Technology – education and deconstruction.com

The Declassification Engine

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “The Declassification Engine, What History Reveals about America’s Top Secrets” by Matthew Connelly, published in 2023.

The author recounted the American government’s history (beginning with FDR) of generating bureaucratic “classified” documents that presumably describe clandestine activities. This excessive avalanche of papers and electronic files (which are growing by the day) allegedly contain State secrets or personal information, that, if revealed, might be a risk to national security or an invasion of people’s privacy.

The United States monitors worldwide communications through its eighteen different spying agencies, staffed by James Bond wannabes. The comprehensive maintenance of this secret society the author called the “dark state” costs taxpayers an estimated trillion dollars a year. Its rate of declassifying documents is getting slower and slower, due to: a) the overwhelming amount of documents, which leads to the high expenses of having human eyes’ poring over every page, or machine-learning’s identifying patterns showing how confidential the contents are; and b) the humans’ deeming everything and anything “top secret” for the purpose of maintaining the status quo in profiteering, power acquisition and confidentiality itself (which leads to more power acquisition).

In connection therewith, the Pentagon has led a never-ending quest to increase its budget by arguing that national security is at stake. The 2017 cost-estimate of keeping the aforementioned secrets-maintaining– er, uh, declassification system going, was $18.39 billion, with which a thousand schools could have been constructed instead.

A large percentage of the costs are for public relations, and a tiny fraction is allocated to declassification– so that American citizens can find out the embarrassing actions their government took fifty or more years ago; at which time institutional memory has been lost and the alpha males with hubris syndrome in top leadership positions repeat the stupid mistakes of the past.

The American government’s oversight and regulation of itself has waxed and waned through the decades, but it has recently reached an all-time low. The author believed that unless the government begins to improve its transparency record by declassifying its activities at a faster rate, the country will head toward oblivion.

In 2015, the author (a history professor) and his scholarly and technologically experienced colleagues (who created the aforementioned software for declassifying documents) met with a few federal agencies to offer to assist in improving this out-of-control system.

The State Department suggested awarding student-interns with college credit for helping determine the secrecy-status of the documents. The National Archives said it was required to license the author’s team’s software through their own approved vendor. The CIA told the team, the software could be hosted through Amazon’s cloud computing.

The Public Interest Declassification Board referred the author to Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, whose work overlapped with the National Archives. But regardless of the methods used and compensation arrangements, the author identified why the declassifying of documents was so problematic: “We cannot assign a dollar value to democratic accountability.”

One small indication that shows government hegemony, is that three major “news” outlets, the Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal have online paywalls– they charge their users money for significant access to their websites. Most other such websites don’t. Readers who are unwilling to pay for “news” these days perceive that they’re not missing much by not reading those three newspapers. They might be right. BUT the author commented that “The publications can monetize the privileged access to national security information for personal and political advantage.”

Anyway, read the book to learn a boatload more about American presidential administrations’ policies on disclosure (and lack thereof!) of their intelligence activities.

the signal and the noise (sic)

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “the signal and the noise (sic)” by nate silver (sic), published in 2012. In this volume, the author described in redundant and wordy terms, why human beings are so fallible in their predictions and forecasts (and explained the difference between the two). Basically, humans get distracted by noise, so they don’t zero in on the right signals in order to tell the future correctly.

Ironically, the author used less-than-ideal language in describing the epic failings of ratings-agencies in the 2008 financial crash. He should have pointed out that they could have mitigated, just a little, their false advertising by using better risk-assessment wording.

Silver wrote, “… trillions of dollars in investments that were rated as being almost completely safe instead turned out to be almost completely unsafe.” (Never mind the awkwardness of the word “being” in the middle of the sentence, or “it” in the middle of a sentence– so many recently published books have that kind of bad writing.) The ratings agencies should describe investments as “low-risk” or “high-risk” and use the adverbs “extremely” or “very” or “somewhat” or “slightly” as applicable, but never use the word safe.

Anyway, another irony was that the author appeared to be distracted by vast generalizations that were just noise– as cherry-picked data tend to be. He provided all sorts of line graphs and scads of data on housing bubbles. He cited a study on market prices of the “American home” completed by Robert Schiller and Karl Case that created an index based on a century’s worth of data– the years between 1896 and 1996, inclusive.

The research indicated that an inflation-adjusted home bought for $10,000 in 1896 would be worth $10,600 in 1996. Is that noise or what? Silver didn’t specify what “American home” meant. Anyhow, who would buy a home in 1896, and sell it in 1996?

Silver did admit that predictions and forecasts were less inaccurate when qualitative data supplemented statistical models. Worded facts are considerations that add real-world conditions because numbers never tell the full story in complex situations, which are dynamic.

Incidentally, at the book’s writing, he had had success in making predictions in professional baseball because: 1) an excessive amount of data on it had been collected, and 2) he claimed its rules didn’t change. The latter is not true anymore. And besides, performance-enhancing drugs, not to mention new stadiums– among other factors– have put new noise and signals in baseball statistics.

The author pointed out that more data actually made for worse accuracy in predictions in many areas of life. Technology in the form of software that can process scads and scads of data in record time has improved humans’ ability to specifically forecast severe weather, but not earthquakes. As an aside– in any area that involves linguistics, technology is overrated. A chatbot cannot comprehend complex concepts and nuanced language (like sarcasm, irony and idioms). American English is especially fraught with words that have multiple meanings, so it is highly contextual.

There are still financial crashes, gamblers who lose big-time, and “experts” who can’t modify conditions to improve the economy with certainty. Incidentally, as is well known, more and more, daily life in America has been infiltrated by politics.

Read the book to learn about futuristic pronouncements of: television pundits, professional-sports commentators and gamblers, seismologists, chess software, national-security advisers, poker players, and many others.

The New Cool

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “The New Cool, A Visionary Teacher, His FIRST Robotics Team, and the Ultimate Battle of Smarts” by Neal Bascomb, published in 2011.

In the single-digit 2000’s, Amir Abo-Shaeer taught robotics in a “STEM” (four subjects that would help the United States remain economically dominant in the world: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) program at Dos Pueblos high school in Goleta, California (a western suburb of Santa Barbara). If he was able to raise $3 million, he would receive matching funds from the state of California to start to build STEM academies all over the state. Dean Kamen’s goal was to have a robotics team in every school in the country.

Kamen was gravely concerned that the United States education system was falling woefully behind that of other countries. He might best be remembered as the inventor of the Segway, but at the dawn of the 1990’s, he also began to change the world in a much more impactful way.

Kamen and Woodie Flowers’ goal was to spark students’ interest in STEM. They wanted to give young people hands-on, real-world skills, not just convey knowledge. In 1992, they co-founded an annual program of STEM competitions for American students called FIRST. About a decade into the program, there were hundreds of thousands of students of different age groups competing in different events.

Elementary schoolers built structures out of LEGO. Each high school team was required to build a robot, and then in the competition, form alliances with other teams in playing a complicated physical game that differed every year, against another alliance.

In January 2009, the aforementioned Shaeer and his robotics team (consisting of high school seniors he taught) attended the briefing that Kamen, Flowers and NASA simulcast– of the terms and conditions of the robotics competitions to take place in the next three months. If their team emerged ultimate winners, they could win scholarships and might be more motivated to pursue a STEM career.

Read the book to learn of Shaeer’s students’ extremely hard work in preparing their contest entry (the robot), and the suspenseful story of how the team performed with its alliances in its very emotionally charged matches against other alliances, and whether Shaeer got the funding for his schools.

Portrait of the Scientist

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “Portrait of the Scientist As A Young Woman” by Lindy Elkins-Tanton, published in 2022. This memoir described the arduous but ultimately successful career journey of a scientist who is female; arduous because as is well known, science is still a male-dominated field in which there is discrimination against females. But despite all the indignities she suffered, she reached the pinnacle of academic leadership in subjects related to her field.

Elkins-Tanton studied geology in college in the mid-1980’s. Over a number of years, in 2008 and later, with other scientists (which included a geochronologist, a geophysicist, and igneous petrologists), she made several trips to Siberia to collect and test volcanic rocks to determine whether they “sent climate-changing gases high enough into the atmosphere to affect the whole globe.”

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, Bibliography and an index), that event happened at the end of the Permian Period of the Paleozoic Era, about 300 million years ago. Around that time, there were mass extinctions. Such research was relevant to the argument that humans’ release of similar, toxic substances accounts for climate change.

The author related various anecdotes of childish behavior in her academic working-life in science. It is common sense that more and better scientific knowledge can be acquired through cooperation and information-sharing, but unfortunately, in the United States: vicious political goings-on in schools and the government, and competition for funding of projects and research, hinder progress.

In recent decades, space exploration around Mars has become the new “Space Race” for hegemonic nations with egotistical leaders (i.e., China, Russia and the United States). That last nation approved funding for its space-exploration agency, NASA, during president Trump’s tenure. Trump was anti-science all the way– except for rocket science– because it is about national pride, and of course, it’s a distraction from domestic troubles.

Over years of blood, sweat and tears, in a competition against other groups, the author led a team of multi-disciplinary experts in producing a proposal for a spacecraft that would travel around Mars and Jupiter and provide data about the Big Bang. In another leadership role, the author helped plan an unconventional curriculum for a college class.

Read the book to learn whose proposal won the competition, and much more about how the author dealt with professional and personal challenges.

Black Box Thinking

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “Black Box Thinking, Why Most People Never Learn From Their Mistakes– But Some Do” by Matthew Syed, published in 2015. This volume attempted to answer the question: “How does failure-denial become so deeply entrenched in human minds and systems?”

The author described two ways of thinking:

1. Some people believe their abilities are fixed, so they won’t improve with practice. They have fear of failure, and make excuses and / or blame others for their failures.

2. Other people believe they can get better with practice, and they are honest about admitting they have made errors. They learn from them. Success is achieved only through trial and error, hard work and persistence.

Number 1 above is also described in the following quote from Bertrand Russell: “There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.” Yet another way of putting it is “hubris syndrome.”

Two of America’s recent presidents– George W. Bush and Donald Trump– were this kind of thinker. According to the author’s thesis, they succeeded against the odds (if success is defined as getting elected president), considering that they were blind to their own character flaws.

BUT– their common beginnings saw them through: They both began with the special advantages of inheriting money, mentors, lawyers, and valuable career and political contacts. They proceeded to fail upwards until they reached their peak “Peter principle” level, kind of like the joke: How do you make a small fortune in Israel? Answer: Come with a large one.

The author drew parallels between the topic-areas of aviation and healthcare delivery. These involve life-and-death scenarios when things go extremely wrong. However, that is where the similarities stop. People who have shaped the evolution of aviation have built up a knowledge-base that has served to produce lower and lower death tolls when catastrophes have occurred; powerful, influential people working in healthcare have been stubbornly resistant to adopting measures that would result in a drastic reduction in unnecessary deaths.

The author cited real-life examples from Great Britain and the United States. But there are other major reasons why his comparison is mostly invalid. These involve lawsuits, unions, government regulations and the political climate at the time of the disasters, and the following:

Obviously, workers in aviation have more of an incentive to improve safety, because in a disaster, many more people might die all at once in a plane crash, compared to the one patient on an operating table or examination table. Even if members of the flight crew survive a disaster, their careers are likely over. Even when doctors are at fault, they usually continue their careers.

The author discussed the pros and cons of just-culture versus blame-culture. He described the latter thusly: “It may be intellectually satisfying to have a culprit, someone to hang their disaster on. And it certainly makes life simple.”

The author recounted how a public-relations campaign can fool even intelligent people into believing a particular method of crime-prevention among young people, works wonders. The only way to debunk such a myth is through numerous Randomized Control Trials.

Read the book to learn about additional concepts surrounding psychological self-deceptions that humans employ in order to avoid admitting failures: cognitive dissonance, narrative fallacy, top-down versus bottom-up product development, various biases, and others.

Sandworm

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “Sandworm, A New Era of Cyberwar and the hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers” by Andy Greenberg, published in 2019. In this eye-opening volume, the author provided the backstory (out of chronological order, in a confusing, cherry-picked way) on how and why Russia has become the world’s biggest disrupter of society yet again through a new method. “Sandworm” refers to the Russian hackers who perpetrated cyberattacks. The author implied that knocking out power grids was one new way to destabilize target nations. But this is NOT a new idea.

Anyway, as is well known, in recent decades, for various reasons, Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, ordered his military to attack Estonia (in 1999 and later), Georgia in 2008 (yes, Soviet Georgia– not the American state), and Ukraine. These offensives were accomplished not just on the ground, but also through technology. Ukraine’s election process and electric power were both seriously damaged through the Internet.

In the United States, various federal agencies fight for the power to set policy on the country’s cybersecurity: FBI, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security; plus the U.S. military, North American Electric Reliability Corporation, and SANS Institute.

During the George W. Bush administration, America and Israel started a secret project to develop virulent malware that could wreak cyberwar on their enemies, but whose main purpose was to stop Iran from making nuclear weapons.

During the Obama administration, a young, bright Air Force officer was hired to build a cyber-security department from the ground up, within the NSA. However, he got disgusted with the abusive hierarchy of the American military, as new recruits’ talent was wasted because the status quo dictated that they pay their dues.

Meanwhile, after years of work, investigators found evidence that the Russians were to blame for penetrating America’s technology infrastructure in 2016. Even conservative radio-show host Rush Limbaugh jumped on the bandwagon, saying, “It was an acrylic [sic] keyboard!” [He meant Cyrillic].

In 2017, Britain’s National Health Service was disabled via malicious software code that demanded a small amount of bitcoins as ransom. Other entities hit included a German railway, a Russian bank , colleges in China, police departments in India, and malware called “NotPetya” that did a number on Ukrainian civilians who were really inconvenienced in living their everyday lives.

In sum, it’s deju vu all over again in terms of a Cold War arms race involving Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and the U.S. This time, though, the weapon is technology and the threats are made by numerous worldwide terrorist cells who can hack a target’s infrastructure and its political system (like with online voting in Arizona and Illinois) whenever their territory’s leader commands them to do so. Another difference is that the kinds of cyberattacks seen thus far are akin to one aspect of Nazism: sowing social unrest (rather than killing people; not that the Nazis didn’t also do that) to bring a nation down. Damage done by psychological harassment from foul play via the Internet is economically incalculable and extremely difficult to regulate because it is international.

As is well known, through the twentieth century into the new millennium, information sources evolved from newspapers, magazines, books, and radio, to television, cable television, and then the Internet. Currently, Google and social media can serve as news aggregators, but more often, they are for-profit propaganda tools, just like all the aforementioned media. Most Americans think of movies as entertainment rather than as a source of news or education, but in the Postwar Era, they have also become for-profit propaganda tools.

But take heart, America! There is at least one area of optimism that will help this country’s democracy continue:

Compared to now, there was as much as or even more social unrest in this country in 1968. Before and after, the nation suffered through two dictatorial presidents in a row— LBJ and Nixon– who were recruiting all men of military age; many against their will, to fight in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in a war that was extremely expensive in so many ways. They sowed social unrest among their own people. America has not had two such presidents in a row since.

Even so, LBJ was kind of schizophrenic because he helped pass major civil-rights legislation. However, his ego wouldn’t let him order a stop to the war. Nixon went all-out on lies and deception, wreaking vicious political vengeance on his perceived enemies because he didn’t think he’d ever get punished. As journalist P.J. O’Rourke commented, beginning in the mid-1960’s, the Baby Boomers threw “a decade-long temper tantrum.” But now, their generation is wise to political shenanigans of decades past.

In 1972, voter apathy was so severe that Nixon was reelected in a landslide. Nowadays, voter turnout is at an all-time high. This is cause for celebration. Americans are starting to understand why voting is so important: it shows they believe in the democratic process (regardless of for whom they vote). A significant number of voters are required in order for democracy to work. When a dictatorial leader senses the people aren’t paying attention to what he’s doing, he will take advantage of that to acquire more power. He’s more likely to do the people’s will when he sees their anger is close to reaching critical mass.

On that note, read the book to learn much more about the author’s alarmist take on the global cybersecurity situation.

Did Elon Musk Lose Your Favor – BONUS POST

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

As is well known, the messaging-clutter in the United States has reached a screaming crescendo. Here’s a question in connection with the tenor of the times.

DID ELON MUSK LOSE YOUR FAVOR

sung to the tune of “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor” [1961 Hits Archive] with apologies to the estate of Lonnie Donegan.

Oh [bleep], oh [bleep], oh you.
Whatever shall we do?
And YET one more bleep.
The question is so deep.
At stake is big-time dough.
Politicos want to know,
the pollsters’ Twitter question:
Is it yes or is it no?

Did E-LON Musk lose your favor by poor judgement overnight?
If the critics say just quit it,
do you keep your account in spite?
Do you seek out all the radicals?
Do you follow the Left or Right?
Did E-LON Musk lose your favor by poor judgement overnight?

Here he COMES with excessive pride.
His atTORNeys by his side.
THOSE lies and smears
everywhere are stoking fears
that our country could be wrecked.
But free speech is guaranteed,
and as Musk has trouble with control, he wants to take the LEAD.

Now the nation’s split in two.
Democracy will come through,
at every level, yeah, every single level.
Each side keeps the other in check.
We do it with Big Tech.
The most influential voices keep the candidates neck and neck.

If a price tag’s made of a price,
what’s a hashtag made of? [Boom, boom]

By poor judgement overnight?

You’re the best, and Twitter loves you, and it wants to make things right.
It’s going to be the most trendy, uncensored social media site.

By poor judgement overnight?

A spade is a spade and
a fact is a fact.
He’d sing another chorus but
he’s afraid of getting hacked.

By poor judgement overnight? Yeah!

The Education of A Speculator

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “The Education of A Speculator” by Victor Niederhoffer, published in 1997.

Born in 1943 in Brooklyn in New York City, the author sorted “market advisers and investment newsletter writers” into eight different categories, providing a brief description of their behaviors or personality traits. He classified himself as “The Other World Person” because he ignored the overpaid noisemakers and distractions of conventional media outlets that purported to convey information on which securities to buy, sell, or avoid.

The author’s two data sources for his commodities, currency trading and investing ideas consisted of the National Enquirer and his research results from testing all kinds of variables in statistics-calculations of past securities-market data using software. No other sources.

The mid-1990’s saw great advances in statistics software modeling that could process scads and scads of data; hence, market players could erroneously use past performance of investment vehicles faster than ever before for predictive purposes to help themselves and others lose their money faster than ever before. And those advances might have played a part in the scandals and financial crashes that have occurred with alarmingly increasing frequency in the last thirty years. Big Tech’s and Big Media’s incestuous oligopolies (fraught with political donations) just keep getting more hegemonic, so that power and money keep feeding on themselves ad infinitum. Globalization is yet another wrench in the works.

At the book’s writing, global trade had been maturing for decades, but capitalism was still in its infancy in many territories of the world; particularly in ones that were becoming politically democratic again, or for the first time in their histories. Many European countries were in the process of adopting cooperation rather than competition in their financial and economic dealings. A large proportion of them even voted to use one currency among them. The United States kept to itself, but more and more people around the world were starting to trade or invest in foreign securities, currencies and governmental financial entities, so chain reactions occurred more and more.

The Federal Reserve (aka Fed) has always been a major influence on America’s financial markets. The author contended that the Fed was just as clueless as the rest of the country about what effects its making of rate-adjustments would have on the nation’s economy. It is currently just as clueless. But its announcements are made with such confidence and arrogance, that a large number of their listeners are brainwashed into believing they are receiving valuable information.

The incumbents– known names pre-Internet–became the most influential voices in the financial sphere. The wiliest ones use propaganda techniques to paper over their wrong predictions. They never apologize for the losses stemming from their pronouncements. The walls of the author’s business office were lined with portraits of ones who had disastrous losses.

To be fair, the author himself told various anecdotes of his own failures. In 1992, he bought IBM stock for his own kids. That was an embarrassing mistake. He learned to cut his losses at a certain level of the total money he reinvested. And, he didn’t let his greed get out of control when he was winning.

The author was a champion squash player. One similarity between squash and speculating is externalities–opponents’ actions determine players’ actions in the game. So, for instance, in ten-pin bowling, there are no externalities. In squash, there are. In one college finals-match, the author moved his body in a way that tricked his opponent into thinking the ball was going to go in a certain direction, but it went the opposite way. Traders and investors play similar tricks in their communications in the financial markets. Conditions change rapidly so even the market propagandists’ winning streaks don’t last long.

The reason is:

First, independent thinkers make observations or find obscure data that works in making them money. Then software detects their trading tricks. So word gets around, and everyone else jumps on the bandwagon so that the advantage is lost.

Human beings want so badly— to believe they can predict the future, and love to fantasize about getting rich quick– that they tend to look for patterns and order where none exist. The author did provide one vast generalization that might be valuable, though. His statistical analysis between the years 1870 and 1995 inclusive showed that years ending in the digit 5 were good years, and those ending in 7 were bad, for the American stock markets. He didn’t speculate as to why.

However, politics is one major mover of markets, and the collective mood of the United States specifically, might be a bit more upbeat in years when political uncertainty is at a minimum. Presidents and other politicians begin or continue their terms during years ending in 5. The public might be unclear about their future policy directions, or weary of them by the years that end in 7.

Anyway, read the book to learn a boatload more about the author’s philosophy, his trials, tribulations and triumphs in the markets, his research results and comparisons between financial markets and: ecology, games and sports.

Burn Rate

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “Burn Rate, Launching A Startup and Losing My Mind” by Andy Dunn, published in 2022. Born in February 1979 in the United States, the author won the lottery in that he had family and friends who knew him well enough to recognize that, given his personality, his behavior was anomalous. He was doubly lucky that not only did he get mental-health treatment before he ended up in jail (well, at least on one occasion) or in the cemetery, but also, he could (with assistance from others) afford it.

“… for many, even a ‘chill’ drug like marijuana can stimulate a manic episode.” The author got to college still unaware that bipolar disorder (aka manic-depressive illness) ran in his family; his grandmother had had it. People who actually have the condition suffer under a Damocles sword their whole lives, as their mental state goes through unpredictable cycles, even with medication. Of course, stress exacerbates the highs and lows. The medication has side effects that are meant to dull the emotions, so bipolar patients don’t experience and enjoy life as much as people whose brain chemicals are more stable than theirs.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), while in college, the author was ingesting alcohol and controlled substances such as ecstasy, magic mushrooms and marijuana on a daily basis, and taking the (radical) acne medication Accutane. Somehow, he graduated anyway, and got his MBA at Stanford. He explained that the professors there educated students in entrepreneurship, if they wanted to go that route. The author did.

After years of interesting ups and downs, in 2016, the author– a lifelong fan of the Chicago Cubs (who had last been World Series winners in 1908)– was afforded the opportunity to see game 7 of the World Series in Cleveland. But first, he had to rush to JFK airport from the streets in the East 50’s in Manhattan, beginning an hour before his plane took off, to get there. His cab driver did 90 MPH. Sympathetic people at the airport made way for him when they heard about his situation.

Read the book to learn of the author’s other trials and tribulations, triumphs and defeats. Speaking of defeats…

This is the song Hillary Clinton is singing now.

IN POST-CLINTON TIME

sung to the tune of “Sunny Afternoon” (Official Audio) with apologies to the Kinks.

My opponents BEAT me the last two times.
Deplorables and BERnie were unkind.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room.
And though I CAN-not be in charge,
I’m not locked up, I’m still at-large.
All I WANT’S in-the Situation Room.

Save me, save me, save me
from bad publicity.
I’ve got lots of enemies.
It’s a VAST right-wing conspiracy.

And I love to hobnob with elites,
brag about my political feats.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time.

Donald Trump’s ruined my rep.
He’s in his safehouse doing ’24 prep,
spewing the usUAL blather and cruelty.
Now I’m here online,
doing the grass-roots, make-work grind.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room.

Help me, help me, help me
revive my ca-reer.
Well, give my Party money
to get me out of here.

‘Cause I love to hobnob with elites,
brag about my political feats.
I sorely miss the Situation Room,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time.

Ah, save me, save me, save me
from bad publicity.
I’ve got lots of enemies.
It’s a VAST right-wing conspiracy.

And I love to hobnob with elites,
brag about my political feats.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time.

By Way of Deception

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “By Way of Deception, The Making and Unmaking of A Mossad Officer” by Victor Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy, published in 1990. The former’s slightly sloppily edited, detailed account asserted that the Mossad (a spying agency in Israel that acted like a self-regulatory organization– that conducted operations with neither the government’s permission nor knowledge, so that leaders would have plausible deniability) had become too big for its britches. By the mid-1980’s, the Mossad had about twelve hundred true insiders and an unknown number of agents or contacts worldwide.

The author was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada in November 1949. He grew up in Canada and Israel, and began his Mossad training in the early 1970’s. At that time, the Mossad pretended to recruit women, but never actually hired any to be insiders; for, women were harder to protect, and even though women were used as enchantresses and seductresses (and were killed when necessary) no Arab men (Mossad’s main target) would accept them as their bosses.

For starters, the author passed months and months of numerous, rigorous hiring tests that required him to be dishonest yet naturally creative and charismatic– getting strangers to do his bidding. During his two years’ training to be a spy, the author was brainwashed into living a lie without a second thought. In his business, one also needed to be paranoid.

There were no second chances for the inexperienced. In June 1973, a PLO terrorist thought he was careful in checking his car for explosives (under the hood, underneath, in the trunk, and in the exhaust pipe) on every occasion prior to driving. However, he was killed by a pressure mine under his car seat.

In the 1970’s, France possessed the Exocet, a missile with cutting-edge technology– it could walk on water, undetected by radar. Israel wanted this weaponry, but its reputation in the world was tarnished, so France and the countries that bought it wouldn’t sell to Israel. In 1976, the Mossad stepped in and brokered a secret deal among Chile’s number two man under Pinochet, and Panama’s number two man under Noriega. The agency successfully paid a million American dollars for the head of the missile, which was all Israel needed to reverse-engineer it and manufacture it.

In the eventful year of 1981, the Mossad didn’t want to see peace in the Middle East. It launched a complicated operation involving missiles, raisins and hash that put millions and millions of dollars in its coffers (the revenue was a happy side effect) “… with the ever-treacherous PLO… the key was to ensure that everything was synchronized in Vienna, Hamburg and Frankfurt…” It wrapped up in July, when the said cities’ local police arrested tens of spies, and at least one person was killed.

Read the book to learn of additional ways the Mossad’s sociopathic operatives disregarded rule-of-law in order to achieve their missions in mostly playing adolescent-boy spy games, but occasionally orchestrating international incidents in which the course of history was significantly changed, and in which innocent people died.