Getting rolled ...

Destruction in a Beirut suburb from an Israeli airstrike this week.
Credit...Ibrahim Amro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The US keeps getting rolled by Israel, the only country possessing the poison pill of diplomacy, an entangled alliance with us where the national interest of one country differs radically with the national interest of the other, a relationship most dangerous when both are faced with a widening mid east war capable of leading the world to WWIII if we let it. Being the arms merchant to Israel to enable it to wage war in any way it desires, is not the way the US should do business but here it is, a situation both shameful and terrifying at the same time. 

For the first 165 years of its history, the United States did not form any alliances besides the one it signed with France during the Revolutionary War. Instead, U.S. leaders followed George Washington’s advice to “steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world,” a recommendation subsequently enshrined in Thomas Jefferson’s inaugural pledge: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.”

Until now.

When Israel defied America’s appeals for restraint by invading Lebanon a few days ago, a reporter asked President Biden if he was comfortable with what had unfolded.

“I’m comfortable with them stopping,” Biden replied plaintively. “We should have a cease-fire now.” He walked away from the podium, grouchy, frustrated and impotent, a self-diminishing president.

It was the latest sign of how Biden keeps getting rolled by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. As the political scientist Ian Bremmer said of Biden’s words on the invasion: “Impact: zero.”

Instead of midwifing the landmark Middle East peace that he hoped for, Biden became the arms supplier for the leveling of Gaza — a war that killed more women and children in a single year than any other war in the last two decades, according to Oxfam. 

It gets "better."

Biden has been calling for restraint for a year, but he marginalized himself by continuously providing the weapons that allowed his appeals to be ignored. He appealed to the better angels of Netanyahu’s nature, but it’s not clear that they exist.

Biden restricted and conditioned U.S. arms transfers to Ukraine but worried that doing the same to Israel might tempt Hezbollah to attack it. So Biden kept the arms flowing (with the exception of at least one shipment of 2,000-pound bombs) and never imposed serious restrictions on their use. This impunity emboldened Netanyahu to ignore Biden, and the upshot is that Biden has nurtured not a regional peace but, it seems, a regional war — with America at risk of being sucked in.

“In the Middle East, we clearly see a failure of policy,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland who admires Biden’s foreign policy in other respects, told me. “And I think it’s ultimately rooted in the Biden administration’s unwillingness to effectively use American influence to achieve the president’s stated goals.”

“The problem we have here is the pattern,” Van Hollen added. “The pattern is that Prime Minister Netanyahu ignores the United States and he gets rewarded for it.”

It's worse than this as the possibility of the US getting pulled into a disastrous war with Iran looms ever larger thanks to Bibi doing a number on Biden in ways most telling. It's time for America to grow a pair before it's too late as it's in our national interest to do so and soon.

The location of the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean
and the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea.

Compare this to how Ike handled the Suez Crisis.

Who: Egypt and Britain with France and Israel

What: Britain, France and Israel respond to the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company by Egyptian President Nasser with a combined military operation.

Where: The Suez Canal in Egypt

When: November 1956

Result: The landings receive international condemnation. Under intense pressure, particularly from the US, troops were rapidly withdrawn and replaced by a UN force. Britain’s declining status was highlighted and its Prime Minister - Anthony Eden - resigned. Egypt was granted ownership and sovereignty of the Suez Canal and it was re-opened in April 1957.

Dark MAGA

Billionaire tech executive Elon Musk spoke at a rally for Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania
where the former president survived an assassination attempt in July.

To this rube, Musk's indirect connect to Howard Hughes is too obvious to ignore as Hughes, like Musk, was a brilliant engineer who sadly descended into madness, something eerily similar to Musk when viewing, in context, just how radically intense his political views have become with his latest soiree sharing the stage with The Donald, complete with rants supporting the orange menace to the max.

Billionaire tech executive Elon Musk cast the upcoming presidential election in dire terms during an appearance with Donald Trump, calling the Republican presidential nominee the only candidate “to preserve democracy in America.”

The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla who also purchased X, Musk joined Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday at the site where the former president survived an assassination attempt in July. Musk said “this will be the last election” if Trump doesn’t win. Wearing a cap with the “Make America Great Again” slogan of Trump’s campaign, Musk appeared to acknowledge the foreboding nature of his remarks.

“As you can see I am not just MAGA — I am Dark MAGA,” he said.

It gets better.

Before a large crowd Saturday, Musk sought to portray Trump as a champion of free speech, arguing that Democrats want “to take away your freedom of speech, they want to take away your right to bear arms, they want to take away your right to vote, effectively.” Musk went on to criticize a California effort to ban voter ID requirements.

Hughes on the cover of Time magazine, July 1948
(with the Hughes H-4 Hercules in the background)

Any questions?

Used car salesman

Ioulex for The New York Times

Yours truly saw the veep debate with Walz and Vance, which consisted of an interestingly "polite" exchange of "ideas" along the lines of the infamous Cheney/Lieberman affair where the Dark Lord expressed "interesting" ideas in a dulcet monotone enticing rubes like me to say, that's ok, right? Now comes Vance, a used car or snake oil salesman, take your pick, offering truly horrific ideas of how America should be run with "style" as this guy has no morals but rather a subtle lust for power no matter the cost.  With this being said, Vance, to this writer, lacks the gravitas to pull it off as his oiliness is too obvious for all to see but no doubt, he's the rising star in the GOP, an entity that sold its soul to The Donald back in 2016. With Vance, dangerous ideas are nicely packaged, able to be sold to the gullible Magas with little effort, a most disquieting notion in the land of the brave and home of the free.

Elmer Gantry comes to mine here, does it not?

Over and over again JD Vance successfully distanced himself from his long, well-documented track record of inflammatory statements on everything from reproductive health to immigrants. Those Americans who tuned in to the debate saw an affable, reasonable Vance (no matter how many times he lied). That should terrify anyone who cares about democracy.

In many ways, Vance proved that there will be another Donald Trump, one who is just as sinister but far better produced for middle-of-the road voters. It does not matter if Vance was only pretending to align with Trump’s combative politics and disastrous policy proposals. What matters is that Vance has proved that he will change all of his fundamental beliefs in order to win.

Vance is the perfect solution to Trump’s self-inflicted political frailties. He is just as starved for power but not nearly as desperate for attention. He sells dangerous policy positions better to the kinds of voters who are tired of being embarrassed.

Sounds plausible to me. 

Glimpses of summer & fall

Lilies

A button of a different kind :)

Shadows

Channeling the Little Prince

Filigree

Of blue & pink

Rain drops frozen for a little while

Powder Puff

A milk weed visitor

Hubris

Jacob Peter Gowy's The Fall of Icarus (1635–1637)

hu·bris

(h)yo͞obrəs/

noun

excessive pride or self-confidence.

"the self-assured hubris among economists was shaken in the late 1980s"

Similar: arrogance, conceit, conceitedness, self-conceit

(in Greek tragedy) excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.

This is what Israel is feeling after it's successful raids against Hezbollah in taking out their leaders with exquisite precision but this does not equate to taking out their military infrastructure or taking into account the undying hatred and nothing to lose attitude Hamas and Hezbollah fighters have in wanting to extract horrific revenge on a truly hated entity. From this perspective, over extending one's resources comes to mind as fighting a two front war ( & most likely three) in addition to having a an economy gutted by war is not a smart thing to do, particularly when said country's enemies will attack strategic targets using sophisticated guerrilla tactics honed by the 70+ year existence of never ending conflict beginning with the expulsion of the Palestinians from Palestine in 1948 by the Israelis.

The possibility of all out war, thanks to Bibi's frenzied response, unconditionally backed by the US, to the Oct 7th Hamas attack, is now reaching a boiling point as seen by Iran launching ballistic missiles toward Israel in response to the continuing Israeli attacks on Hezbollah and South Lebanon.

As stated before, the gates of hell beckon.

Israeli tanks and APC’s are seen gathering by the Lebanese border on Monday.
Erik Marmor/Getty Images

It will take a remarkable amount of efficiency and discipline from the Israeli military and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to know when it is time to stop. Militaries are not particularly keen on pulling back, especially in large scale operations. If the incursion is easygoing, it could incentivize the Israel Defense Forces to push forward, sensing a weakened enemy against which swift progress can be made. If the going gets tough, the IDF can suggest the mission is more imperative than ever, and that they must push on.

But, quite remarkably after two weeks of technological wizardry and ruthless, calculated attacks against Hezbollah — starting with the simultaneous explosion of communication devices and culminating in the killing of the militant group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah — the playing field may shift. The Israeli military are now walking into the ground trap that their adversary has been setting for them for well over a decade.

They may discover that Hezbollah, its leadership decapitated, is so enfeebled that it is genuinely a less challenging task than imagined to mop up what remains of its ground troops after months of heavy airstrikes. But southern Lebanon was always going to be where the Iran-backed group held the home advantage. Its tunnel network provides them an endless maze for Israeli forces. And so, knowing when to stop is going to be key to this not becoming a quagmire for Israel. Almost every modern war that has dragged on for years began with the idea that it would all be over in a matter of weeks.

The invasion begins.

Source: Israeli military, United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon, OpenStreetMap By Leanne Abraham, Agnes Chang and Lauren Leatherby

How this ends, no one knows, do one? - Fats Waller

Passing Thru

As tourists, we always are passing thru, checking out the environs of whatever place we visit, in this case, the Cape and the Vineyard along with a passing take on the endless allure of the beaches as no one ever tires of walking alongside of an entity forever to remain mysterious to us land dwellers.

Systems :)

Theft of another kind :)

Something wicked this way comes ...

Off in the distance ...

For years, yours truly has waxed "poetic" about AI, the open-ended tech forever to remain unknown thanks to how the tech works in order to react to the real world in real time but in this case, it's not the architecture of same being discussed but rather the risk, particularly when some purveyors of such tech cannot be trusted in any way, shape or fashion.

To whit ...

For about five years, OpenAI used a system of nondisclosure agreements to stifle public criticism from outgoing employees. Current and former OpenAI staffers were paranoid about talking to the press. In May, one departing employee refused to sign and went public in The Times. The company apologized and scrapped the agreements. Then the floodgates opened. Exiting employees began criticizing OpenAI’s safety practices, and a wave of articles emerged about its broken promises.

These stories came from people who were willing to risk their careers to inform the public. How many more are silenced because they’re too scared to speak out? Since existing whistle-blower protections typically cover only the reporting of illegal conduct, they are inadequate here. Artificial intelligence can be dangerous without being illegal. A.I. needs stronger protections — like those in place in parts of the public sector, finance and publicly traded companies — that prohibit retaliation and establish anonymous reporting channels.

OpenAI has spent the last year mired in scandal. The company’s chief executive was briefly fired after the nonprofit board lost trust in him. Whistle-blowers alleged to the Securities and Exchange Commission that OpenAI’s nondisclosure agreements were illegal. Safety researchers have left the company in droves. Now the firm is restructuring its core business as a for-profit, seemingly prompting the departure of more key leaders. On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI rushed testing of a major model in May, attempting to undercut a rival’s publicity; after the release, employees found out the model exceeded the company’s standards for safety. (The company told The Journal the findings were the result of a methodological flaw.)

This behavior would be concerning in any industry, but according to OpenAI itself, A.I. poses unique risks. The leaders of the top A.I. firms and leading A.I. researchers have warned that the technology could lead to human extinction.

Something wicked this way comes. 

It is what it is :)

It is what it is :)