Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Fake News and The Russians

Is there anything to this story?  Not to me; at least not yet.  You're reading a guy who's motto when confronted with wild claims is "In God we trust; everyone else bring data and keep your hands where I can see 'em".  (Advertising claims and global warming scare stories are the usual triggers for that response).

Has anybody seen any data?  Someone in the CIA says it, so it must be true?  Is that like when the Mainstream Media cites "unnamed sources" that just happen to really be another reporter?  The Office of the DNI (Director of National Intelligence) doesn't buy it.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to accept the CIA's analysis - a deductive assessment of the available intelligence - for the same basic reason, the three officials said: the CIA has not argued that they can know motives.  The FBI, of course, is concerned about having evidence which will stand up in court.  "The CIA dood said so" is not that kind of evidence. 
The CIA conclusion was a "judgment based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked," one of the three officials said on Monday.
The fact is that since as far back as last summer, Julian Assange has been saying it was not Russia that provided the information they published.  It was a leak, not a hack.  Voluntarily provided, not stolen.  In an interview Sunday, Dec. 11th, that was repeated.
However on Sunday Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, acknowledged that he met the person who was responsible for publicly outing  the DNC emails, and it was not Russia.

Murray then went on to say in an interview that; “I know who leaked them, “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things”.
With no data published, who do you believe?  A British Ambassador or "someone at the CIA".  The guys in the CIA very likely have a dog in the fight.  It's entirely possible the Deep State is attacking Trump here, seeing if they can ruin his credibility before he even starts in office.  Of the two sides, Julian Assange and Craig Murray vs. the nameless "someone at the CIA", I think Assange and Murray are more likely to be telling the truth. 
Or you could go all in, like Keith Olbermann, here, from Twittererer.  (H/T to David Codrea's War On Guns).

I propose a new unit for stupidity, in which this is a standard.  Someone really, really stupid would be one Olbermann.  When you goof up and forget your car keys, that would like a milli-Olberman.  Something exceptionally stupid, like losing all your money to a Nigerian prince email scam would be a hecto-Olbermann (100 Olbermanns).  No one has ever lived through a kilo-Olbermann worth of stupidity. 


6 comments:

  1. Hey Graybeard, keep up the good work. You post some good (not dumb) stuff.

    I'd like to see "SKOS" (Special Kind Of Stupid) codified to identify an Olberman level of dumb. Wasn't it Einstein that said something to the effect; "There are only two things that are infinite, one is the Universe, the other is human stupidity - and I'm not so sure about the Universe." ?
    Perhaps SKOS levels 1 through 10? with 10 being "slobbering lunatic". Joy Behar of The View would be a consistent 5 with frequent visits to 8. Closely followed by Whoopie Gberg in that same range. And Rosie "Fire never burned steel..." O'Donnel(sp?)is almost too stupid to quantify (looking at her always reminds me of a cud-chewing cow). Stephen Colbert? Hard to determine because of the pismire (irritating like a biting ant) factor obfuscating his true SKOS potential. How do these ID 10 Ts manage to maintain a national platform?

    Will Robertson, Ridgecrest, CA

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    1. Thanks for the kind words. I've seen that quote attributed to Einstein, so it might be real, but you know how Abraham Lincoln said, "don't trust everything you read on the internet".

      I don't have the patience to apply a scale to blithering idiots like that. If Olbermann stupid is a 10 on that scale, the others are about a half-Olbermann. It's not worth the time to grade them, so I'd just lump them all around a half. Let's say Joy Beharr is 500 milli-Olbermans. Is Rosie more stupid than Joy? Does it matter? I'd have to spend way too much time watching them to decide.

      How do they stay on the air? By appealing to people who think just like they do!

      You know how everyone says, "1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual"? Neither was Idiocracy.

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    2. Love your sense of humor. Valid points all on your part. I'll still apply SKOS to those who deserve it. Ironically, the best punishment most of us can inflict on the SKOS is to let them remain a SKOS. As wise man once said; "Life is hard; it's harder when you're stupid." Their life punishment is built in and I/we don't have to do a thing! They have to live with themselves (and their stupidity) daily. What a great prospect! Poetic justice in play. Love it. Hee, hee. W.

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    3. Dunning-Kreuger effect, however, suggests they lack the ability to recognize their own stupidity, so what you see as a hard life for them is, to them, simply normal; they cannot even perceive that your life is easier because you're not stupid. So they don't really notice the consequences of their stupidity. Don't even watch and laugh - Cipola warns us to stay away from the stupid.

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  2. A good takedown (with links to Jerry Pournelles source article) is here:

    http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.co.nz/2016/12/about-that-alleged-russian-hacking-of.html

    In short, a left wing, communist government conspired to put a right wing guy in charge of the White House??? Unlikely in the extreme.

    Phil B

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    1. Except that Russia has been neither left-wing nor Communist under Putin. THAT is what the Muslim in Chief and Cankles THOUGHT he was when she gave him that "reset" button. They figured that, just like any other communist, he would jump at their utopia of One World Government. All their whining, wailing, and gnashing of teeth since then has been because they now understand that he is instead a leader who believes in Russia as a sovereign independent nation and wants to protect Western culture from those who would destroy it. Which is why he and President Trump may get along very well, since Trump has the same aspirations for the US.

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