Syrian Quagmire

I keep loose tabs on what’s going on regarding the US’ “no boots on the ground” deployment in Syria. And, frankly, it’s really hard to tell: the US media is suspiciously quiet about it (I assume they have been told to shut up)  – when I go to outside sources, it gets confusing, fast. The overall impression I come away with is that Turkey is shooting at everyone, the US Air Force has a terrorist organization (the PKK – Kurdistan Worker’s Party, a leftist revolutionary group listed as a terrorist organization by NATO and the US) directing air strikes, and ISIS is cropping up in places that the media hasn’t been talking about.

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Deepities With a Side of Vat-Grown Beef

I’m not sure what the correct term for this is, perhaps “halo effect” or maybe it’s “transferrence” or just plain old “confirmation bias” but there’s a weird thing humans do, when they notice that someone is knowledgeable about X they sometimes get super impressed and assume that person is also knowledgeable about Y and maybe Z. I think it’s “confirmation bias” – but I’m skeptical of terminology in general.

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Because: Freedom of Speech

During the “Arab Spring” (what a loathsome, patronizing, attitude we express!) the US Government repeatedly socialized ideas about how Twitter, etc, were important to helping anti-government protests, i.e.:

The Obama administration, while insisting it is not meddling in Iran, yesterday confirmed it had asked Twitter to remain open to help anti-government protesters. [guardian]

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Follow-up: A Security Question

Yesterday I discussed the retro-scope of information-gathering[1] and I probably should have mentioned that President Obama – along with commuting Chelsea Manning’s sentence – handed the citizens of the US a great big “F.U.”  Just before leaving office he quietly changed how the NSA is allowed to share information, considerably expanding the power of the intelligence apparatus.

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