I have no opinion on the politics of Indonesia…

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I am familiar with some facts though. Hundreds of thousands of Indonesian civilians were massacred by its military and paramilitary thugs in the 1960s, and again in East Timor in the 1970s. In the 1990s, street thugs attacked citizens of Chinese ancestry and some families chose to flee the country.

Here is what The Intercept has to say about Indonesia’s (presumptive?) new president:

The heir of a wealthy banking family, Prabowo holds hundreds of thousands of acres of plantation, mining, and industrial properties. He was the son-in-law of the late dictator Gen. Suharto, who, with U.S. support, ruled Indonesia for 32 years…

Prabowo, as Suharto’s son-in-law, was a senior commander of the massacres in occupied East Timor. In one, at Kraras in 1983 on the mountain of Bibileo, “several hundred” civilians were murdered, according to a United Nations-backed inquiry. Prabowo also personally tortured captives; one told me of Prabowo breaking his teeth…

In 1998, with Suharto hobbled by the arms cutoff and facing growing demonstrations, Prabowo abducted 24 democratic activists, 13 of whom he “disappeared.” He also engendered a campaign of murder, arson, and rape, mainly against ethnic Chinese residents.

The Intercept

Compare and contrast with what the BBC had to say:

Where the president is famously soft-spoken and conciliatory, Mr Prabowo has a reputation for ill-tempered outbursts and abrasive opinions. He takes pride in the long career he had as an officer in the Indonesian special forces, despite allegations of serious human rights abuses made against both him and the unit in the past.

BBC

No further comment, except to say the rich and powerful run the world, and maybe in Southeast Asia they don’t go to such great pains to hide it.

checking in on the 2024 election

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Here’s where we stand as I write this on February 4, 2024. Most of the polling averages now include some polls conducted in January.

STATE2020 RESULTMost Recent Real Clear Politics Poll Average (as of 2/4/24)
ArizonaBiden +0.4%Trump +4.5%
GeorgiaBiden +0.3%Trump +7.2%
WisconsinBiden +0.6%Trump +0.2%
North CarolinaTrump +1.3%Trump +5.4% (RCP doesn’t provide this average but I have averaged the ones they provide, some of which are quite old)
PennsylvaniaBiden +1.2%Biden +0.3%
MichiganBiden +2.8%Trump +5.1%
NevadaBiden +2.4%Trump +7.0%

It is not hard to figure this out from the above numbers, but if I make a customized electoral college map on 270towin.com, the picture is awful for Biden, with 293 Trump electoral votes to 245 for Biden.

The “538 Politics Podcast” generally has been much reduced in quality post-Nate Silver and post-ABC buyout, but they did have this interesting episode (actually – I can’t figure out how to link directly to it, this is how shitty their website is now – but search for “How Americans feel about the economy”) recently about research on how peoples’ shock over episodes of inflation “decay” over time. Basically, the shock declines by about 50% of the remaining amount over the course of a year. So, even though the rate of price increase has declined, we are now feeling about 50% of the shock from the shocking inflation of 2022. By the November election, we will be feeling about 25% of the shock. Is this enough to count on? Certainly not, but even to realize this the economy needs to stay as good as it is now for the next nine months, and inflation needs to not go back up again.

Fentanyl

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El Pais has a long article that goes through the entire supply chain for Fentanyl. Basically, there is a huge demand for drugs in the United States. Because they are criminalized and highly profitable, organized crime is going to find to meet that demand. Organized crime in Mexico is going to find a way to bring the chemical precursors in, manufacture the product, and move it across the border, with extremely violent consequences. Businesspeople in China (I use the term loosely as these are also gangster-like, but the actual chemicals involved are typically not even illegal) are happy to manufacture and ship these precursors to the organized criminals in Mexico. Politicians and bureaucrats at all levels get wrapped up through bribery, threats of violence and actual violence.

how many U.S. troops in Yemen?

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Well, the answer to this one has to be zero, right??? According to the War Powers Report submitted to Congress by the White House in December, the answer is “a small number”. The summary letter I have linked to also lists other deployments the U.S. considers part of its “counterterrorism” efforts in the greater Middle East. So the “war on terror” is very much continuing. Most of this is about combating “ISIS” and “ISIL”, more or less at the invitation of the host government. These groups are not “Iran-backed” as far as I know, and in fact are even threatening to Iran.

The U.S. is also sometimes attacking Iran-backed groups and Iranian military advisers under the umbrella of counterterrorism. This particularly catches my eye:

As reported on November 22, 2023, I directed United States forces to conduct discrete strikes on the night of November 21, 2023, against facilities in Iraq used by the IRGC and IRGC-affiliated groups for command and control, logistics, and other purposes.  These strikes followed attacks against United States personnel and facilities in Iraq and Syria that threatened the lives of United States personnel and Coalition forces operating alongside United States forces, and that were perpetrated by the IRGC and militia groups affiliated with the IRGC.  A United States contractor suffered a fatal cardiac incident while moving to shelter during one of these attacks.  I directed these discrete military actions consistent with my responsibility to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive and to conduct United States foreign relations.

whitehouse.gov

I’ll try: “Iran-backed” groups are fighting “US-backed” groups in various countries. Iran and the US both have military advisers in various countries. U.S. troops and contractors are occasionally getting hurt in attacks maybe aimed directly at them, and maybe aimed at more local parties. We’re there because they are fighting us, and they are fighting us because we’re there.

January 2024 in Review

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Most frightening and/or depressing story: 2023 was “a year of war“, and so far 2024 is not looking better. Those diplomatic grand bargains you always hear about seem to be getting less grand. And the drumbeat for a U.S. attack on Iran got louder.

Most hopeful story: According to Bill Gates, some bright spots in the world today include gains in administering vaccines to children around the world, a shift toward greater public acceptance of nuclear power, and maybe getting a bit closer to the dream of fusion power. He pontificates about AI, and my personal sense is it is still too soon, but AI does hold some promise for speeding up scientific progress.

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: The return of super-sonic commercial flight is inching closer.

those darn recipe sites

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This is some seriously dark humor. But ha ha, also so true. You have to scroll forever to get to your recipe, and at least for me the mobile version of any recipe site is infuriating because it constantly crashes. And yet…what is also true is recipe websites have made our world better. Instead of winging a recipe, or relying on one book you happen to have lying around, you can find out the ingredients, measurements, and even watch a video of how to make it well. You can even look at several versions of a dish, then wing it, and it will usually come out pretty well. And if you wing it in the future, it will come out better than if the recipe sites did not exist. So thank you, recipe sites.

the ocean will be full of Philadelphia plastic trash for 10,000 years after our bones are dust

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This is an article probably only of interest to people who live in Philadelphia, although the average U.S. city may not be run a lot better. I firmly believe however that the average major city is run a lot better. We have a new mayor, and despite saying it is a priority to make our city “clean and green” she has not made it a priority to actually appoint anyone to run the Philadelphia Streets Department. Her main campaign promise, as I understood it, was to make sure that no people who have lived outside Philadelphia and no new ideas not invented in Philadelphia will be allowed to penetrate Philadelphia.

The Streets Department is in charge of designing, building, and maintaining all our streets and in charge of garbage collection and recycling. Some of the other candidates for mayor proposed to split this into two departments, with competent professionals in charge of each. As you can see from the article, the trash situation clogging our streets, storm inlets, and ultimately streams, rivers, the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean is blamed on littering and illegal dumping by citizens. But what I see is that much of it is the result of incompetent trash pickup and the nearly complete lack of a street cleaning program. I also see broken and damaged traffic and pedestrian signals all over town, often functioning but pointing the wrong way. Stripes wear off a couple years after they are painted and are not repainted for decades. And the number of drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists killed on our streets continues to climb. The police are no help on this last one, but I still think the majority of it is caused by incompetent design, incompetent construction oversight, and a virtually complete (incompetent would be overly generous here because it implies at least some minimal effort) lack of maintenance. The department undoubtedly has limited resources like all municipal departments everywhere, but a modern asset management program run by competent professionals would be the key to making the best use of the resources it has. Meanwhile people are literally dying on our streets and we are dumping more trash every day in the ocean, and it will literally be there forever.

I have come to believe that Philadelphia may be the most incompetent major city in any developed country in the world. Mayor Parker, prove to me that you understand and care about this, do something about it, and I will be your biggest fan.

the drum beat for a U.S. attack on Iran continues

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The media always refers to “Iran-backed” and “Iran proxy” groups responsible for various events in the Middle East, but we never really see proof that Iran is participating in specific attacks. We often hear that Iran is providing aid, arms, or has military advisers on the ground. I’m not saying any of this is outright lies, as I wouldn’t know, but it raises my propaganda hackles. Just substitute “US-backed” or “US advisors” and see how many situations around the world you could write and article about suggesting the US is a nefarious force behind all sorts of events. And of course, this is exactly what happened.

This is not hypothetical. The US has military advisers in Jordan, for example, who were just attacked by an “Iran-backed” group (why do we have troops in Jordan, or Syria for that matter, and is this article is suggesting we have troops in Iraq?). And here are some quotes from the warmongers, courtesy of Axios:

  • “Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), said in a statement the attacks the U.S. has carried out on Iranian proxies outside Iran “will not deter Iranian aggression,” calling to “strike targets of significance inside Iran.”
  • “The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). “Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander-in-chief.”
  • Sen. John Cornyn, in a post on the social media site X, said: “Target Tehran[.]”
  • “The head of the snake is Iran,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and former Air Force brigadier general, told Axios.”

The other talking point we are hearing from Republicans is that we are “acting like it is September 10”. This is a rhetorical attempt to link migration at the Mexico-Border to the Hamas attacks on Israel. The U.S. should of course be alert for an attack by radical Islamist groups who would see it as justified self-defense for America’s support for what they see as human rights abuses and war crimes committed by Israel. I am not taking a position here, just pointing out that it is a vicious cycle of escalating violence and all sides are stoking the flames rather than trying to interrupt the cycle. No evidence has been provided of any plot that would involve crossing the US-Mexico border.