have you seen any russians in west virginia, ohio or pennsylvania?

Just days after someone leaked to the press the full, revealing transcript of Dear Leader’s telephone conversations with foreign heads of state, his embattled though quick to squander any sympathy the public might have formed for him for working in such a toxic climate Attorney General announced that four White House staffers have been charged with unauthorised release of information. In an aggressive crackdown that might meet the definition of a witch-hunt, he pledged to stop the culture of leaks and would uncover the culprits, adding that no one is “entitled to surreptitiously fight their battles in the media by revealing sensitive government information,” never mind that his mission in defence of an individual who has a substantial portion of the medium exclusively rigged to support his agenda, no matter what form it’s taking at the moment and speaks further to importance of distinguishing between what is an illegal leak (the disclosure of classified information), a legal leak (almost everything else) and gossip or speculation.
It’s just like the regime painting with too broad a brush when it comes to fake news—just because the truth is not flattering does not mean that it’s not the incontrovertible truth. The Attorney General is also reformulating the subpoena laws so that journalists might not so easily protect their secret sources. I wonder how that will manifest itself. At the same time, it was revealed that a small delegation of members of the intelligence committee travelled to London—with sanction by the rest of the members—to confront the former MI6 spy who compiled the Moscow dossier on Dear Leader. The law-makers did not met with the ex-spy but were being I suppose vaguely menacing. Then, and speak of Friday afternoon disasters (some people take all week to think up problems to spring on others)—Dear Leader announces a working vacation at one of his New Jersey golf resorts, abruptly but argues it was timed to coincide with long-planned renovations to the official residence—which Dear Leader recently described as a dump. The White House’s superintendent probably struggled to come up with something plausible quickly, but I suspect that they’re installing more surveillance equipment in efforts to intercept patriotic leakers. Such paranoia eventually backfires, especially given this bumbling cast of morons to include a Majordomo that suggests lie-detectors be installed—and Dear Leader’s own atrocious behaviour (not that it hasn’t already been broadcast before and to little lasting avail) will be on display.

heart of sharkness

Though I can imagine dealing with a hailstorm of vicious man-eating sharks might seem presently rather mild and the preferred challenge in comparison to the plagues that Dear Leader is capable of calling down on civil society and the environment, in case you had not heard—as Dave Log informs, the disaster horror comedy movie franchise that has started to attract all sorts of bottom-rung actors who vie for cameo-roles was also courting the likes of Donald Trump to play none other role than president of the United States of America.
Although second choice after Sarah Palin refused the part, Trump was reportedly very keen to be presidential, even if it was in a gory and bad film, with David Hasselhof, and Charo, and several other reality television stars. Trump was rather crestfallen in January of 2015 when his team of handlers asked him not to appear in Sharknado: Oh Hell No! as production might interfere with his actual bid for the presidency they were pushing the serial candidate to announce soon. I wonder what kind of persuasive argument that had to weave in order to get Dear Leader to give up on a sure thing for laborious long-shot. In this instance, I think we can all wish that his baser instincts would have prevailed.

vroom!

 We’ve heard of customised horns and other features beforehand of course but never of a musical tailpipe like on the exhaust of this classic Rolls Royce to be played with a keyboard like an organ. It’s strange that one might want to further personalise one’s signature engine roar since that is such a recognisable trait but stranger yet I suppose that electric automobiles are given amplified noises so pedestrians aren’t caught off guard. Visit Just a Car Guy at the link above for more pictures and provenance.

operation vittles

When in late June of 1948 Soviet forces tried to starve West Berlin into surrender during the blockade the American forces—headquartered in Frankfurt am Main and Wiesbaden—responded by dispatching some two-hundred thousand re-supply flights that brought food and materiel to the isolated enclave—nearly one flight every half-minute for the following fifteen months until rail-access was restored. One response of the dependents, one thousand wives and children, of US soldiers stationed there was to create a cheerful little austerity cookbook made up of improvised and not so bleak recipes (maybe some indulgence and exotic tastes is the answer to a geopolitical crisis) to tide their families and their Germany hosts through rationing and power-cuts and general uncertainty. Within this gesture too is the stance of solidarity as the families could have been evacuated, rather than choosing to remain and tough it out.

the prisoners’ dilemma

Of course the online world is not reality—though sometimes that fact is easy to overlook—but the interactive demonstration, The Evolution of Trust by Nicky Case, is a good heuristic tool not only for exploring how relationship of trust and the opposite are cultivated but also an appreciation of the frameworks and experiences that prompt and promote cooperation.
Models of conflict and optimising agents can be structured to persuade people to have confidence in one another that one’s not seeking profit at the expense of another but they can also be created (and perhaps it’s easier to digest psychologically as general mistrust given the pace of the internet and nature of interaction) where cheating is the best strategy. The internet entire isn’t rigged like that, but suspicions are justified—especially it seems against a milieu that’s being manipulative in inscrutable ways. The canonical prisoner’s dilemma that the iterative game’s set up (but updated and couched in more familiar experiences) is premised upon posits that two members of a criminal gang are caught and incarcerated and put in solitary confinement (no way to communicate or form a strategy with one another). Due to insufficient evidence, there’s a possibility for them both to have the sentences commuted, but are separately give the opportunity to either betray the other by profession his own innocence or remain silent (thick as thieves). If they betray each other, they both are sentenced and if one betrays the other, one goes free and the other goes to prison, while if they both are truthful, they both are released.