You asked, We quacked

But Britney’s a Special Case

Britney Griner was benefited in more ways than one by the extraordinary prisoner exchange with Russia. Russia and the US do not have a prisoner transfer treaty. The US does have such a treaty with 11 countries and is a signatory to two multilateral international conventions¹. The terms of these treaties are all the same: upon transfer, a prisoner is not automatically freed. Instead, the prisoner is to serve the remainder of his sentence in the prisons of the receiving country. The receiving country’s parole rules, however, would apply.

When these treaties were negotiated, federal parole still existed, but parole was abolished under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. Since then, federal prisoners must serve their complete sentence, with 55 days granted each year for good behavior. A transferred federal prisoner still has to serve 85% of his sentence upon return to the United States.

If there had been a prisoner exchange treaty between the US and Russia, Griner would still have the bulk of her sentence to serve in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons. Assuming good behavior, she would be freed in 7 ½ years.

A life sentence imposed overseas means life in America. For many prisoners, the idea of returning to the US for confinement is unthinkable: with permitted conjugal visits, in many cases foreign prisons are more humane than American ones. Parole eligibility, amnesty and more frequent pardons are all reasons not to come home.

Despite the existence of a valid prisoner exchange treaty between the United States and Peru, that treaty was never invoked in favor of Lori Berenson, convicted in 1996 of terrorist offenses and originally sentenced to life. Although her sentence was later reduced to twenty years, Berenson did not seek transfer to the United States under the treaty. Instead she remained in Peru and had a child with her husband. Returning to the United States would have meant incarceration without parole. Berenson thus remained in Peru.²

Britney Griner got special treatment indeed. I’m not sure she realizes just how special her treatment was.

Horizontal Space in Ulysses

If you need blank horizontal space in Ulysses, try using a UTF-8 space character.

Ulysses does not strip blank space where that blank space is a UTF-8 character, like U+2004 (three em space). While this symbol cannot be generated in Ulysses–like s̵t̵r̵i̵k̵e̵t̵h̵r̵o̵u̵g̵h̵ for example–if generated in an external program and copied to Ulysses, it will both be displayed in Ulysses and upon export.

Eastern Brown Snake

I had a conversation about these critters last week. They are found, fortunately enough, in Queensland, Australia but not in Thailand. Their venom is neurotoxic and extremely dangerous. They commonly grow to a meter and a half in length.

If you come across one, run.

Snakebites are one of the leading causes of death in Myanmar, where I once briefly worked as a lawyer before being fired by a jealous, Spanish HR person who was upset because I wouldn’t ask the Spanish ambassador to renew her passport. I invited her to come along and meet the ambassador; she could ask him herself for the favor if she wanted to. I didn’t know the ambassador and felt that such a request would be presumptuous.

This was the only run-in I had with a snake in Myanmar.

The Duke of Sodom and a Time Travel Mystery Solved

I came across a reference, in a new biography of Colette, to the “Duke of Sodom,” a French dandy, contemporary of Oscar Wilde, named Robert de Montesquiou. I thought I’d look him up, for after all, anyone who has earned the sobriquet “Duke of Sodom” must be a memorable character.

I was surprised to find on his (English language) Wikipedia page a reference to time travel and one of the great mysteries that has intrigued me for so many of these years and in a small way, was the seed for my El pueblo (The Settlement, serialized here) though to be fair, it was the juxtaposition of contemporary and 15th century architecture in San Miguel de Allende that suggested the possibility that there might be a place out of time.

Two English ladies were visiting Versailles around the turn of the century, turned a corner and found themselves in the 1700’s. They believed they had crossed the threshold of some kind of time portal and had traveled in time.

Their story was mentioned, if I recall, in the People’s Almanac in the 1980’s as well as in other books. The tale suggested that while time travel may be exceedingly uncommon, visiting the past nevertheless was possible.

They wrote about their adventure, never realizing that there was a simple explanation for their shared experience and the Duke of Sodom was responsible for their confusion:

An Adventure

In his biography, Philippe Jullian proposes that the Moberly–Jourdain incident in 1901, in which Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain claimed to experience time travel in the grounds of the Petit Trianon, is explained by their stumbling into a rehearsal of one of Montesquiou’s Tableaux Vivants, with his friends (one possibly transvestite) dressed in period costume. Joan Evans, who owned the copyright to An Adventure (1911), Moberly and Jourdain’s account of their experiences, accepted this solution and forbade any further editions.

A mystery solved, methinks.

Paul Pelosi Update

While the arresting officers’ body cams have not been released, at least one journalist has seen the footage. The recording shows that Paul Pelosi indeed opened the door to the officers, did not say that he was in danger, and then retreated back into the house away from the officers and towards his assailant. It is not clear how long Pelosi stood near DePape before the assault started.

The federal indictment states that it was the officers who opened the door, not Pelosi. Who opened the door is neither an element of the offense that DePape is charged with, nor is it exculpatory. However, it does show that at least some of the now-retracted NBC reports were accurate then and are accurate now.

In a run of the mill case, detail fuzziness could simply be explained by time pressures or sloppiness in not correcting a draft. It is hard to believe that either of these excuses were present in a crime involving the husband of the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The bodycam footage remains unreleased. Worse, the 911 call has not yet been released.

An Act of Charity

A young mother with her malnutritioned two year old son has staked out a begging post at the entrance to the BTS Metro station at Ekkamai. She is unwashed, unshod; she looks about fourteen and her son, similarly covered with the dirt from the busy street, is always either sleeping in her arms or playing in a discarded styrofoam box. She holds up a dirty plastic cup recovered from the trash for her begging; a few, but only a few stop to drop a few coins into her cup.

I give her 20 baht whenever I pass. She sees me coming and smiles, knowing that I will stop as I approach, that I will turn away from the pedestrian traffic and reach into my pocket for a small banknote for her little family. The little boy never smiles.

Last night she was still at the station when I returned from dinner around 10 pm. There were few out at that hour; her takings at that time would be few. I slowed my pace and waved. She smiled.

Her son looked at me and gave me the finger.

Moving Tips

Two ideas: throw stuff out. 10% won’t survive the move anyway. Put stuff in storage. If you haven’t gone to the storage in two years to redeem it, throw the whole lot out.

Second: Packages under 70 pounds can be shipped via US mail. You can ship your packages poste restante to the nearest post office if there’s no one to receive your mail at your new home. This can be much cheaper than hiring movers.

Three: buy a 24 foot container—they’re cheap—and fill it up yourself with your junk. If you’re lucky the container will be lost in transit and you will be freed.

There’s a saying in the South: three moves equals a fire. Heed it. You don’t need all of what you have.

My pet peeve is that hotels refuse to accept luggage deliveries on behalf of a future guest. You ship luggage on Friday. It arrives at the hotel Monday morning; you haven’t checked in yet. Your luggage will be refused even if your reservation is for the same day. This is ridiculous.

The Gerontocracy

The American president is eighty years old.

Eighty. Years. Old.

We are ruled by a gerontocracy. Chuck Grassley, a senator from Iowa, is 89 years old and was just re-elected to another six-year term.

Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker, is 82 years old. She too was re-elected.

Brooks Sentenced to 762 Years in Prison

Darrell Brooks, the Waukesha hit and run murderer, was sentenced this week to six consecutive life terms on the six convicted counts of first-degree murder, plus an additional 762 years for seriously injuring dozens of other victims.

Such a sentence is difficult to imagine, in an additive sense, for none of us know what will happen tomorrow. We do, however, have a very accurate picture of the past.

In 1260, 762 years ago, Kublai Khan became the great Khan of the Mongol empire. Barbers and physicians were indistinguishable, for another five hundred years the two professions were joined. The Black Death would not reach Europe for more than another century.

No Christians were protestants. The Fifth Crusade had failed nine years previously; Jerusalem was controlled by the heirs of Saladin. Arab and Christian rulers shared the Iberian peninsula. The Eastern Roman Empire would endure for another two hundred years or so; the crescent moon of Islam would not be raised over the city called Constantinople until 1453. The Most Serene Republic of Venice was a world power and would be for another 500 years.

Middle English was the language of England and would not evolve into today’s intelligible Modern English for another two centuries. Scribes copied books onto a relatively new material called paper, movable type printing was two hundred years in the future. The educated world communicated in Latin, a language in which a young Heloise composed poetry sent to her lover and husband Abelard prior to her death, only a century before.

The Christian Kings would not expel the Arab emirs from their Kingdom of Granada and fund an Italian sailor’s dream for another two centuries and three decades. Unaware of these matters, Aztec kings ruled over large parts of what today is Mexico while making blood sacrifices to their gods.

Brooks is forty years old and may live at most only another half century. We may think that the world of 2072 will be very different from our own, and in some ways it will be, but whatever changes that come to us are nothing compared to those occasioned over the last seven-tenths of a millennium.

Twitter’s 8 Bucks Plan

If Twitter:

–starts charging $8 for verification to meet KYC (Know Your Customer) anti-money laundering requirements

–layers on #Ripple/#XRP

–restricts access to verified accounts

–now you have a profitable payment ecosystem from/to verified users anywhere in the world.

To make Twitter a payments platform like WeChat/TenCent you have to verify users.

It will disrupt the international remittance business and provide cheap banking services for the unbanked.

Would you pay $8 to let anyone send you money from anywhere in the world?

Without percentage-based transactional fees?

I bet a lot of merchants would.

If government at all levels permits payment by Twitter, and merchants get on board, and utilities, and employers

then:

-Visa/MC

-Western Union

-Moneygram

-Paypal

-retail banks

-credit unions

all have a big problem.

The above is an edited copy of posts I made on Twitter on this subject; it has been one of my most popular posts with hundreds of likes and re-tweets.

Saudis Help Achieve Ukrainian Prisoner Exchange

Perhaps the US would be wise to stop insulting the Saudi petroleum minister and attacking the Saudis generally and instead solicit their help with respect to Brittney Griner.

More on the Mail; a Trystero in Panama and a Lonely Parrot

The predilection for writing letters did not begin in Bahrain. In another lifetime, I worked for the Panama Canal. One of the benefits, at least as seen by one who suffers the affliction of writing letters, was a provision of the Panama Canal Treaty which gave employees of the Canal access to the military postal system until the end of the so-called “transition period,” which began on the treaty’s effective date of October 1, 1979 and ended on April 30, 1982.

The incidents of sovereignty were slowly being cast off, and like Y2K (though no one had heard of that then, obviously) no one was really sure if all the bases had been covered in the treaty, the implementing agreement, the newly renamed Canal Zone Code and any other regulations, instructions or memoranda that were flitting about. Taking down a flag is easy, but not everything else that needs to abolish a jurisdiction is so simple—e.g., they retained limited criminal jurisdiction but forgot to provide for federal public defenders. Typical. 

In those days, the idea of privatizing a national post office was unheard of. The flag followed mail carriers as they made their rounds, historically it was one of the few federal institutions that touched people’s lives (at least until the income tax became law) and stamps were as good as currency. The Canal Zone had its own post office. When, on October 1, 1979 they took down the flag, that post office went out of business and was turned over to the Republic of Panama’s own postal system. 

So, for thirty-one months, Panama Canal US citizen employees had access to the military postal system. The idea, I suppose, was that this would cause as little impact as possible on those who wrote letters, read magazines or received Jenny Craig diet products through the mail. Sending letters overseas in those days was complicated; half the time the postal clerk would have to pull a black binder from a shelf in someone’s office to check if there were any special mailing requirements. During the Canal Zone days, mail from the US was domestic; similarly, mail that traveled through the military postal system was also considered domestic for the most part. You had an APO (Army Post Office) address in Miami and were charged parcel rates to Florida. 

I quickly read the writing on the wall and knew that I, along with about 1700 others, would soon lose military mail. This was disconcerting. I sent a questionnaire around to military post offices in different countries to see how they handled things and if there was any regulatory holes into which we might, in the future, place letters.

Civilian US employees in Korea were unionized and active; perhaps they had figured something out. We were theoretically a part of the Department of Defense, after all, but just barely. The fight over the Canal Zone was in the past and the focus was now on obtaining Panamanian support, or at least no-objection, for our backing the Contras in Nicaragua, not to mention the FMLN unpleasantness in El Salvador. 

The Gipper took to the airwaves and showed the public how close Nicaragua was to Texas; communists could any day now be at our shores. Cuba was closer, of course, but that conflict had long been back-burnered. 

I obtained no results and no hope from what the Pentagon called my “unauthorized world-wide survey” of military post offices. I thought they were being a little dramatic. April 30, 1982 was rapidly approaching and with it, the likelihood of weight gain if Jenny Craig’s tasty meals became uneconomical due to an increase in postal rates.

What then, to do? I was completely out of ideas and could only dread the inevitable. That day in April finally came and with it, an extraordinarily rare ceremony was held, the closing of a United States District Court. As far as I know, only two US district courts have ever closed. The US District Court for China was closed when the Japanese invaded Shanghai in WWII, and the US District Court for the Philippines was closed when the Imperial Japanese Army displaced General MacArthur. Neither court was ever to open again. 

No violence attended the closing of the Canal Zone court. The ceremony was presided over by the Fifth Circuit’s chief judge, Charles Clark. The general staff of the Panamanian Defense Forces filled up the jury box. Judge Morey Sear, the last Canal Zone district judge, sat next to Judge Clark.

My boss, Dwight McKabney, later wanted to prosecute Judge Sear for “donating” a bench from the court to Tulane Law School. McKabney felt this was an unauthorized transfer of government property. His own boss wanted only for Canal affairs to be run smoothly. Making an accusation against a federal district judge with life tenure was not, in his view, a good idea. With the end of the transition period Sear lost his diplomatic passport and sinecure in the Canal Zone. But he was still a sitting judge in New Orleans of the District Court of the Eastern District of Louisiana, where I used to spend time in Tulane’s library while preparing for the Louisiana bar exam. No accusation was ever made against Sear. In 1987, the bench was still in Tulane’s law library and as far as I know, remains there today.

On that April day I met Colonel Manuel Noriega for the first time. He was our ally then. General Torrijos had died in a plane crash less than a year before and the military general staff were still jockeying for position. I shook his hand but didn’t have any conversation other than perhaps exchanging mutual “mucho gustos.” The Canal had good relations with the Colonel, who at that time was powerful but not formally in a leadership position. The Canal had a special liaison office with the Panamanian Defense Forces and things ran smoothly, at least until we decided to ignore the treaty and invade Panama eight years later—a treaty violation, I’d like to point out.  

On the day after the ceremony, there was no more mail. Everyone’s post office box—for there never was door to door mail service in either Panama or the Canal Zone—was closed. 

Or was it? For some strange reason, and clearly a violation of the blessed treaty reached by two sovereign nations—my box continued to receive mail. It was just a regular post office box—PSC (Postal Service Center) Box 843, APO Miami 34002. Against all odds, somehow my box had remained open at Albrook Field. 

I felt like a criminal when I went to pick up my mail. I wasn’t supposed to be there. If they asked for the military ID which authorized me to pick up mail, I had nothing to show. It is hard to act surreptitiously in a large post office with circular mirrors where the walls meet the ceiling bathed with white light from the batteries of fluorescent tubes illuminating postal customers from above. For a month or so, I pretended like I had a right to be there, found my box and turned the combination knob. Twice to the right, once to the left and the box opened. 

But one day the combination stopped working. The box wouldn’t open. There was no mail for me. I went to the former Canal Zone post office in Balboa. For a little more than two years it had been an unused outpost of the Panamanian postal system. I signed up for a box and was assigned Box 2914; but I had to call the box “Apartado” because English was no longer allowed. Day followed day without mail.

In these days of instant communication, e.g., “I texted you five minutes ago. Why haven’t you answered?” and free international voice calls (WhatsApp, Line) the isolation that separated people at a distance is forgotten. But it was isolation and that distance caused friendships to be lost. When someone left town they were, in effect, gone for good, unless they returned. This effect was magnified when anyone left for overseas. Mail was one way to breach the distance and stay in touch.

Though it had nothing to do with the unauthorized survey, by pure coincidence I found out that US citizens in Haiti had access to the State Department diplomatic pouch to send and receive mail. The privilege was restricted to government employees working in Haiti. There was an alternative mail system after all.  

I didn’t see any reason why this couldn’t work in Panama. The effect of the Treaty was to deprive US citizen PanCanal employees of their access to the mails as a consequence of the disestablishment of the Canal Zone. Without a political entity, there could be no post office. The mail was an incidence of sovereignty and a vestige of a now-objectionable colonial period. Soldiers might get US mail, but civilians? Unthinkable. 

The concept of privatizing government assets had not yet reached the Western democracies. Instead, the pendulum swung the other way: “nationalization” was the way that governments took the assets of foreign companies, usually American companies at that. The American attitude was that this was just a few steps away from socialism or communism and must be resisted at all costs.

Privatization was not a word in anyone’s vocabulary. Had it been, the Canal Zone post office might have been sold to FedEx or DHL, except back then, the former didn’t exist and the latter was a messenger service that only delivered documents after-hours to attorneys in Northern California. 

By the time US mail service was cut off I was living with a parrot that had developed a fondness for the maid’s daughter, Katia. The parrot cried out Katia’s name at all hours of the day and night. Jungle parrots can hear each other’s shrieks at a distance of three miles. My living room was not that big. The parrot’s loneliness was contagious. I was discouraged only when there was no mail in the apartado but when Katia wasn’t around the parrot was inconsolable.

I formally submitted the issue of access to the diplomatic pouch to Canal management and was told that access was not possible. When asked for the legal basis for this view, I was referred back to the treaty. But the request as framed had nothing to do with the treaty. All that was in the past. Diplomatic pouch access was in the present and was common in Haiti as well as other countries. Those who were telling me this didn’t realize that they had no legal basis to say ‘no’ because if they said ‘no’ they would be admitting that we really weren’t a federal agency or that we weren’t really federal employees and that they could not do. 

Negotiations continued but eventually I got a call. They had set up a new post office for the employees through the embassy’s diplomatic pouch. It was more restrictive than the military postal system, but now those who watched their waistlines could get their Jenny Craig again. Thomas Pynchon wrote about a mysterious secret postal system called the trystero in his novel, The Crying of Lot 49. My trystero ran for almost two decades. 

In Panama I lost my respect for the Rule of Law. When you can pick and choose which laws to obey and which ones to ignore, whether the subject of your legal inquiry is a wooden district court bench or a lonely parrot shrieking for a friend, you lose respect for the supposed black and white Rule of Law very quickly.

The Stateless Suckling

An infant lay in a baby carriage in front of the photo studio. I was there to get visa pictures as was the infant’s father, who was from Malaysia.

A Thai-Chinese woman in her 80’s made a fuss about the infant, who I wrongly assumed was the child’s grandmother—or great grandmother. “She’s second generation Thai Chinese,” the Malaysian told me. She lives across the street but likes to hang out at the photo studio.

An Italian arrived on a motorcycle to get passport pictures. I told him he would have to ask the boss and pointed to the infant. He realized this was a joke and asked grandma, who had nothing to do with the shop except that she liked to sit on their stools. Old people are lonely, but people in their 80’s are really lonely.

The infant made faces and looked like at any moment might burst into a fit of screaming tears. “He doesn’t have a passport,” the Malaysian told me. “His mother is Chinese. Chinese passports are easy. Malaysia is a different story. He’s stateless.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “at this point he doesn’t know he’s stateless.” “Being born in Thailand doesn’t automatically make you a Thai citizen if your parents were born elsewhere. And Malaysia is so difficult.”

Grandma interrupted him. Pointing to me, she asked me in Thai, “where are you from?”

“Mei guo, I answered in Chinese. Why not? Except for the Italian, it was the majority language in the shop at the moment.

A few more minutes for your photos, the real manager piped in. “Did you say you’re from America? I used to live in Kansas.” His hearing was acute.

“Not sure what we’ll do about the baby,” the Malaysian said. “Without a passport, he can’t leave Thailand.”

“Mei guo?” Grandma asked. She said something quickly in Thai. Maybe she didn’t understand Mandarin. “Khaojai koh hua?” I asked her, mixing Thai and Chinese and using the Chinese phrase for Mandarin, koh hua or ‘common speech.’ She said no, the baby looked up and I asked “Guangdong hua? referring to Cantonese. She repeated the phrase, which I took to mean ‘yes.’

The Italian asked me what I was saying and I told him in English. “Do you speak any other languages?” he asked. I laughed. “I don’t speak those,” I said, “I just know a few words. But yeah, Spanish.”

In flawless textbook Latin American Spanish, the Italian announced that he had ‘good friends’ in Medellin. This rarely is a good sign. His familiarity with the show Narcos and the Italian Gamorra was less than reassuring.

Grandma was stroking the chest of the infant, who, perhaps startle by the confusion of languages around him, hadn’t said a thing.

“Got to get him a Malaysian passport,” he said to me before leaving. My pictures were handed over, so I left as well.

Drug War News

One undiscussed aspect of the pardon is whether those who are incarcerated on other offenses, but whose presumptive guidelines were calculated based in part on the now-pardoned conduct, are entitled to sentence reductions.

Under the Sentencing Guidelines scheme, a federal felony counts for three points and so boosts the defendant into the next column and can double the sentence.

Laptop Landlords

Property owners who delegate rental management to local companies an who may never even have visited their leased property.

Since real estate agents claim that one of their core skills is showing a property and none of these properties are ever shown, perhaps they will unbundle their skills and give home owners a discount.

Don’t hold your breath.

US v. UK

In the US, it’s

.”

In the UK, it’s

”.

When writing Markdown, it’s

*. or

.*

Because it doesn’t matter if a full stop is italicized or not.

But after a while, the error ceases to leap out at you. Query: will this lead to the long-awaited unification of punctuation in the English language?

Typewriters

Typing envelopes is a practical use for a typewriter.

By the time you:

• open a WP program
• find “Envelopes and Labels”
• choose label
• copy addressd
• paste address
• connect printer
• change printer paper feed
• confirm paper change
• reject “black ink low” warning
• insert envelope
• print envelope
• throw away envelope for improper geometry
• print envelope successfully

My envelope was already typed.

BTW, if you don’t use an ink-jet printer, because laser printers use plastic as ink, the plastic will wear off as the envelope passes through automatic sorting systems.

This isn’t an issue with impressions made using a typewriter ribbon.

A Unanimous Decision

In 1975, the US Senate unanimously agreed to posthumously restore citizenship to Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.

Statues of the former have been removed; not sure if there were ever any statues of the latter outside of Mississippi.

No Intellectual Integrity

It is now silly to pretend that there is any intellectual integrity to Supreme Court decisions. For the past 60 years, we studied and learned from Roe. Now we’re told it was all ginned-up nonsense and that should have been obvious from the beginning.

Studying the current decisions as anything other than political is thus an utter waste of time.

Saudi Biden Fist-Bump News

This is the kind of nonsense I’d expect from grifters, con artists and others of that ilk. In order to avoid the photo op showing Biden shaking hands with MbS, the invented cover story–which probably made sense sitting around a briefing table in Washington–was, “no handshakes because of Covid.” They’d have to be careful though, since playing up the Covid danger highlights Biden’s age, which is preferably kept to the ID card he carries in his wallet and is not otherwise mentioned.

But as von Clausewitz pointed out, ”no plan survives first contact with the enemy.” The little card prepared for Biden that tells him what to do may have said, “no handshakes” but Biden fist-bumped the Israeli defense minister upon arrival in Israel—and then shook hands with everyone else. MbS won’t be satisfied with a fist bump or anything less than the courtesies extended to the Israelis so that great DC plan–well, it won’t survive.

Cosplaying Coward Cops

While the killer murders children, cosplaying coward cops make sure their hands are sanitized. The coward cops of Uvalde and Parkland show that the militarization of American police is mostly cosplay.

Quemoy and Matsu

60 years after arguing about Quemoy and Matsu

we’re still arguing about

Quemoy and Matsu.

Bahrain Stats

Good news Bahrain: The number of Active Covid-19 cases is dropping. 12,747 as of 4 July. There is still a long way to go to get the numbers to the August, 2020 level, but the July trend is encouraging.

Soul-Eating Monster

Q. “We are playing the conference champions next week and our team has had a dismal record. What can we do, that is, in a spiritual sense, to insure victory?”

A. Put photographs of a soul-eating Naga everywhere in the champions’ dressing room, and build a life-size model to be placed on a trailer so that it can dragged onto the field during time-outs for private game time prayer. With souls at risk, victory for your team should be assured.

Football Prayer Rug

American Muslims: now that the US Supreme Court in Bremerton has approved midfield prayer during football games, it’s time to get an appropriate prayer rug for the next game.

(Note: please do not suggest this is inappropriate, I have an Afghani prayer rug showing a pistol and a Kalashnikov.)

June Stats

June stats: the number of Active Covid-19 cases in Bahrain has started to level off, with daily drops of 200 cases or so. Let’s hope the slow downward trend continues.

Bremerton FAQ

The U.S. Supreme Court has approved private, voluntary prayer at high school football games. The opinion raises many questions concerning the Establishment clause and the separation of Church and State. I have put together a helpful FAQ to aid bewildered school administrators.

Q. Has the Supreme Court put prayer back in the schools?

A. Not really. At this stage, there must be a football-related reason to justify invoking a deity’s aid.

Q. If one coach prays in an effort to obtain the favor of a particular deity, what should the other team do to avoid a competitive disadvantage?

A. A school-approved “chaplains’ panel” should level the playing field. Holy men of all faiths may apply.

Q. May a santero football coach sacrifice a goat on the 50-yard line during football games?

A. Of course! As long as a time-out is called and the sacrifice is performed quickly, such as at the end of a quarter or during half-time.

Q. Is voodoo a permitted football religious practice?

A. It certainly is! The practice is often seen at schools found in Haitian neighborhoods in Miami.

It is well known that invoking Papa Legba can often steer an errant kick into a three-pointer.

Q. Are underaged players permitted to smoke cigars and spew rum during conference games?

Of course! Note that since the rum is not consumed but instead sprayed in the direction of the orisha that underage drinking rules are not implicated. However, these sacraments should be used only under the guidance of the school Babalawo.

Q. Is it OK to speak in tongues in a huddle?

A. The term “huddle” is now deprecated. The new term is “game time prayer circle.”

And yes, what would otherwise be private prayer that becomes loud and public because of divine intervention may not be restricted.

Q. It’s 4th and inches. Is it constitutionally permitted to call a time-out for private prayer?

A. Whether it’s 4th and inches or 1st and 10, tell Coach that there’s no time like the present for private worship.

Q. My school has lost its last three games. Can we use black magic to beat our next opponent?

Of course. Drawing a pentacle on the field is one way to insure missed tackles and regular turnovers.

Q. Is permitted school football prayer restricted to “mainstream” religions?

Glad you asked. No, it’s not. As long as you have an identifiable deity, there is no restriction on private worship.

Q. Are Scientology tents permitted at high school football games?

A. Of course!

Scientology counselors packing e-Meters will offer free counseling, pre-clear services and sign-up sheets.

Q. We have an atheist in our game time prayer circle. What can we do?

A. Under Bremerton, football field prayer must be voluntary. However, Coach can bench whomever he wants for lack of good character.

The Supreme Court may rule on religious issues, but will not overrule the personnel decisions of a head coach, especially at game time.

Q. Should Zoroastrian players be permitted to light small fires on the field in honor of their god?

A. Yes. Zoroastrian fire marshals can insure that small fires lit by worshipful players pose no threat to the groundskeepers

Q. Coach requires two hours of classroom per week where he writes X’s and O’s on the board so the team can learn new plays.

My question is: can we have voluntary prayer in the classroom?

A. Yes. Because football is the reason for the class, prayer at these sessions is permitted.

Q. Can someone explain the Bremerton decision to me?

A. Because celebrity athletes are particularly well-suited to answer church/state questions based on their athletic prowess, we have decided to pose this question to Phil Mickelson at the earliest opportunity.

Q. We scored a field goal with 12 seconds left on the clock. What is an appropriate way to give thanks?

A. This depends on your religious tradition. Consult with your football team’s chaplain for best practices.

Q. Our school board refuses to fund the football team chaplain. The team has a special need, as they have had three losing seasons. What can we do?

A. Some school boards recommend setting up inter-faith religious commissions to vet candidates for the football chaplaincy.

Q. Coach and I share the same Christian faith. The team’s defensive coordinator is, however, of the Jewish faith. What should I do?

A. Help the defensive coordinator to form a minyan when requested. All faiths are respected on the field under Bremerton.

Q. We have an atheist in our game time prayer circle. What can we do?

A. Under Bremerton, football field prayer must be voluntary. However, Coach can bench whomever he wants for lack of good character.

Q. It’s 3rd and long and a rattlesnake brought for half-time snake-handling prayer has escaped onto the field. Can Coach use one of his time-outs?

A. Time spent collecting the reptile will not be charged to either team as the free exercise of religion at school-sponsored events must be respected.

Q. What is private prayer?

Private prayer is the subvocal, unobtrusive invocation of an identified deity, performed after alerting the media as to time and place of the subvocalization and voluntary prayer circle.

Q. If the 1st Amendment permits prayer in schools, doesn’t the 2nd Amendment permit guns in schools? When can our defensive tackles take their .357 magnums to practice?

A. First, let us compliment your defensive line on a wise choice of personal firearm. Automatic pistols may carry more rounds, but they are harder to clean and clear. A revolver is a safer gun because it is easier to insure that no round is chambered.

As to your question, Justice Roberts, who leaked the Dobbs opinion, intimated that we will see developments in this area soon.

“Historic” Legislation

The proposed “historic” American gun legislation is anything but:

• no restrictions on assault rifles
• more meaningless background checks
• closing a non-existent “boyfriend” exemption (firearms surrender as a condition of bail in a domestic violence arrest is already applicable to everyone)
• increased mental health programs (without funding or any idea how these will be organized)
• increasing school security (fully-equipped SWAT teams, if standing around, are useless in a crisis)

This isn’t even putting bandage on a wound. It’s talk about buying a bandage next time there is a wound. At most.

And watch as the 14 Republicans read the room and retreat.

Well: “it’s better than nothing,” they said.

No, it’s not. It’s worse, because all the palaver leads people into thinking that something is being done.

Nothing is being done.

Nothing except meaningless yapping.

Protecting Democracy

What’s strange–

and really more dangerous than anything else

–is that both sides on January 6

thought they were protecting democracy.

No More English

Efforts to “de-gender” the English language by using neologisms (e.g. “latinx”) have failed, even though English is not as gender-obsessed as the Romance languages or German. The only real solution is a language that does not recognize gender at all. One such language–though to be clear, I don’t speak it yet–is Farsi, otherwise known as Persian, a genderless Indo-European, non-tonal language. From now on, please write in Farsi only so as not to offend anyone’s sensibilities.

Merci.

(The French word for thanks is commonly used in Iran; a potentially dangerous intrusion from a gender-obsessed language that will have to be dealt with in the future.)

gender #latinx #genderbias #language #farsi #persian

British Ooze Under Your Shoes

Anyone who makes it from Calais, whether legally or not, should be given refugee status because of their successful efforts to land on British soil. Just as possession is 9/10ths of the law and “finders keepers, loosers weepers”:

“British ooze under the shoes” confers the ancient right of abode.

Some of these immigrants have traveled thousands of miles. That determination should be worth something.

Plus, these days, there’s lots of jobs to go around.

Convince me I’m wrong.

Assange Plea

Here are the outlines for a face-saving plea for the USG in the Assange case:

• Guilty plea to a felony computer crime
• Three year cap, credit for time in Belmarsh.
• Non-reporting probation.

Julian gets his freedom back, USG gets a guilty plea, Julian free to travel anywhere except USA.

Not Refugees

Chilean-resident Haitians who have lived in Chile for five years are not refugees.

Chile #haiti #refugees #Panama

immigration policy

Evergreening the Vig

Evergreening:

“To roll over unpaid amounts on loans, adding to the total amount outstanding.”

Loan sharks have long simply added unpaid vig to the total amt.owed without needing to name the practice.

banking #creditoreal #mafia

Save Money on Business Consulting

No need to waste millions on McKinsey’s business consulting advice; the t-shirt says it all.

LIV PGA Hypocrisy

There is so little to write about when covering golf that the slightest variation from the game’s white-bread norm is newsworthy. Because what happens in the game is infrequent and hard to see and takes little more than 90 seconds on Youtube (discounting the interminable ads, of course) discussing player’s fashion choices (Payne Stewart) sex addiction (Tiger Woods) or Saudi Arabia is about all the sports journos have to write about.

Thanks to LIV, the new Saudi-funded tournament, there is a lot to talk about, as talent to hit a golf ball must surely include an in-depth knowledge of the Kingdom, its customs and traditions. Who better to ask about Saudi Arabia than Phil Mickelson? Who has spent more time studying the nuances of the relationship between the United States and the Kingdom than Northern Ireland’s Rory McIllroy? Questions about the Islamic shari’a can be addressed to Bubba Watson, who surely must have expertise in this area.

John Daley hasn’t won a tournament in decades, but because he is “colorful” i.e., smokes, drinks, is unapologetically overweight and has a passion for Diet Coke, he is routinely granted sponsors’ exemptions anyway in a desperate effort to spice things up. Daly’s “non-country club appearance and attitude” (Wikipedia) have carried him far in a sport where homogeneity is king. Who are these sponsors anyway? Daly gets to play in PGA events, but a pro who played in a LIV tournament? God forbid.

Pro golfers, according to the PGA’s tax returns are independent contractors, except when they act like independent contractors and sell their services to the highest bidder. Then they’re something else, but exactly what no one knows. Foreign governments sponsoring professional athletics? The cheek!

But ask yourself if there would be the same reaction if Scotland, Spain or Japan—where golf is a legitimate religion—were sponsoring LIV instead. Probably not, which suggests that the controversy is merely masked Islamophobia, racism and good old American hate.

Sometimes I wish Eisenhower hadn’t taken up the game.

Kids Need Guns and They Need Them Now

“Imagine some would-be mass shooter bursting into a classroom only to be faced almost instantly by the barrels of at least 15 to 20 handguns.”

Read more: https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/opinion/columns/2022/06/05/kerr-want-end-school-shootings-lets-just-arm-kids/7487864001/

Not Looking Good

The number of Active Covid-19 cases in Bahrain continues to rise.

On the Submission of Appellate Briefs

One great way to have a brief pompously returned is to you with directions to “correct and re-file” is to include any kind of graphic. The appellate clerk’s office is filled with martinets. Your only hope is to file an application for leave to include a graphic. 99% of these will be denied. Font-size, word count, how words are counted (teenager, teen-ager or teen ager?) are pimples the clerks love to pick.

After such an experience, and knowing that words expended to identify a font are not counted, I included a two-page history of a famous Venetian font, Bembo, with the story of its digital revival.

(This was done in the context of an Anders brief in a case where there were no issues but due process theater.)

The clerk’s office accepted the brief but told me not to do it again.

Kosovo and Ukraine

Kosovo voted for independence and the will of the people was respected.

Crimea voted for union with Russia and the will of the people was ignored.

The war in Ukraine is not what you think.

Not Looking Good

Active Covid-19 cases in Bahrain for the month of June, 2022. The numbers are going up, not down.

Lawyers Futzing

Do clients know they are paying seasoned lawyers to futz with document formatting? This is a direct result of getting rid of secretaries. How many fruitless attorney hours are wasted fixing fomatting; correcting autonumbering errors and the like?

Or my favorite: having local counsel fill in forms on templates where the phrase “use additional sheets where necessary” is missing.

How many hours lost (by clients but billed by law firms) as attorneys try to tweak the forms, fix hyphenation, add numbered lists, etc.?

If you were a client would you pay for it? So why do lawyers expect non-lawyer clients to dig into their pockets?

If typography is your hobby, have at it, but don’t expect the client to pay for your foolishness.

Infected Thought

Reuters asks: “should a female elephant have some of the same legal rights as humans? In a push to free the one named Happy from the Bronx Zoo, an animal rights group asks New York’s top court that question .”

What about male elephants? Should they not have the same rights as female elephants?

Or has the vice of political correctness so infected thought that Reuters thought it appropriate to tell us the elephant’s gender, as if it had anything to do with the issue?

How Many Banks?

According to the NY Times, at least 20 banks are putting up 1/3rd of the money Elon needs to buy Twitter.

Roe v. Wade Leak

First drafts don’t get typeset in 12 pt Century. This is a “draft” only in the sense that there may be line-edits and cites checked.

Not that there will be substantive changes.

Expect this to be the opinion of the Court. They have already voted.

Twitter’s Largest Foreign Shareholder

I have pointed out that KSA is the largest foreign shareholder of Twitter. I was corrected here and ate crow.

But this was just posted following PWBT’s dust-up with Elon Musk.

Musk #Twitter #SaudiArabia

Kyle Rittenhouse back in the News

Kyle Rittenhouse criticized Biden (for criticizing him). Kyle, here’s some advice: some day you might become a pundit. If that’s your goal—and we both know it’s not—enroll at the University of Arizona, the University of Illinois (SIU or Champaign, either will do); get your bachelor’s in criminology. Now try to parlay your fifteen minutes into a substantial gig. That might simply be a lowly but honest job as a police officer—which you did want—or a first responder. Maybe even a federal agent, though right now this is a stretch. You were already a fan of community service before your fifteen minutes; lending a hand now will be even more significant. Half the country hates you and a quarter of them will always hate you. You can still make important contributions to this country.

But political tweeting is not one of them. At least, not now.

Or, I suppose you could realize that in this country, notoriety has value. Even an acquitted defendant in a Wisconsin homicide case can grab headlines. Move to California, start dating wanna-be actresses: to be seen with you is a chance to be noticed. Try a reality: “Flip Like Ritt” can be the title of your show about how you rehab houses. Maybe do one season. Maybe a creepy Wisconsin show. The State boasts at least two notorious cannibal serial killers. Wasn’t there a witch in Waukesha? It might be a stretch, but there should be enough for etght episodes. Take acting lessons and who knows? You might make straight to video popular again.

The choice is yours. Personally, I think you’ve got a better shot with the first alternative, but then, I’m sitting in Saudi Arabia. Whaddo I know?

Bad Luck for Me

I spent a good deal of February researching and writing a brief volume titled, Saudi Arabia Privacy Law, anticipating the effective date of Saudi Arabia’s own personal data protection law, modeled after the European Union’s GDPR. Unfortunately for me, one day before the law was to take effect, the Saudi regulator postponed enforcement of the law for one year. Since the law itself contains a one-year enforcement grace period, that means the law won’t take effect until 17 March 2024. Between now and then, the law’s implementing regulations as well as the law itself will be substantially modified from their present form.

The book will have to be substantially revised as well. Oh well.

Houthis Hit Refinery in Jeddah

The Houthis have substantially improved the accuracy of their targeting and hit an Aramco refinery in Jeddah. This is bad enough, but that refinery is supplied by Aramco’s East-West pipeline which carries 5 million barrels per day. If the refinery has to shut down operations or the storage facility where the oil is kept is compromised, the pipeline shuts down as well and 5 million bpd are lost to world markets.

The Interview with the Prime Minister

Context: a few weeks ago, an influencer announced that he had obtained an exclusive interview with the press-shy prime minister of Thailand and posted a selfie as proof. He boasted about his a journalistic coup and preached to other journalists to “push harder.” No interview was immediately forthcoming and the foreign press was suspicious and began to question his claims. Finally, he posted the “interview,” such as it was. The prime minister’s only contribution was the word ‘thanks.’ The foreign press began to mock the influencer, and I thought, maybe if the episode was portrayed as a bit of gonzo journalism, it would have been OK. I modestly suggested an alternative interview, which follows.

“ My editor called the night before and asked me where was the piece about the coup in Myanmar. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was still in Thailand, and hung up the phone while I was talking so it would appear that I had been cut-off. A girl whose name obviously wasn’t Barby had given me a cat the night before. I vaguely remember, before the ya ba hit, something about taking care of it, but in the morning Barby had already texted me asking where the cat was–how did she get my number?–so I called the office and asked them about the next flight to Yangon. “Do you have your visa?” they asked and of course, “no,” I said, “I thought that was your responsibility.”

Stressed and getting more stressed by the minute, I went to the buffet in the hotel where I hoped I could at least get a cup of coffee. Maybe I could stay in Bangkok and file something from here, no one would ever know. A group of tourists were using plates as shovels at the free buffet; I had never seen such hungry people, though their waistlines suggested that throughout their long lives they had missed but few meals. I asked about the cat but no one knew anything; I approached the concierge and it turned out he wasn’t officially connected with the hotel but told me nevertheless all about his cousin who had a fine handicrafts shop featuring generous discounts and why I should visit. “I’m worried about the cat,” I told him. “Don’t worry about the cat,” he said, “it doesn’t know it’s lost.” I was afraid that the editor would cut me off so what the hell, I’d go to Burma for the day, with or without the visa. Maybe I’d offer a bottle of booze as a present, or a $100 bill and if anyone accused me of bribery I’d say I thought we had flown east and I was in Cambodia where visas on arrival are bought for a hundred bucks. Honest mistake.

I gave up on the cat and went back to the buffet where a minor consideration was exchanged for a glass of whisky. Old Commander, not Johnny Black, the bottle was from India, I had never seen it before but it went down smooth. I needed to take the edge of off the ya ba but wasn’t having much luck. Both the cat and the concierge were already in the past when a driver I hadn’t yet ordered to take me to the airport drove up. I took my suitcase and the laptop and flashed a White House ID I had been given from a friend who knew a guy who had once attended a fund-raiser hosted by the Clintons, it had his picture on it but so what, it was a great-official looking ID with the White House seal on it and everything that allowed you to attend an event that had occurred ten years ago. I put it on a lanyard and I must say, even without my glasses–maybe Barby could explain where they were–I looked official, good to go. My visage in the mirror was all bokeh, but hell, it smooths out the wrinkles so maybe that was OK.

On the way to the airport I was preparing to be held hostage or taken to the concierge’s cousin’s handicrafts shop on the way but neither event occurred or stop made and the driver accepted a modest tip without complaint. He asked me which airline and I didn’t know, so I told him “Burma” and I must have looked like those guys who are forever commuting between Isaan and Krung Thep so he dropped me at the domestic terminal.

At the counter I said “Burma” and they asked if I was going to the event. Not sure what event they were referring to, I nodded yes anyway but with the Old Commander and the still-potent effects of the ya ba and trying to remember what Barby had told me about the cat, everything was a blur, I did say Burma though, I’m sure of that–but as I made my way to the gate–getting through security wasn’t easy, I hadn’t brought a gun along because the x-rays always pick them up, but I had a pocket knife which I told them was for smoking tobacco–how do you smoke with a knife? they asked and I said, “it’s for cleaning out the pipe, not smoking per se” but they understood ‘Persian,’and then I’m whisked away to secondary where I explained that I wasn’t from Iran but they had already pulled my suitcase off the airplane, the luggage tag was marked ‘BFV’ on it, B for Burma, I figured, but the security officer and I ended up making friends and when I was asked if I had had anything to drink that morning I told the truth as you must always do with the police.

Seeing the lanyard around my neck, the officer assumed that I was some kind of big shot and offered me a beverage; I was happy to oblige–“I can’t let you drink alone,” I told him–and he did have Johnny Black, which was a tad better than the Old Commander, which by the way, wasn’t really that bad. I told him that I was on my way to Burma to write a story about the revolution; he looked at me and then at my glass, thinking that I was asking for more he poured a couple of fingers, a quite generous pour given that it still wasn’t noon and after we drained our glasses he personally took me to the gate, where I was surprised to see the press corps, what they were doing I had no idea, they couldn’t all be going to Burma, but then I looked at the leader board which said, “Buriram” so I figured we were going to Buriram. I showed my boarding pass–I hadn’t bothered to look at it before–and what the hell, Buriram was as good a place as any.

The airline rep at the counter saw the lanyard and asked me about it, I flashed it quickly, just long enough for her to make out the impressive looking seal. “The US is interested in this inaugural flight?” she asked. I pretended that I knew, but then asked, “what inaugural flight?” “The 737-Max has returned,” she said. “Like the swallows of Capistrano,” I replied, but she looked at me like she had no idea so I started to explain but, the hell with that, instead I asked her something ore important, if there was a bar at the gate, she said, no, and pointed back to the terminal. I wondered if there was time to get another drink–I could always get one on the plane, but one to smooth the take-off would help. For some reason I was assigned seat 1A.

As it was, I boarded last because I made the journey down the terminal anyway and they didn’t have alcohol so they sent me to one of the airline clubs but I didn’t have a pass to get in, so I flashed the lanyard while looking longingly at the bottle of Johnny Black on the counter just a few feet away. I really think the club attendant was going to allow me in officially but while she was still deciding I was already pouring. “You can’t leave with that,” she shouted as I made my way out the door. I couldn’t decide whether she meant alcohol wasn’t allowed in the terminal corridor or I because I had stolen the drink. “Don’t worry, it’s a traveller” I shouted as the door shut behind me.

I had almost finished the drink by the time I reached the gate, the last one on the plane. Seat 1A wasn’t far, thank God, and I handed my glass to the flight attendant who plucked the boarding pass from the coupon. 1A was already occupied. By, it turns out, the prime minister. “How ya doing?” I asked. “Has the beverage cart been by yet?” He shook his head. And that’s how I interviewed the prime minister.

Buriram is another story, but when I got back to Bangkok I wrote the above and called my editor. “Good news,” I said. “Forget Burma. I’ve got an interview with the prime minister instead.”

Push harder.”

Notes: ya ba is Thai for “crazy medicine,” the slang term for meth. The country to the west of Thailand is universally known as “Myanmar,” the word “Burma” is barely heard, and a Thai would pronounce that word as “burmá” anyway (but keep in mind that there is no hard border between ‘r’ and ‘l’ in spoken Thai. There are lesser known Angkor-era temples in Buriram, a pleasant city to the east of Bangkok, known for its football team.

Total Loss

The Ukrainians have pledged to rebuild the An-225 six-engined superplanc transporter, the only one of its kind in the world. This is wishful thinking. It doesn’t take an aviation construction expert to see that this airframe is a total loss.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR CV (AND GET IT READ)

Facebook gets 15,000 applications for every announcement of a new job opening, You would need an army of screeners to review these applications; giving each one personal attention is out of the question. So the company, like most big companies these days, use algorithms to sift through the avalanche of applications that arrive.

Fortunately, there is one way to make sure that your application is read by human beings. Indeed, using my system will insure that several humans will pay close attention to your cv.

Buy an empty 24 foot container. It will cost you about $800 in North America. Tape your cv inside the container on the floor, in the center of the floor. Arrange for the container to be delivered to your prospective employer. They will have no idea who sent the container or why. When they open it up, the only document they will find is your cv. The guys on the loading dock will send the cv upstairs because they don’t know what to do with the container. Upstairs, they will read your cv. I guarantee it.

This submission procedure is a little more expensive than email, but is it worth $1000 USD to have your cv read? (You have to include cartage fees). Of course it is. Better yet, they will call you in order to get rid of the container; you can agree to “meet” to discuss. That initial meeting, however styled, is an interview. Even if it’s only an information interview.

What’s the downside?

They return the container to you. You can park it in your driveway, empty field, local desert or “U-Store” facility. Now you have a convenient locker for record storage. Or take the doors off, sink it in the Caribbean and so make an artificial reef.

You can thank me later.

Not Likely They’ll Work Now

It’s the best we can do.

Colonel Sanders, International Man of Mystery

Colonel Sanders, International Man of Mystery

You may only know him as a Kentucky lawyer who came up with an internationally-recognized recipe for tasty fried chicken. What you don’t know is that in the 1970’s, at the request of the American government, the Colonel undertook several clandestine missions in the Middle East on behalf of his own and other governments.

To this day, he is fondly remembered by certain governments, who in honor of his secret accomplishments, commemorate the connection with green buckets to carry the chicken cooked with the Colonel’s special blend of herbs and spices.

Now you know.

Maglev Trains

Usually at this point I would rant about McKinsey’s advice to US companies to offshore and outsource production to cut costs and so “increase shareholder value.” China is the greatest, though not the only beneficiary of this largesse. China’s economy now rivals that of the US. As a European friend once asked me when I told him of my experience riding a 300 km/hr Maglev train in Shanghai: “how many Maglev trains does the United States have?

A Cautionary Fairy Tale

A certain Big 4 accounting firm had a client who wanted a cat-catcher license in the Canal Zone, a jurisdiction no longer in existence. Big 4 would also work on the matter. I didn’t bother to vette the client because Big 4, who presumably had done their accounting, was along for the ride. The client soon discovered that getting a cat-catching license in the Canal Zone is no trivial matter. You must show that you are experienced and have books, manuals and appropriate guidelines in place, like a “Know Your Breed” (KYB) procedure. When they said they had no manuals–after Big 4 asked me to prepare them and then denied they did–I knew a) the cat-catching applicant was full of merde and b) the Ministry of Feline Affairs would never give them a license. $25k of work in, Big 4 informed me, “too bad” because they were still at Phase I and had forgotten to include a ‘kill fee’ in the contract in case the project were abandoned. The license application wasn’t abandoned–to avoid paying, the applicant simply stopped doing anything. Big 4 didn’t get paid either.

—as told by Col. Justiano von Schlossberg

Blue Diamond Affair: KSA and Thailand Restore Ties

The Thai Prime Minister, Prayut Chan o Cha, visited Riyadh on Tuesday, January 25th. Following his visit, the two countries announced the re-establishment of diplomatic relations. What caused the breach? Thirty years ago, a Thai gardener stole 100 kilograms of gems from Prince Faisal, son of the then king, King Fahd. Among these was a rare, fifty-carat blue diamond. The Thai police quickly found the culprit and recovered the gems. But the stones they returned to Saudi Arabia were fake. Three Saudi diplomats sent to Thailand were murdered. The real gems ended up in the possession of high-ranking police officers.

Saudi Arabia viewed Thai official behavior as adding insult to injury and broke off diplomatic relations. For thirty years, the two countries only spoke to each other unofficially.

In 2014, a whistleblower in the Thai police broke ranks and accused his superiors of masterminding the murder. He claimed to have burnt the body of one of the victims in a rusty, 55-gallon drum. A ring was still on the hand of a severed arm, which was later recognized as belonging to one of the victims. The case was nevertheless dismissed by a Thai judge because no Saudi witnesses appeared to testify in court.

The rapprochement was supposedly brokered by the king of Bahrain. There’s more to the story. Supposedly the blue diamond itself is in the possession of the former queen of Thailand, the mother of the current king. She was urged to return it to Saudi Arabia, but refused. Whether that is true or just gossip, no one really knows.

The blue diamond was never recovered.

More: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60133105

Still more: elibrary.law.psu.edu/jlia/vol1/iss1…

Here We Go

Freedom from Responsibility

Freedom from responsibility. America’s freedoms have been boiled down to one issue: “do they make you wear a mask?” Maybe this should be added to the Bill of Rights.

“Arrive on vacation, leave on probation.”

More on Ivermectin

The MSM has pushed Ivermectin as a horse dewormer, and anyone who attempts to contradict this dogma runs the risk of censure and deplatforming. But now there’s this:

This implies that 89% of the participants benefited from taking Ivermectin as a form of preexposure chemoprophylaxis. Ivermectin has a significant clinical benefit as a preventive drug against COVID-19 for hospital personnel in settings with limited resources.

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34975139/

Escaped Macaques

Following a crash involving a dump truck, three macaques escaped from their cages while being transported to a CDC-approved quarantine center. The macaques had just arrived from Africa; the breed can carry the Ebola virus and in the past has transmitted it to humans.

After a brief monkey hunt, the escaped macaques were captured by police and euthanized. As none of the other monkeys were euthanized, it is unlikely that the CIDC has provided the whole story.

Again.

In the 90’s, a shipment of macaques arrived at Miami International. All of them were dead in their cages. Seeking to avoid panic, the CIDC said, “nothing to see here, move along.” Since it is very likely that Covid-19 escaped from a lab in Wuhan, this macaque escape is also in the nature of the lab breach. It would be nice if the same transparency we demand from the Chinese government were shown by our own agencies.

(25 January 2022)