” (in her usage) being what we do when we shift our values instead of maximizing them.

The nature of “opting situations,” she thought, explains why people “are in fact more casual and cavalier in the way they handle their big decisions than in the way they handle their ordinary decisions.” Yet it’s our unexplored options that haunt us. A decision-maker who buys a Subaru doesn’t dwell on the Toyota that might have been: the Toyota doesn’t represent a version of herself with different values. An opter, however, broods over “the person one did not marry, the country one did not emigrate to, the career one did not pursue,” seeing, in the “shadow presence” implied by the rejected option, “a yardstick” by which she might evaluate “the worth, success or meaning” of her actual life.

One might hope that a little research could bridge the divide between Old Person and New Person. In a 2013 paper titled “What You Can’t Expect When You’re Expecting,” L. A. Paul, a philosopher at Yale, writes, “Perhaps you think that you can know what it’s like to have a child, even though you’ve never had one, because you can read or listen to the testimony of what it was like for others. You are wrong.” Paul cites the philosopher David Lewis, who proposed what might be called the Vegemite Principle: if you’ve never tasted Vegemite, a mysterious and beloved Australian “food spread” made from brewer’s yeast, then neither a description of what it’s like (black, gooey, vegetal) nor experience with other spreads (peanut butter, marmalade, Nutella) will suffice to tell you whether you’d like it. Similarly, Paul argues, “being around other people’s children isn’t enough to learn about what it will be like in your own case.” She explains:

Babysitting for other children, having nieces and nephews or much younger siblings—all of these can be wonderful (or horrible) experiences, but they are different in kind from having a child of your very own, perhaps roughly analogous to the way an original artwork has aesthetic value partly because of its origins. . . . Experience with other people’s children might teach you about what it is like to hold a baby, to change diapers or hold a bottle, but not what it is like to create, carry, give birth to and raise a child of your very own.

Before having children, you may enjoy clubbing, skydiving, and LSD; you might find fulfillment in careerism, travel, cooking, or CrossFit; you may simply relish your freedom to do what you want. Having children will deprive you of these joys. And yet, as a parent, you may not miss them. You may actually prefer changing diapers, wrangling onesies, and watching “Frozen.” These activities may sound like torture to the childless version of yourself, but the parental version may find them illuminated by love, and so redeemed. You may end up becoming a different person—a parent. The problem is that you can’t really know, in advance, what “being a parent” is like. For Paul, there’s something thrilling about this quandary. Why should today’s values determine tomorrow’s? In her 2014 book, “Transformative Experience,” she suggests that living “authentically” requires occasionally leaving your old self behind “to create and discover a new self.” Part of being alive is awaiting the “revelation” of “who you’ll become.”

In the months before our son was born, our sense of our ignorance mounted. “We don’t know what we’re waiting for,” my wife said. We knew in advance when he would be born—an ultrasound had revealed that he was unusually big, and a C-section had been scheduled—but the morning of his arrival unfolded with a strange familiarity. I had coffee, toasted an English muffin, and read the news; I packed clothes for the hospital into the bag that I take to work every day. At eleven, my wife and I got into the car. Her mother and a family friend drove us. At the front entrance, we hugged them goodbye.

“Good luck!” my mother-in-law said. “Your lives are about to change forever!”

“Thanks,” I said. “Where are you guys going?”

“Costco,” she said.

We walked inside. Upstairs, in a curtained-off nook, my wife settled into a hospital bed. For about an hour, we made small talk with the nurses, who guessed at the baby’s weight, and with the surgeon, who happened to be a college classmate of ours. (“Heyyyyy! ” she said when she arrived.) Occasionally we were left to ourselves. We held hands and looked at each other.

Eventually, an aide helped my wife into a wheelchair. Flanked by two nurses and wearing oversized scrubs, I pushed her down a long hallway toward the operating room. Inside, the doctors were listening to “Stairway to Heaven” on the radio. In the midst of it all, I admired Jimmy Page’s guitar solo. Afterward, I sat in the same hallway holding our baby. I had wondered if, meeting him for the first time, I would feel transformed. I felt like the same old me. And yet none of the words I knew matched the experience I was having. With my hands, I felt him breathing. Quiet and still, warm and awake, he watched me with dark-blue eyes—an actual new person.

Agnes Callard, a philosopher at the University of Chicago, is skeptical about the idea of sudden transformation. She’s also convinced that, no matter how it looks or feels, we choose how we change. In her often moving, quietly profound book “Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming,” she writes that “becoming a parent is neither something that just happens to you nor something you decide to have happen to you.” Instead, Callard maintains, we “aspire” to self-transformation by trying on the values that we hope one day to possess, just as we might strike a pose in the mirror before heading out on a date. Of the man in Ullmann-Margalit’s article who feared becoming a boring dad, Callard writes, “By the time he says, ‘Let’s go for it,’ he is actively trying to appreciate the values distinctive of parenthood.” In place of a moment of decision, Callard sees a more gradual process: “Old Person aspires to become New Person.”

Suppose that you sign up for a classical-music-appreciation class, in which your first assignment is to listen to a symphony. You put on headphones, press Play—and fall asleep. The problem is that you don’t actually want to listen to classical music; you just want to want to. Aspiring, Callard thinks, is a common human activity: there are aspiring wine lovers, art appreciators, sports fans, fashionistas, d.j.s, executives, alpinists, do-gooders, parents, and religious believers, all hatching plans to value new things. Many ordinary decisions, moreover—such as choosing between Goldman Sachs and Partners in Health—also touch on the question of who we aspire to become.

Callard distinguishes between aspiration and ambition. Some of the people taking the music-appreciation class are ambitious; they enrolled not because they aspire to love classical music but because the class is an easy A. From the first day, they know what they value: their grades. (“Turning ambition into aspiration is one of the job descriptions of any teacher,” Callard notes.) The ambitious students find it easy to explain why they’re taking the class. But the aspirants must grow comfortable with a certain quantity of awkward pretense. If someone were to ask you why you enrolled, you would be overreaching if you said that you were moved by the profound beauty of classical music. The truth, which is harder to communicate, is that you have some vague sense of its value, which you hope that some future version of yourself might properly grasp.

Until aspirants can fully explain their motivations, they often understate their aims. An aspiring painter will say that she finds painting relaxing rather than try to explain what she hopes to express through her art. An aspiration, Callard concludes, has two faces: a near face, which represents it “as lesser than it is,” and a distant one, which an aspirant is reluctant to describe, because it “ennobles her current activity beyond its rightful status.”

Being a well-meaning phony is key to our self-transformations. “Consider what kind of thinking motivates a good student to force herself to listen to a symphony when she feels herself dozing off,” Callard writes:

She reminds herself that her grade and the teacher’s opinion of her depend on the essay she will write about this piece; or she promises herself a chocolate treat when she gets to the end; or she’s in a glass-walled listening room of the library, conscious of other students’ eyes on her; or perhaps she conjures up a romanticized image of her future, musical self, such as that of entering the warm light of a concert hall on a snowy evening.

These are “bad” reasons for listening to classical music, Callard says, but “ ‘bad’ reasons are how she moves herself forward, all the while seeing them as bad, which is to say, as placeholders for the ‘real’ reason.”

When we’re aspiring, inarticulateness isn’t a sign of unreasonableness or incapacity. In fact, the opposite may be true. “Everyone goes to college ‘to become educated,’ ” Callard observes, “but until I am educated I do not really know what an education is or why it is important.” If we couldn’t aspire to changes that we struggle to describe, we’d be trapped within the ideas that we already have. Our inability to explain our reasons is a measure of how far we wish to travel. It’s only after an aspirant has reached her destination, Callard writes, that “she will say, ‘This was why.’ ”

Because aspirations take a long time to come to fruition, they’re always at risk of interruption. Ullmann-Margalit’s 2006 paper makes mention of someone who opts “to leave the corporate world in order to become an artist.” Callard sees that sort of move as the result of an aspiration—a process that starts small, perhaps with a random stroll through an art museum, and culminates, years later, after one opens a pottery studio. The trouble is that some values preclude others. An aspiring artist must reject the corporate virtues to which he once aspired and embrace creative ones in their place. If a family illness forces him to abandon his artistic plans, he may end up adrift—disenchanted with corporate life, but unable to grasp the real satisfactions of an artistic existence. To aspire, Callard writes, is to judge one’s present-day self by the standards of a future self who doesn’t yet exist. But that can leave us like a spider plant putting down roots in the air, hoping for soil that may never arrive.

Callard revisits Paul’s “What You Can’t Expect When You’re Expecting.” In that paper, Paul explored a strange consequence of the Vegemite Principle: if there’s no rational way to decide to have a child—because you can’t know what you’ve never experienced—then there’s also no rational reason for being disappointed about not having one. (Such disappointment isn’t “wrong, or blameworthy, or subjectively unreasonable,” Paul notes—just nonrational.) Callard disagrees. She sees infertility as a form of interrupted aspiration. An aspiring mother who can’t have children is rational in feeling sad, she writes, and “this is so even if—indeed, it is true in part because—she cannot quite see what she would be missing.”

Before we had our son, I began exploring the “near face” of being a parent. I noticed how cute babies and children could be and pictured our spare room as a nursery; I envisaged my wife and I taking our child to the beach near our house (my version of “entering the warm light of a concert hall on a snowy evening”). I knew that these imaginings weren’t the real facts about having children—clearly, there was more to having kids than cuteness. All the same, I had no way of grasping the “distant face” of fatherhood. It was something I aspired to know.

As it turned out, my wife and I had trouble having children. It took us five years to navigate the infertility maze. For much of that time, we lived with what Callard describes as the “distinctive kind of sadness appropriate to losing something you were only starting to try to get to know.” This sadness, Callard points out, has a complement in the disappointment one might feel after “having to abandon one’s educational aspirations for motherhood”: “The aspiring college student who must give up those dreams to raise a child is liable to feel that she was counting on the college experience to make her life meaningful.” Callard quotes from “Barren in the Promised Land,” a book about infertility by the historian Elaine Tyler May. “The grief—the loss,” a woman tells May. “I spent six years of my life trying to be a mom, and it was beyond my control. For a while I couldn’t look ahead. I thought, how do I define myself if I don’t do this? What am I if not a parent?” It might be easier if our biggest transformations were instantaneous, because then we wouldn’t need to live in states of aspiration. Certain of who we were, we’d never get stuck between selves.

I read “Aspiration” last spring, before my son was born, and I talked about it often with my wife. We were especially struck by Callard’s argument that parenthood is intrinsically aspirational. Parents look forward to a loving relationship with a specific person. And yet that person doesn’t pop into existence fully formed; he emerges, in all his specificity, over many years. For this reason, it makes little sense to be an “ambitious parent”—someone who plans, in advance, what he will love about his child. It’s better to “enter parenthood for the most inchoate of reasons,” Callard concludes, since that “puts our children in a position to fill out what parenthood means for us”; in turn, parental love must “be capable of molding itself to the personality that is, itself, coming to take a determinate shape.”

For the most part, Callard’s book is a systematic overview, situated outside the moment. Still, she writes, for aspirants “what happens in the meanwhile is also life.” Now that our son is here, we live entirely in the meanwhile. We don’t want the present, or its mystery, to end. Each day is absorbing and endlessly significant. Recently, I watched my father’s face as he watched my son’s. Later, we listened as my son learned a new kind of laugh. Each time he looks at us, he sees us more in his own way. Like pages that turn themselves, the meaningful instants follow one another too soon. It’s hard to think of them as stepping stones on the way to anywhere else. ♦

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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US Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte received a 14-month ban from competition from the US Anti-Doping Agency on Monday. The 12-time Olympic medalist was suspended not for taking an illicit substance but for using an IV to take a legal supplement.

Lochte posted a picture of himself in May on Instagram, which has since been deleted, showing him receiving an intravenous injection of what he says were “vitamins.” The problem is that USADA doesn’t allow intravenous infusions of permitted substances at volumes greater than 100 milliliters in a 12-hour period without a special “Therapeutic Use Exemption.” So the regulator slapped Lochte with a suspension that will last until July 2019.

It’s the latest example of how athletes test limits and run afoul of rules intended to keep illegal performance enhancers out of sport. We also saw this play out earlier this year at the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Four athletes faced doping allegations. Two were sent home. One, Aleksandr Krushelnitckii, who won bronze in mixed-doubles curling, was stripped of the medal he shared with his wife and teammate Anastasia Bryzgalova after testing positive for the banned drug meldonium.

And more may have gone undetected. The German broadcaster ARD revealed that an analysis of tests from more than 2,000 winter athletes between 2001 and 2010 showed that 46 percent of medal winners in international cross-country ski competitions returned at least one abnormal drug test. More than 50 of these athletes qualified for the games in South Korea.

“The depth of this suspected doping casts doubt on fair competition at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics,” wrote ARD’s Von Hajo Seppelt and Edmund Willison.

It’s evident that performance enhancement, in its various legal, illegal, and gray-area forms, is rampant in sports. Russia’s egregious state-sponsored doping of athletes at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and the 2016 Rio Olympics, for instance, involved tampering with urine and blood specimens. But there are subtler and more common ways to gain an advantage. “Doping appears remarkably widespread among elite athletes, and remains largely unchecked despite current biological testing,” the authors of a 2017 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) study write.

And as authorities crack down, athletes keep finding clever ways to outwit increasingly byzantine doping rules as new techniques and drugs catch on. At this year’s Winter Olympics, we saw seeing athletes deploy new performance-enhancing technologies like transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) headsets that are actually within bounds.

To understand why and how athletes cheat these days, here’s a guide to the cutting-edge science of doping and the art of getting around the rules.

Russian speedskater Olga Fatkulina arrives at the Court of Arbitration for Sport on January 22, 2018, in Geneva. The week-long hearing included appeals from 39 Russians, among them Fatkulina, who competed at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, which were tarnished by a vast, Moscow-backed doping scheme, according to multiple independent investigations. Harold Cunningham/AFP/Getty Images

There’s a common misconception that athletes dope to move faster or become stronger. “Sure, there’s some of that,” said Herman Pontzer, an associate professor at Hunter College who studies energetics. “But what athletes really go for, and what they usually get banned for, are drugs that fool their bodies to keep them from shutting down in the face of overtraining.”

After a certain amount of exertion, our brains send our tired arms and legs signals that cause them to exert less or switch off.

How do testosterone or estrogen or other anabolic steroids solve this problem? They make your body think it’s okay and not on the brink of collapse, Pontzer explained. “Taking steroids sends the signal that the body can build itself up, rather than shut itself down.”

Similarly, amphetamines act on the central nervous system and change people’s perception of fatigue, so they don’t realize how tired they feel. And blood transfusions increase the number of red blood cells that transfer oxygen to muscles. These drugs allow athletes to train harder, and therefore compete with more intensity than they would if they hadn’t used them.

“These events are won by less than 1 percent — the margin of victory is really quite tiny,” Mayo Clinic exercise researcher Michael Joyner said. “People are looking for tiny edges, edges that can barely be measured in the lab.”

In other words, most performance enhancers aren’t meant to help lazy athletes keep up, but instead let hard-working competitors work even harder, and the effects are both mental and physical. Their biggest impacts come during training, not on game day.

WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) president Craig Reedie speaking at a press conference in Pyeongchang on the eve of the 23rd Winter Olympic Games. Sergei BobylevTASS via Getty Images

Of course, authorities have to draw a line between doping, the prohibited and unethical tactics to gain an advantage, and performance enhancement generally. But that line is always being tested as the science advances and athletes come up with new ways to shave off seconds or push harder.

When deciding whether to ban a substance or technique from athletic competition, anti-doping authorities weigh three criteria: 1) Does it enhance performance? 2) Does it have the potential to harm health? and 3) Does it violate the spirit of the sport?

Usually, meeting two out of three means a ban. (Here’s WADA’s list of substances that are banned at all times, banned in competition, or banned in certain sports.)

Substances like anabolic steroids or amphetamines and procedures like blood transfusions or dialysis (to mask the presence of banned substances) are clearly out of the question. Then there are supplements like deer antler velvet, made famous by Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, which got flagged as a violation by authorities because it contains a growth hormone.

But these discussions can quickly become philosophical about the nature of sport and the true limits of human performance.

The BEREG-KIT for drug and doping control being used for the collection of urine samples at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games. Michele Limina/AFP/Getty Images

Catching athletes in the act can be difficult because there are so many substances to test for, so many athletes in competition, a narrow window to detect malfeasance, and new drugs being introduced all the time.

Swedish pentathlete Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall became the first Olympian busted for using a banned substance when authorities detected alcohol in his urine at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. He reportedly had two beers before the pistol portion of the event, and the Swedish team was forced to return its bronze medals.

Other athletes at the games were likely using anabolic steroids, but a reliable test for these drugs wasn’t introduced until 1976. Now WADA tests for more than 300 substances. In addition, there were just 1,031 athletes in Mexico City. There were 2,952 athletes at the Pyeongchang Games. There were 10,500 at Rio. Depending on the drug, detection windows can be a few weeks, days, or even a few hours.

That’s a lot of pee to test, and not a lot of time.

Biology makes things difficult as well. One common test for testosterone steroids measures the body’s T/E ratio, which normally finds testosterone (T) and epitestosterone (E) in equal measure in undoped athletes. But people have natural variations in their hormones, so WADA allows T/E ratios as high as 4-1, leading some athletes to top off with just enough testosterone to stay under that limit.

Authorities have introduced the concept of a biological passport for athletes as a way to keep this in check, tracking biomarkers over time in order to establish individual baselines for competitors to make it harder to game the standards. But there are ways around the passport as well, and the percentage of positive doping tests hasn’t budged since passports were introduced in 2009.

A 2017 WADA study using anonymous surveys found that almost half of all athletes in international competitions in 2011 reported doping, and typically only 1 to 2 percent of blood and urine samples test positive for banned substances. The competitive pressure and the relatively low risks of getting caught all add up to strong incentives to use illegal enhancers.

WADA has gone back and forth over whether caffeine should be a regulated substance. Nina A. J. G./Flickr

On top of this, many drugs that aren’t specifically performance enhancers can still improve strength, endurance, and recovery in ways that break the rules. Pseudoephedrine, a nasal decongestant, is also a stimulant and is banned from competition.

There are athletes who have legitimate medical problems that require taking drugs with performance-enhancing side effects. (Žiga Jeglič, a Slovenian hockey player who tested positive for fenoterol in Pyeongchang, said he was prescribed it for asthma. “Unfortunately, I forgot to declare it as a therapeutical exception,” he said in a statement.) But some athletes abuse the therapeutic-use exemptions for these medications.

Norwegian authorities investigated the country’s ski team last year after it emerged that many skiers were using asthma medication even though they weren’t diagnosed with the illness, and Norwegian cross-country skier Martin Johnsrud Sundby was stripped of some of his titles for exceeding the maximum dose of salbutamol, an asthma drug that can boost endurance by opening the airways.

Norway’s public broadcaster reported the country’s Olympic team took 6,000 doses of asthma medication to Pyeongchang.

Another way around screening is microdosing, taking drugs like erythropoietin (EPO), a hormone that increases red blood cell production, in quantities small enough to avoid detection but large enough to have an effect.

“EPO micro-doses disappear quickly so doses are taken almost every day in the hope of escaping testers,” Xavier Bigard of France’s national anti-doping agency told AFP. (However, a study last year found that EPO had no measurable effect in cycling races.)

But what about caffeine, a known performance-enhancing drug that improves reaction time and endurance? WADA has gone back and forth over whether it should be a regulated substance and is currently contemplating a threshold limit, but there are drugs that have weaker effects than caffeine that are banned.

Of course, competitors haven’t stopped there. Increasingly, athletes are looking toward enhancing their mental performance as science shows how much it matters for endurance.

One new technology Olympians are using this year is transcranial direct current stimulation, or TDCS. Building on research in treating epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease, scientists have found that stimulating parts of the brain with an electric field can make it easier for neurons to transmit electrochemical signals.

When neurons in the parts of the brain that regulate movement need less stimulation to fire, the brain perceives less exertion in those movements, allowing athletes to push harder and longer.

Halo Neuroscience is a company that has already brought a transcranial stimulation headset to market and is working with US ski and snowboard to train Winter Olympians.

[embedded content]

Daniel Chao, the CEO of Halo and a neuroscientist, explained that the stimulation (which he described as causing an “effervescent” sensation) helps athletes more quickly develop muscle memory and acquire skills, making every workout more effective.

Does that count as doping, as some researchers have suggested?

Brain stimulation certainly enhances performance, but its effects are temporary, the devices haven’t demonstrated any harm to health, and athletes still have to do the heavy lifting. “We’re not a ‘day of’ performance tool; we’re a training tool,” Chao said. “A lot of people think it’s like magic, you put it on and you’re better. That’s not true. Shit, I wish it were that powerful, but it’s not.”

The remaining criterion is whether it fits within the spirit of the sport, which is a more subjective question for sports regulators. “From my scientific point of view, there’s really not much of a difference between using caffeine and using brain stimulation,” said Samuele Marcora, a sports science researcher at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom. “Brain stimulation is more likely to be banned because it looks more artificial.”

There are plenty of legitimate ways to enhance performance, but as technologies advance, the gray area is getting wider.

Full-body swimsuits were allowed and then banned at the Summer Olympics. Meanwhile, athletes at the Winter Olympics especially benefit from advances in tools like carbon fiber composite skis, aerodynamic speedskating suits, clap skates, and warm, lightweight outerwear.

And chemical and electrical performance enhancers, legal or otherwise, are becoming more, not less, common as amateurs increasingly follow in the tracks of the pros. Chao noted that the bulk of neurostimulator sales go to amateur athletes.

That means regulators still have to grapple with the hard question of where to draw the boundaries between acceptable and unfair practices, while those competing to be the best in the world exploit these uncertainties in pursuit of going farther, faster, and higher.

Olivier Rabin, who leads the science division at WADA, said that screening methods will eventually become so robust that doping will be negligible. But until then, it’s an arms race, and there’s no detente in sight.

Original Source -> Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte broke doping rules. It happens far more than you think.

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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nishantwap · 6 years

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Russia Is Reaping the Benefits of Israel's Actions in Syria

New Post has been published on https://www.hsnews.us/russia-is-reaping-the-benefits-of-israels-actions-in-syria/

Russia Is Reaping the Benefits of Israel's Actions in Syria

Matthew RJ Brodsky

Security, Middle East

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani together with his counterparts, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan, attend a joint news conference following their meeting in Sochi, Russia November 22, 2017. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS

For Putin, the path to consolidating his Syrian achievements may lie in an agreement with Israel that further solidifies Russia’s status.

Russia Is Reaping the Benefits of Israel’s Actions in Syria

Russian president Vladimir Putin further cemented his position atop the Syrian power pyramid as a result of Israel’s massive air campaign that targeted Iran’s positions and Assad’s air defenses. Dubbed by Israeli military planners as “Operation House of Cards,” it was the most extensive aerial assault by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in Syria since October 1973. Whether Jerusalem’s impressive military success translates into a political triumph will be determined by how Tehran responds going forward, but there is little doubt Iran suffered a major setback in a week already full of monumental disappointments. In the meantime, Putin’s strategic position in the Middle East has been enhanced and all he had to do was say, “Yes,” to Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu.

Such an outcome was not guaranteed when Netanyahu met with Putin in Moscow, but the Israeli leader has his diplomatic ducks lined up in a row. Israel’s comprehensive military response to Iran’s rocket attack began just hours after the visit and received the Kremlin’s blessing. The United States was notified in advance as well. “We told the Russians that we were going to strike in Syria, but we didn’t tell them where exactly we were striking or what the targets were,” a senior IAF officer told the Times of Israel. He added, “The [de-confliction] mechanism worked to its fullest and we preserved our freedom of operation.”

The Kremlin’s accommodating stance toward Netanyahu’s concerns, including the lack of criticism toward Israel in the wake of the attack was a new development that was no doubt welcomed with relief in Jerusalem. That is because Russia has played the role of arbiter since its September 2015 entry into the Syrian war on behalf of the beleaguered butcher, Bashar al-Assad. For several years, Russia’s growing presence posed an obstacle to Israel’s enforcement of its red lines, requiring deft diplomacy on Netanyahu’s part to arrive at an understanding over Israel’s operational parameters and manage the deconfliction line to avoid military mishaps.

With close to ten meetings between Netanyahu and Putin since 2015, Israel and Russia have managed to avoid operational accidents but have not been on the same page regarding Iran’s place in Syria’s future. For example, the parameters of the 2017 southwest Syria ceasefire and de-escalation zone—both efforts spearheaded by Moscow—did not take into account many of Israel’s security concerns. Even more, the joint U.S.-Russian statement in November 2017 called for the “reduction, and ultimate elimination” of foreign fighters from southern Syria as part of the de-escalation zone’s creation but a few days later, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov referred to Iran’s presence in Syria as “legitimate” and said Russia did not commit to ensuring the withdrawal of Iran or its affiliated militias.

Russia also let its displeasure with Israel spill out into the media after its February and April strikes against the T-4 air base in Homs province, a major aerial logistical hub for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) where Russia also maintains a presence. There were reports that after Assad shot down an Israeli F-16 during the February mission that Netanyahu was ready to green-light a more comprehensive military response but scaled back after receiving “a furious phone call” from Putin.

Russia was likewise incensed after Israel’s airstrike at T-4 in April, which destroyed Iran’s soon-to-be-deployed advanced short-range air-defense system, the SA-15 (Tor missile system). The Kremlin’s tangible punishment would be delivered in the form of its sale of the SA-10 (S-300) air-defense system to Assad.

The rising Israeli-Russian friction was unmistakable. Yet somehow following Netanyahu’s meeting in Moscow and the successful execution of Operation House of Cards, Russia backed off the deal.

Even more interesting was the context in which the decision was made public. “For now, we’re not talking about any deliveries of new modern (air defense) systems,” top Kremlin aide Vladimir Kozhin said when asked about the possibility of supplying Syria with the S-300. Kozhin added that the Syrian military already had “everything it needed,” which is a remarkable comment given that Israel destroyed the lion’s share of Assad’s air defenses after being targeted during its operation.

The removal of these obstacles and gaining Putin’s tacit approval is a major development that would appear to be the result of Netanyahu convincing the Russian president of the following: first, that Israel’s only interest was in responding to Iran and its affiliated proxies in Syria. It had no issue with Russia’s position in Syria and would not target Assad or his defense assets. In fact, Israel would even warn Assad to stand down once the operation commenced. If Israel had to respond because Syrian forces foolishly decided to engage, then Israel would take out those targets but leave Assad personally unharmed. Nor would it widen the conflict to Lebanon if Iran did not order Hezbollah to attack from there, thereby avoiding the apocalyptic predictions analysts have warned about for years.

In short, the operation was presented as limited in both duration and scope, only targeting Iran’s assets, and maintaining the overall arch toward Syrian stability. Or, to put it in Obamacare sales-pitch lingo: “If you like your Assad puppet Syria provider, then you can keep it. This only impacts Iran.”

Regarding the transfer of the S-300, Netanyahu likely impressed upon Putin that the delivery of the system to Syria would constitute the crossing of a red line and would be immediately targeted as a threat to Israeli security. On the other hand, the deployment of the more advanced S-400 system near Russia’s coastal bases—strictly operated by Russia’s forces—was acceptable as it arrived a while ago in response to Turkey’s downing of their Su-24 fighter plane in December 2015. That should suffice given that the S-400 is a world class air-defense system and Russia was not on Israel’s Syrian menu.

This understanding in advance of the operation apparently allowed Israel to first target IRGC and Hezbollah positions in al-Kisweh (just south of Damascus) and in Quneitra (adjacent to Israel’s Golan border) using only F-15 and F-16 fighter planes as the air component. If Israel believed their planes would either be targeted by the S-400 or that the information it gathered would be passed on to their Syrian counterparts waiting to ambush, the IAF strike configuration would have likely prioritized the removal of the threat posed by the air defenses before turning its attention to Iran’s command and control headquarters, intelligence facilities, logistical command sites, observation posts, missiles storage facilities, ground operations staging areas and so on. Open source reporting did not indicate Israel used its F-35 “Adir” stealth aircraft, nine of which were declared operational as part of the IAF’s elite Golden Eagle Squadron.

Russia could have complicated the picture considerably by forcing a showdown with Israel over what Jerusalem considers to be a nonnegotiable security red line. As one former member of Israel’s elite Unit 8200, the Military Intelligence Directorate’s main information gathering arm told me in February, “You don’t fight with the Russians to defeat Hezbollah. We did that in the 1970s, downing Russian pilots to be able to fight in Egypt. I don’t think the bill is worth it at the end of the day.”

Putin judged such a decision as against his interests, which is defined in Syria as maintaining his expanded military presence and preserving his enhanced role as a regional arbiter. He may be coming around to the idea that he can accomplish that without Iran and against the wishes of Assad, who will become more dependent on his good graces if Tehran’s position recedes.

For Vladimir Putin, the path to consolidating his Syrian achievements may lie in an agreement with Israel that further solidifies Russia’s status, and with the United States, which is focused solely on ISIS in eastern Syria and plans to withdraw. That could mean two things: The first is that the Iranian date Putin brought to the Syrian party is not as attractive as the Israeli he met at the ball. The second is that Israel’s operation may have exposed the nature of Iran’s gains in Syria as nothing more than a house of cards, vulnerable to the aerial forces that blow in unabated from the south.

Matthew RJ Brodsky is a senior fellow at the Security Studies Group in Washington, D.C. and coauthor of a forthcoming study on the transformation of Iran’s military presence in Syria and its impact on regional security. He can be followed on Twitter at @RJBrodsky.

Image: Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani together with his counterparts, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan, attend a joint news conference following their meeting in Sochi, Russia November 22, 2017. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS

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azveille · 6 years

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Is data the new oil? How information became the fuel of the future

It’s driving new economies, creating new power players and monopolies — and fuelling new conflicts

Not too long from now, you or I will wake up a few minutes earlier than normal because Alexa, our voice-controlled home help, will already know it’s raining and that the traffic will be heavy.

As we step outside, our smartphone will direct us to the nearest Uber or, if we prefer, a Tesla electric car that is part of a shared on-demand fleet to which we subscribe.

When we approach the office, ‘our’ car will guide itself to the nearest parking space. At lunchtime, we will book a weekend break on Airbnb and order some new summer clothes from Farfetch to be delivered to our destination, by drone, on the day we arrive.

After work, we will stop at the new Amazon supermarket to pick up dinner. There are no cashiers. Sensors monitor what we pick and our Amazon Prime account, activated by our smartphone as we enter, is charged. When we finally get home we will catch up on our favourite Netflix drama.

All the while we will be monitored as never before. The amount of our personal data that the tech giants harvest will reach 180 zettabytes — 180 followed by 21 zeros — in just a few years’ time, predicts IDC, a market-research firm. Big data — the capture, storage and commercial exploitation of our digital identities, to which we all too often agree every time we sign up to a new product or service — is getting so big it is not just helping Silicon Valley to create new, once unimaginable digital services, it is driving a new industrial revolution. ‘Data is the new oil that drives the future, just as oil did in the past,’ says Jonathan Taplin, author of Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy.

Oil, along with electricity, forged the modern globalised world. It created modern global road, air, sea and space travel, refrigeration, elevators, pharmaceuticals, plastics, fabrics, cosmetics, the chemicals that clean the water we drink and fertilise the fields where our food grows, and much more besides. It helped to spawn the great icons of modern capitalism — GE, Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, Boeing, Airbus, Nasa, Otis, Bayer, Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil, GSK, Astra Zeneca. And on and on.

Now big data threatens the old order and those old icons. It is fast replacing finance as the driver of business and market behaviour. The big, well-capitalised companies of today and yesterday risk being replaced by smaller start-ups, many of which use data to make new markets that they dominate, instead of making things. Uber is now more valuable than many traditional carmakers, even though it does not make cars. Airbnb, which is scarcely a decade old, is already finding more of us holiday accommodation each year than Hyatt, even though it owns no hotels. Netflix, Apple and Amazon are gnawing at the big broadcasters and Hollywood even though they do not own huge studios and cable companies. Spotify and iTunes are doing the same to traditional record labels, even though they have no roster of artists.

New data-driven retailers threaten the old order. Amazon knows so much about us and has such whizzy new ideas that it now challenges every retailer, including supermarkets, the one sector that has, so far, resisted its advance. At its new cashierless ‘ghost’ supermarkets, the first of which is due to open in Seattle this spring, not only will we not have to queue, the store will know the foods we like and direct us to them when we walk in — even offering money off our favourites. Fashion and grooming start-ups — whether big, like Net-A-Porter or Farfetch, or small, like Dollar Shave Club — are knocking lumps out of some of the world’s poshest brands because they use data to better target consumers with their often cheaper wares.

As the new start-ups grow, a new cadre of billionaires is emerging, replacing the oil-dependent industrial barons of the past. Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Bill Gates at Microsoft, Elon Musk of Tesla and Alibaba’s Jack Ma now top the Forbes and Fortune lists of the wealthiest business leaders on the planet.

What makes the data that we generate more valuable than black gold is that it is unique, personal, live, accurate and, thanks to the plummeting cost of storing and transporting it, can be traded cheaply. Anyone can find out who we are, where we are, what we like and offer us tailored new products and services as and when we might want them. Most of them time we sign up. The one big difference between oil and data — that data will never run out — oddly makes it more valuable because firms know they will always be able to exploit it.

The fast take-up of the new wave of data-driven services tempts tech evangelists to argue that big data makes our lives better. It can. The more data it has, the better Silicon Valley can predict our behaviour — and serve up new products, many now using artificial intelligence. But, alas, the past 12 months have shown big data can and all too often does unleash a cascade of forces that are making the world more dangerous and volatile.

At a simple level, the more bytes we generate and companies collect, the more vulnerable it makes us to theft. Many people reading this magazine will have had their credit card details stolen at least once. Most thefts occur from company websites. The more advanced data services become, the greater the risk of hacks. Data-driven automated cars that rely on car-to-car data sharing have been hacked and the hackers have taken control of the brakes and the steering.

Social media originally promised liberation. Remember the Facebook revolutions of the Arab Spring? But it has proved an even more useful tool for stoking anger. Many US analysts argue it was fake news, possibly generated in Russia and targeted to key voters using personal data, that swung the presidential election in favour of Donald Trump. British firm Cambridge Analytica is at the centre of a probe over its alleged involvement. Whatever we may think of the Tweeter-in-Chief, few of us welcome the idea of Moscow using social media to pick political winners in the west.

Scariest of all, just as global powers have historically battled for the control of oil resources and oil trading routes, so latter-day nation states are conspiring to control the data and cyber networks upon which governments and their citizens depend. Earlier this month, UK politicians voiced concerns after Global Switch, the data centre company owned by the billionaire Reuben brothers, sold a 49 per cent stake to a consortium of Chinese investors, despite concerns about national security.

Britain’s National Security Strategy makes cybercrime a Tier 1 threat, on a par with international terrorism and military crises, and a higher risk than nuclear attack. Last year’s WannaCry attack on the NHS was linked to North Korea.

There are other concerns, too. By giving away our data so easily, we have handed the five biggest tech firms — Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft — the kind of monopoly that Standard Oil, created by John D Rockefeller, enjoyed in the early 20th century. They are five of the most valuable listed firms in the world and have enormous power. Amazon determines how we shop, Google how we acquire knowledge, Facebook how we communicate. Their concentrated authority also means they can see when a new product or service gains traction, allowing them to copy it or simply buy the upstart before it becomes too great a threat. That’s what Facebook did with Instagram and WhatsApp. It made them an offer they couldn’t refuse and swallowed them whole. ‘The super-platforms wield too much power,’ says Ariel Ezrachi of the University of Oxford and author of Virtual Competition: The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm-Driven Economy.

Is there anything we can do? Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, author of the best-selling book, Big Data, and other data experts want a change in regulation. Data collectors and users should be held more accountable for how they store and manage our bits and bytes, rather than simply obtaining our consent to do pretty much as they please. Just as food makers are barred from using certain ingredients, online firms should be prohibited from using certain data or using it in such a way that harms us. There should also be stiffer penalties for hacks.

Others suggest we, not the big firms, should own our data and be free to move it all from one tech platform to another whenever we wish, just as we transfer our mobile phone number from one network to the next. There should also be opt-outs: we should have the right to anonymity, as long as we acknowledge that this means no longer enjoying access to free services or tailored commercial offers.

These are good ideas and there are signs that change is coming. EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager is already suing Silicon Valley giants for failing to safeguard users’ rights and data. Mark Zuckerberg has vowed to ‘fix’ Facebook in 2018, so users are protected and last week announced it would change how its news feed works, making posts from businesses, brands and media less prominent.

In the meantime you can take measures to protect yourself, using a virtual private network on your devices and using Apple products because they have the best encryption and privacy protection built in — although you do have to turn on FileVault encryption on your MacBook. Choose browsers that only share some of your data, not all of it, such as Safari, or none of it, such as DuckDuckGo (which Vestager uses). And, we’ve said it before, it means choosing robust passwords and enabling two step verification on all important services, such as email and banking.

It’s your data. Take care of it and enjoy the revolution.

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goldeagleprice · 6 years

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British gold disguised as French

In 1815, the London Mint struck a gold coin that baffled historians for decades until the truth was finally uncovered by diligent researchers. Some of these early published accounts indicated that the British had secretly struck French gold coins that were made so well and close to the French originals that no one could tell the difference. It all began in the early 19th century when the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte stood astride Europe like a colossus and controlled nearly everything within view.

By 1810, however, Napoleon was facing increasing opposition and was forced to strike hard at restive states such as Prussia and Austria. In 1811, however, Czar Alexander I of Russia also began to chafe under the increasingly stringent restrictions imposed on trade within Europe and overseas. To put an end to Russian meddling that undermined his authority, the French emperor invaded Russia in June 1812 with 600,000 troops. The Russians had far less men at their disposal and many predicted that Russia would soon become part of the French Empire.

The grand scheme of the Russian invasion, despite the conquest of huge areas of the country, even including the old capital of Moscow, began to unravel by the late fall of 1812 and the Grand Armée of Napoleon began to disintegrate under an early Russian winter and the unceasing attacks of the Cossack cavalries. Napoleon himself left hurriedly for the West and the urgent need to raise fresh armies against the expected Russian onslaught.

In the meantime, Prussia and Austria saw their chance and joined with the Russians in a grand Coalition against the French. At the same time the British general Wellington was attacking the French soldiers in Spain in an effort to drive them from that country. It all boded ill for Napoleon.

The Coalition struck first at Dresden in Germany but Napoleon’s luck held and the allies suffered a devastating defeat. Undeterred, the Coalition raised fresh troops and aimed their armies at the French homeland. The next clash of arms came at Leipzig and this time Napoleon’s luck ran out, with the Coalition obtaining a major victory.

Napoleon now raced for France in yet another bid to raise enough troops to defeat the oncoming Coalition. He also faced as well the British now advancing into France after having defeated the remnants of the French armed forces in Spain.

This time, however, Napoleon’s luck ran out completely, with the Coalition seizing large areas of northern France, including Paris itself, by March 1814. The British forces under Wellington were also only a matter of days away from the capital and the French Senate saw the handwriting on the wall. Napoleon was deposed by the latter body and negotiations opened with the British and the Coalition.

Peace was soon achieved, with the French being forced to pay reparations and the former emperor, Napoleon, exiled in May 1814 to the island of Elba, situated in the Mediterranean south of France. All breathed a sigh of relief and the Allied armies began to return home. France then named Louis XVIII as the new king; he was the brother of the unfortunate Louis XVI who had been guillotined during the French Revolution, along with his queen, Marie Antoinette. (Louis XVII was the young son of Louis XVI but did not rule, also having been killed during the Revolution.)

Under Louis XVIII France began a slow return to normalcy and the realization that large numbers of her young men had been killed in the various military adventures of Napoleon. The British and their Coalition allies did continue to occupy parts of France but their troops slowly began to return home after a job well done.

At Elba, on the other hand, Napoleon was increasingly restive and the recipient of numerous clandestine pleas to return to France and overthrow the hated foreign troops as well as Louis XVIII. In March 1815 he left Elba in a small ship and landed on the southern shore of France. To the surprise of nearly everyone outside France, and even the foreign soldiers still in the country, Napoleon had little trouble in raising large numbers of fresh troops in an effort to make France once more the master of Europe.

Louis XVIII fled the country in late March 1815 for Ghent (across the Channel from England) and made arrangements with British authorities for protection and financial assistance. One important aspect of the arrangement was that the London Mint was authorized by the King to strike French 20 franc pieces of the same weight and fineness as those made in Paris and other French mints. This coin is called a Louis d’Or by modern collectors.

Although some historians think that the British coinage of 20 franc pieces was mainly for the benefit of Louis this was not the case although he no doubt received a fair number of coins for his living expenses as well as those of his retinue. The bulk of the coins were clearly meant for Wellington’s army, then assembling in France for a blow against Napoleon. At the same time the Coalition forces – of Russia, Austria, and Prussia – also formed their armies as quickly as possible.

The London coinage of the French gold began in late May 1815 and was instrumental in providing the necessary funds for Wellington. The first deliveries of coin were made by the moneyers at the beginning of June. The coins were quickly sent to Wellington who put them to good use.

The Prussians on their own moved first and attacked Napoleon but were decisively defeated on June 16, 1815. Two days later, however, Wellington moved his army into position at the Belgian town of Waterloo and inflicted a catastrophic defeat on Napoleon. The war was now over and the Allies had carried the day.

This time Napoleon was exiled to the Island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic; he died there in 1821 from stomach cancer, though some claimed – without a shred of proof – that he had been poisoned by the British.

The London Mint continued to strike the Louis d’Or well after Waterloo as the coins were being used to support Wellington’s troops then occupying considerable parts of French territory. In all, through late October 1815, about 872,000 pieces had been struck and sent to France.

The London coins are easily distinguished from those struck at Paris in that the reverse date was flanked by a fleur de lys and the letter R, which was not used at any of the French mints. The Paris coins of 1815, on the other hand, carried a rooster and the letter A at the sides of the reverse date. All bore the obverse portrait of Louis XVIII.

One other difference is found on the obverses of the two coinages. The London Mint did not copy the name of the French artist, Tiolier, which is found beneath the truncation on the obverse of the coins struck in the French mints.

Problems arose when the French Treasury found out about the coins. It seems Louis XVIII had neglected to mention the London coins to his government. The Treasury promptly declared the coins to be counterfeits and ordered that no government agency would be allowed to accept them for any reason.

There was a stand-off for some weeks but in due course the French government decided to accept the coins after all but not to release them into circulation after arriving at the Treasury. They were used in part to pay off the indemnity imposed on France after the final European peace treaty signed at Vienna in 1815.

There was one final French effort in late 1815 to discredit the London coins; a Treasury official in Paris claimed that the London coins were of a lesser fineness than the French issues and therefore worth less. To counter this complaint, in January 1816 the annual Trial of the Pyx in London was held in the presence of the French ambassador and all parties agreed that the British pieces were the exact equivalent in value to the Paris coins.

The London coins are not overly rare and can be obtained with a little patience and not a great deal of money. Those collectors interested in a nice display should obtain both the London and Paris gold coins of 1815.

The latest edition of the Krause Standard Catalog of World Coins 1801–1900 gives a value for the London coin at $325 in Very Fine while $700 is the estimated worth in Extremely Fine. The Paris 1815 coins are valued at $224 and $300, respectively. The 1815 20 francs was also struck at other French mints that year, including Rouen, Bordeaux, Bayonne, Perpignan, and Lille; values vary considerably for the other mints, those of Rouen being the scarcest and worth considerably more than the London pieces. Proofs exist for the London coinage and bring strong prices.

Some of the information in this article was taken from the detailed research by Graham Dyer in the records of the British Royal Mint, published in the December 1977 issue of Seaby’s Coin & Medal Bulletin.

This article was originally printed in World Coin News. >> Subscribe today.

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• The 1800s were a time of change for many, including in coin production. See how coin designs grew during the time period in the Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1801-1900 .

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studentofrhetoric-blog · 7 years

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Sunday, April 23rd, 2017

International News:

--- "South Korea said on Monday it was in talks with Washington about holding joint drills with the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group as it approaches waters off the Korean peninsula amid fears North Korea could conduct another nuclear test. South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun gave no further details other than saying Seoul was holding discussions with the U.S. Navy. On Sunday, two Japanese destroyers joined the USS Carl Vinson carrier group for drills."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-vinson-idUSKBN17Q03T?il=0

--- "Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump that he hopes all sides exercise restraint over the issue of North Korea and that China opposes anything that runs counter to U.N. Security Council resolutions, state media said on Monday. Xi said during a telephone call with Trump that all sides should avoid doing anything to worsen tensions, state television reported."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-china-idUSKBN17Q09B?il=0

--- "Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday he and U.S. President Donald Trump had agreed to maintain close contact over North Korea, while demanding Pyongyang show restraint as tensions in the region rise. Abe told reporters after a telephone call with Trump that he appreciated the U.S. leader's stance of showing that all options are on the table when it comes to dealing with North Korea."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-japan-idUSKBN17Q058?il=0

--- "The Syrian army and allied forces advanced against rebels in western Syria near Hama city on Sunday, building on recent strategic gains in the area, a military source and a monitoring group said. Government forces captured the town of Halfaya and nearby villages, they said, taking back territory that rebels seized last year from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad...Boosted by Russian air strikes and Iranian-backed militias, the Syrian army has pushed into rebel areas north of Hama, expanding its control this week along the western highway that links Damascus and Aleppo. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group, said the army began advancing into areas near Halfaya when rebels withdrew on Sunday, following intense battles and air strikes. Rebels confirmed the town had fallen after several days of relentless air strikes by jets from Russia and Syria which are accused of a "scorched earth policy" that uses phosphorus and incendiary bombs on civilian areas."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-hama-idUSKBN17P0DD?il=0

--- "An Italian prosecutor has evidence of phone calls between Libyan people smugglers and aid groups operating rescue boats, he told newspaper La Stampa, amid growing criticism of non-governmental groups saving refugees off the Libyan coast. Carmelo Zuccaro, the chief prosecutor of the Sicilian port city of Catania, did not say he would open a criminal investigation, and he gave no details about the evidence. "We don't know if we can use this information during a trial," he said. He was not immediately available for comment on Sunday. Italy has become the main route for migrants seeking to reach Europe, with 181,000 arrivals last year and some 4,600 estimated deaths at sea. So far this year arrivals are up more than 40 percent on 2016, and as many as 1,000 have died, the International Organization for Migration says. Zuccaro launched a fact-finding investigation into the work of NGO boats in February, and in March told Italy's parliament he was "convinced" smugglers were in direct contact with rescuers, though at that time he said he had no proof. NGOs, including Save the Children, Proactiva Open Arms and SOS Mediterranee, have rejected the accusations, saying their only objective is to save lives."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-italy-ngo-idUSKBN17P0IV?il=0

--- "Russia has hacked the Danish defense and gained access to employees' emails in 2015 and 2016, NATO member Denmark's defense minister told newspaper Berlingske on Sunday. The report comes at a time when several Western governments, including the United States, France and Britain, have accused Russia of resorting to hacking to influence elections -- allegations Moscow has repeatedly dismissed as baseless. A report from the Danish Defense Intelligence Service's unit for cyber security said "a foreign player" had spied against Danish authorities and gained access to non-classified documents. It did not name the country behind the espionage, but Foreign Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen told Berlingske it was Russia. "It is linked to the intelligence services or central elements in the Russian government, and it is a constant battle to keep them away," Frederiksen told the newspaper."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-security-russia-idUSKBN17P0NR?il=0

--- "North Korea detained a U.S. citizen on Saturday as he attempted to leave the country, bringing the total number of Americans held by the isolated country to three. Korean-American Tony Kim had spent a month teaching an accounting course at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), the university's chancellor, Chan-Mo Park, told Reuters on Sunday. The arrest took place on Saturday morning local time, a statement by the university said, and was "related to an investigation into matters that are not connected in any way to PUST". Kim, who also goes by his Korean name Kim Sang-duk and is in his fifties, was detained by North Korean officials at Pyongyang International Airport as he attempted to leave the country, Park said. "The cause of his arrest is not known but some officials at PUST told me his arrest was not related to his work at PUST. He had been involved with some other activities outside PUST such as helping an orphanage," Park said. "I sincerely hope and pray that he will be released soon". An official at South Korea's National Intelligence Service said it was not aware of the reported arrest."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-detainee-idUSKBN17P038?il=0

--- "The remote site in eastern Afghanistan where the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat earlier this month bears signs of the weapon's power, but little evidence of how much material and human damage it inflicted. Reuters photos and video footage - some of the first images from journalists allowed to get close to the site - reveal a scarred mountainside, burned trees and some ruined mud-brick structures. They did not offer any clues as to the number of casualties or their identities. Since the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb was dropped on a fortified tunnel complex used by suspected Islamic State fighters in Nangarhar province, access to the site has been controlled by U.S. forces who are battling the militant group alongside Afghan troops. The U.S. military has said that ongoing fighting had prevented media or independent investigators from visiting the site, and Afghan soldiers said special forces from both countries were still engaging the enemy in the area. A Reuters witness viewed the site from several hundred yards (meters) away, because of what troops he was accompanying said were continued threats in the area."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-usa-bomb-idUSKBN17P0HX?il=0

--- "The leader of Britain's main opposition Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn said on Sunday he could suspend British involvement in air strikes against Syria if he was elected prime minister at a June 8 election. The veteran peace campaigner, whose Labour Party is around 20 points behind the ruling Conservatives in opinion polls, set out his position on a range of security and foreign policies, saying he would look again at Britain's nuclear deterrent and was against using nuclear weapons. His comments were pounced upon by the Conservatives, who said that Corbyn posed a threat to British security and was the best reason "for sticking with the strong leadership of (Prime Minister) Theresa May".Corbyn told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that he believed that "the only solution in Syria is going to be a political one". "I want us to say 'Listen, let's get people around the table quickly' and a way of achieving that - suspending the strikes, possibly.The leftist leader, whose views on foreign policy have often been at odds with those held by other lawmakers in his party, also said he would have to consider whether he would authorize a drone strike against the leader of Islamic State to limit civilian casualties."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-election-corbyn-idUSKBN17P0AE?il=0

--- "German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is not worried by the prospect of cuts to corporate tax rates in the United States he told German magazine Wirtschaftswoche on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday promised a big announcement about tax reform shortly and ordered a review of Obama-era tax rules written to discourage U.S. companies from relocating overseas to cut their tax bills "U.S. corporate tax rates are among the highest in the world," the magazine quoted Schaeuble as saying. "If the United States lowers its corporate taxes to European or international levels that won't bother me a bit. Just the opposite." At the same time, Schaeuble said he opposed plans for a systemic change to taxation of companies based on their country of origin and a protectionist border tax favored by U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, the magazine reported."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-usa-schaeuble-idUSKBN17P05C?il=0

--- "North Korea said on Sunday it was ready to sink a U.S. aircraft carrier to demonstrate its military might, in the latest sign of rising tension as U.S. President Donald Trump prepared to call the leaders of China and Japan. The United States ordered the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to sail to waters off the Korean peninsula in response to mounting concern over the North's nuclear and missile tests, and its threats to attack the United States and its Asian allies. The U.S. government has not specified where the carrier strike group is as it approaches the area. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday it would arrive "within days," but gave no other details. North Korea remained defiant. "Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with a single strike," the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, said in a commentary. The paper likened the aircraft carrier to a "gross animal" and said a strike on it would be "an actual example to show our military's force".

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-japan-idUSKBN17P01Y?il=0

Domestic & International News:

--- "U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has cut short the final leg of his Asia trip to race back to Washington, where the Trump administration faces a critical week on tax reform and a funding plan to keep the government running, an aide said on Sunday. Pence, who has been traveling in Asia to reassure allies and partners about President Donald Trump's commitment to the region, had originally planned to spend two nights in Honoluluat the end of a trip that took him to South Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Australia. While he spoke with business leaders in each country, Pence's trip was overshadowed by rising tensions in North Korea, where it is feared another nuclear test could be conducted soon in defiance of United Nations sanctions. Pence will now spend one night in Hawaii and is slated to be back in Washington on Tuesday morning, his aide told reporters before Air Force Two landed at Pago Pago in American Samoa for refueling."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pence-asia-idUSKBN17Q09J?il=0

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump said anti-Semitism should be defeated and called the Holocaust the "darkest chapter of human history" in a video address on Sunday, following two missteps by his administration regarding statements about genocide during World War Two. "The mind cannot fathom the pain, the horror and the loss. Six million Jews, two-thirds of the Jews in Europe, murdered by the Nazi genocide. They were murdered by an evil that words cannot describe, and that the human heart cannot bear," Trump said in a speech to the World Jewish Congress Plenary Assembly in New York on Yom HaShoah, Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. "On Yom HaShoah, we look back at the darkest chapter of human history," Trump added. "We mourn, we remember, we pray, and we pledge: 'Never again.'""

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-holocaust-idUSKBN17P11A?il=0

--- "President Donald Trump said on Sunday he expected Mexico to pay for the wall he has promised to build along the southern border, resuscitating a campaign promise that roiled U.S. relations with Mexico in the first week of his presidency. "Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall," Trump said in a Twitter post. Trump returned to his Mexico demand on a morning in which he simultaneously tried to pressure congressional Democrats to include funding for the border wall in must-pass spending legislation needed to keep the U.S. government open beyond Friday. A spokesman for the Mexican president's office said President Enrique Pena Nieto has repeated that Mexico will not pay for the wall."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-trump-mexico-idUSKBN17P0QG?il=0

Domestic News:

--- "The Department of Homeland Security will not target immigrants brought to the United States as children for deportation, despite conflicting statements within the Trump administration, its secretary John Kelly said on Sunday. Kelly, asked on Sunday morning talk shows to clarify the department's position on the status of these illegal immigrants protected under an Obama-era program, said the agency is focused on deporting only dangerous criminals. “My organization has not targeted these so-called Dreamers," Kelly told CNN, referring to the name given to those granted protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program created by Democratic President Barack Obama and extended by Republican President Donald Trump. "We have many, many more important criminals to go after," he said...Kelly said in another Sunday interview on CBS that while Dreamers are not being targeted, several of them end up detained by immigration officers as they round up criminals. "People fall into our hands incidentally that we have no choice in most cases but to go ahead and put in the system," he said."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-dreamers-idUSKBN17P0LM?il=0

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump this week will sign new executive orders before he completes his first 100 days in office, including two on energy and the environment, which would make it easier for the United States to develop energy on and offshore, a White House official said on Sunday. "This builds on previous executive actions that have cleared the way for job-creating pipelines, innovations in energy production, and reduced unnecessary burden on energy producers," the official said on condition of anonymity. On Wednesday, Trump is expected to sign an executive order related to the 1906 Antiquities Act, which enables the president to designate federal areas of land and water as national monuments to protect them from drilling, mining and development, the source said. On Friday, Trump is expected to sign an order to review areas available for offshore oil and gas exploration, as well as rules governing offshore drilling...In addition to the energy-related orders, Trump is also expected this week to sign an order to create an office of accountability in the Veterans Affairs department."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-energy-idUSKBN17P0JC?il=0

--- "Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Sunday he believes lawmakers could reach a short-term U.S. budget deal by Friday if President Donald Trump did not meddle in their talks with "poison pill" demands like funding for a border wall. "I am hopeful that we can get a budget done," Schumer said at a news conference. "The only fly in the ointment is that the president is being a little heavy-handed, and mixing in and asking for things such as the (border) wall." "So we'd ask him to let us do our work, not throw in some last-minute poison pills that could undo it and we could get this done.""

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-schumer-idUSKBN17P0N3?il=0

--- "President Donald Trump put pressure on Democrats on Sunday as U.S. lawmakers worked to avoid a government shutdown, saying Obamacare would die without a cash infusion the White House has offered in exchange for their agreement to fund his border wall. The escalated push to get Trump's priorities, which Democrats reject, into spending legislation could jeopardize prospects for an agreement to keep the government open. If talks fail, the government would shut down on Saturday, Trump's 100th day in office. "Obamacare is in serious trouble. The Dems need big money to keep it going - otherwise it dies far sooner than anyone would have thought," the Republican president said in a Twitter post. In a second tweet, he added: "The Democrats don't want money from budget going to border wall despite the fact that it will stop drugs and very bad MS 13 gang members." MS-13 is a criminal gang with members of Central American origin. The president's tweets appeared after White House budget director Mick Mulvaney accused Democrats of "holding hostage national security" by opposing $1.5 billion to help build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, one of Trump's top campaign pledges. Democrats have said they would not support legislation that ends federal subsidies to help low-income people buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-shutdown-idUSKBN17P0FH?il=0

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump reassured manufacturers gathered in the White House Roosevelt room on March 31 that a massive infrastructure program was coming soon. “We’re going to make it happen” this year, he said, according to Drew Greenblatt, the president of Marlin Steel in Baltimore, who was present. “That was actually the first thing that he talked about behind closed doors with us,” Greenblatt added. But putting a trillion-dollar infrastructure program to work could be easier said than done, as some of the projects suggested to the administration underscore. Project lists submitted by the North America's Building Trades Unions and by an outside developer who helped with the transition both contain projects that infrastructure builders call “shovel ready.” But, for a range of reasons, shovel ready does not always mean ready for shovels to break ground. That means any effort to jump-start projects, put people to work and inject economic stimulus could drag on Trump’s promise for a 10-year, $1 trillion infrastructure project. After North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU) president Sean McGarvey met with Trump on January 23, the group submitted a total of 26 bridge, pipeline and water projects. A second list of 51 projects was assembled by Ohio developer Dan Slane, who assisted with the transition, including everything from inland waterways to ports to a new FBI headquarters. While details on Trump’s plans are scant, a senior administration official said they’re looking for ways to shorten the lengthy permitting process...The administration says it wants to get ground broken fast. But some of that just might be out of the president’s hands, such as state-level permitting. “A significant part of the president’s infrastructure plan will focus on streamlining regulating and permitting so that it is easier for all viable projects to move forward in a timely manner. These reforms might not be driven by the hurdles facing a single project, but rather will create more certainty in the process overall,” a White House spokesperson told Reuters."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-infrastructure-analysis-idUSKBN17P0AS?il=0

--- "Former U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday makes his first major appearance since leaving office, having chosen Chicago, the city where his political career started, to emerge from a three-month hiatus from the public eye. Obama will meet youth leaders and promote community organizing near the same South Side neighborhoods where his own activism blossomed and propelled him to two terms in the White House that ended with Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who served as Obama’s first White House chief of staff, said that he was proud that Obama picked Chicago to make his last speech as president and the first in his post-presidency. “I think it reflects his emotional, as well as his intellectual, commitment to this city and seeing this city as his home,” he said. Obama's continued connection to Chicago is important to the city, which has global aspirations as well as a palpable insecurity about its place in the world. During the last year of Obama’s second term, Chicago laid claim to its share of his legacy by beating out Hawaii and New York as the site of his presidential library."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obama-chicago-idUSKBN17P0CH?il=0

#international affairs #domestic affairs #source: reuters

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baby-secrets · 7 years

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As I gave birth after age 40, and not in Moscow

It so happened that in the 40 years I got married for the second time, having already had two children 15 and 19 years. She married and very soon found out that she was pregnant. Little my husband and I both wanted. Initially, specific plans for where and how to give birth did not build. But when I told an old friend about the pregnancy, he excitedly began to wail: "come to give birth in Israel!

There are better doctors! I'll make you all! Come sure! Do you have age, you need to take care of yourself! "

I did not argue with the last sentence, but Israel? ... In a family where neither mother nor baby daddy, did not have Jewish roots ... and the baby in the birth certificate is written that he was born in Israel ... Yeah baby then nobody can not explain! He even asked not to be one, read the "city of birth" and do everything for him will think out so, Israel - this is not our method, we decided with my husband first.

Then I read a few weeks where you can have and how much it will cost. "Rockefellers" to relatives there, so I was interested in low cost options. The choice fell on the Czech Republic. I like to walk around Prague. In general, it is beautiful, nice and peaceful. What else the expectant mother should be? It is 20 weeks pregnant.

We had to fly out to Prague to buy insurance. Quickly I do a tourist visa and fly to the Czech Republic capital. I must say that the Czechs are very economical in terms of visas. And they always give them a very short time: Confirm that you have booked the hotel for 10 days, and then the visa will be for 10 days. Not a day more.

Insurance, on which you can have in the Czech Republic a foreigner makes only one company - vzp. I have ten days, I come to the office and insurers in English saying that she wanted to give birth in the Czech Republic. In Russian there is no one understands. I smiled sweetly, say how much it will cost, and that for registration of the policy I have to bring a certificate from the local Czech gynecologist about pregnancy and in general about my condition. In addition, the need to provide a certificate from a GP about my general health, and all the tests - on AIDS, syphilis, hepatitis B, but made in a Czech clinic.

47-Year-Old Gives Birth to Child An Hour After Finding Out She's Pregnant

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Buy local phone sim card. With the help of the internet looking for a gynecologist. Methodically to ring up all the suggestions found themselves geographically far from the place where my husband and I lived (he would not let me alone). Whether on the fifth, or seventh call, we were lucky and cheerful English-speaking doctor Mrs invited us to his appointment in three hours. It is worth to say that the Czechs are a very measured way of life. And written in advance to the doctors. Very previously. So much, that in order to give birth in the Prague hospital, a doctor must be recorded for a maximum of 16 weeks. And I was already 22 weeks of pregnancy. And most of the failures to take me to the survey were not failures at all, and the kind of offer to come to the reception of two or three to four weeks. What I did not like, because the visa was only open for 10 days. That is, "three hours" - this to me is fantastically lucky.

Lady doctor examined me and said that I can pass the tests at this same hospital, but only on Monday morning (it was Thursday). Well, "OK", we thought, and went to look for the doctor of general practice. Here, the Internet has played a cruel joke with us, because at the request of general practice fell out anything, the doctor needed specialization. I even came to a great hospital, but there is a long time did not understand what it is to me to do. Sent to the administrative body in charge of foreigners (logically, I'm Czech do not say), yet in some branches, while in the lobby, I talked to a lady who had once taught Russian. On vigorous mixture of Russian, Czech and English she advised me to go to the mall ....

It was found in the Czech Republic each have a "general practitioner" - is something like a therapist, but it is not assigned to a clinic where the person served. You can choose quite independently of the hundreds of doctors that work with your insurance company. And for those who are not insured, or for any reason, does not have a general practitioner, has a network of medical offices my ambulance and placed their offices are usually in shopping malls.

We arrived at the mall, I have examined and weighed. Immediately take rapid blood and urine tests, did a cardiogram, measured the pressure, ask questions about my state of health, disease, that I was ill for life, and then I was given the necessary help for the insurance.

With the analyzes that I handed over on Monday morning on an empty stomach had nearly happened pad. When it turned out that in addition to money for the analysis, I must make a security deposit in case analysis on sexually transmitted and infectious diseases would be positive. What will happen with this patient, I, frankly, did not recognize him. Fortunately, we had the funds. Otherwise it would have to find another place where to pass tests, because that clinic took them only once a week.

Thus I was able to get their ten days all the necessary documents to the insurance company. Now I could give birth in the Czech Republic.

On spending: own insurance cost of 80 thousand kroons (the rate then was 1.6 rubles per 1 crown), reception gynecologist 3000 kroons tests for AIDS and other - 4000 CZK, the insurance deposit 5000 CZK (later returned), the doctor's reception general practitioners - 1.5 thousand kroons.

Insurance gives you the opportunity for a year from the date of payment to receive any health care services restricted to dentistry in the amount of 300 thousand kroons and not more than 5 million crowns in total. That is, most importantly, it includes the inspection and methods of all the doctors for me pregnant, do childbirth and all manipulations that may be needed to the newborn until the moment when we are not discharged from the hospital, or until the baby 3 months, if diagnosed serious pathology. In the previous birth, I knew that the problems usually occur with my health, not with babies.

Pregnant Over 40: You Can Achieve Pregnancy After 40

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In principle, if a person has lived in the Czech Republic, has the usual local insurance and pregnancy occurs in the middle of the validity of insurance, there is nothing to pay extra is not necessary. For foreigners, the annual insurance costs 18 000 CZK and includes everything except the management of pregnancy and childbirth.

But I somehow have to bear it! On the baby to get out of the hospital had for three days to buy annual insurance as a foreigner, for 18 thousand crowns. This would include all inspections pediatrician, vaccinations, ultrasound, echo, and other medical procedures may be needed.

With insurance, I went back to Moscow and waited approaching childbirth. As for attachment to a maternity hospital in Prague had to be registered no later than 16 weeks pregnant, and I do not do in life, you give birth in the capital of the Czech Republic I had no chance. On the Internet I found information about hospitals near Prague and chose the hospital Neratovice, mainly for the comment "like foreigners here," although the string "hospital specializes in the natural course of sorts," I liked it too.

To give birth Neratovice had come to them at 36 weeks of pregnancy and attach to a local doctor. Then the doctor will take care of everything.

I'm afraid to fly the aircraft by 35 weeks of pregnancy, so flew in advance at 33 weeks. We rented a small room in the guest house with shower and toilet. The kitchen was downstairs in the basement, alone in the house away. My husband and I came together, he has equipped me, and then flew back - do not throw work. I stayed

Once a week, I went to the doctor in Neratovice. The ride was comfortable: on the time it takes for half an hour - in Moscow journey from home to the clinic may take much longer, especially during rush hour. The doctor always wanted me to talk to him in Czech, then sadly sighed and switched to English. All doctor visits, tests, etc. CTG I do on a regular basis and free of charge, everything has already been included in the insurance.

To give birth in the Czech Republic decided with her husband. Closer to the date of birth came the husband, the right day, we called a taxi and arrived at the hospital. There we took a leisurely, KTG made and then, as if reluctantly, sent to the maternity ward. The cost of insurance is not included accommodation at the clinic. That is, for each day of your stay you have to pay extra. There are the usual bed in the 3-and 4-bed wards, there is the House Superior for 1 person. We have not given this chamber with the words: "Why should you? You come from another country, give birth and leave forever. It is better to give us the luxury ward to one of our local, then they have to give birth we will again. " To be honest, I liked the argument. That would be in Moscow gave the most convenient places to local!

What is the Czech hospital? There is all the equipment, a lot of staff. Visitors can come from 10:00 until 19:00 - you only need to remove street shoes at the threshold to enter the Chamber. Outerwear resolved not to shoot. Visiting is not only my husband, but in general all relatives and acquaintances who are deemed to come. No gowns for visitors is not required. However, this is not provided, all clothes have to bring with you, the list given in advance for childbirth.

But if in Moscow, despite a total ban on visits and a constant struggle for the sterility of each hospital every year closed because of the outbreak of streptococcus, the Czech Republic there are no such incidents. Maternity operate year-round. It employs a special nurse, which is responsible for cleaning the chambers and floors. Washes it about 12 times per day. This is its only duty, and she copes with it perfectly.

Give birth was not terrible, my husband, who was next to give a sense of peace and correct the situation. After birth, the baby immediately gave into the hands of the Pope.

How To Get Pregnant Fast At 40 - Try This Tips To Get Pregnant Fast In 3 Weeks

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Usually in Czech hospitals are discharged on the fourth day after birth, but because I had some problems, which I do, and doctors know in advance, I took special care. We have written us with the baby only on the tenth day. The bill for the cot was 2000 CZK - 200 CZK daily. More than we paid nothing.

The most difficult thing has appeared on the receipt of documents in the Russian consulate newborn as take a child from abroad without documents can not. And I gave birth on the French tourist visa.

#gave #birth #moscow #Czech Republic

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globaltotal · 7 years

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Ukraine Conflict Monitor, Jan. 10-17, 2017

Ukraine 101:

No significant developments.

West’s leverage over Russia:

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will keep U.S. sanctions against Russia in place "at least for a period of time," he has said in an interview, adding that he would consider lifting the sanctions once Russian President Vladimir Putin proves he can be an ally. "If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?" Trump said in the interview published in The Wall Street Journal on Jan. 13, a week before his inauguration. In an interview with The Times of London and German magazine Bild, published on Jan. 15, Trump said: "They have sanctions on Russia—let's see if we can make some good deals with Russia. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that's part of it." The Kremlin will not discuss making policy concessions in order for U.S. sanctions on the country to be lifted, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has claimed. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia never raises the issue of sanctions in talks with its foreign counterparts and doesn’t intend to do so because it’s not up to Moscow to scrap them. (RFE/RL, 01.15.17, The Washington Post, 01.17.17, The Moscow Times, 01.17.17, AP, 01.16.17, Reuters, 01.17.17, RFE/RL, 01.17.17)

Ukraine’s leverage over Russia:

Ukraine has filed a case against Russia at the United Nations’ highest court, accusing Moscow of illegally annexing Crimea and illicitly funding separatist rebel groups in eastern Ukraine. (AP, 01.17.17)

Russia’s leverage over West:

Russia’s embargo against Western food imports may come to an end in the near future, according to Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. Legally, the sanctions end on Dec. 31, 2017. (The Moscow Times, 01.13.17)

Russia’s leverage over Ukraine:

Russian gas giant Gazprom said on Jan. 17 that it had charged Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz with a $5.3 billion bill for gas it did not buy under a take-or-pay clause. (Reuters, 01.17.17)

The Russian government has confirmed that its 2010 agreement with Ukraine on building a third and fourth reactor at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant has been cancelled. (World Nuclear News, 01.16.17)

Casualties and costs for Russia, West and Ukraine:

In a move that appears designed to make it harder for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to roll back sanctions after President Barack Obama leaves office, on Jan. 13 Obama extended all U.S. sanctions on Russia through March 2018 over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its backing of separatists in the eastern part of the country. (RFE/RL, 01.14.17, RFE/RL, 01.15.17)

A Ukrainian government official said on Jan. 11 that the nation’s forces have captured new positions in the rebel-held east. Olexander Motuzyanyk, presidential spokesman for the operation in the east, said on Jan. 11 that one soldier was killed and three injured in fighting in the conflict zone during the past 24 hours. (AP, 01.11.17)

The Ukrainian defense ministry released astonishing statistics from what it calls the "anti-terrorist operation" against Russian proxies in the east. In 2016, 211 Ukrainian servicemen were killed in action—and 256 more died from other causes, such as suicide, murder, traffic accidents, drug overdoses and alcohol poisonings or accidental shootings. (Bloomberg, 01.17.17)

Red lines and tripwires:

Lithuania on Jan. 17 signed an agreement with the United States formalizing the presence of U.S. troops in the small Baltic country bordering Russia and Belarus. (AP, 01.17.17)

Following a Russian military buildup in Kaliningrad over the past few months, Lithuania announced on Jan. 16 that it would build an 80-mile-long fence equipped with surveillance cameras on the border with Kaliningrad, scheduled to be finished later this year. (The Washington Post, 01.17.17)

Polish leaders welcomed U.S. troops to their country Jan. 14, with the defense minister expressing gratitude for their arrival and calling it the fulfillment of a dream Poles have had for decades. The first of 3,500 American troops began rolling into Poland for a nine-month-long mission starting on Jan. 8, 2017. (AP, 01.14.17, The National Interest, 01,15.17)

The U.S. Marine Corps has touched down in Norway. The first 300 Marines en route to Vaernes military base in the Scandinavian country have arrived as part of a temporary, six month stay. (Foreign Policy, 01.17.17)

Bloomberg columnist Leonid Bershidsky: “A negotiating process based on clearly drawn lines, which are backed by readiness to apply force, is not equal to support for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's human rights abuses and cross-border escapades. It can't be the beginning of a beautiful friendship; there are too many deeply rooted differences. But it can be the start of a more realistic, more predictable relationship—the best both nuclear powers can hope for given their current irreconcilable differences of ideology.” (Bloomberg, 01.12.17)

Russia is bolstering its anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities in Crimea with the addition of the potent S-400 Triumf air and missile defense system. The addition of the S-400—which can be armed with the 250-mile range 40N6—would afford Moscow the ability not only to keep the peninsula safe from attack, but also threaten airspace deep inside Ukraine should the Kremlin choose to do so. (The National Interest, 01.14.17)

Factors and scenarios that could cause resumption of large-scale hostilities or lead to accident between Western and Russian forces in Europe:

No significant developments.

Arming and training of Ukrainian forces by Western countries:

No significant developments.

Strategies and actions recommended:

No significant developments.

Analysis:

When asked whether the U.S. would ever recognize the annexation of Crimea by Russia, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state Rex Tillerson said during his recent confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate: “The only way that that could ever happen is if there were some broader agreement that was satisfactory to the Ukrainian people. So absent that, no, we would never recognize that.” “We must also be clear-eyed about our relationship with Russia,” Tillerson said. “Russia today poses a danger, but it is not unpredictable in advancing its own interests. It has invaded Ukraine, including the taking of Crimea, and supported Syrian forces that brutally violate the laws of war. Our NATO allies are right to be alarmed at a resurgent Russia,” he said. Tillerson said the U.S. and Russia are "not likely to ever be friends," adding that U.S. and Russian value systems "are starkly different." Tillerson urged an “open and frank dialogue” so that “we know how to chart our own course.” Tillerson also faulted a lack of U.S. leadership for Russia’s aggressiveness. He said it’s a “fair assumption” that Russian President Vladimir Putin knew about Moscow’s meddling in America’s 2016 presidential election and that “there's no respect for the rule of law in Russia today.” (Senate.gov, 01.11.17, AP, 01.10.17, Bloomberg, 01.10.17, AP, 01.10.17, Wall Street Journal, 01.11.17, Just Security, 01.11.17)

Mike Pompeo, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said that Russia had reasserted itself by invading Ukraine and "threatening Europe." In the opening statement of his Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 12, the Congressman also said that Russia had done nothing to defeat Islamic State militants. The CIA under his leadership, he said, would provide ''accurate, timely, robust and clear-eyed analysis of Russian activities.'' (RFE/RL, 01.12.17, CNN, 01.12.17, RFE/RL, 01.12.17)

Bloomberg columnist Leonid Bershidsky: “[Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko's hope is that Putin will have little enough to offer to Trump that the deal-oriented approach will fail. Then these allies will help Ukraine recreate the special position it once held on a far friendlier U.S. administration's agenda.” (Bloomberg, 01.17.17)

Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy of Brookings Institute: “Vladimir Putin is a fighter and he is a survivalist. He won’t give up, and he will fight dirty if that’s what it takes to win. He didn’t give up as a kid in the Leningrad courtyards. He didn’t give up in Chechnya. He won’t give up in Ukraine or elsewhere in Russia’s neighborhood.” (Brookings, 01.13.17)

Other important news:

Making his final visit to Kiev after eight years as U.S. vice president, Joe Biden urged the international community to stand against what he called Russian aggression and urged the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to be a strong supporter of Ukraine. Biden also urged Ukraine to keep demonstrating its commitment to the rule of law and fighting corruption. (RFE/RL, 01.16.17)

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and undermine U.S. President-elect Donald Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. They also helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. (Politico, 01.11.17)

Ukraine’s leader Petro Poroshenko dismissed talk that Donald Trump’s presidency will damage U.S. backing for Ukraine and said he expects to receive the next slice of a $17.5 billion bailout within weeks. Poroshenko said he was one of the first world leaders Trump called after his victory in November. “We had quite a promising conversation,” Poroshenko said. “We agreed the date of my visit to Washington D.C. immediately after the inauguration and the agenda of our negotiations will be quite big.” (Bloomberg, 01.17.17)

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has warned that Ukrainians may become disillusioned with their pro-European path if the European Union further delays closer integration with Kiev. (RFE/RL, 01.17.17)

In an interview with London’s The Sunday Times and German newspaper Bild, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump called the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) “obsolete because it wasn’t taking care of terror” and said member organizations aren’t paying their “fair share.” Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Jan. 16 that Trump's comments had aroused concern across the 28-member alliance. NATO reacted on Jan. 16 to Trump's statement by saying it has full confidence in the U.S. security commitment to Europe. In contrast, Moscow has welcomed Trump calling NATO "obsolete.” Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Jan. 16 that "NATO is indeed a vestige [of the past] and we agree with that." (AP, 01.15.17, Reuters, 01.17.17, RFE/RL, 01.16.17)

Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, after he was ousted from the presidency in a popular uprising in early 2014, requested that Russia send troops into Ukraine, official United Nations documents show. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko published part of a letter from the United Nations on Jan. 17 confirming that on March 1, 2014 Yanukovych requested that the Russian armed forces intervene to “restore order” in Ukraine. (Kyiv Post, 01.17.17)

French presidential candidate and far-right National Front leader Marie le Pen said in an interview with Russian newspaper Izvestia that she recognized Crimea as being part of Russia and would push to drop sanctions against Russia if elected. (TASS, 01.17.17)

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bartroberts · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Black Barth News

New Post has been published on http://blackbarth.com/obama-moving-troops-poland-provoking-war-russia-right-inauguration/

Why Is Obama Moving Troops Into Poland And Provoking A War With Russia Right Before The Inauguration?

January 20th cannot come soon enough. Instead of stepping back and trying to ensure a smooth transition for Donald Trump, Barack Obama has decided to go hog wild and use every ounce of presidential power still available to him. He has been establishing a bunch of new national monuments, he just stabbed Israel in the back at the United Nations, and on Thursday he even took time to give Joe Biden a Presidential Medal of Freedom. But one of the things that has people the most concerned is his endless provoking of Russia. Every few days it seems like Obama is doing something else to aggravate Russia, and if he wasn’t leaving office in about a week I am sure that the mainstream media would be full of speculation about a possible war.

Lame duck presidents are not supposed to make risky moves like this once a new president has been elected. On Thursday, we learned that U.S. troops have been permanently deployed to Poland for the very first time…

American soldiers rolled into Poland on Thursday, fulfilling a dream some Poles have had since the fall of communism in 1989 to have U.S. troops on their soil as a deterrent against Russia.

Some people waved and held up American flags as U.S. troops in tanks and other vehicles crossed into southwestern Poland from Germany and headed toward the town of Zagan, where they will be based. Poland’s prime minister and defense minister will welcome them in an official ceremony Saturday.

Poland was once a key member of the Warsaw Pact alliance, and the Russians are quite alarmed that U.S. troops will now be stationed so close to the Russian heartland. The following comes from ABC News…

“These actions threaten our interests, our security,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday. “Especially as it concerns a third party building up its military presence near our borders. It’s not even a European state.”

And it has also been announced that NATO troops will arrive in Lithuania in late January. If you will remember, Lithuania was actually part of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

All of a sudden, Russia has become enemy number one. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say that Russia is to blame for Clinton’s election loss, and so at the end of December Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats from the country.

That is the sort of thing that you do before a war starts.

Over in Europe, they are so freaked out about potential Russian interference in their elections that they are “erecting defenses to counter possible Russian cyber attacks”…

Nations in Europe, where Germany and France this year hold elections, are erecting defenses to counter possible Russian cyber attacks and disinformation to sway Western politics, but intelligence experts say this might be too little and too late.

The issue of Russian “influence operations” has taken on new urgency after U.S. intelligence agencies released a non-classified assessment that President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to move the U.S. election in favor of Donald Trump.

European nations and NATO are setting up centers to identify “fake news”, bolstering cyber defenses and tracking use of social media which target Russian-speaking communities, far-right groups, political parties, voters and decision-makers.

Back in 2012, Barack Obama mocked Mitt Romney for saying that Russia was a serious threat to our national security. He even joked that the 1980s were calling Romney because they wanted their foreign policy back.

At that time, Barack Obama boldly declared that the Cold War had been over for 20 years. But now here we are just four years later and Barack Obama has gotten us into a new Cold War. The crisis in Ukraine, the civil war in Syria, the price of oil, cyber-espionage and a whole host of other issues have brought tensions between the United States and Russia to a boiling point.

Many are hoping that relations with Russia will improve during the Trump administration, but the truth is that things could go either way.

It is important to remember that Trump will be surrounded by military people that are virulently anti-Russia. For example, retired Marine General James Mattis has been nominated to be Defense Secretary, and this week he told Congress that Russia is the “principal threat” to U.S. security…

While much of the hearing has so far been without controveries, in the most striking moment so far, Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Russia stands as the “principal threat” to the United States’s security. He said this is because of its actions and efforts to “intimidate” other countries.

Senator John McCain questioned Mattis to get his opinion on how much of a threat Russia represents. Mattis response was that the world order is “under biggest attacks since WW2, from Russia, terrorist groups, and China’s actions in the South China Sea”, agreeing with the neocon senator that Russia is trying to break up NATO.

“I’m all for engagement” with Russia, “but we also have to recognize the reality of what Russia is up to,” Mattis told Senator Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island).

There is a great deal of concern that Trump’s view of Russia could be significantly shaped by strong military men such as Mattis. Both Democrats and Republicans want Trump to become much more anti-Russia, and let us hope that he does not give in to the pressure.

Over in Russia, they view us very negatively as well. A Gallup survey taken in mid-2016 found that current U.S. leadership (the Obama administration) only had a one percent approval rating in Russia.

Yes, you read that correctly.

You can’t get much lower than one percent.

The Russians consider themselves to be the great force for good in the world, and they consider the United States to be the great force for evil. They openly talk about the possibility of nuclear war on their news broadcasts, and on one recent broadcast people were actually encouraged to locate the closest nuclear bomb shelter to their homes.

And in response to U.S. troops being deployed to Poland, the Russian government has deployed advanced anti-aircraft missile systems around Moscow…

Russia has deployed anti-aircraft missile systems around Moscow to protect the capital from attack in the latest sign Vladimir Putin is preparing for war.

The s-400 Triumph air defence system has been providing air cover for Russian forces in Syria since November, and is now being deployed on home soil.

It is capable of hitting moving airborne targets including planes and incoming missiles and has a range of 400km.

We should be very thankful that Barack Obama is leaving office, because right now we are on a path that leads to war with Russia.

Every American should be hoping that Donald Trump will work to greatly improve relations with the Russians, but all it would take is one wrong move for things to start deteriorating once again.

A new Cold War has begun, and as I recently told a live studio audience at Morningside, the stakes are incredibly high…

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#barack obama #donald trump #u.s. troops in poland #war with russia

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