May 19, 2004

May 19, 2004 by yorksranter 0 comments

Don’t Worry – Leaving Gaza will not, repeat not, affect the apocalypse

“”Everything that you’re discussing is information you’re not supposed to have,” barked Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton when asked about the off-the-record briefing his delegation received on March 25. Details of that meeting appear in a confidential memo signed by Upton and obtained by the Voice. The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and…

May 19, 2004 by yorksranter 0 comments

Obfuscation Case Study: William Safire in the NY Times

Now, having done the obfusc lesson, we can proceed to a practical exercise. William Safire, the New York Times’ pet neocon, has been expressing himself on the subject of the sarin shell. (Link) We shall see some examples in the text. “a small, crude weapon of mass destruction may have been used by Saddam’s terrorists…

May 19, 2004 by yorksranter 0 comments

How to be a modern obfuscator

Obfuscatin’! It’s the way of today – the all-purpose debating tactic that defends all kinds of otherwise indefensible abuses from climate change through the war against Iraq to speeding. As a service, the Yorkshire Ranter offers a brief guide on how to employ this scientifically proven technique to win your ideological battles tool. Yes, you…

Au procès Squarcini, les ordres de LVMH pour infiltrer le journal « Fakir » | Mediapart
« Alex » n’est autre qu’Alexandre Djouhri, intermédiaire dans plusieurs dossiers politico-financiers, proche d’Hervé Séveno comme de Bernard Squarcini, explicite le président....L’équipe de Fakir décide de le filmer à son insu dans un café de Saint-Ouen, mais il détecte vite « une sacoche, avec un trou et une lumière rouge » posée sur une table. […]
Teachers at top academy in Hackney ‘screamed at’ and humiliated pupils, say angry parents | Academies | The Guardian
who thought it was anything else but backdoor selection? I guess that the selection was by screaming at them until some dropped out is a twist
FAA team recommends Boeing MAX design change and pilot notification | The Seattle Times
“Much like MCAS, the discovery that LRD is not known to pilots is very concerning,” the memo states // do the Pilot's Notes just say "you don't need to know this stuff and it'll only confuse you"?
Francis Martin on X: "When your job is to report on a document like this, your emotions just have to take a back seat. But you can’t insulate yourself entirely, and there’s always something which gets through. For me it was this letter, sent by Smyth
if by some chance you've not gazed into a sickening moral vacuum in the last twenty minutes or so...also a fine example of bad faith writing. no beat of pre-emptive self justification missed
Tom Lee on X: "That's in part because the specific incentives they face are largely social, but also because irrelevance is the failure condition for any of these organizations. You do not want to just become a faceless source of checks going to the same
the specific incentives they face are largely social, but also because irrelevance is the failure condition for any of these organizations. You do not want to just become a faceless source of checks going to the same hidebound recipients. That's death.
aaron from queens 🇵🇸 on X: "AOC asked her followers who split their ballots either for Trump/her or Trump/downballot Dem to explain why and posted the replies: https://t.co/LuTcD29szt" / Twitter
mom does this. says she votes Dem locally for services and Rep national for budget // looks like we found where the unfunded mandates are coming from...
Daniel Khalife denies asking Iran for help after prison escape - BBC News
Asked why he had taken a change of clothes and his notebook with him when he escaped from the prison, Mr Khalife said: "I wanted to exude a sense of professionalism... to show that I was capable of doing what I did."
Daniel Khalife misspelt 'secret' on publicly available document to please Iranian spy handler, court told | UK News | Sky News
Daniel Khalife, who has admitted escaping from Wandsworth prison, wrote "secert" instead of "secret" on the front page of a document which could be found online, Woolwich Crown Court has heard // top secert!
Ex-soldier Daniel Khalife changes plea to guilty of Wandsworth prison escape | UK news | The Guardian
“[The bike] was rotting away, I gave it new life,” he said.
Joe McReynolds on X: "@datepsych Dealt with the Lions Club back in high school (as pres. of the Leo Club community service club at my HS); there was just something deeply sad about them. Hard to explain exactly what it was, but I'll give it a guess. We li
the Lions Club types seemed to prefer the company of a bunch of arbitrarily-assigned middle-aged guys (mostly; I think there were a couple of women?) to their families or 'real' friends