May 3, 2018

Post your prediction: Which list will be longer, Rachel's names or Mueller's charges?

April 19, 2018

James Comey and Southwest Airlines

On Southwest Airlines, passengers choose their seats when they get on the plane.

People are blaming James Comey for the bad outcome of a decision he made in good faith.

If he can be blamed for that then the woman who died on Southwest Flight 1380 can be blamed for her own death.

April 14, 2018

The Comey Syndrome

A dilemma is a situation where a difficult choice has to be made between two or more undesirable alternatives in the face of uncertainty about the outcome.

I propose "The Comey Syndrome" as a term for such situations where 20/20 hindsight is employed afterward to argue that the "wrong" choice was made.

April 13, 2018

Fox: "SUV that into river belonged to missing family, officials determine"

Fox proofreaders, always make sure that you didn't any words out.

February 21, 2018

CNN states that David Hogg was a "crisis actor."

Or at least it appears that way in a sloppily-written and confusing CNN article.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/politics/crisis-actors-analysis/index.html

This is the complete second paragraph of the article:

David Hogg, a student journalist who documented the shootings as they happened, was a "crisis actor" -- someone who didn't even attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He and several other "students" speaking out about the need for legislative action on guns were plants by gun control advocates -- professional rabble-rousers aiming to take political advantage of a tragedy.

It's only when carefully read in context that it becomes clear that the paragraph is meant as one example of arising conspiracy theories being promulgated by right-wingers. The writer, Chris Cillizza, has let his guard down and is vulnerable to being legitimately quoted here.

February 17, 2018

Question for a lawyer.

Florida shooter willing to plead guilty to avoid death penalty, attorney says

Is this correct? Can the state really threaten an accused person with death as punishment for pleading "not guilty"? Does our Constitution allow that?

February 3, 2018

Why Trump & GOP Can't Assume Information Can Be Declassified Without Knowing Why It Was Classified

One of Rachel Maddow's guests recently explained this with a rather strange and frivolous-sounding example involving eating Nutella with a red spoon, but I've dreamed up a more serious and hopefully improved explanation. This involves The Battle of Midway.

Admiral Nimitz had one priceless advantage: US cryptanalysts had partially broken the Japanese Navy's JN-25b code. Since early 1942, the US had been decoding messages stating that there would soon be an operation at objective "AF". It was initially not known where "AF" was, but Commander Joseph Rochefort and his team at Station HYPO were able to confirm that it was Midway: Captain Wilfred Holmes devised a ruse of telling the base at Midway (by secure undersea cable) to broadcast an uncoded radio message stating that Midway's water purification system had broken down. Within 24 hours, the code breakers picked up a Japanese message that "AF was short on water." No Japanese radio operators who intercepted the message seemed concerned that the Americans were broadcasting uncoded that a major naval installation close to the Japanese threat ring was having a water shortage, which could have tipped off Japanese intelligence officers that it was a deliberate attempt at deception.

This was depicted in the 1976 movie, Midway. An order was given to the radio operator to send a message that Midway's water system was broken. Here's the quote from the movie:

Officer on Midway: Send this right away.

Pvt. Dombrowski: Hey chief what's this?

[a message saying that Midway's pure water condenser is malfunctioning]

Pvt. Dombrowski: There ain't nothing wrong with our pure water condenser. I was just over there.

Officer on Midway: [annoyed] Dombrowski, *send it*!

Pvt. Dombrowski: [baffled] I think the goddamn *heat's* gettin' to *everybody* here!

[sends the message]

And now for the point:

Imagine that Pvt. Dombrowski was told that the fact that Midway's water system was functioning properly was classified.

Imagine that, like Trump and the Republicans, Pvt. Dombrowski figured that "the goddamn *heat's* gettin' to *everybody* here" and that it was stupid and unnecessary for that information to be classified, and he therefore decided to send a radio message to the folks back home that everything was fine on Midway Island.

And imagine that Pvt. Dombrowski's message had been intercepted by the Japanese, who then realized that the water system failure was a deliberate attempt at deception.

This is why it was totally irresponsible for the Republican Congress to release classified information without knowing why it was classified, just because it didn't appear to them to be worthy of classification. There could easily have been reasons that weren't immediately obvious.

February 3, 2018

Why Trump & GOP Can't Assume Information Can Be Declassified Without Knowing Why It Was Classified

One of Rachel Maddow's guests recently explained this with a rather strange and frivolous-sounding example involving eating Nutella with a red spoon, but I've dreamed up a more serious and hopefully improved explanation. This involves The Battle of Midway.

Admiral Nimitz had one priceless advantage: US cryptanalysts had partially broken the Japanese Navy's JN-25b code. Since early 1942, the US had been decoding messages stating that there would soon be an operation at objective "AF". It was initially not known where "AF" was, but Commander Joseph Rochefort and his team at Station HYPO were able to confirm that it was Midway: Captain Wilfred Holmes devised a ruse of telling the base at Midway (by secure undersea cable) to broadcast an uncoded radio message stating that Midway's water purification system had broken down. Within 24 hours, the code breakers picked up a Japanese message that "AF was short on water." No Japanese radio operators who intercepted the message seemed concerned that the Americans were broadcasting uncoded that a major naval installation close to the Japanese threat ring was having a water shortage, which could have tipped off Japanese intelligence officers that it was a deliberate attempt at deception.

This was depicted in the 1976 movie, Midway. An order was given to the radio operator to send a message that Midway's water system was broken. Here's the quote from the movie:

Officer on Midway: Send this right away.

Pvt. Dombrowski: Hey chief what's this?

[a message saying that Midway's pure water condenser is malfunctioning]

Pvt. Dombrowski: There ain't nothing wrong with our pure water condenser. I was just over there.

Officer on Midway: [annoyed] Dombrowski, *send it*!

Pvt. Dombrowski: [baffled] I think the goddamn *heat's* gettin' to *everybody* here!

[sends the message]

And now for the point:

Imagine that Pvt. Dombrowski was told that the fact that Midway's water system was functioning properly was classified.

Imagine that, like Trump and the Republicans, Pvt. Dombrowski figured that "the goddamn *heat's* gettin' to *everybody* here" and that it was stupid and unnecessary for that information to be classified, and he therefore decided to send a radio message to the folks back home that everything was fine on Midway Island.

And imagine that Pvt. Dombrowski's message had been intercepted by the Japanese, who then realized that the water system failure was a deliberate attempt at deception.

This is why it was totally irresponsible for the Republican Congress to release classified information without knowing why it was classified, just because it didn't appear to them to be worthy of classification. There could easily have been reasons that weren't immediately obvious.

January 28, 2018

"Teleprompter Trump sounds like a regular president." No, he doesn't.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/27/us/politics/trump-state-of-the-union.html

“Teleprompter Trump sounds like a regular president,” said Michael Waldman, who was director of speechwriting for President Bill Clinton from 1995 to 1999 and wrote four State of the Union speeches. “Off-the-Teleprompter Trump sounds like a fill-in radio talk show host.”

No, teleprompter Trump does not sound like a regular president. He has that irritating habit of never correcting his misreadings of words, instead trying to conceal his errors by adding "and" or some other conjunction, followed by the correct reading.

Either way, this State of the Union address is going to be a disaster.

January 28, 2018