Category Archives: War Commentary

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Mueller Indictments

21 Comments

Some thoughts from Dan McLaughlin:

The overall picture here looks similar to what we saw with the Trump jr. story: people in the Trump campaign were desperate for dirt on Hillary, they were willing to work with anyone to get it, and Russian interests used this desperation to play them for suckers. Papadopoulos was frequently promised things, and promising things in turn to the campaign, that never got delivered. This is a running theme of Trump’s amateur-hour foreign policy campaign team (in contrast, one would note, to the professionals now running his foreign policy shop).

Where things get dicier for Trump is that the investigation and the Papadopoulos plea both focus on how this can all be tied back to Trump and his senior campaign staff. Papadopoulos pled guilty to lying about when he went to work for Trump relative to when he started talking to the professor; he tried to convince the FBI that he already knew about the professor’s dirt on Hillary before he joined the campaign. And on March 31, 2016, well before Trump had even locked up the Republican nomination, Papadopoulos told Trump and a roomful of Trump’s foreign policy advisers “in sum and substance, that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin.” The meeting, like many such things, never happened, but he kept the campaign (including an unnamed “senior policy advisor for the Campaign”) apprised that he was trying to arrange one, and the plea is mostly silent on what he was told by the campaign in return. Then, in late April – still well before the June meeting at Trump Tower – the professor began dangling “dirt” on Hillary: “They [the Russians] have dirt on her”; “the Russians had emails of Clinton”; “they have thousands of emails.”

Let us pause here to note that this is precisely the situation that many of us warned was a grave risk to national security with Hillary’s insecure email server, and which Hillary and her camp loudly denied to be a possibility while basically admitting it when they started complaining during the campaign (let alone after) about Trump publicly seeking leaks of her emails. This entire story is the perfect storm of an aggressive and devious foreign regime, a Republican nominee of low character surrounded by inept and naively cynical amateur advisers, and a Democratic nominee who was heedlessly reckless with national security out of partisan paranoia. Secretary Clinton exposed herself to what amounted to easy Russian blackmail, and everything else that happened followed from that.

Yup. Worst political class in history, and worst candidates in history.

[Update a few minutes later]

Andy McCarthy: Not much there, and a boon for Trump.

But the media will continue to have their hair on fire over it.

[Tuesday-morning update]

Popehat lawsplains the Manafort/Gates indictments, and the Papadopoulos guilty plea.

Business, Technology and Society, War Commentary

WiFi Security

8 Comments

This is wonderful. WPA2 has a critical flaw. One more reason to continue to distrust wireless.

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, apparently, so far Netgear is not on the case, so not clear what the implications are for our Orbi mesh. Guess until our phones get patched, good idea to not use wifi.

[Update a while later]

Here’s more information. My new phone is Android 7, so it’s affected, but I don’t generally use it with wifi. I’ll definitely avoid it, or at least avoid it for anything mission critical (like bank accounts), until it patches.

[Update a while later]

Now wondering about the Sony Blu-Ray player. Does this make it vulnerable to becoming a DDOS attacker? Wonder if there’s any way to patch it, and if there is, or will be a patch?

[Mid-morning update]

Nothing on line about patching the player; I’ve tweeted a request to @SonyElectronics. Meanwhile, here’s more info at Ars Technica.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here is the web site for the attack technique, with a lot of technical detail.

Business, Economics, History, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

The Old Space Age Began

11 Comments

Today is the 60th anniversary of Sputnik. I have some thoughts over at The Weekly Standard. I’ll have more later today at PJMedia.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Henry Spencer reminds me that upon the successful launch, Korolev supposedly said “The road to the stars is now open.” A little premature, I think…

[Update a while later]

For a detailed history of the program, go read Asif Siddiqi over at The Space Review (it’s part one, the second part will appear next Monday).

[Update a couple minutes later, after going through the Siddiqi piece]

This is excellent. It is likely now the best available history of its development.

[Update a few minutes later]

Anatoly Zak reminds us that Sputnik wasn’t about the satellite; it was about the rocket.

[Update a while later]

More from Siddiqi on recent translations. Kind of amazing how much we still don’t know about space history six decades later.

[Update a while later]

How dreams of space-faring zombies resulted in Sputnik. Well, sort of.

[Update late morning]

Here‘s Chris Gebhart’s take.

[Afternoon update]

My (other) take is now up over at PJMedia. As usual, most comments are ignorant and/or idiotic.

[Update a week later]

Part 2 of Siddiqi’s new history is up now.

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

The National Space Council

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They had their first “meeting” today (scare quotes because it was basically a scripted dog and pony show). Bob Zimmerman has some thoughts. Mine: The tension between the old cost-plus dinosaurs and commercial space within the administration was on full display, but everyone recognizes that we’ve shifted back to the moon. “Civil” space remains focused on pork, “commercial” space is focused appropriately on cost reduction. Nothing new on the milspace side to anyone who’s been following it, but I’m sure it was news to several of the council members.

[Update a while later]

Here’s Pence’s statement, but it’s behind a paywall at the WSJ.

[Late-afternoon update]

Here’s Ken Chang’s report. Check out the kicker.

[Update Friday morning]

Eric Berger: The history of presidential pland to “go back to the moon.” Yes, you should be skeptical. SpaceX or Blue Origin will beat NASA back to the moon. And that’s not a bad thing.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society, War Commentary

The Permian Basin

14 Comments

An analyst says that it’s a virtually infinite source of oil.

And it’s bad news for bad people around the world.

[Update a few minutes later]

Mexico’s largest shale field is now open for business. In theory, this should help the economy down there as well, and perhaps relieve the pressure to emigrate. But the place is still pretty corrupt.