Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
So far Trump had no luck with finding coalition partners. The attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman were understood as a warning. The United Arab Emirates appeared to drop out of the coalition when it did not blame Iran for the attack and reportedly also pulls out of the war on Yemen. (The UAE is busy fighting a proxy war against Turkey in Libya.) Left in the coalition are the Israelis, the Saudis and the neoconservatives in the U.S. who press for war. But the Israelis do not want to fight themselves against Iran and the Saudis are useless in a war. Russia meanwhile declared that Iran is "an ally and partner". It will make sure that Iran has the means to defend itself.
Trump preempted that majority for now with today's short meeting with Kim Jong Un. Official negotiations between the two countries will restart soon.
Trump Meets Kim, Averting Threat of Nuclear War—and US Pundits Are Furious – Tim Shorrock – The Nation
The media response, from both liberals and conservatives, betrays a cynical disregard for South Korea.
Slightly related:
Fact checking the meat consumption of Iranians – Djavad Salehi-Isfahani
See also:
New pitch trim issue forces further changes to 737 MAX software – Björn Fehr – Leeham News
This is not that cause of the MCAS failure but it shows what is wrong with Boeing:
Boeing's 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers – Bloomberg
The programmers in India are well capable of writing good software. The difficulty lies in communicating the design requirements for the software. If they do not know in detail how air planes are engineered, they will implement the design to the letter but not to its intent. Here is how that works:
Mom to nerdy kid: "Honey, please go to the market and buy one bottle of milk. If they have eggs, bring six."
Nerdy kid comes back with six bottles of milk.
Mom: "Why did you bring six bottles of milk?"
Nerdy kid: "Because they had eggs."
More bad news for Boeing:
Pilots Flagged Software Problems on Boeing Jets Besides the Max – Bloomberg
Those were problems with the Boeing 737 NG which has the same flight control computers as the 737 MAX. There is also the still unexplained 2016 accident of Flydubai Flight 981. The 737 NG plane nosedived (vid) into the ground with 62 people on board. It was an unexplained runaway stabilizer incident eventually blamed on the pilots.
Boeing falsified records for 787 jet sold to Air Canada. It developed a fuel leak – CNC
The records stated that manufacturing work had been completed when it had not.
Concerns raised over incorrect airspeed data readings on Boeing 787 Dreamliners – News.au
DOJ probe expands beyond Boeing 737 MAX, includes 787 Dreamliner – Seattle Times
The Rothschild organ seems to agree with Putin.
Globalisation is dead and we need to invent a new world order – The Economist
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Other issues:
Trump Consultant Is Trolling Democrats With Biden Site That Isn’t Biden’s – NYT
For much of the last three months, the most popular Joseph R. Biden Jr. website has been a slick little piece of disinformation that is designed to look like the former vice president’s official campaign page, yet is most definitely not pro-Biden.
The NYT piece uses the word "disinformation" eight times. But the site JoeBiden.info only has truthful information about Biden. Sure, the pictures of Biden touching little girls are without context. But everyone knows that Joe just loves them …
Demasking the Torture of Julian Assange – Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
In the end it finally dawned on me that I had been blinded by propaganda, and that Assange had been systematically slandered to divert attention from the crimes he exposed. Once he had been dehumanized through isolation, ridicule and shame, just like the witches we used to burn at the stake, it was easy to deprive him of his most fundamental rights without provoking public outrage worldwide. And thus, a legal precedent is being set, through the backdoor of our own complacency, which in the future can and will be applied just as well to disclosures by The Guardian, the New York Times and ABC News.
A Leader of America’s Fracking Boom Has Second Thoughts – WSJ
Over the past 10 years, 40 of the largest independent oil and gas producers collectively spent roughly $200 billion more than they took in from operations, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from financial-information firm FactSet. During that time, a broad index of U.S. oil-and-gas companies fell roughly 10%, while the S&P 500 index nearly tripled.
REVEALING UKRAINE OFFICIAL TEASER TRAILER #1 EDITED (2019) (vid)
“Revealing Ukraine” by Igor Lopatonok continues investigations on of the ongoing Ukrainian crisis following preceding “Ukraine on Fire”. In addition, it analyzes the current political backstage and its dangerous potential for the world. In the movie the main speaker – heavyweight Ukrainian politician, opposition leader –Viktor Medvedchuk is being interviewed by the renowned filmmaker Oliver Stone. Oliver Stone also sat with Russian president Vladimir Putin to ask him a questions about Ukrainian crisis.
Use as open thread …
