Author Archive: Stephen Green
January 15, 2018
IT IS STRANGER THAN WE CAN IMAGINE: Mystery Radio Bursts From Space Just Got Even Weirder.
NO. Cooking With Your Mouth: Why using a knife for chopping your carrots is so last year.
Chopping up food with your teeth before spitting it into your mixing bowl is not going to be the big food trend of 2018. For a while, though, it was touch and go.
When a video appeared at the beginning of the year showing a woman preparing the ingredients for Christmas turkey stuffing with her mouth it picked up more than a million views in a matter of days. There she was, gamely dicing garlic, onion, carrot and celery with her incisors, grinding spices with her molars and whisking eggs and softening butter with her tongue, before regurgitating it all into a bowl to be mixed and stuffed into the waiting turkey.
Ayn Rand’s Return of the Primitive was not meant to be a how-to guide.
SECURITY THEATER OF THE ABSURD: TSA Actually Frisks Woman for Doing Texas Tech’s ‘Finger Gun’ at Houston Airport.
COLLUSION: FBI Probe Into Russian Uranium Bribes Concealed By Obama DOJ; Mueller, McCabe, Rosenstein Involved.
Friday’s 11-count indictment of former uranium transportation company executive, Mark Lambert, was the latest in a series of DOJ prosecutions involving individuals linked to the Russian nuclear industry and the Uranium One deal.
According to the indictment, Lambert and others at Transport Logistics International (TLI) engaged in several counts of bribery, kickbacks and money laundering with Russian nuclear official Vadim Mikerin, in order to secure business advantages with TENEX – a subsidiary of Rosatom, the Kremlin’s state-owned energy company which bought Uranium One.
TLI would have ostensibly transported all of the uranium from the U1 deal, were it not for an FBI undercover mole buried deep within the Russian nuclear industry who gathered extensive evidence of corruption.
What many don’t realize is that Lambert’s Friday indictment is not the first linked to the Uranium One deal.
In fact, Robert Mueller’s FBI had been investigating the scheme since at least 2008 – with retiring Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe assigned to the ongoing investigation which was hidden from the Committee on Foreign Investments in the Untid States (CFIUS). Had they known, the committee never would have approved the Uranium One deal with TENEX’s parent company, Rosatom.
Four individuals were eventually prosecuted and given plea agreements after the Uranium One deal was approved. The prosecuting DOJ attorneys? Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and top Mueller investigator in the Trump-Russia probe, Andrew Weissman – who praised former acting Attorney General Sally Yates for defying Trump.
Plus:
Unsurprisingly, all four indicted individuals were handed extremely light sentences, none of which made headlines.
The former is self-explanatory; the latter is a mystery — or would be, if we had a Washington press corps that was worth a non-partisan damn.
POWER, UNLIMITED POWER: This Inexpensive Battery Could Revolutionize the Clean Energy Industry.
Christopher Wolverton and his team of researchers at Northwestern University, in collaboration with a team of researchers from Argonne National Laboratory, have created a new lithium ion battery that shouldn’t work. For starters, it uses iron, a material that has always failed when used in other batteries. It also uses oxygen in a way scientists used to think would make batteries unusable.
Instead of producing another failing battery, Wolverton and Zhenpeng Yao, a PhD student in Wolverton’s laboratory, used computations to create a new formula that allows it to function. Specifically, they found the right balance of lithium, iron, and oxygen ions that enable the oxygen and iron to cause a chemical reaction that doesn’t result in the oxygen escaping, which would render the battery unstable.
In the end, their battery not only works, but it’s rechargeable, cheaper than traditional lithium-cobalt-oxide batteries — as iron is one of the cheapest elements on the planet, and cheaper than cobalt — and has a much higher energy capacity. It could one day be used in smartphones and electric vehicles, thereby boosting their capabilities. According to Wolverton, their new battery could keep phones powered eight times longer “or your car could drive eight times farther.”
A better way of storing energy is great. But someone, somewhere, somehow still has to produce the energy being stored.
BRUCE BAWER: An Open Letter to President Trump. “I have prepared a world map on which I have proposed descriptive labels for about two dozen specific countries.”
FRED BARNES: The GOP Triumphs of 2017.
It’s an impressive list.
PALEONTOLOGY: Chinese ‘rainbow dinosaur’ had iridescent feathers like hummingbirds. “The discovery ‘suggests a more colorful Jurassic World than we previously imagined’.”
STEPHEN KRUISER: UK Millennials Watching ‘Friends’ on Netflix Have All of Their Politically Correct Feathers Ruffled.
Maybe they need to take a break.
NEWS YOU CAN USE? How people born before 1968 are more at risk of getting nasty ‘Aussie flu.’
One risk factor may be whether you were born before 1968. An adult’s chances of falling ill from a strain of flu are at least partly determined by the first ever type of virus they encountered as a child.
“Our best immune response will be to those viral infections we acquired first,” said Dr Cillian de Gascun, head of the National Virus Reference Laboratory in UCD.
“People born before 1968 would have been exposed to influenza A (H1N1) or A (H2N2) in their childhood.
“As such, in simple terms their immunological memory response is probably suboptimal for A (H3N2).
“This might explain why the disease affects this age group disproportionately.”
Whatever year you were born, don’t mess around with the flu.
MATTHEW CONTINETTI: Liberal exhaustion from Oprah to DACA.
What Matthew Walther called Oprahysteria signified nothing less than Democratic leeriness and hesitancy at the coming primary fight. Crowded, aged, liberal, boring, and pale, the emerging 2020 Democratic field is no reason for excitement. Tossing Oprah into the mix livens things up.
But all that’s in the future. The midterms come first. Here, the Democrats are enthusiastic. They have many—some say too many—candidates. After Virginia and Alabama, the wind is at their backs. Trump remains unpopular. All that the Democrats are missing is an agenda. They need something to offer the public. Right now they have nothing.
Don’t tell me they have the Dreamers. Polls might show that legalizing the status of illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children is popular. But the fact is that the attention Dreamers receive from the media is remarkably out of proportion and intensity with their relevance to the everyday voter. When Pew surveyed public priorities a year ago, the top three items were terrorism (76 percent), the economy (73 percent), and education (69 percent). Immigration ranked fifteenth (43 percent) out of twenty-one options.
In the Virginia exit poll last November, immigration was only the third-most important issue, and much of that probably was from Gillespie voters who want the state to fight MS-13. Health care and gun policy were more important to Virginians. So do we really believe Claire McCaskill will begin her appeals to Missourians this fall by saying, “Reelect me, I legalized the Dreamers”?
It’s not so much that it’s a thin bench, but one with all the wrong priorities and worst of all: deadly uninteresting.
MORE FROM TURKEY: Erdogan Accuses U.S. of Creating `Army of Terror’ on Turk Border.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Washington of establishing an “army of terror” along the Turkish border, as his country drew closer to open confrontation with U.S.-backed Kurdish troops in neighboring Syria.
Erdogan, who regards the Kurdish fighters as affiliates of Turkish Kurds battling for autonomy in Turkey’s southeast, said Monday that a Turkish offensive in the Kurdish-controlled town of Afrin in northern Syria was imminent. The spark for the campaign is a new U.S.-backed plan to turn thousands of Syrian Kurds who fought Islamic State into border guards in areas they control along Turkey’s frontier.
Turkey is afraid the Syrian Kurdish fighters’ incorporation into the force will give them cover to stage attacks on Turkey. It also says it will further their aim to consolidate a single autonomous region including Afrin along the Turkish frontier, and embolden PKK separatists the Turkish military has been fighting for more than three decades. Turkish military reinforcements were moved into the Afrin area over the weekend, state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
“Turkey will suffocate this terror army before it’s born,” Erdogan said. “Our preparations have been completed. The operation is due to start any moment. After that, other regions will follow.”
Other regions?
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: What’s the Matter with California?
TOM COBURN: Earmarks Are Inherently Corrupt. Congress Has No Business Resurrecting Pork Barrel Politics.
Ultimately earmarking is not about solving problems, but about the ability of congressmen to take credit for obtaining benefits for their constituents. There is no shortage of federal grant programs that dole out billions of dollars every year to fund almost any conceivable project that demonstrates merit, and even many that do not. But these are awarded based upon merit and competition and therefore do not allow politicians to take as much credit for bringing the bacon back home.
Disclosing the name of each member of Congress requesting an earmark, along with the recipients, while necessary, is not enough to fix the process either. Few, if any, members of Congress read the recently passed tax reform bill or most of the other bills that are approved. How much time would it take to review thousands of pork projects stuffed into a bill before casting a vote, and how many members would actually take the time to do so?
I am disappointed that many within the Republican Party, which is supposed to stand for limited government and fiscal responsibility, are leading the charge to resurrect earmarks. After failing to repeal and replace Obamacare and making no effort whatsoever to balance the budget last year, Washington Republicans are now moving forward with restoring earmarks for special interests and granting amnesty for illegal immigrants. These are the very same issues the Republicans were focused on the last time the party lost its majorities in Congress in 2006.
I wish Coburn hadn’t retired from public office.
COMPETITION: SpaceX and Boeing Slated for Manned Space Missions By Year’s End.
SpaceX’s crewed test flight is slated for December, after an uncrewed flight in August. Boeing will also be demonstrating its CST-100 Starliner capsule, with a crewed flight in November following an uncrewed flight in August.
NASA’s goal is to launch crews to the ISS from U.S. soil, a task that has fallen to Russia’s space program since the retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttle program in 2011. NASA began looking for private launch companies to take over starting in 2010, and contracted both SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 to pursue crewed launches. The push to restore America’s crewed spaceflight capacity has been delayed in part, according to a detailed survey by Ars Technica, by Congress redirecting funds in subsequent years.
The test flights could determine whether Boeing or SpaceX conducts the first U.S. commercial space launch to the ISS. Whichever company gets that honor may also claim a symbolic U.S. flag stuck to a hatch on the space station. Sources speaking to Ars describe the race between the two companies as too close to call, and say that a push to early 2019 is entirely possible. But in an apparent vote of confidence, NASA has already begun naming astronauts to helm the flights.
You might think that a US President in collusion with Russia would be putting up roadblocks in front of these programs.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Sh!thole-gate Continues, Trump’s False Missile Alarm and Much, Much More.
CLAIM: Venezuela Oil Production Recovering, Near 1.9 Mln Bpd, Minister Says.
The OPEC country is facing an economic crisis, with millions suffering food and medicine shortages. Venezuela relies on oil for about 95 percent of export revenue though output has fallen significantly in recent years.
“The year 2018 will be one of recovery, after having touched a historic low. We are now near 1.9 million barrels of oil per day, thanks to the workers,” said Quevedo, a military general, speaking in a television interview.
He gave few details, sticking to general aims like eradicating corruption and placing power in workers’ hands as a means to revive Venezuela’s oil industry.
Veracity of the claim aside, if power is in workers’ hands, then why is the oil company owned by the state and run by a general?
READER CO-BLOGGER BOOK PLUG: I finished up Austin Bay’s Embrace the Suck over the weekend, and the Kindle edition is a steal.
NEWS I HOPE WE NEVER HAVE TO USE: North Korea Plans to Defeat the U.S. Army in a War. Here’s How.
North Korean doctrine spans several types of offensive operations, most of which are standard for most armies, but two of which are particularly interesting. One is infiltration operations: a corps-sized offensive will will attempt to filter almost a division’s worth of troops through U.S. and South Korean lines. “In an infantry corps-level operation, approximately two-thirds of the light infantry brigade and sniper brigade or a total of eight battalions may be given the mission to conduct raids on key targets in the enemy’s rear—artillery positions, vital chokepoints on major roads, or command posts,” the U.S. Army study notes. “This focus on infiltration continues down to all levels: four of six companies from the division light infantry battalion at the division level, one regular infantry company in each regiment, and one regular infantry platoon in each battalion may all receive infiltration missions.”
A “besetment” operation involves surrounding an enemy strong point in order to inflict maximum casualties. “There are four types of besetments: front and one flank; front and two flanks; front and rear; and front, rear, and two flanks,” the U.S. Army study notes. “No matter what type of besetment is chosen, indirect fire will attempt to seal any enemy side not covered by the direct fire.”
Offensive tactics that emphasize constant infiltration into the enemy’s rear and surrounding enemy strong points? Does this sound familiar?
Indeed. It sounds an awful lot like a repeat of the 1950-1953 war, and as the author notes, might not be as effective against 21st Century troops armed with night vision, drones, smart bombs, and the like.
UBER’S SECRET TOOL FOR KEEPING THE COPS IN THE DARK. “At least two dozen times, the San Francisco headquarters locked down equipment in foreign offices to shield files from police raids:”
Most tech companies don’t expect police to regularly raid their offices, but Uber isn’t most companies. The ride-hailing startup’s reputation for flouting local labor laws and taxi rules has made it a favorite target for law enforcement agencies around the world. That’s where this remote system, called Ripley, comes in. From spring 2015 until late 2016, Uber routinely used Ripley to thwart police raids in foreign countries, say three people with knowledge of the system. Allusions to its nature can be found in a smattering of court filings, but its details, scope, and origin haven’t been previously reported.
The Uber HQ team overseeing Ripley could remotely change passwords and otherwise lock up data on company-owned smartphones, laptops, and desktops as well as shut down the devices. This routine was initially called the unexpected visitor protocol. Employees aware of its existence eventually took to calling it Ripley, after Sigourney Weaver’s flamethrower-wielding hero in the Alien movies. The nickname was inspired by a Ripley line in Aliens, after the acid-blooded extraterrestrials easily best a squad of ground troops. “Nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
Other companies have shut off computers during police raids, then granted officers access after reviewing a warrant. And Uber has reason to be cautious with the sensitive information it holds about customers and their locations around the world. Ripley stands out partly because it was used regularly—at least two dozen times, the people with knowledge of the system say—and partly because some employees involved say they felt the program slowed investigations that were legally sound in the local offices’ jurisdictions.
I’ll defer to Glenn’s legal judgement, but at least in some cases Ripley looks an awful lot like obstruction of justice.
JUDICIAL WATCH: Court Orders State Department to Speed Up Production of Clinton Email Records.
Last year, the FBI uncovered 72,000 pages of documents Clinton attempted to delete or did not otherwise disclose. The State Department had been processing the documents at a rate that would have required Judicial Watch and the American people to wait until at least 2020 to see all the releasable Clinton material.
Prior to the FBI investigation, Clinton repeatedly stated that the 55,000 pages of documents she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of her work-related emails. In response to a court order in another Judicial Watch case, she declared under penalty of perjury that she had “directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or are potentially federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done.” Clinton failed to turn over at least 627 emails in that 55,000-page production, further contradicting a statement by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails had been turned over to department.
Judge Boasberg’s November 30 order came in a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on May 6, 2015, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00687)) seeking:
All emails sent or received by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in her official capacity as Secretary of State, as well as all emails by other State Department employees to Secretary Clinton regarding her non-“state.gov” email address.
The court also ordered the State Department to identify and explain the basis for all documents withheld in full from both the 55,000 pages of emails turned over by Clinton and the 72,000 pages of records recovered by the FBI which have been processed thus far by April 6, 2018.
Faster, please.