[NewYorker] It has been an interminable month since Elon Musk assumed control of Twitter and showed up in its headquarters while carrying a bathroom sink. (In a leaden pun that foreshadowed what was to come, Musk tweeted, “let that sink in.”) The platform has since shed two-thirds of its workforce; lost half of its top hundred advertisers, including Citigroup, Merck pharmaceuticals, and Chevrolet; witnessed the rushed introduction and abrupt cancellation of a laughable subscription-payment scheme; reinstated the account of a former President who used the platform to promote a violent attack on the United States Capitol; and lost at least more than a million users. You can tell from the last sentence what the substance of his editorial is: there is no substance. There was no attack on DC, but there were a series of attacks with actual destruction and deaths on several major cities by elements sympathetic to the author's cause. Amazing, still, the author ignores similar protests over the previous 16 years against Republican presidents in the capital building, but the 2020 protest was an "attack on democracy." It makes this author a dishonest broker of information, by not trading and dealing with all information but trading only that which bolsters his absurd claims.
Last week, after fourteen years on the platform, I became one of them. Former Twitter users, like digital expats, have turned up on new shores—platforms such as Mastodon and Post News—with hopes of re-creating some semblance of their former online community minus the toxicity that sent them into exile. On November 20th, the Mastodon handle @LauraMartinez posted, “I’m here because Elon broke Twitter,” which was more of a summary of what a great many people felt about the old platform than a zealous endorsement of the buggy, complicated new one. And feelings are what matters in this trope, not facts, and certainly not principles.
This is a loss because, for all of Twitter’s flaws, people stuck with it for a reason. A decade ago, when Tony Wang, Twitter’s general manager in the U.K., notably described the platform as the “free speech wing of the free speech party,” he was defending users who had violated British law by sharing the details of public figures who had obtained privacy injunctions from U.K. courts. It was easy in those early days, when the heady afterglow of the Arab Spring still cast social media in a favorable light, to think of Twitter as simply the new frontier of digital democracy. Even after the platform’s unsavory practices, such as its monetization of users’ attention spans and its algorithmic manipulations, became more broadly known, Twitter still offered enough trade-offs to potentially redeem itself. I have been with Twitter since 2009, using it at first as a sort of bird dog to find news stories relevant to the Mexican drug war. When Twitter hired a kommie karpet muncher as their chief torturer, I shrugged it off as a sinecure, until people with unacceptable political views started to get thrown off. From that time, it just got worse and worse until Trump was taken off Twitter. Musk made it better by offering their old accounts back, which Trump has yet accept.
Scroll back to May 26, 2020, the day after the excruciating video of George Floyd’s murder went viral on the platform. First, a large crowd gathered on the streets of Minneapolis, then in Oakland, and then in Pensacola, and even in Frisco, Texas, and outside the Iowa Statehouse. Online outrage begat outrage in the streets. The flow of communication was lateral, not vertical. People informed their peers about the nature of our government’s failings. Were it not for social media, George Floyd
...drug addict who died of an overdose after “hooping”...
—along with Ahmaud Arbery
...neighbourhood jogger, serious shoplifter, possible housebreaker, though that has not been proven and his mother said he was a good boy...
and Breonna Taylor
...nursing student and trustworthy partner in all senses to her friendly neighbourhood drug dealers...
—would likely have joined the long gallery of invisible dead Black people, citizens whose bureaucratized deaths were hidden and ignored. This is what was at stake, quietly and loudly, when Musk acquired Twitter. What was actually at stake was the unfettered right to respond unfavorably to the media coverage of the death of a drug addict. The other two deaths apparently were thrown into this discussion to bolster a false claim of conspiracy by white folks. I find it odd that the author has a problem with Trump having a voice on Twitter, but ignores a far worse racist in Joe Biden. I guess credentials really do matter in the author's head, and he does a good job of juggling some and ignoring others.
The deaths of the other two were likewise used as excuses by Black Lives Matter activists to lambaste the local police and rampage through the community during scheduled protests. The author clearly is uninterested in the fact that the Black Bloc anarcho-communist syndicalists of BLM/Antifa for years used Twitter to plan and publicize their violent “protests”. One hopes Mr. Musk will soon act to shut down such activity.
The singular virtue of the fiasco over which Musk has presided is the possibility that the outcome will sever, at least temporarily, the American conflation of wealth with intellect. Market valuation is not proof of genius. Ahead of the forty-four-billion-dollar deal that gave Musk private control of Twitter, he proclaimed that he would “unlock” the site’s potential if given the chance. His admirers hailed his interest with glee. Musk has been marketed as a kind of can-do avatar, a magical mix of Marvel comics and Ayn Rand, despite serial evidence to the contrary, like the allegations of abusive treatment of Tesla workers. I think what is far more important is to permanently sever the link of democratic opinions with pedophilia, and all the policies that that entails.
Musk’s vision for Twitter, never entirely coherent, cracked at first contact with economic reality. His disdain for advertising meant that the companies purchasing ads would view him warily. Moreover, his lifting of bans on Twitter’s most truculent users inspired understandable fear from advertisers that their products would appear next to homophobic, racist, sexist or generally misanthropic tweets. Musk’s desire to replace lost ad revenue with subscriptions—while simultaneously reducing content moderation—made even less sense. He, effectively, asked people to pay for membership in a community where they were now more likely to be abused. ”Abused” is a word used to mean engaged in verbal exchanges. It is what freedom means. And as an aside, I can count on one hand the number of ads I have seen. Those that I have seen, because I am not on ganja, I could not say whether they were next to "homophobic, racist, sexist or generally misanthropic tweets." If they were I apparently ignored a possible nexus. There were tools then available to a Twitter user to block those tweets, and I assume there still are.
Participating in Twitter—with its world-spanning reach, its potential to radically democratize our discourse along with its virtue mobs and trolls—always required a cost-benefit analysis. That analysis began to change, at least for me, immediately after Musk took over. His reinstatement of Donald Trump’s account made remaining completely untenable. Following an absurd Twitter poll about whether Trump should be allowed to return, Musk reinstated the former President. The implication was clear: if promoting the January 6, 2021, insurrection—which left at least seven people dead and more than a hundred police officers injured—doesn’t warrant suspension to Musk, then nothing else on the platform likely could. Then it's a good thing the author leaves, because he is allergic to facts.
Musk’s ownership is markedly different from the one that preceded it. He took the company private, and Twitter is no longer a publicly traded entity. In a sense, the users whose tweets drive what remains of its shrinking ad revenue are his most important employees. My sepia-tinted memories of what Twitter was—or could possibly have become—dissolved at the prospect of stuffing money in the pocket of the richest man on the planet. Yet leaving has yielded its own complications, including unwinding connections to sources, colleagues, and roughly four hundred thousand followers. The alternatives that have gained prominence in recent weeks do not offer the same reach, or the rich vein of dissimilarity across social and geographic lines, that were some of the best aspects of Twitter. As the Times observed of disgruntled conservatives, vowing to leave Twitter is easier than actually doing so. Sux to be you, Jelani.
My decision to leave yielded a tide of farewells but also two other types of responses. The first was low-grade trolling that had the effect of validating my decision to depart. But the second was more nuanced and complicated, an argument that leaving offered a concession to the abusive, reactionary elements whose presence has become increasingly prominent since Musk took over. One person paraphrased the writer Sarah Kendzior, urging users to “never cede ground in an information war.”
Those arguments are increasingly frail, though. If there is, in fact, an information war raging on Twitter, Musk is a profiteer. Twitter is what it always was: a money-making venture—just more nakedly so. And it now subsidizes a billionaire who understands free speech to be synonymous with the right to abuse others. (While claiming to champion free speech, Musk has selectively granted it, suspending accounts that are critical of him and firing employees who dissented from his view of how the company should be run.) The tech industry’s gimmick to monetize our attention has been astoundingly successful even if Twitter has habitually struggled to be profitable. In the end, Musk’s leadership of the company appears to be a cynical form of trolling—creating a welcoming environment for some of the platform’s worst actors while simultaneously hailing his new order for its inclusivity. And more synonymous with the right to act like you need help to avoid interacting with those whose politics doesn't match your own. Help which includes denying the right of others to express views unacceptable to you.
To the extent that people remain active on Twitter, they preserve the fragile viability of Musk’s gambit. The illusory sense of community that still lingers on the platform is one of Musk’s most significant assets. No matter which side prevails, the true victor in any war is the person selling weapons to both sides. It seems likely that this experiment will conclude with bankruptcy and Twitter falling into the hands of creditors who will have their own ideas of what it should be and whom it should serve. But at least in the interim it’s worth keeping in mind that some battles are simply not worth fighting, some battles must be fought, but none are worth fighting on terms set by those who win by having the conflict drag on endlessly.
[YouTube] Military modernization is a complex task for any state. Individual system selection is usually based on competitive trials and an extensive review and evaluation process.
Usually.
Poland's plans are a little different - ordering what is basically an entire new army's worth of equipment (with more tanks than many other major European states combined) from the Republic of Korea without any sort of extended trials process.
In this episode, I ask the question of why a country in Europe would suddenly buy 1,000 tanks and hundreds of artillery pieces from a country half way around the world without so much as a trials program for the tank.
To comment on why Poland may have selected the K2 - I've invited back the Chieftain to give a tanker's expert view on the question.
Thank you as always for engaging with this study of defence economics in action, and we'll return to topics examining the Ukraine war next week.
Caveats:
There are two big caveats over this one.
The first is that announcements (as used as a key source here) doesn't always mean a program will deliver on time or as announced. 1,000 tanks ordered could become 500, delivery times might change etc. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they PROBABLY WILL change in many respects. This is a massive block of procurement that will challenge the heck out of any procurement office, let alone one that has not had to deal with this volume in recent years.
The second is that some statements are based on what you might call industry rumour, scuttlebutt, 'common knowledge' or what have you. I have tried to flag these where they come up.
#2
The video breaks it down like that and the K2 being customized for Poland. Seems like the K2s, which are lighter and can snorkel are meant for south-east Poland where there are more rivers and bridges the M-1 is too heavy for. M1s going to be up by north-eastern Poland by Belarus where it is flat with fewer water obstacles.
[ARABNEWS] Recent statements by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ...the GOP house majority whip. He replaces Eric Cantor, who got whupped because his politix are like Kevin McCarthy's... have angered the progressive left-wing movement in the Democratic Party ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... and some Islamist groups that use nonprofit organizations as a front for implementing questionable political agendas. McCarthy vowed that if he were selected speaker of the House, he would remove representative Ilhan Omar Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2022 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia
#1
Omar speaks for Moslems in the same way that AOC speaks for Latinos.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
11/28/2022 8:25 Comments ||
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#2
When are they going to have Drag Queen Story Hours at the mosque?
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/28/2022 9:39 Comments ||
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#3
^ muzzists are very much in favor of anything that promotes western decadence and decline. They are for the most part careful to not get any on themselves.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/28/2022 10:46 Comments ||
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[OneIndia] While the top politicianship and army are busy in power struggle, a tanking economy, backbreaking inflation, massive unemployment and sporadic violence have further added to the woes of the common man who continues to seek comfort in Islamic mores. Land Of The Pure™. Take succor in Islam, suckers.
What will happen in Pakistain? Is it heading towards a civil war? Will it suffer another breakup the way it had during 1971? Certain unprecedented events that have shaken the Islamic state in the preceding few months have given rise to all sorts of speculations.
After long, Pakistain has seen rise of a popular leader of stature of Imran Khan
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/28/2022 00:30 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
Note: No mention is made of Pak military's historic involvement in drug trafficking.
For recent developments: ‘Pakistan Army, Taliban linked to narcotics trafficking, terrorism’; NATO report Sep 28, 2022: The Pakistan Army and the Taliban are connected to the narcotics trade in a ‘unholy’ way, according to a NATO investigation. The Defence Education Enhancement Program’s paper focuses on the expansion of the drug trade from both Kabul and Islamabad, [and] the relationship between drug trafficking and terrorism. The narco-trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan was facilitated by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the military intelligence organisation of Pakistan, according to a 2022 study titled ‘Narco-Insecurity, Inc’. According to research, the ISI carried out covert operations in collaboration with jihadist organisations that shared its goals. ...all largely relied on drug trafficking to finance terrorist activities, according to South Asia Press.
#2
Slavising, even the Paki civil bureaucracy earns a hefty monthly cut from the kidnapping, birthing and raising of children for beggary and prostitution. These are managed by the criminal underworld which is headed by the likes of Dawood Ibrahim etc. Plus, there's two trafficking corridors through the NWFP, Tajikistan into Europe and one into Saudi Arabia for children that may be attractive. The lowest of low criminals, Pakis. A goddamn lunacy letting a Paki moslem into any of your countries.
#8
It's fun to get Paki telemarketers and scam artists on the phone and tease them. They get very angry and obscene very quickly when they realize you're putting them on.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/28/2022 14:06 Comments ||
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#9
China is reportedly pressing Pakistain to permit Chinese security agencies to provide security for their personnel which, Islamabad is resisting as it meant boots on the ground for Chinese forces.
Wouldn't that be fun?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/28/2022 14:16 Comments ||
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[ARABNEWS] The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps announced on Wednesday the death of Col. Daoud Jafari, who was a senior adviser to the Iranian Air Force in Syria. According to Iranian media, Israelis killed him in a blast near Damascus.
The killing indicates Israel's elaborate plan to counter any Iranian military presence in Syria and is an attempt to diminish Iranian military capabilities, which pose a threat to Israel's national security.
Israel appears to be expanding its tactics by assassinations of Iranian individuals and Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s against Iranian militias in Syria.
The liquidation of Col. Jafari was carefully planned and carried out by attaching an explosive to his vehicle. This operation required a new kind of logistical preparation and intelligence on the ground.
It is worth noting that the killing took place near the town of Sayyidah Zaynab (Sitt Zaynab), south of the capital Damascus. This town was turned into the headquarters of Iranian militias during the Syrian war.
Despite the significant military presence, Israel managed to infiltrate Iran's security in order to carry out the liquidation.
However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... what happened raises questions. How was Israel able to build intelligence "sleeper cells" in the most fortified areas that are the command center for Iranian gunnies and their non-Syrian loyalists?
Moreover, has the Syrian regime become so weak that it cannot protect its Iranian allies on its own soil?
This inability to respond to Israeli military operations has diminished support for the Assad regime in the eyes of its remaining Syrian loyalists.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against Iranian militias in Syria in recent years, especially Lebanese Hezbollah, which is considered Tehran's arm in the region.
It seems that the killing of the Iranian general in Syria is a continuation of the aerial bombing operations targeting the Iranian military headquarters in Syria, but in a more complex and thorough manner.
Israel has previously targeted people associated with Iran, but with airstrikes, not explosives on the ground.
On March 19, 2015, Israel orchestrated the liquidation of Samir Kuntar, a senior Hezbollah member who was killed in Damascus after Israeli warplanes bombed an apartment building where Kuntar was staying at the time.
Another example is the liquidation of Jihad Imad Mughniyeh, the leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, and son of Imad Mughniyeh, one of the party's senior military commanders. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his convoy in Quneitra, southwestern Syria, on Jan. 18, 2018. It is clear that the liquidation of Col. Jafari cannot be separated from recent Israeli operations in Iranian territory.
On June 12, Iranian media close to the Revolutionary Guards reported that Ali Kamani and Mohammed Abdous, two members of the Revolutionary Guards air space unit, were killed in the cities of Khamen and Semnan. Kamani and Abdous had worked on developing and producing weapons for Lebanese Hezbollah. Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... blamed Israel for both killings.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2022 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Martyrdom hurts.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
11/28/2022 10:48 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[NewYorker] It has been an interminable month since Elon Musk assumed control of Twitter and showed up in its headquarters while carrying a bathroom sink. (In a leaden pun that foreshadowed what was to come, Musk tweeted, “let that sink in.”) The platform has since shed two-thirds of its workforce; lost half of its top hundred advertisers, including Citigroup, Merck pharmaceuticals, and Chevrolet; witnessed the rushed introduction and abrupt cancellation of a laughable subscription-payment scheme; reinstated the account of a former President who used the platform to promote a violent attack on the United States Capitol; and lost at least more than a million users. 
"A billion monthly users...."
[YouTube] Military modernization is a complex task for any state. Individual system selection is usually based on competitive trials and an extensive review and evaluation process. 
...every time you hear the phrase 
...
