Weekend Data Dump

This is the basic reason I watch less and less television for news--it stopped being news. See? It really is "fake" news. And while I do prefer Fox news, I watch far less of even that now because of that trend that afflicts all stations and even print/web publications. For example. Opinions and advocacy are not news. Actual reporting is hard, costs money, risks offending your audience if it doesn't get the "right" results, and requires the "reporter" to expand their horizons beyond their Twitter app. Will a station fill that "niche" market for actual news? The sad thing is, it might really be a niche market. Here's the full report. Tip to Instapundit.

I still think this is a bad idea. If it prolongs the Kim regime's pursuit of nukes, in the long run even feeding infants will just lead to more harm to more infants in the future as the regime starves people to pursue nuclear weapons. 

Remember that Russian Facebook ads represented 0.0015% of campaign spending in 2016, 56% of the ads were "shown" after the election, 25% were never even displayed, only 9% of the ads targeted swing states, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Hampshire, and "closer analysis of the actual content of the Russian ad buys shows a mix of content, not strongly biased in any particular direction." So influencing the election was a failure--if it was ever an objective, which I doubt (you think Russians couldn't read polls, too?). At best there is no way to prove the Russians had a any effect. But sowing chaos worked wonders as the Resistance sprouted in fertile fields. Yeah, a lot of Russians got bonuses after that operation. Russia remains Russia.

So how long has the global warming "hiatus" been going on?

Russia is improving their drone arsenal and technology.

Our Navy carried out what the article calls a freedom of navigation operation near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. There are no details other than that the warship sailed within 12 miles of the shoal, so I don't know if it was really a freedom of navigation operation rather than innocent passage--which does not challenge sovereignty claims.

Our program to encourage new treaty allies to ditch Soviet weapons for American or Western equipment made sense; but I don't know how it makes sense applied more broadly. If you like Russian or Chinese prices, bribes, and lack of strings on how the weapons are used, I'm not sure why you'd switch.

I pray for Peak Stupid but the boundaries keep getting pushed higher.

Technology makes it harder to conduct human intelligence with undercover agents. And unfortunately China adapted faster while the West is struggling to catch up.

I remain amused in a horrified sort of way that Halima Aden's "burkini" pictures are considered by some to be "liberating" for Moslem women. In the West, pretty much anything a woman does is tolerated if not accepted or even celebrated. Equality and all that. But try that form of burkini liberation in a place where actual Islamists run things and those women will get a harsh lesson on the strict limits of their liberation.

Reviewing military options is a routine thing when we have a potential military problem. So this comparison of Iran options to the wrongly reviled Iraq War--which was fully justified and, as Obama and Biden claimed, we won--is pure advocacy rather than news.

No human rights activists give a damn about massive Syrian torture of Assad's opponents in a gulag system--"a secret, industrial-scale system of arbitrary arrests and torture prisons has been pivotal to his success." If America fails to offer sufficient seconds of rice pilaf to a jihadi prisoner, global campaigns of outrage are carried out. For Assad? A news article, but otherwise the silence of the human rights activist lambs and the news media which has better things to advocate for. Still kudos to the New York Times for even writing about it without trying to blame it on Trump.

ISIL claims a Pakistan province now. Pakistan tried to cultivate "tame" jihadis who would only target Pakistan's enemies. How's that working out for you guys?

Australia has taken on a key role in hunting for North Korea trade sanction violators at sea.

America is less racist since 2016. That's not what I've been told by the media and my moral superiors; but at least there are still pockets of segregation that would make neo-Confederates and neo-Nazis smile. Oh, and about that rising anti-Semitism. Tips to Instapundit.

Staying in Iraq helps America by preventing the re-rise of jihadis in Iraq, of course. But it is also in our interest to roll back Iranian influence that rose dangerously in the aftermath of the ISIL takeover of northern Iraq in 2014. An Iraq secure enough to resist Iranian pressure to open Iraqi territory to Iranian military supplies heading to Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon over that "land bridge" would be very useful.

Where the war on American news media is real. Tip to Instapundit.

I'm inclined to believe they are as crazy as they claim to be. Tip to Instapundit. Exhibit A?

While the Army notes great advances in recruiting in a few cities as part of its new program to recruit in areas that traditionally haven't provided them, no overall statistics are provided. So I don't assume my proposal in Army magazine is not needed.

What the Austrian politician tried to do was clearly wrong, but is it collusion with Russia as the article alleges? I ask because the article speaks of an Austrian politician attempting to deal with "a woman he believed to be the wealthy niece of a Russian oligarch" and "a supposed Russian millionaire" and says working with the Russians is "a charge the Strache video appears to confirm." How does it confirm actual collusion? It may prove an attempt to collude with Russians to do something illegal. But where are the actual Russians?

I thought the Turkish defense of charges of genocide in World War I was at least partially plausible. And it was convenient to accept that defense at a time when Turkey was a solid ally against the USSR. But I did not know that it was part of a 30-year history of mass murder of Christians by the Turks. That kills the plausibility. And Erdogan has forfeited any benefit of the doubt for his country.

What? Food aid might have to be suspended because of Houthi interference? That can't be. I've been assured by Iranian propaganda eagerly picked up by Western media that Saudi Arabia is at fault.

China will happily make up for any Western sanctions placed on Myanmar over the treatment of the Rohingya people, which would help China confront India with an outpost on the Bay of Bengal that has overland lines of communication back to China.

Well yeah, it is hard to argue against the basic point. And if the West was on military offense (as Napoleon futilely attempted in the author's example--although France's military edge was in adding the people to the traditional government-army team, so was France's edge really military at its heart?) trying to conquer all our foes regardless of the nature of their threat I'd say the point was strongly relevant. But when under actual physical attack or threat of attack the military does have to be the first line of defense. Still, as I've said again and again in regard to the war on (jihadi) terror, our military operations simply hold the line until the Moslem world can resolve their civil war over who gets to define Islam--the jihadis or normal Moslems.

Of course they won't attend. Palestinian leadership never misses an opportunity to squander a chance to help their people have better lives.

Again, don't neglect the threat China's expanding economy poses. That's one reason I am theoretically willing to take some risks with our military posture--a sound and large economy is the foundation of resisting a rising Chinese military. Although if cuts to the military are just spent on programs that have nothing to do with allowing our economy to expand, we get the worst of both worlds. Let's win the Great Trade War.

If the Pentagon is keeping reporters in the dark about the confrontation with Iran, why in the absence of actual information is the media openly speculating about a pending war that nobody in America actually wants? It's almost as if they are supporting the Iran-Democrat line.

Ukraine's new president Zelensky want to end the war with Russia and recover its lost territories. Obviously the order of pursuing those objectives affects the other one. I'd start out by sending Russia a bill for the rent--plus damages--owed for Crimea and Russian-occupied Donbas going back to 2014.

An Air Force Reserve squadron of F-16s deployed to Romania.

At least that stupid SAT addition of an "adversity" score comes barely too late to harm my daughter.  Hopefully the folly of the idea will be obvious by the time my grandchildren go to college.

Fear and justice?

Seriously, why would we want to initiate war against Iran when we have the advantage short of war?

Six months of French yellow vest protests. It seems more like an annoyance to the government than a real threat to its policies.

Turkey will go forward with the S-400 purchase from Russia. Which will save us from the fact that we don't have an S-400 problem with Turkey--we have an Erdogan problem that won't be resolved by Turkey rejecting the S-400.

I think Lindh should have been executed, but that's just me perhaps. But now he is out. You don't convert these nutballs to normality. You just keep them away from other people forever.

Another exciting tale about what's a matter from Wossamotta University (with bonus Russian plotting)!

I find polls like this absolutely worthless. Am I mistaken to note that the people who claim that destroying the Saddam regime in Iraq was a gift to Iran--like that is a bad thing (although it is not true)--are now rushing to defend Iran against a supposed rush to war (which is also not true)? Is it wrong to help Iran or wrong to harm Iran? Or is the point of those complaints just to complain about whatever America does? Okay, now I'm just asking rhetorical questions.

A Boko Haram "hearts and minds" strategy won't last long. for jihadis it always ends up with them telling people "You don't mind if we stab you in the heart, right?"

Iran has returned most of their fighters in Syria back to Lebanon and demobilized them; and in Syria they are less active. All because Iran under sanctions has less money. Does this mean that Israel has lost its best opportunity to hammer Hezbollah in Lebanon?

Large American warships returned to the Persian Gulf after clearing out when tensions rose. Getting out was a wise precaution. Our smaller stuff remained, of course. Which is also good.

Prime Minister Modi handily won reelection in India.

New Xiland? This is bad. There could be a sixth "eye" now. Tip to Instapundit.