Category Archives: Arsenal Pulse

Brief thoughts and mini-analyses on stories in the news.

Chad military strikes Boko Haram in Nigeria

  By

Eyewitnesses say Chadian ground forces supported by three fighter jets struck the northeastern Nigerian border town of Malumfatori (or Malam Fatori), compelling occupying Boko Haram fighters to flee. It was unknown if Nigeria backed the action, although a formal African Union multinational force is expected to arrive in Nigeria soon. Neither the Nigerian nor the Chadian armed forces commented on the Malam Fatori raid.

 
Related background: Chad: How China Created an African Power – The Globalist: How Chinese investment made Chad a vital Central African military ally of the West.

Some CA schools approaching 9 in 10 unvaccinated rates

  By

From an op-ed by Robert Gammon in East Bay Express:

End the Vaccine Exemption

As the measles outbreak in California continues to spread — the number of reported cases reached 73 on Monday — it’s becoming increasingly clear that the state should end its so-called “personal belief” exemption for childhood vaccines. Currently, California is one of about twenty states in the nation in which parents can use the personal belief waiver. Most states only permit medical or religious exemptions for childhood vaccines.

For the measles vaccine to be effective for everyone, about 92 percent of the population needs to be have been fully vaccinated. But because of the personal belief waiver and the anti-vaccination movement, many communities in California fall well short of the 92 percent threshold. As a result, the measles, once thought to have been eradicated, has come roaring back to life.

But the anti-vax crowd shouldn’t have the right to endanger the health of the rest of us. The movement, which fears a link between childhood vaccines and autism, gained traction during the Aughts, following the revelation that the federal government had ordered the removal of the mercury-based preservative thimerosal from vaccines. Thimerosal had been used widely since the 1930s, and a study in the late 1990s claimed to have uncovered a link between the preservative and the rise of autism nationwide. That study has since been widely discredited. Moreover, thimerosal is no longer used in vaccines for children six and under (except for some flu vaccines).

As such, there is no longer a basis for the personal belief exemption in California. New York City doesn’t have it, and only 0.2 percent of public school students there have been exempted from vaccines, according to the Los Angeles Times. In California, wealthy parents who send their kids to private schools appear to be especially prone to using the exemption. For example, according to the LA Times, at the Berkeley Rose private school, the parents of 87 percent of kindergarteners in 2013 used it.

That’s not only dangerous, it’s disturbingly anti-science. Measles is a serious disease with serious consequences. And vaccines work — if they’re widely used. California, in other words, should stop pandering to the anti-vax crowd.

 
EIGHTY SEVEN PERCENT exempted from vaccines. In one school.

youhavefailedthiscity

In case you missed it…
Arsenal For Democracy – Dispatches from the end of the empire:

Apparently our ancestors crossed the harsh Great American Desert in search of a better life so their descendents a century and a half later could go to a children’s amusement park in Orange County and still contract the same damn diseases because somebody’s parents in the year Two Thousand Fifteen of Our Lord have the same understanding of infection transmission as any given covered wagon driver.

Top Mormon officials call for LGBT protections in Utah

  By

While it’s not entirely without precedent, there was a significant shift nonetheless by senior leaders of the LDS Church today, as they called for the Utah legislature to pass anti-discrimination legislation (a bill was recently proposed again) to protect LGBT residents. Additionally, they called for passage of similar Federal-level protections. Salt Lake Tribune:

Top leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called Tuesday for passage of laws granting statewide protections against housing and employment discrimination for gay and lesbian Utahns — as long as those measures safeguard religious freedom.
[…]
“We call on local, state and the federal government,” Oaks said in a news release, “to serve all of their people by passing legislation that protects vital religious freedoms for individuals, families, churches and other faith groups while also protecting the rights of our LGBT citizens in such areas as housing, employment and public accommodation in hotels, restaurants and transportation — protections which are not available in many parts of the country.”

 
Endorsement of same-sex civil marriage remained off the table, however, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s de facto legalization of it in Utah back in July 2014.

Additionally, the Church did not appear to shift their overall doctrine that being gay is against the faith. They simply aligned themselves with the growing moderate wing of the state’s political sphere, which had called for basic legal protections against discrimination.

It remains to be seen if the more extreme side will yield to the new pronouncement.

utah-flag-395

Pence’s Pravda

  By

If you had told me a year ago — or even yesterday — that a conservative Republican governor would launch a taxpayer-funded government media outlet, I would have laughed in your face. But that’s exactly what Republican Governor (and former Chairperson of the U.S. House Republican Conference) Mike Pence of Indiana has just announced. This is supremely mystifying.

Gov. Mike Pence is starting a state-run taxpayer-funded news service that will provide pre-written news stories to Indiana news outlets, as well as sometimes break news about his administration, according to documents obtained by The Indianapolis Star.

Pence is planning to launch “Just IN” in late February, a website and news service that will feature stories written by state press secretaries and is being overseen by a former Indianapolis Star reporter, Bill McCleery.

“At times, Just IN will break news — publishing information ahead of any other news outlet. Strategies for determining how and when to give priority to such ‘exclusive’ coverage remain under discussion,” according to a question-and-answer sheet distributed last week to communications directors for state agencies.

 
Update: On January 29, 2015, Gov. Pence’s administration announced they were canceling plans for the project.

Video: Syriza-Independent Greeks coalition takes office

  By

The leftist Syriza and the Independent Greeks party have formed a coalition government successfully after Sunday’s historic elections.

The Independent Greeks, unfortunately, are a right-wing nationalist party aligned with the Orthodox Church and against the EU and immigrants. However, they are far milder than Golden Dawn, and they are anti-austerity, which is a major point of agreement with Syriza.

Independent Greeks campaigned explicitly on the idea of being a junior coalition partner to Syriza. They also held just 13 seats as the 6th place party, which will provide enough for a governing majority but few enough to significantly prevent Syriza from calling the shots.

Still, I would have thought a coalition with the centrist/pro-European/anti-corruption The River party (4th place) would have made more sense, since Syriza is also pro-European and anti-corruption and neither are right-wing.

Composition of the parliament of Greece following the January 25, 2015 election. (Adapted from JackWilfred/Wikimedia)

Composition of the parliament of Greece following the January 25, 2015 election. (Adapted from JackWilfred/Wikimedia)

4 reasons the US doesn’t need Saudi Arabia anymore

  By

Highlights from The Economist’s excellent article on why these days the United States can afford to (and should) drop Saudi Arabia as a major ally, to stop undermining all of U.S. foreign policy:

1. Oil: “Oil is fungible: lousy relations with Russia, the second-biggest producer, do not threaten America’s economy. […] America’s shale technology has put a ceiling on the oil price, and its economy is less oil-intensive than three decades ago.”

2. Counterterrorism: “Intelligence co-operation may be valuable, but its main task is tracking threats that have been subsidised by the Saudis themselves.”

3. Stability: “If the regime is as secure as it seems, however, why should America abandon its basic values in the name of keeping it in place?”

4. Arms Sales: “Strip these things away and what’s left is the arms sales. These at least have the virtue of being nakedly self-interested. […] yet America need not be so eager to put principle aside when dealing with its old ally” [merely to sell arms to Saudi Arabia].

Read the full article for explication/justification of each of these quotations.

Pictured: FDR meeting with King Ibn Saud, of Saudi Arabia, on board USS Quincy in Egypt, on 14 February 1945.

Pictured: FDR meeting with King Ibn Saud, of Saudi Arabia, on board USS Quincy in Egypt, on 14 February 1945.

Lungu narrowly wins Zambia special election

  By

zambia-flagDefense Minister Edgar Lungu has very narrowly won Zambia’s Special Presidential Election after a heavily contested three-month campaign. The final margin was reportedly 48.3% to 46.7%.

He will take over the office from interim President Guy Scott, who was (briefly) the continent’s first White head of state in two decades. (Off the continent, Paul Bérenger was elected Prime Minister of Mauritus, the African islands nation in the Indian Ocean, back in 2003.)

Mr. Lungu, who often clashed publicly with the former Vice President (the latter was ineligible to run) had served as Designated Acting President off and on for the year preceding President Sata’s death in office, any time Mr. Sata was out of the country seeking treatment for his prolonged illness. The Constitution automatically elevated Mr. Scott, however, to the caretaker spot upon the president’s death for a 90-day period until a Special Election could be held to elect someone to finish the remainder of the current term.

zambia-vice-president-Guy-Scott-us-government-photoThe interim Scott administration was not without action — he signed into law a number of key business and economic bills from the National Assembly — or without controversy — including some questionable Christmas pardons, a meeting with Robert Mugabe as “good personal friends,” and open feuding with his own party and Mr. Lungu. But despite their differences, President Scott did at least eventually loyally campaign for Minister Lungu as their party’s nominee in the race.