Cannot Remain In Power: What That Means Without Any NATO Attack

Information Gap

If Putin's rule could survive Russians learning what its government was doing at Putin's instructions, Putin would not have suddenly changed the law to prevent Russians calling his invading Ukraine a "war" and closed all the independent news outlets in Russia. He knows his rule depends on misleading Russians. It's a lesson he learned while in the KGB, helping to mislead Russian and East German workers whose output was captured for the benefit of the regimes' political elites. Putin may have been deceived by Soviet propaganda about Russia's history, but he certainly understood his government employers did not try in any way to deliver Russians communism – ordinary Russians didn't control the means of production in Russia, did not choose how Russian resources would be allocated, and were prevented from achieving reform by farce elections that existed only for propaganda purposes (anyone operating a reform party was killed or incarcerated). Putin knew Russia's government existed for the benefit of its political elite, and he's worked to become the head of that political elite and to restore what he regards as the tragically lost glory of Stalin's Soviet empire.

Putin's miserly grip on true facts is killing Russians. Consider the soldiers who had no knowledge of the history of Chernobyl – why would Putin-authorized schools and media allow information about Russians causing the world's most notorious and nasty nuclear disaster? Ordered to seize Chernobyl with no forewarning of its dangers, soldiers not only stirred up radioactive dust driving vehicles through danger zones but dug trenches in areas so toxic facility oversight workers were forbidden even to go there. The deaths aren't all over-the-horizon horrors of dying slowly at home in a later year: in the first month Putin has gotten as much as 25% of his entire invasion force killed. This is a direct result of what onlookers have noted as a surprising inability to execute combined arms: Putin's armor has advanced without infantry support so armored elements could be picked off and destroyed by anti-armor infantry weapons like the NLAW and Javelin (or mines) which have been delivered to Ukraine in quantities that significantly outnumber Putin's entire inventory of tanks; advancing infantry has consistently lacked close air support; artillery hasn't supported armor; in essence, each of Putin's infantry, armor, artillery, and air units have been acting in relative isolation, and without the coordination required to execute military maneuvers at the skill and effectiveness NATO forces have trained to achieve. Putin's police state, apparently assuming that its information campaigns and not its huge numbers of troops have allowed it to swallow tiny opponents, grievously misunderstood the nature of the conflict it started in Ukraine.

The death toll isn't a diversion from the discussion of information, but a consequence of Putin's iron-fisted control over the distribution of facts. A Western military conducting a ground assault would empower a local officer to receive intelligence from every available source so that commands could be given across all military branches to achieve a joint mission intelligently integrating armor, artillery, bombing operations, infantry, close air support, and intelligence. Imagine for a moment how long Putin would last in office if some office other than his own had such broad access to information and military command. Would he last a week? The fact Western militaries do this all the time without governments collapsing in a coup shows that Western governments have the support of their people: they possess what in a democracy passes for legitimacy, which is broad popular support. Putin does not. In a Putinesque government, legitimacy is the fact of rule as maintained by bribe or threat and nothing more.

Putin can't let local commanders coordinate or he'd be out of a job and he knows it. Putin can't give his commanders the ability to perform like Western forces. This isn't something Putin can learn from: this is a fundamental flaw in Putin's entire style of government.

Ukrainian Capabilities

From the outset, Ukrainian civilians have opposed Russian invaders, refusing to collaborate with invaders (for which some were murdered), and poisoning occupiers. The crimes committed against Ukrainians have galvanized them against Russia. The enormous catalog of photos available online of Russian armor standing in a derelict shambles in Ukraine proves Ukraine is willing to engage Russia's armor, and the fact Ukraine has retaken towns Russia formerly occupied proves that it is capable of succeeding in offense against Russian infantry. The scores of Russian aircraft lost so far demonstrate it can do what Afghans did for more than nine years of occupation and make air operations a sphincter-puckering experience for Russians.

Russian claims about its destruction of Ukrainian personnel and equipment are pretty easily debunked: had Putin's forces obliterated more than 50% of Ukraine's inventory of tanks or artillery,  Ukraine's military would no longer be an effective fighting force. Yet, it's Russian forces in retreat. While Russia has managed to capture several small military watercraft, it's lost a landing craft and suffered damage to another landing craft and a patrol boat. Out of the water, the tables are turned: Ukraine has destroyed at least 62 Russian aircraft, the number Oryx has been independently able to verify through photographic evidence, while losing 30. Oryx has confirmed Russia's loss of 2608 ground vehicles including 448 tanks, of which 182 have been captured by Ukraine and turned against Putin; Oryx has confirmed Ukraine has lost 697 vehicles, including 95 tanks. This means Ukraine's tank count may have actually increased since the start of the invasion as its forces have captured from Putin more tanks than it has lost in battle. Other sources make Russia's losses to Ukraine look much grimmer: since Russia is unable to field precision munitions, the only way its aircraft can hit anything on the ground is to make a bombing run that is low enough for visual targeting, which drives planes directly into the teeth of the air defense Russians have no hope to suppress – man-portable anti-air rockets of the kind NATO countries have been showering Ukraine. Three weeks into the war Ukraine was claiming 77 aircraft kills, and the New York Times radio intercepts included numerous ignored pleas by a Russian armor radioman for close air support that never came. Russians can't do what they want with air.

Russians may be able to murder Ukrainian civilians at will, but they've been unable to defeat Ukraine's military forces anywhere. Citing Ukrainian sources, Pravda reports Ukraine has killed 16,600 invading Russian soldiers, a number greater than Russia's losses over several years in Chechnya or even its nine-plus-year campaign in Afghanistan.

Putin's Ambitions

Anyone who has been watching understood Putin planned to take the rest of Ukraine after he ordered it partially seized in 2014. His blatant invasion lacks the middle-of-the-night quietness of salami-slicing border encroachment committed by prior regimes, by China into India, or even by Putin into Georgia. Aggression hasn't worked out for Putin in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine: within the first two weeks Putin lost up to 10% of his combat forces – the very definition of "decimation."

Since Putin committed Russia's entire deployable force, there's nothing with which he can quickly reinforce troops he sacrificed to wood chipper that is Ukraine. Accordingly, Putin has been scraping to find soldiers he can re-allocate from occupation of Georgia (which Putin invaded in 2008), mercenaries from Syria and Putin's advertising campaigns targeted at Russians who have previously murdered civilians abroad, and a tyrant enthusiasts from war-ridden places like Chechnya. Putin's pleas for Belarusian soldiers have not met with success: Belarus' dictator owes his office to Putin's intervention, but Belarusians are dissatisfied with his sham elections, and Belarusians are undermining their dictator's effort to support Putin's war in Ukraine. Putin's work to keep Belarus under the boot of a puppet dictator has, in fact, made Belarusians enter Ukraine to kill Russians. Foreign volunteers motivated to defend against Putin for free might not actually reach the reported 20,000, but even so may dwarf the number Russia has been able to hire or import. One of the major foreign fighter groups in Ukraine is the Georgian Legion, which since 2014 has been striking back at the dictator who invaded their homeland; they're training other foreigners (including many from English-speaking countries). Since 2016 the legion has swelled from about one hundred fighters to hundreds of applications per day.

Putin's biggest enemy may be the shocking incompetence of his own regime. His army can't manage to get a column of vehicles to Kyiv on a paved road. The missiles he's firing into Ukraine have a fail rate approaching 60%. And he's not going to make it up in volume: he seems to be running out of inventory (other arguments here). The fact he wasn't ready for the war he started has been something of a shock to observers. Forces sent to capture Kyiv included elite Russian units like the now-decimated 331st Guards Parachute Regiment. Decisions to staff logistical roles with conscripts who haven't been on job even a single year hasn't helped keep Russian invaders supplied with food or armaments. Although Putin has just ordered another 134,500 men to be conscripted into the Russian army, they won't be of much help until trained. Also, deploying conscripts in a foreign war violates Russian law, and Putin's own claims, though he has been contradicted by Russian military sources who confirm Russia indeed ordered conscripts deployed to war to Putin's "special military operation" in Ukraine. The domestic effect of this news is severe enough that Putin made a public announcement ordering military prosecutors to identify and bring charges against those who sent conscripts into Ukraine in his invasion's first phase. Putin claims that these conscripts won't be sent to Ukraine, but time will prove him a liar as the vanishing Russian soldiers begin contradicting Putin's propaganda that everything is going to plan.

Apparently, part of the plan is shoddy equipment. Instead of military-grade communications with encryption, Russian soldiers have been found using unencrypted off-the shelf handheld walkie-talkies from budget Chinese manufacturers. Accordingly, their disorganization and panic can be heard on open channels, as captured by The New York Times. Russians' discussion of their own war crimes can be captured by German intelligence services. 

Considering the huge trove of photographs showing Russian armored personnel carriers and tanks destroyed in every corner of Ukraine, it's hard to see how Russia can sustain war while it can't build more military equipment. Check out this image, showing Russia removing from Ukraine the scrapped husks of destroyed Russian armor:

Looking at this photo casts in a new light all the photos shown of Russian armor rusting by a roadside or laying upside down or standing in a roadway with the turret blown free of the body: how many more of those we'd see if Russia had been able to spirit away more of the physical evidence.

Speaking of evidence, Putin's propaganda that Russians are carefully targeting exclusively military targets while providing humanitarian assistance to locals has been undermined by drone and satellite footage showing Russian forces slaughtering fleeing motorists, murdering bicyclists, shooting civilians in a bread line, and Russians killed civilians and left their corpses on the street before Ukrainians could possibly have created a staged scene. Russians killed and wounded civilians indiscriminately while committing an airstrike against a maternity hospital in Mariupol, which is not an isolated incident: Putin's forces have destroyed every single hospital in Chernihiv. By March 26, 2022, Russians had launched more than 70 separate attacks on Ukraine's hospitals and the World Health Organization said the number grew daily. The fact Russian soldiers are robbing civilians during their invasion is proved by the fact Ukrainian survivors can track their robbers' movements as they retreat with stolen Apple devices trackable by their owners. 

Looting expensive consumer tech isn't necessary to Russia's advance, but with Russian logistics in the toilet Russian soldiers have been looting grocery stores and living out of civilian houses and committing other criminal acts against civilians while driven to otherwise avoidable contact. Russia can't supply soldiers. So, it's little wonder all the evil Putin can order has failed to take Ukraine. It has, instead, galvanized against Russia virtually everyone capable of receiving uncensored news. Germans, who long disdained active military activity beyond their borders and resisted spending on defense what NATO encourages its members to spend, have escalated from sending Ukraine non-lethal aid like helmets to sending antitank and antiaircraft missiles while bumping defense spending above NATO's recommended 2% threshold. Putin's effort to strangle democracy in neighboring nations – Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus – has driven democracies together.

Sanctions have halted Putin's ability to restore lost force-projection capacity. For example, the two principal factories that make and rebuild Russia's tanks and armored personnel carriers have been shuttered for lack of parts formerly imported from Europe, which is Russia's most leading trading partner. Putin's aircraft lost their source for repair parts. Russia may have the ability to manufacture small arms, but vehicles? Putin had a hard enough time moving soldiers away from a railway when his ability to amass war matériel stood unobstructed. Now his power to project force is gone.

International condemnation isn't mere words: substantial changes in international trade posture has created a long-term and growing problem for Russia, the impact of which is already contracting the Russian economy. To prop up the Rouble with deposits in Russian banks, Putin had Russian banks more than double the interest rate to 20% – but inflation was forecast at 24%, but the White House Economic Council reported April 5 that current inflation in Russia stood at 2% per week or 200% per year. 

Putin wanted to live in the Soviet Union again … and now he does. He'll better understand how the Soviet Union he served through the '80s collapsed in the early '90s by making it happen again under his watch.

He'll throw bodies at this problem – and, like all those sent to their fruitless destruction in Afghanistan, they'll die.

Hilary's Worst Nightmare? Not Trump: Sanders.

In explaining his decision to run for President, Trump described himself as Hilary's worst nightmare.  Trump hasn't been reading the news.  According to CNN, Bernie Sanders would beat Trump by an even larger margin than Hillary Clinton.

Hillary's worst nightmare is a real liberal, capable of getting liberal votes instead of merely getting "Defeat the Republicans" votes.

To emphasize: Bernie Sanders had better polling against Trump than Hillary Clinton.  Among registered voters surveyed for the CNN poll,  Clinton would beat Trump 56% to 40%, whereas Sanders would defeat Trump 59% to 38%.

As for Trump, his "I'm not Hillary Clinton" candidacy doesn't seem to have done him much good among voters, even if he's got the highest name recognition in the un-thinned Republican field.

Cop Killers

A "Black Lives Matter" activist named Sandra Bland died recently in the jail of Waller County, Texas.  Sandra Bland, 28, was about to begin a new job at Texas A&M University before she was killed in custody.  Pulled over ostensibly for failure to signal a lane change, she was arrested rather than cited.  To defend itself from criticism of the arrest, the department released a video showing her arrest by an officer who later asserted the unarmed woman had "assaulted" him.  Although the video contains obvious signs of editing, the department denies that the video was ever edited.

Speaking with her mother about her new job, Bland had said, "My purpose is to go back to Texas and stop all social injustice in the South."

Well, Waller County had an answer for that, didn't it?

Instead of protecting the citizens, police in the United States have a developed a reputation for using force to coerce citizens into complying with a variety of ridiculous demands (why did Sandra need to exit her vehicle to receive a citation for failure to signal a lane change?), or skipping the demands and moving straight to the killing.  The police killing of Caroline Small emphasizes the ability of police to kill unarmed civilians with impunity even if they aren't men trying to purchase an unloaded air rifle at Walmart, or for allegedly shoplifting.  Maybe – at least in New York, when the officer is a rookie – there's at least an apology for killing a civilian for deciding to take the stairs.  The culture of killing American civilians is an epidemic among U.S. law enforcement.  Suicide by cop just doesn't work in places like the United Kingdom:  they don't kill people.  While acknowledging that the United States has a greater population (~319 million) than the United Kingdom (~64 million), the rate of police killings of civilians is vastly different than the population difference:  despite that U.S. data on police killings is incomplete because reporting to the F.B.I. is purely voluntary, the U.S. death toll from "justifiable" killings by police was more than 400 individuals, while British police discharged their weapons in the line of duty a grand total of three (3) times, with zero fatalities.  British shootings of civilians by police is extremely controversial even in the case of a known gangster.  In the U.S., the hypermilitarized "police" now occupying our cities seem virtually expected to kill.  For some real perspective:  U.S. police killed more people this March than U.K. police have killed since 1900.  Last year, the death toll was 1,100 killed in the U.S. compared to twenty-six (26) in the U.S.  This isn't some multiple based on population difference, it's a cultural problem in U.S. "police" forces.

American General Notices Putin's Thugocracy A Threat

At least someone's noticing Putin's innocent-faced invasion of its neighbor illustrates the harm he's willing to cause when convenient.  In order to conceal the scope of the wars Putin conducts in secret, he's declared "peacetime" troop deaths a state secret.  Well, of course.  People might notice they're actually at war.

Statue Raised to Innocent Man Who Died Imprisoned

In Lubbock, Texas, a statue has been raised honoring Timothy Cole, a nonsmoker who was convicted of an aggravated sexual assault committed by a smoker.  Cole died in prison years after the real perpetrator, Jerry Wayne Johnson, wrote prosecutors to confess he'd committed the assault.  Johnson had heard Cole weeping in a nearby holding cell, but didn't risk confessing until the statute of limitations had run.  The Lubbock County prosecutor who procured the erroneous conviction sent no response to Johnson's letters, and Cole died in prison without ever learning the guilty man had confessed.  Cole died in prison of a severe asthma his family believed would have been better treated in the free world, – treatment that would have extended his life.  Cole's asthma was one reason he never smoked.


Cole had been offered parole if he confessed to the assault, but refused to lie to be set free.  He encouraged his sister to stick with her law school plans, saying he believed in the justice system even if it didn't believe in him.

There are no words.

Snowden: Because Our National Intelligence Director Lied under Oath About It

For those of you interested in the traitor/hero debate on Snowden, the DC Clothesline has an article and interview that's been curiously absent from mainstream channels.

If the rule of law isn't respected by government even when citizens' lives are involved,
it's no surprise that it's ignored utterly when the issue is personal freedom and autonomy. The right to be informed about government is a fundamental assumption of democratic process: if you don't know what your government is really doing, how will you know whether you must vote differently?  In that regard, Snowden is plainly doing something good for democracy irrespective of whether his conduct would be prosecuted by our current administration. 

And why shouldn't the current administration use judicial process to miscarry justice? It's already lied to its own judicial overseer.  Why would it stop there?

To do what Snowden did for America, knowing what it would cost him, is a sacrifice worthy of respect.

Gaiman on The Need to Daydream

Gaiman's speech suggests great value lies in ensuring children access to fiction.  He's not alone in that view.

New England Journal of Medicine: "Chicken" Nuggets A Misnomer

In a sample of two nuggets bought from national chains, neither nugget had chicken meat as the predominant ingredient. This is problematic, as chicken white meat is recommended to patients as a highly efficient source of protein, and patients who order faux-gets thinking they're following their physicians' advice are getting something very different than they and their physicians expect. A beautiful photo at io9 puts an entertaining spin on this consumer fraud by suggesting the faux "food" is the product of massive clone factories.

via Delilah S. Dawson's Twitter-tag #SoylentKindaChickenTM, in which she eats crow: nuggets aren't made of donisaurs, either.

Samsung's Performance Swindle

It's not like mobile device vendors haven't been caught BSing the public about their products' hardware performance before.  But this time, the problem isn't just something gone off the rails in the marketing department. 

Samsung's Note 3 phone games performance benchmarks.  Although Samsung denied intentionally rigging benchmarks, the Note 3 ships with software designed to detect when a performance benchmark is being run so that it can present a radically different performance profile to the benchmarking tool than it presents to any other application.  When triggered, it changes clock speed and denies all four processor cores any power-saving sleep.  Presumably, the benchmark Samsung is gaming isn't the battery life test.

Details at Ars Technica.


The next question: why lie about numbers nobody will bother with when they shop?

World Votes On MSFT's Value Without Ballmer

I saw MSFT up over a buck on the ticker Friday when I dropped by to make a deposit, and I couldn't figure out why.  Then I saw that Steve Ballmer announced his retirement within a year.  The market's reaction to regime change in Redmond?  You be the judge:

Telling Americans About Their Government Isn't Treason

With Wikileaks source Bradley Manning on trial and David Snowden in hiding, and the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence upon us, it's a good time to talk about what it means when the government tries to keep citizens in the dark about its activities.

Background

Before we can talk about the morality of public education regarding government activities, it's essential first to take a few moments to discuss what this topic does not include.  This isn't about workplace obedience.  Both these men have lost their jobs.  Neither will ever work anyplace an American security clearance is required, ever.  

Bush has gone on record that he was willing to institute the spying program outed by Snowden only because Americans' "civil liberties were guaranteed."  But Snowden's report was that NSA analysts had unfettered access to information about Americans and their communications – that there were, in fact, no guarantees of the liberty interests of citizens.  If true, this means that the safeguards that were the sine qua non of the program are a sham.  If true, it's critical that Americans understand it, and that the bureaucracy paid to perform it not be given unlimited discretion whether to self-report that its conduct is, in fact, completely different than was promised to the President when the intelligence operation was green-lighted.  Maybe an investigation will clear the government of what Snowden alleges … but from what I've read so far, the government's response in defending the program suggests that what he says is probably true and that its perpetrators simply believe the "cost" in lost liberty is worth whatever benefit (their salaries and prestige, mostly) might be demonstrated from the program.

And the Manning trial.  Let's get one thing straight first. The Manning trial isn't about copying files without access, or even publishing them to the Internet.  Manning already plead guilty to a host of offenses involving his misuse of data access.  None of that is in dispute. 

The Manning trial is about whether what he did was also treason.  The prosecution is trying to prove Manning intended to aid America's enemies when he delivered for publication information that informed Americans about the government's relationship with Americans' supposed allies in the Middle East and informed Americans about wartime details Manning felt the public was missing.  Was it a misuse of his security clearance? Absolutely.  Was it good judgment? Only time will tell.  Was it treason?

That's today's question.  Is it a crime to tell Americans what their government is doing with their money, and in their name?

What This Is About

Does a democratic government really have a legitimate interest in preventing the electorate from learning what their officials are doing with the money taken from them by force in accordance with laws passed by their representatives?  (If you think taxes are voluntary, ask Wesley Snipes how that turned out.)  Another way of looking at it is to ask: how can voters make an informed vote when government conceals what it's doing with the resources entrusted to government?

Informing voters what government is doing (locally, with voters' supposedly-private communications, or internationally, when the disclosed sound bites vary greatly from actual on-the-ground policy) is a very traditional American past-time.  The reason libel law has been neutered in the United States is precisely to make it easier to publish potentially salacious things about government bodies and government officials.  This conduct is materially different from telling enemies where tired troops will gather for resupply when they are low on ammunition.  To hear government officials discuss Snowden and Manning, one would think they'd done the latter.

If so, show me.

Until then:

Conclusion

Especially when it ends their careers and places their liberty in danger from the government about which they inform the public, it's crucial to keep in mind who the villains are in the efforts to prosecute Americans who help keep their fellows informed what their government is doing.  Nothing is more American than warning Americans what their government is doing.  Especially on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it's crucial to distinguish between criticism of government and injury to the people convinced to elect it.  The principal author of the Declaration of Independence had this to say on the subject:

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

-- Thomas Jefferson 

 And that sums it up.

Next Advance: Child Molester Rights?

So here are the facts for today's problem:

An 18-year old dates a 14-year girl.  The child's parents confront the adult about the relationship with the minor, but the adult – who can not only drive lethal motor vehicles and serve in the armed forces, but also vote and sit on a jury competent to decide whether people should be put to death – ignores the parents.  One day, the minor's mother enters her little girl's bedroom only to find her missing.  She panics: where could she be? Who has her?

Of course, it's her adult lover who has her.

Do you have any doubt what happens to the person who is having sex with the child?

Normal Consequences Are Harsh:
Not if you've been awake any time in the last century. If you have, you've noticed that 13-year-old and 14-year-old children's "consent" is of no consequence at all as a defense against sexual offenses that require legal consent to make non-offensive.  You recall that when adults have sex with teens in school, they end up in the news.  While it sometimes involves an unwilling child, but as often it involves repeated contact with a willing victim.  Even victims aged 17 years create fact situations supporting felony prosecutions, sex offender registrations, and so forth.  Even if the two later marry.  We are totally unsurprised at the prosecutions:  we don't expect adults to be using our children for sexual gratification

This isn't a new policy, and it's directed against male adults and female adults – both of which make the news and both of which appear in the links above. It seems a fairly gender-indiscriminate law, and it seems to be applied to either gender when sex-crime prosecutors discover a case.

So, what should we do with the facts of today's little lesson?

Weird Discrimination Claims
If you're Change.org, you apparently host a petition in support of the defendant, claiming that felony prosecutions of the type that are absolutely routine in the criminal justice system are somehow a private beef against the perpetrator because of the perpetrator's gender or gender-preferences.

Say what?

Oh, and "the online global hacker collective" Anonymous will demand law enforcement officials' resignations.

Prosecutors offered the offender an opportunity to plead to felony less severe than the sexual assault charges ordinarily supported by repeated sex with a child of 14.  The defendant rejected the offer of a 2-year in-home "incarceration" that left open a possibility of avoiding sex-offender registration. Where I come from, hetero perpetrators would kill for a plea deal like that.  This case is supposed to somehow represent anti-gay discrimination?

CNN's reporter says, "This may have been a consensual relationship in high school ..."
But that description completely misses the fundamental issue underpinning the criminal case: a 14-year-old cannot legally consent to sex with an 18-year-old.  And after the parental communication with the defendant that the conduct must stop, it's pretty clear that the defendant acted with complete knowledge that the child's guardians believed the adult was behaving improperly toward their daughter.  (And guess what? There's a statute making the conduct a felony – so the parents were on to something.)  When the minor disappeared, what was her mother supposed to do, if not seek aid from law enforcement?

Now, imagine the opposite occurred. "No, ma'am, we won't prosecute the adult's seduction of your minor daughter, because we think lesbian relationships are not as serious as heterosexual relationships, or we think pairs of girls are cute and that only sex involving males can be a punishable offense. If your minor daughter goes missing, but we think she's smooching a girl, we won't try to return her, either."  We'd be howling, no?

Some reporters, learning the facts, are backing off of initial support for the perpetrator.  Apparently, the perpetrator's family lied about things that mattered – like whether the perpetrator was a minor or not at the time of the charged conduct.

If you want an example of idiots discriminating against women for being women, look at school dress code enforcement (even regarding hair; video here, gives a better view of the hair).  Now, that's discrimination.

Siri Can't Find Asia Café

In the Heights area of Houston is a restaurant with the not-very-innovative name "Asia Café".  Ask for it by name while within a mile of it, and Siri says "I can't find things in Asia. Can you be more specific?"

If you get more specific by explaining that you are looking for a restaurant called Asia Café, it tells you about a Jade something-or-another, which is an Asian restaurant.

Ask Siri how to get to the intersection of I-10 and Bingle, and she says, "Got it." But Siri doesn't get it. And as Steve Jobs once said of Microsoft's lack of taste ... I mean that in a really big way:

(The actual spoken words were, "How do I get to I-10 and Bingle?"  It's an intersection big enough that Interstate 10 passes overhead on a bridge, and there are marked exits for it in each direction.  It's not some unheard-of stealth destination chosen for confusion.)

Slavery Alive and Well Today

I was recently speaking to some kids whose school left them with the impression that slavery was "over". As mentioned here before, slavery is alive and well in the modern world both abroad and in the U.S. Recently, two teen girls were busted for keeping a stable of sex slaves in Canada.

People need to understand that the Civil War didn't end slavery, it merely led to its illegalization in the U.S. Like theft and murder, slavery itself is still going strong.

Apple: Some Perspective

This piece nicely illustrates the effect of a few years on tech giants' mudslinging.  Microsoft's bravado of 2010 is embarrassing to review in light of 2013.

And on another front, a longtime Linux advocate describes his experience as a user – rather than during his day-job as a developer – to describe why Linux fell to Apple on the desktop like some argue MS-Windows has.  (Of course, Linux seems to rule the realm of servers. Look in particular at the million busiest sites surveyed by Netcraft. For Microsoft, it seems a slow slide in favor of freeware.)

Anyone care to take bets on units and profit numbers for the next few years?

Drone Update

To stop a Senate filibuster on the confirmation of John Brennan as the Director of Central Intelligence, Attorney General Eric Holder answered Rand Paul's latest question on the current administration's view on its power to use drones against citizens:




The interesting thing is just how narrow the question is, and the fact that it offers no indication of the standard of proof to be applied in ascertaining whether some limit applies to stop a proposed drone strike. Given that Holder has previously taken the position that an extra-judicial decision within the Executive branch of government was capable of ascertaining whether an American should be killed for making war against the United States (notwithstanding the Constitution's position on such matters), one wonders just how much security Americans should feel in even the clearest-sounding reply to a question so heavily qualified and lacking in standards. (Not engaged in combat? According to whose allegation? And this limit applies only on American soil?)

Do we have a rule of law, or just the law of the jungle? I don't expect to see neighbors blown from their homes in the near future by drones, but I do expect Americans to hold concern for simultaneous disregard of the fundamental protections the Constitution affords those accused of treason: a fixed standard of proof and a public trial in which a jury decides the truth of the allegations made by the Executive branch. Secret decisions in the Executive to conduct executions based on Executive-branch decisions about the guilt of Americans accused of waging war against the United States are not just against the plain law laid down by every State ratifying the Constitution, but contrary to the American traditions for which we have spilled so much of the blood of our best.