Category Archives: Arsenal Pulse

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

Dispatches from the end of the empire

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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.

“People Not Vaccinated for Measles Urged to Avoid Disneyland”

People who haven’t been vaccinated against measles, including children too young to be immunized, should avoid Disneyland after new infections were linked to the theme park, California public health officials said Wednesday.

So far, 70 people in five U.S. states and Mexico have contracted measles in an outbreak that was traced to Disney parks in December and has since spread into the community. The vast majority of infections — 62 — occurred in California, and the tally is expected to rise.

Health officials uncovered new measles cases linked to visits to Disney parks in January after the incubation period of the original outbreak.

Since measles is highly contagious, people who have not received the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, vaccine are susceptible and should avoid visiting Disney “for the time being,” said state epidemiologist Gil Chavez.

 
We’re now reaching a particularly decadent phase of our decline where people are reintroducing eradicated disease outbreaks to America solely by voluntarily refusing to make use of widely available, decades-old, very basic medical science solutions.

It’s one thing if your civilization is wiped out by a disease you had no way to resist. It’s another if you’re too arrogant to vaccinate your children against easily preventable 19th century diseases and thus endangered everyone else.

America, F@#$ Yeah. We’re number one.

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Nicolas “Racaille” Sarkozy is suddenly the word police

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What a surprise: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who once called a socially and economically isolated segment of his citizenry racaille (“scum” / “riff-raff”) when he was Interior Minister, finds it “appalling” and disruptive to “national unity” that Prime Minister Valls would suggest there is an “ethnic and social apartheid” in France.

It’s almost like politicians who employ apartheid-style rhetoric to marginalize and disenfranchise members of their own populace do not appreciate comparisons to (now politically toxic) stratified socio-political systems like apartheid.

Pictured: President Barack Obama is greeted by French President Nicholas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni at the G8 Summit dinner in Deauville, France, May 26, 2011. (White House Photo)

Pictured: President Barack Obama is greeted by French President Nicholas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni in May 2011. (White House Photo)

Nunn-Lugar “Loose Nukes” agreements are over with Russia

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The Boston Globe broke the story today on the suspension of Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction:

In the previously undisclosed discussions, the Russians informed the Americans that they were refusing any more US help protecting their largest stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium from being stolen or sold on the black market. The declaration effectively ended one of the most successful areas of cooperation between the former Cold War adversaries.

“I think it greatly increases the risk of catastrophic terrorism,” said Sam Nunn, the former Democratic senator from Georgia and an architect of the “cooperative threat reduction” programs of the 1990s.

Official word came in a terse, three-page agreement signed on Dec. 16. A copy was obtained by the Globe, and a description of the Moscow meeting was provided by three people who attended the session or were briefed on it. They declined to be identified for security reasons.
[…]
On hand for the Moscow meeting were nearly four dozen of the leading figures on both sides who have been working to safeguard the largest supplies of the world’s deadliest weapons, according to the three-page agreement.

The group included officials from the US Department of Energy, its nuclear weapons labs, the Pentagon, and the State Department, and a host of Russian officials in charge of everything from dismantling nuclear submarines to arms control.

Specialists said the final meeting was a dismaying development in a joint effort that the United States has invested some $2 billion in and had been a symbol of the thaw between East and West and of global efforts to prevent the spread of doomsday weapons. An additional $100 million had been budgeted for the effort this year and many of the programs were envisioned to continue at least through 2018.

 
Former Senator Nunn also expressed strong concern about Russia’s budgetary ability to continue the programs without US assistance, particularly given current economic conditions with falling oil prices and sanctions.

Reciprocal nuclear arsenal inspections will continue, however, along with cooperation on trying to prevent dirty bombs (i.e. radioactive material dispersed by conventional explosives) from being produced by non-state actors.

Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar leaving the White House after briefing President George H. W. Bush on the Nunn-Lugar legislation (1991). (US government photo via Wikimedia)

Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar leaving the White House after briefing President George H. W. Bush on the Nunn-Lugar legislation (1991). (US government photo via Wikimedia)

Texas bill would nullify Federal court orders on marriage

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I’m not sure why anyone would think this could work after the U.S. proved state employees could not unilaterally refuse to implement Federal court orders by deploying the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division paratroopers to Arkansas to enforce school desegregation, but one very petulant Texas legislator aims to block state implementation of same-sex marriage if the Federal courts (including the Supreme Court) order licenses to be issued and/or recognized from other states. KVUE Austin:

Dubbed the “Preservation of Sovereignty and Marriage Act,” House Bill 623 says state and local government employees “may not recognize, grant, or enforce a same-sex marriage license.” If they do, “the employee may not continue to receive a salary, pension, or other employee benefit at the expense of the taxpayers of this State.”

The bill’s author, State Rep. Cecil Bell (R-Magnolia), says the Texas Legislature doesn’t work for the federal courts — which have no business striking down laws passed by Texas voters.

“Because we’ve seen activist federal courts, it’s important that we as Texans take steps to make certain that we’re able to protect traditional marriage and traditional values,” Bell told KVUE Friday. “One of the ways that we can do that is through the power of the purse.”

The result could be a potential quandary for government workers: Follow a court order or keep earning salary. Asked whether the bill would put government employees in a position of having to choose between being subjected to a federal lawsuit or losing their pension, Bell suggested employees would continue earning as long as they’re following state laws.

“I don’t see it as losing their pension except during the period of time which they are outside the [state] laws,” said Bell.

 
The full text of the bill also threatens the same consequences to any state employee or official who tries to violate or interfere with this new provision, meaning that all state officials — including the governor and attorney general — might face consequences (from whom is less clear) for giving an order allowing clerks to ignore this section as de facto unconstitutional and proceed with following Federal court orders to issue or recognize same-sex marriages.

I hope this bill doesn’t have a chance of passing, but if it does, it will put a lot of people in a very precarious position, financially or legally. It is also blatantly unconstitutional.

“I don’t see it as a threat at all,” countered Bell, who maintains his target is activist courts — and he has his colleagues’ support. “I think it is the ability of the state legislature to try to make certain that we affirm the sovereign right and sovereign nature of the state.”

 
It’s just another attempt to institute backdoor secession from Federal authority.

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Iraq: Older country, seeking new identity

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In these difficult times, it can be hard for an older country to get out there and mingle with a confident sense of self. Especially if you’re Iraq, where nobody wants to rally to a common identity or even one flag. But desperate times call for desperate measures:

Some officials have called for reinstating mandatory military service, in the belief it would bring communities together. Others have suggested promoting mixed marriages between Sunnis and Shiites by offering cash incentives. Still others say that promoting Iraq’s pre-Islamic past, as the cradle of civilization, could offer something from which Iraqis could build a degree of national unity.

 
Yes, they just might need to go full Mesopotamian on everyone.

NYC: Overwhelming opposition to the NYPD mutiny

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Back in November 2013, 72% of New Yorkers, of those who voted, voted for Bill de Blasio and his police reform platform. The media said “oh well it was just low turnout. Can’t be representative.”

Weird. Because:

About 69 percent of New York City voters disapprove of police officers turning their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio during the funerals for two police officers who were shot and killed in December, a Quinnipiac University poll of nearly 1,200 New Yorkers found.

 
So, 69% disapprove of the NYPD physically turning their backs on de Blasio for promoting police reform? Wow, it’s almost like it’s (statistically speaking) the same share as those who voted for the candidate with a police reform agenda. 

Further disapproval was registered against the mutinous, unilateral dereliction of duty known as the “slowdown.”

About 57 percent of New Yorker voters told Quinnipiac that police officers should be disciplined if they deliberately make fewer arrests or write fewer tickets.

 

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City (Credit: Kevin Case via Wikimedia)

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City (Credit: Kevin Case via Wikimedia)

Kerry opening door to piecemeal peace in Syria?

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For the past year, the US State Department has stridently rejected the use of localized ceasefire-and-surrender deals brokered by the UN (recap explanation below) as a tool for winding down the overall conflict in Syria. Now, Secretary of State John Kerry appears to have opened the door to the piecemeal peace strategy (or at least accepted it might be a valid component of an overall strategy):

Mr. Kerry’s support for the Russian and United Nations initiatives comes at a time when the American-led push to negotiate a solution to the bloody Syria conflict has lost momentum. [UN envoy] Mr. de Mistura’s step-by-step strategy to de-escalate the civil war has been attracting growing interest among some Obama administration officials.

Mr. Kerry said before the failed peace talks in Geneva last year that the United States’s goal was a transitional government in Syria that did not include President Bashar al-Assad. But Mr. Kerry refrained from making such an explicit demand in his remarks on Wednesday; instead he urged the Syrian leadership to reconsider what it is doing.

 
This marks a significant shift, it would seem, and opens up a lot more realistic outcomes than are found by steadfastly clinging to an opposition government without authority and a rebel coalition without military dominance against a leader who is no longer likely to be toppled.

Two months ago, remember, the administration was not amenable to the idea at all:

…at the moment, the United States hasn’t even applauded the existing diplomatic progress, remaining hung up on unrealistic regime change objectives instead of seeking to stop the killing. State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki blasted the truce proposals on Monday, saying “Unfortunately, many local truces achieved thus far have more closely resembled surrender arrangements,” without acknowledging that halting the fighting and withdrawing doomed rebel forces is translating into hundreds (probably thousands) of civilian lives being saved.

 

Arsenal Recap: Local Ceasefire-and-Surrender Agreements

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