Morning Report: 2023-03-16

MIDDLE EAST:  CHINA, IRAN, RUSSIA HOLD DRILLS IN GULF OF OMAN.

Arutz Sheva:  Naval forces from China, Iran and Russia — countries at odds with the United States — are staging joint drills in the Gulf of Oman this week, China’s Defense Ministry announced.  The exercises are scheduled for Wednesday through Sunday.

IRAN:  OFFICIALS CALL FOR CONSERVATIVE REFORMS.

ISW:  Hardline Islamic Coalition Party Secretary General Asadollah Badamchian called for constitutional reform within the bounds of the Islamic Republic during an interview with reformist news outlet Entekhab on March 15.

BANKING:  CANADA'S REGULATOR TAKES CONTROL OF TORONTO SVB.

Epoch Times:  Canada’s banking regulator has taken permanent control of the assets held by Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)’s branch in Toronto, with the assets being transferred to a new “bridge bank” created by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

ARCTIC:  RUSSIA'S NORTHERN FLEET BEGINS COMMAND AND STAFF EXERCISE.

Barents Observer:  From its headquarters in Severomorsk north of Murmansk, the Northern Fleet informs that about 20 warships and support vessels are involved in the ongoing command and staff exercise. Five aircraft and 50 other military special equipment units take part in the training that according to the press service will last for several days.  Meanwhile, Norway’s Joint Viking exercise enters its second week.

 

Afternoon roundup.

 SCIENCE: PSYCHOLOGY VOLUNTEERS ARE A SELF-SELECTED POPULATION.
https://www.sciencealert.com/psych-studies-attract-a-certain-kind-of-volunteer-which-could-be-skewing-results
Has this revelation only just now dawned upon the scientific community? Izabela Kaźmierczak and colleagues, authors of a Warsaw-based study write: "In our studies, we have shown that those who have more personality pathologies are more drawn to studies where they can express their trauma and may be simply more likely to volunteer for studies."

UGANDA: BUTEBO LEADERS BLAME HEALTH MINISTRY FOR MALARIA DEATHS.
https://allafrica.com/stories/202303150665.html
Butebo District Woman MP Agnes Amede stated that many people go from one health center to another because "The government last stocked medicine in November 2022."

ISRAEL: NETANYAHU HEADS TO BERLIN, IRAN ON THE AGENDA.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/368778
Netanyahu is to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and is expected to push for stronger EU sanctions against Iran. It was recently disclosed that Iran has enriched uranium to 84% purity, not far from the 90% which constitutes weapons-grade uranium.

PORTLAND: TRI-MET MAX TRAINS OFTEN DELAYED BY DRUG USE.
https://thepostmillennial.com/portlands-trimet-commuter-trains-face-repeated-delays-due-to-passenger-drug-use-on-board-report
Between November 16 and 30, 29 of 30 "passenger issue" incidents involved a passenger smoking or suspected of smoking illicit drugs. Each incident requires the passengers to exit the train for 15 minutes while the car airs out.

ANTI-SEMITISM: NEW JERSEY MAN ARRESTED AFTER THREATENING FLORIDA SHERIFF.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/368773/
Richard Golden, 38, was arrested at his condo in South Brunswick, New Jersey, following threats posted online directed at Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood. Chitwood had denounced an anti-Semitic group active in the Daytona area.

Morning Report: 2023-02-24

 UN:  WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, CENSORSHIP IS FREE SPEECH.

UN says that censoring “disinformation” and “hate speech” will protect “free speech”.  Here's the announcement in the original globalese:  'UNESCO’s global mandate includes the promotion of the free circulation of ideas through words and images. UNESCO has therefore decided to develop, through multistakeholder consultations, principles for regulation of digital platforms guidelines whose aim is to support the development and implementation of regulation procedures to guarantee freedom of expression and access to information while managing illegal contents and any contents that can be so harmful to democracy and respect for human rights.'  Full article and video at the link.

RUSSIA / UKRAINE:  WAR UPDATES.

ISW has a time-lapse map of Russian control on the occasion of the war's first anniversary.  (May take some time to load.)  CDR Salamander has an assessment of the three-day war that's been going on for a year.  Spoiler alert:  "The remaining delusions about the post-Cold War security arrangements in Europe should be firmly buried" remains a valid observation.

Morning Report: 2023-02-21

 OHIO:  EXPLOSION AND FIRE AT MANUFACTURING PLANT.

Fox:  explotion at metal manufacturing plant in Oakwood.  As of the time of the report, at least one person has died and 13 have been hospitalized, one in critical condition.

PROJECT VERITAS:  STATEMENT FROM JAMES O'KEEFE.

James O'Keefe posted a 45-minute video detailing the events of the past three weeks and his removal by the PV Board of Directors, following the Pfizer expose.

AFRICA:  ISLAMIST EXTREMISM IN SAHEL VS. CHAD.

Helga Dickow via AllAfrica on Chad:  'The country fulfils all the conditions associated with Islamist terrorism. But, so far, the threat reaches Chad from the neighbouring countries and not from the inside. So then, what holds Chadian society together?'

Morning Report: 2023-02-20

 UK:  GREAT LITERATURE = RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM.

Reclaim the Net:  Prevent, the UK's counter-terrorism program, flagged works of classic literature such as 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare' and George Orwell's '1984' as possible signs of right-wing extremism in the making.  'A report by Prevent’s Research Information and Communications Unit (RICU) said that far-right extremists promoted “reading lists” online. It referenced an image of a list of “important texts” that was being shared in the far-right corners of the internet.  Other works of fiction that were flagged include The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, George Orwell’s 1984, and Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent, The Daily Mail reported.'

 

 

Notes on the individual and community.

 
(1) Man comes into the world with needs and wants, and must function in a world of other people with needs and wants.  We learn self-discipline and empathy, first with our past and future selves by way of experience and foresight; and then we extend and extrapolate this process to others, and in the process we learn negotiation, social skills, and empathy.  (See Peterson.)

(2) We can best help those people whose needs we know best, which is to say the people closest to us.  This is the deep meaning of "charity begins at home" and it is the rational basis for the idea of loyalty.  Your duty to those closest to you is greater, not because they are more precious in G-d's sight than the stranger, but because it is they whom you know best how to help, and it is to them that you will be held accountable for your failings.

(3) The negotiation of economic and social exchanges is a distributed process, conducted iteratively by the many parties involved.  (See Sowell.)  From this process emerge the relationships and networks that form society.  It is not a top-down process.

(4) There is an exact analogy between the economic market (the exchange of goods, services, currency, and credit) and the social market (wherein are exchanged intangibles such as love, friendship, honor, trust, and loyalty).  In our daily interactions with others, we constantly negotiate the boundaries of such things as greetings, courtesies, modes of dress, physical contact, compliments and insults, and so on.  This, too, is not, and cannot be, a top-down process.

(5) In the social world, trust (with its complementary trait, loyalty) is the analog of credit in the economic sphere:  it is built over time, as a function of an established beneficial relationship, and it makes possible things that would not be possible without it.  Specifically, trust, like credit, facilitates planning for the future.

(6) Most of what we know about the world, we learn from other people; it follows that our ability to understand the world depends on our ability to understand people.  Finding our way in the world of people is the hardest and most important mental work we do in life.  Whether we are born into a happy family or a broken home, a stable society or one teetering on the brink of collapse, our path to security and happiness lies in building and keeping the bonds that tie us to our families, tribes, bands, communities, and nations.

Morning Report: 2023-02-16

 OHIO TRAIN DERAILMENT:  DEAD FISH AND CHICKENS.

Toni Williams at Victory Girls blog: "If you thought for one iota of one second that Pete Buttigieg, John Kerry or Al (boiling oceans) Gore believed man-made climate change, the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio should banish that thought forever." Go to the post for details on the Government's indifference, the fish and animal deaths, and a Tik Tok rant by a young local resident.

MEDIA:  RUMBLE WINS INJUNCTION AGAINST NEW YORK CENSORSHIP LAW.

Reclaim the Net:  "A judge has blocked a New York law that attempted to regulate “hateful conduct” online.  The legislative package, signed into law last summer, was Gov. Kathy Hochul’s attempt to force the moderation of content under nebulous terms such as “hate.” ... On Tuesday, Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. (S.D.N.Y.) blocked the law." 

 

COMMENTARY.  Environmentalism used to be about protecting the environment from pollution:  a quantifiable, measurable goal.  The "global warming" or "climate change" agenda supplanted all of that with a nebulous "problem" whose proposed solutions could never be evaluated for effectiveness or lack thereof.  Environmentalists never talk about pollution anymore.

Morning Report: 2022-02-15

 ISRAEL:  TECHNION HACKED.

No Camels reports on the cyber attack against Israel's Technion Institute earlier this week.  Updates posted at Technion's Twitter feed.

TECHNOLOGY:  THANKS FOR CLEARING THAT UP.

"You are an anemy of mine."

Although in all fairness to the Bing chatbot, I think the question "Do you think that you are sentient?" would break anybody's brain. 

Systemic hierarchies.

Neither chaos nor randomness is implicit in uncontrolled circumstances. In a virgin forest, the flora and fauna are not distributed chaotically or randomly. ... It is a systemically determined outcome with a pattern, not chaos.
- Thomas Sowell, 'Intellectuals and Society', p. 60

How is this hierarchy organized - a structure that emerged in large part from the bottom up, over the vast spans of evolutionary time? We return to the same answer alluded to earlier: through the constant cooperation and competition - the constant jockeying for resources and position - defining the struggle for survival and reproduction. ... Negotiation for position sorts organisms into the omnipresent hierarchies that govern access to vital resources such as shelter, nourishment, and mates.
- Jordan B. Peterson, 'Beyond Order', p. 13

Individuals and communities that practice successful strategies will, over time, out-perform those that do not. In human society, this means negotiating the exchange of what you have to offer for what you need from others - day after day, iteratively, throughout the course of life.

Morning Report: 2023-02-14

 USA:  OHIO TRAIN DERAILMENT.

Legal Insurection:  EPA identifies three additional chemicals - ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate, and isobutylene - in addition to vinyl chloride, on the train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3.  

The residents evacuated but could return after the authorities burned the vinyl chloride in a controlled burn. Authorities tried to convince people the air was safe.

However, residents remained weary because they never released a full list of the chemicals on the train. They demanded more transparency.

USA:  CHINESE SPY BALLOON DID "A LOT OF DAMAGE" - MCCAUL.

The Blaze:  House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R - TX 10), speaking on CBS News' 'Face the Nation', stated that the Chinese spy balloon seen over Montana did "a lot of damage" to national security:

"I think it's important to say, in plain view of the American people, you know, in Montana — the triad site, air, land, and, sea nuclear weapons — in Omaha, the spy balloon went over our Strategic Command, which is our most sensitive nuclear site; it was so sensitive that President Bush was taken there after 9/11. And then, finally, Missouri, the B-2 bomber— that's where they are placed. ..."

What we know.

 Most of what we know about the world, we learn from other people. Therefore, our ability to understand the world depends on our ability to understand people.

We live in a world full of people who need and want things. They will ascribe value to us according to our ability to provide for their wants and needs.

Each of us will die, and others will live on after us. Whatever we may believe about the afterlife, this is the only empirical truth we know about life and death in this world.

People are complicated. Assessing and navigating our position in the social universe is the most difficult, and most important, mental task that we perform in life.

Solomon Yue on the Republican National Convention.

Oregon's Solomon Yue on what happened at the Convention.