Sunday Comics
Bob Englehart
Month: October 2018
Links – October 27, 2018
The Khashoggi Affair – A summary of Trump interactions with the Saudis and some good questions. Background on Turkey’s role by Graham Fuller and Aaron Stein. It’s time for the US to take a stand against the destructive bond that Donald Trump has with Saudi Arabia. Some of the things that might be done. What Congress might do.
Why withdrawing from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty is a bad idea, and a possible alternative. John Bolton’s role in the decision. EU statement. Interview with Richard Burt, who negotiated arms control treaties under Ronald Reagan.
Interview with Sig Hecker on recent developments with North Korea.
Mapped: The Absent Ambassadors.
Russia is coming back to Afghanistan.
How much does Russia spend on nuclear weapons?
The Bullying Swagger – from me in Pakistan Politico.
Jeffrey Lewis highlights a problem that I continue to deal with in Trump’s America: There is policy analysis, and then there is how Trump makes decisions.
This is exactly how a nuclear war would kill you. How a nuclear war might start and what it would be like.
The misunderstood roots of international order – and why they matter again.
Joachim Roenneberg has died. He led the mission to blow up Norway’s heavy water plant in 1943, when Germany occupied Norway. That heavy water could have helped the Nazis develop an atomic bomb. BBC. New York Times.
Basic Science For Global Warming
Over at Balloon Juice, I’ve promised to write more about global warming. It’s the most important problem facing us now. I’ll cross-post here too. This is the first substantive post in the series.
In order to understand discussions of global warming, you need a few basic scientific facts. I’m stripping them down so they’re easy to remember.
Thermodynamics is an imposing word that means “movement of heat.” Thermodynamics fundamentally establishes boundaries on what chemical reactions can take place and what other kinds of work can be done. Facts derived from thermodynamics cannot be bent or gotten around. Heat is a type of energy, so I’ll use the two words interchangeably here.
Fact #1: Carbon dioxide and water result from the production of energy by burning fossil fuels. In order to make them into something else, energy must be supplied. Not only that, but more energy must be supplied than was produced by burning, sometimes a lot more.
Any claim that a process can turn carbon dioxide back into fuels, or that water can supply hydrogen as a fuel, should be met with the question “Where does the energy come from?” If the answer is non-carbon power, the claim may be worth pursuing. If the claim says nothing about energy sources, more information is needed.
Fact #2: Separating something from a mixture requires energy. The lower the concentration, the more energy is required.
Carbon dioxide is about 400 parts per million in the atmosphere, or 0.04%. That is a very low concentration. Any claim of taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere should be met with that same question, “Where does the energy come from?”
Windmills get their energy from wind, solar cells from sunlight, and plants and algae from sunlight. Some of the schemes involving them may seem to counter Facts #1 and #2, but careful energy tracing will show that they do not.
Electricity and hydrogen, while clean in their immediate area, are only as clean as their sources. They are energy carriers rather than energy sources – they put a source of energy, say a nuclear reactor, into a form you can tuck into your car or home.
That’s all the thermodynamics you need to understand most of global warming.
Sunday Comics
Joe Heller
The Khashoggi Affair: A View From 40,000 Feet
In this post, I’m going to take a 40,000-foot view of the Khashoggi affair, to clarify some things as the Trump propaganda machine swings into action.
Jamal Khashoggi was a citizen of Saudi Arabia and resident of the United States. He was a critic of the Saudi regime and a columnist for the Washington Post. On October 2, he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and has not been seen since. A 15-man Saudi group, including a forensic pathologist with a bone saw, entered Turkey just before Khashoggi disappeared and left just afterwards. The Saudi consul has left Turkey and has not been available to the press. Evidence is available that suggests that Khashoggi was tortured, killed, and dismembered.
Official statements from the Saudi government have denied that they had anything to do with Khashoggi’s probable murder. Government statements have also threatened economic and political retaliation. Read More
John Bolton Is Worried About His War
Donald Trump says he told John Bolton when he hired him as National Security Advisor, “No, no wars.” But Bolton is a smart man who knows how to operate in the government to get his way. And his way is unabated hostility to the rest of the world. He has recently condemned the International Court of Justice. He supported the Iraq war. He is an advocate of preventive war against Iran and North Korea.
But the Jamal Khashoggi murder is standing in the way of a war against Iran. John Bolton must be sad. And, probably, working hard to find a way through this crisis. Read More
Sunday Comics
David Fitzsimmons
Did The Saudis Kill Jamal Khashoggi?
On Tuesday, October 2, Saudi journalist and activist Jamal Khashoggi went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork for his upcoming wedding. He never came out alive.
Turkey says that they have recordings of his interrogation, torture, and murder by Saudis inside the consulate. Additionally, there is photographic evidence of a 15-man Saudi team arriving in Istanbul just before Khashoggi disappeared, including special forces officers, intelligence officials, and a forensics specialist. Turkey is now upping the pressure on Saudi Arabia.
A story has been floated that Khashoggi’s Apple watch picked up the audio and sent it to the cloud, which is where Turkey got it. But this is probably a cover story to allow Turkey to deny it has listening devices inside the Saudi consulate. Of course, every country bugs every other country’s consulates and embassies. Hard to see why the Turks are being so coy.
David Ignatius has written a long backgrounder on Khashoggi. Khashoggi was devoted to his country, Saudi Arabia. He took some big chances, including joining the Muslim Brotherhood when he was in his 20s, where he met Osama bin Laden. He grew to feel that bin Laden was moving in too radical a direction. He managed to maintain backing by prominent Saudis, which allowed him to continue his truth-telling journalism. Read More
Russian News
This is a compilation of Russian news you might not have heard. There’s a lot going on in Russia. President Vladimir Putin’s popularity is flagging, so much so that his United Russia Party had to resort to shady dealings in recent elections in Russia’s Far East. The retirement age for pensions has been raised, and people are not happy. They’ve just mounted a big military exercise, but probably not as big as they claim. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church will probably split organizationally from the Russian Orthodox Church.
Paul Goble worked in the State Department during the breakup of the Soviet Union. He retired some time ago and has taught in universities in Estonia. He speaks Russian and Estonian. He maintains a blog, Window on Eurasia, where he summarizes news and opinion from Russia and its neighbors in English. I’ll draw on his posts and a few other sources to note recent developments in Russia. This is far from exhaustive, and probably not even indicative of larger trends. Just things that are happening. Read More
Sunday Comics
David Horsey
Nuclear Diner 