A recent article in The Guardian describes brutal put-down of protests in Kashmir; the Indian government is “using pellet guns” on civilians and has blinded several. (Trigger warning: guns, violence, political repression)
In my recent post “Nationalism Is A Lie” there was so much horror behind what I wrote, that I was either going to have to write a textbook-length incoherent screed,* or leave a lot on the table. So I thought that rather than diverticulating into asides, I’d post this piece separately.
Trigger warning: really horrible people doing really horrible things, with a walk-on by the Roman Catholic Church
About a decade ago, I did a series of talks at various conferences entitled “cyberwar is bullshit” – the problem, I felt, was that the US was talking about being deeply afraid of cyberattack from Eurasia (or was it Eastasia?) but there was considerable irresponsible talk about “weapons of mass destruction-like capability.” Industry insiders like myself wound up divided as to whether it was likely/practical, or good marketing/a chance to make a fast buck. There were a lot of fast bucks made.
In 1987 or so, I was working for Welch Medical Library at the early stages of the human gene-mapping project. We had funding from Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the National Library of Medicine, and had a small lab of programmers and researchers thinking hard about medical informatics and retrieval systems.
I was struck speechless to read that the Iraqi army has brought its handful of TOS-1 “Buratino” thermobaric rocket launchers into the field at Mosul.
I wrote about how Hitler and many of his upper echelon leaders were smashed on opiates or amphetamines, or both. When I finished that summary, I mentally bookmarked to look up whatever I could find about allied leaders’ drug use during WWII; Winston Churchill, of course, was a notable drinker.
I have added a new category to Stderr blog: “Genocide”
I’ve added two more books to the recommended books list. (Stderr recommended book policy)
We keep hearing about it: Russians are manipulating the election! They’re leaking this and that, and hacking this and that, and it’s going to change everything.
I wish.
After the Yahoo! disclosure, there was some general falling all over oneself from some of the other large providers, “we didn’t!” “no, not us!” etc.
Methinks they doth protest too much.
My dad, the real historian in the family, used to say that the history of a time cannot really be told until all the bodies are buried and the forgotten memoirs come bubbling to the surface. When he first told me that, as a kid, I wasn’t really ready to understand him.