Russians have been hacking elections in the European Theater for years! I think there's general consensus among intelligence people that an informed electorate, i.r., one that knows they're being targeted with propaganda and stories to influence their voting behavior is the best way to ward off outside influences upon them.
Note that Trump has not posed this solution to the barrage of foreign propaganda capable of affecting an election outcome, but rather has entrusted a small band of intelligence forces to thwart hackers at their source. The problem with that solution is it leaves the voting public in the dark as to what's really going on which plays upon the non-rational elements affecting their voting.
Saturday, August 4, 2018
What it takes in International Relations-4
Don't be alone! I've learned the hard way--many attacks and several bruises and bumps on the head--that you need to demand support of those around you for protection (primarily). They've given me a case manager who does all the detail stuff to integrate me into my surroundings so that I don't stand out as a sore thumb. I've never had that degree of support all the thirty some odd years I've been working the route. Finally, someone had come to realize in intelligence that I am a TARGET!
Thursday, July 12, 2018
What it takes in International Relations-3
You need to keep looking for opportunities; and then like an animal of the deep sea, pounce when you find it coming in your ken. I've used the vehicle of the Whack-O Theory to propel a possible course of action into reality. Picture how things would improve dramatically!
I mean to tell you, create an aura of opportunity to bring about substantial and needed change by making offering it as YOUR REALITY! Your audience will then comprehend the significance of what you're proposing toward a better world for humans.
For example, take the present prospect Baltimore represents. There are groups, including merchant seamen, who are to benefit greatly from renovating Baltimore. The property values in the city make renovation a significant step toward improving the quality of life of those living there. But time is of the essence--carpe diem! The smart leader won't dally over details; he must act before the window of opportunity closes, i.e., becomes embroiled in the minutiae of recalcitrance to initiate a major change (toward your objective to make the world a much better place).
I mean to tell you, create an aura of opportunity to bring about substantial and needed change by making offering it as YOUR REALITY! Your audience will then comprehend the significance of what you're proposing toward a better world for humans.
For example, take the present prospect Baltimore represents. There are groups, including merchant seamen, who are to benefit greatly from renovating Baltimore. The property values in the city make renovation a significant step toward improving the quality of life of those living there. But time is of the essence--carpe diem! The smart leader won't dally over details; he must act before the window of opportunity closes, i.e., becomes embroiled in the minutiae of recalcitrance to initiate a major change (toward your objective to make the world a much better place).
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
What it takes in International Relations-2
We have seen in "1" that as a prerequisite you need to have an interest in people and their cultures sufficiently strong enough to inquire into what they are inclined think about life. On any particular issue, each individual is inclined to take a cultural attitude, gathered from impressions his culture has provided him over time.
He must recognize as a cultural member he has a bias toward any especial issue. Yet, he must force himself to accept other points of view on the topic.. Say, the issue is race relations. Then, he starts off recognizing the prevalent attitude and reaches over to the other point of view, accepting it as just as valid. Not calling any one or another perspective prejudicial, he struggles to ascertain the experiential foundation underpinning each stance, admitting: "I can see reason why someone might aver that position."
He must recognize as a cultural member he has a bias toward any especial issue. Yet, he must force himself to accept other points of view on the topic.. Say, the issue is race relations. Then, he starts off recognizing the prevalent attitude and reaches over to the other point of view, accepting it as just as valid. Not calling any one or another perspective prejudicial, he struggles to ascertain the experiential foundation underpinning each stance, admitting: "I can see reason why someone might aver that position."
Thursday, June 21, 2018
What it takes in International Relations-1 (according to Oastler)
I've been trying to get young people excited about entering the field of international relations. Now I know that there's university programs that offer courses in international relations. A firm knowledge of geographical environments and a willingness to become updated in geography and cultures is of course a useful experiential backdrop. However, these are not the tools of the trade, so to speak.
It's the ability to see the principle or insightful idea that an event or country is going through at the moment--the forest through the trees, as it were--that is a telling trait of the person in the field. You've got to hang on to what you see as the underpinning concept or descriptive process that you are seeing in your mind right before you! And once you've located the phenomenon as a case of an x, you're in position to make adjustments and alterations to the actual present event. I think the danger is in thinking that altering the present will make the object or event into something other than it has been. Play with it from all sides and angles to see where changes lead to the greatest bang for the buck.
The second consideration is price and cost of making an alteration or even of suggesting a change in a present-day phenomenon. Change is the nature of life, of things, of objects in the universe in space and time. Be sure it's a change with the most advantages financially for those who are to make it.
And once you've determined on a course of action to recommend for improvement of some situation, stick with it! Too often, a person is willing to take on another point of view for the sake of financial and social security!
Well, herein is the major idea I'm proposing: give a global dimension to the here and now particular. Maybe, this approach to the topic as I develop it will include several paradigms, assuming I continue put it all down on paper!
It's the ability to see the principle or insightful idea that an event or country is going through at the moment--the forest through the trees, as it were--that is a telling trait of the person in the field. You've got to hang on to what you see as the underpinning concept or descriptive process that you are seeing in your mind right before you! And once you've located the phenomenon as a case of an x, you're in position to make adjustments and alterations to the actual present event. I think the danger is in thinking that altering the present will make the object or event into something other than it has been. Play with it from all sides and angles to see where changes lead to the greatest bang for the buck.
The second consideration is price and cost of making an alteration or even of suggesting a change in a present-day phenomenon. Change is the nature of life, of things, of objects in the universe in space and time. Be sure it's a change with the most advantages financially for those who are to make it.
And once you've determined on a course of action to recommend for improvement of some situation, stick with it! Too often, a person is willing to take on another point of view for the sake of financial and social security!
Well, herein is the major idea I'm proposing: give a global dimension to the here and now particular. Maybe, this approach to the topic as I develop it will include several paradigms, assuming I continue put it all down on paper!
Saturday, June 16, 2018
North Korea's Poliitical Future among Trading Nations
As things stand after the summit between North Korea and the United States, there is no place for North Korea among trading partners on the world stage. North Korea is still ostracized from legitimacy. It is still a pariah in the international trading community.
It may trade with China back and forth; but its ports appear confined to the limits of a tacit blockade, narrowly circumscribing those countries with whom it is granted acceptance as a legitimate trading, equal partner. I get the impression from the war games periodically held, as a threat to North Korean independence, that a de facto blockade exists, reinforced by the military might of the United States in conjunction with that of South Korea.
To demilitarize the Korean Peninsula must imply permitting North Korea to be elevated to an equal status among trading nations, freely capable to import and export goods from its shores without incrimination.
It may trade with China back and forth; but its ports appear confined to the limits of a tacit blockade, narrowly circumscribing those countries with whom it is granted acceptance as a legitimate trading, equal partner. I get the impression from the war games periodically held, as a threat to North Korean independence, that a de facto blockade exists, reinforced by the military might of the United States in conjunction with that of South Korea.
To demilitarize the Korean Peninsula must imply permitting North Korea to be elevated to an equal status among trading nations, freely capable to import and export goods from its shores without incrimination.
Saturday, June 9, 2018
Cato Conference: "Overcharged Why Americans Pay Too Much for Health Care"
The 4-hour conference was held in Washington, DC June 8th. While I am most sympathetic with the purpose and aim of the conference, viz., to reduce health care costs to the consumer, I am of the opinion that the participants missed the boat on this one!
They had it within grasp when they pointed out in the second panel discussion that obesity rose dramatically since the inception of the 1980s till today, although it hasn't peaked yet! The real question should be (to my mind) why all the obese people in the United States as compared with 12 other leading countries? The reasons may be myriad--fraud, waste, abuse--mentioned; but near or at the top of the list has to be the use of both advertising and marketing fields by today's corporate America. For, through packaging and selling, foodstuff items wet the appetites of rapacious American consumers in the marketplace. The techniques developed initially in university research labs became available to corporate America just after the 1960s; and there's no end in sight as to the ingenuity of the technocrats in these two fields by corporations such as Coca-Cola, Starbuck's Coffee, Tyson Chicken, Popeye's, Chick-fil-A, Burger-King and McDonald's. The food-basket at the Super-Market is chock-full of goodies to savor and delight both the youth and the old alike! Oh, yes, have we forgotten the alcoholic beverage commercials drenching the airwaves from noon to 2 AM tempting the youth as well as their parents?
Indeed, the American response is to consume from the time of rising to the time going to bed! And, if it's not to eat food, it's to swallow the medicines needed to counteract some of the effects of overeating upon their inner organs--stomach pills, aspirin, and so on, until at last the overeating causes more serious problems, e.g., to the digestive system; plus an onslaught of overall malaise. That is to say, the typical overeater eventually panics. He is beset with a yearning to break clear from the feelings of nausea that overwhelm him and sap him of his energy and vitality! He experiences a breaking-point to his human rationality; wherein he must succumb to any course of action for relief suggested to him--the latter by some well-meaning health-care providers! At this rock-bottom state of mind he enters, he will try any curative posed him--except, LAY-OFF EATING MORE!
So, why do Americans pay too much for health care? Not that corporate America doesn't take advantage of him in the condition he's been reduced to through overindulgence, but when all is said and done, it's because he panics seeking a sure-temporary palliative that uplifts his spirits from the lowly, awful state he's come to experience! He must have hope in the health-care provider to work a miracle once again over his obesity, involving the continuing series of self-initiated marathons in food consumption!
------------------------------------------------------------
Here is a somewhat humorous response from Chuck Darling at Miriam's Kitchen to the above rumination--the response nearly verbatim but with some editing on my part:
"In my relative youth, age sixty-one as compared to Moses' lifespan of 120, I find that all foods are clean, if accepted with thanks to God.
I have lived well, without healthcare, since (about) September, 2001. That's seventeen years. My outdoor life--sleeping on the streets in DC--has not sunburned me; nor have I succumbed to Snowmageddon, Hurricane Sandy, or Hurricane Iris.
I'm living without hernia, avoiding the complications of synthetic mesh. The important part of daily life is remembering your Creator in all that you do. When I chew recycled cigarette butts, I toss a bit of tobacco to the four winds as an offering to the Great Spirit. In the Gospel of John, Jesus said God is a Spirit."
They had it within grasp when they pointed out in the second panel discussion that obesity rose dramatically since the inception of the 1980s till today, although it hasn't peaked yet! The real question should be (to my mind) why all the obese people in the United States as compared with 12 other leading countries? The reasons may be myriad--fraud, waste, abuse--mentioned; but near or at the top of the list has to be the use of both advertising and marketing fields by today's corporate America. For, through packaging and selling, foodstuff items wet the appetites of rapacious American consumers in the marketplace. The techniques developed initially in university research labs became available to corporate America just after the 1960s; and there's no end in sight as to the ingenuity of the technocrats in these two fields by corporations such as Coca-Cola, Starbuck's Coffee, Tyson Chicken, Popeye's, Chick-fil-A, Burger-King and McDonald's. The food-basket at the Super-Market is chock-full of goodies to savor and delight both the youth and the old alike! Oh, yes, have we forgotten the alcoholic beverage commercials drenching the airwaves from noon to 2 AM tempting the youth as well as their parents?
Indeed, the American response is to consume from the time of rising to the time going to bed! And, if it's not to eat food, it's to swallow the medicines needed to counteract some of the effects of overeating upon their inner organs--stomach pills, aspirin, and so on, until at last the overeating causes more serious problems, e.g., to the digestive system; plus an onslaught of overall malaise. That is to say, the typical overeater eventually panics. He is beset with a yearning to break clear from the feelings of nausea that overwhelm him and sap him of his energy and vitality! He experiences a breaking-point to his human rationality; wherein he must succumb to any course of action for relief suggested to him--the latter by some well-meaning health-care providers! At this rock-bottom state of mind he enters, he will try any curative posed him--except, LAY-OFF EATING MORE!
So, why do Americans pay too much for health care? Not that corporate America doesn't take advantage of him in the condition he's been reduced to through overindulgence, but when all is said and done, it's because he panics seeking a sure-temporary palliative that uplifts his spirits from the lowly, awful state he's come to experience! He must have hope in the health-care provider to work a miracle once again over his obesity, involving the continuing series of self-initiated marathons in food consumption!
------------------------------------------------------------
Here is a somewhat humorous response from Chuck Darling at Miriam's Kitchen to the above rumination--the response nearly verbatim but with some editing on my part:
"In my relative youth, age sixty-one as compared to Moses' lifespan of 120, I find that all foods are clean, if accepted with thanks to God.
I have lived well, without healthcare, since (about) September, 2001. That's seventeen years. My outdoor life--sleeping on the streets in DC--has not sunburned me; nor have I succumbed to Snowmageddon, Hurricane Sandy, or Hurricane Iris.
I'm living without hernia, avoiding the complications of synthetic mesh. The important part of daily life is remembering your Creator in all that you do. When I chew recycled cigarette butts, I toss a bit of tobacco to the four winds as an offering to the Great Spirit. In the Gospel of John, Jesus said God is a Spirit."
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