Julian Assange: All That Malware On Wikileaks Isn't a Big Deal (vice.com) 181
WikiLeaks celebrates its 10th anniversary today. At a press conference, its editor Julian Assange hinted that Wikileaks could soon disclose more things about the U.S. election. Making use of the occasion, Motherboard asked Assange about the malware that Wikileaks website contains. To which, Assange responded (via Motherboard): âoeThe [Hillary] Clinton campaign has been going around saying 'don't read Wikileaks, because there's malware,'" Assange said in response to a general question about malware on the site from Motherboard. Talking specifically about malicious files that were included within a recent dump of emails from Turkey, Assange emphasised that there wasn't an issue for users who just visited the site, and that people needed to download the files themselves. "However this same risk exists for most '.exe' or '.doc' files downloaded elsewhere from the internet or received by email. As time goes by we flag documents to alert readers," a print-out given to journalists at the press conference reads. Assange even thought that the presence of malware itself was noteworthy. "There was malware sent to [the ruling Turkish party] AKP, either from criminals or from state attacks on the AKP. That's extremely interesting," he said.
Democrat misinformation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Democrat misinformation (Score:4, Informative)
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So you have to shovel a buttload of spam and rubbish to sieve out a valuable gem?
Sounds like a job for a spamfilter.
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I'm fairly sure the average spamfilter can at least determine what is certainly NOT newsworthy.
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"Editorial review" is unethical when it comes to whistle-blowing.
The whole point is that bad shit is going down and transparency is needed. Picking and choosing what to show only leads to bias and spin.
Lay it all out under the sun for the world to see and judge.
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I also disagree with things like releasing the names of known homosexuals when that information could put their life in danger. Redacting to protect a life seems like a bright enough editorial line that can
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The only person discrediting Wikileaks is Assange himself.
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Largely because I'm not vested in keeping up the facade of Assange as some sort of freedom fighter.
Re:Democrat misinformation (Score:5, Insightful)
Thus far Assange's big leaks have been little more than damp squibs. There's going to come a point very soon when he's just going to fade into obscurity, locked in his embassy prison, and no one giving a shit any more. Snowden stole the torch anyways, and is a far less complex hero for those that want data to be free.
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At the very least he would be charged by British authorities with defying a court order. There's no way that Assange doesn't spend time in prison.
Re:Democrat misinformation (Score:4, Informative)
What the heck would we want him for? Unless he worked with Manning to extract the classified information, he's a publisher, and that's perfectly legal (that was established in the 60s). There's plenty of annoying people around the world that the US leaves alone.
The only reason Assange is babbling about what the US will do is that he doesn't want to go back to Sweden and face charges, so he's looking for excuses. He probably also doesn't want to face UK judges about his being a fugitive from justice for all these years.
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The only reason Assange is babbling about what the US will do is that he doesn't want to go back to Sweden and face charges, so he's looking for excuses.
This may be true... but I would be terrified of the American government if they were upset at me. It is clear that they have no reason to follow the laws that they are supposed to be following and if such a reason does happen, they are prepared with every excuse imaginable to say their behavior is lawful.
Unbridled power begets unbridled corruption.
Sensible enough to include but warn (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't put words in his mouth. He didn't say 'no big deal'. The gist of what he said was more that, for security researchers and people interested in this sort of thing, having the malware available for analysis within document dumps can prove a fruitful line of enquiry, and people downloading and extracting these dumps are unlikely to be the mouthbreathing 'hurr durr an exe gotta run it see what it does' idiots.
Doc files, I can see some merit in providing two dumps, one with any autoplay macros neutered. Or at least, putting a massive great warning reminding researchers to take care.
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Doc files, I can see some merit in providing two dumps, one with any autoplay macros neutered
Doesn't Microsoft already stop macros from playing without warning in documents downloaded from the internet?
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Julian Assange is a KGB Agent (Score:2, Funny)
Julian Assange is a KGB agent, on a mission to elect Donald Trump.
This Malware helps the Kremlin conduct surveillance with with the to aid in their efforts to undermine our democracy.
Vladamir Putin sees Donald Trump as a useful idiot, and an ally in Russias second cold war on the United States.
Re:Julian Assange is a KGB Agent (Score:5, Funny)
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WikiLeaks is pretty good at trolling. (Score:5, Interesting)
Trump backers realize they've been played as WikiLeaks fails to deliver October surprise [washingtonpost.com]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WikiLeaks is pretty good at trolling. (Score:4, Interesting)
"OK, I admit I rickrolled you this time, but click on my link NEXT time, because I'd never rickroll you again, honest!"
Clinton psychological effect (Score:2)
This Twitter post gave me a chuckle
If you're mad about not getting an #OctoberSurprise from @wikileaks today, consider the psychological effect waiting has on Hillary.
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And further she knows that even if something damaging were released, Trump would bury it in the next news cycle by saying something awful or moronic.
But at this point, is there anybody beyond Trump's most dedicated supporters that still thinks Assange has any information of any significance?
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Seems like to me the media is pretty damned desperate. What's the date by the way? Oh November 4th you say? I guess WAPO is right. Oh October 4th....how silly of me.
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Re:WikiLeaks is pretty good at trolling. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Anyone in Wikileaks who actually wanted the organization to carry on its mission is long gone. Assange didn't want an organization, he wanted a cult, and he's got one.
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Ah, you mean: an organization that would only publish stuff harmful to the Right, and not even the slightest embarassment to the Left?
Um no, not what I mean. I think you're saying more about yourself than about me, tbh.
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What changed is that Assange did his best to make Wikileaks all about himself, at the expense of credible leaks. He's a fugitive from justice who tries to get noticed every so often.
Pity about that, an organization devoted to leaking things wouldn't be a bad thing to have.
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Exactly. Assange has turned the organization into his personal podium, and much more dire, into his own tool of revenge. There was a time when it truly had few if any biases, but now that Assange wants to eke out his vengeance on enemies real and imagined, it's simply become a tool of one political faction in the US, or possibly even a tool of Russia, if some conspiracy theories are to be believed. But whatever Wikileaks could be, Assange's actions and his general persona have discredited it. The organizati
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Did they ever release the Bank of America stuff?
Release stuff that upsets the American government?
Check.
Release stuff that upsets a bank?
WTF?
The claim that he was going to release documents concerning a huge scandal at BofA and then having nothing makes me realize WikiLeaks is just a sideshow. I no longer care about what they promise to deliver. They suck. Julian Assange sucks
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Hillary got to Assange - the check cleared, suddenly no leak.
Total corruption.
Another conspiracy theory... Hope it is going to stick, huh?
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They just keep making it up, over and over and over again. When you're a demented partisan, there's no claim so idiotic or outrageous that it isn't worth floating.
The Internet (Score:2, Insightful)
So I shouldn't hang around the web, because I might stumble across a site with malware in some ad, flash code or whatever. I shouldn't connect my "things" to the web because they might become part of a botnet, quite easily apparently [slashdot.org].
Can we get some sense in here and agree that Assange is in his right to tell you to disregard obvious attempts to discredit wikileaks before an important leak??
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Can we get some sense in here and agree that Assange is in his right to tell you to disregard obvious attempts to discredit wikileaks before an important leak??
You mean the leak of when the leak will be leaked?
In other news can we get some sense in here and agree that "look at all our stuff right now that we know contains a lot of malware cause eventually we'll let you know where the bad files are and, oh btw [conspiracy theory]" is a pretty bullshit response? How bout "the raw stuff is dangerous but we've verified all the stuff on XYZ part of our site has been cleared of malware"
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Could we let him leak before we decide about its quality? Personally, I'm waiting. Not holding my breath, but if he delivers, let's judge it. If he doesn't, well, meh.
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We sure could "let him leak" as you put it, but if he says "ZOMG BIG NEWS TUESDAY" where the big news turns out to be "big news coming soon for real this time but for now buy my book!" we justifiably get to place him in the probably full of shit category. In the meantime we get to debate the merits of hype men in the internet age.
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So? I have long ago ceased to care for such announcements and just wait for the actual news to hit the floor.
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Yet here we both are, 4 replies deep in the span of an hour. I'm at work, whats your excuse?
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Work back when I made the last comment, now insomnia.
Re:The Internet (Score:5, Informative)
But if he's got an important leak, why didn't he make it? Instead, they were hawking books. He's turning into an infomercial.
Don't get me wrong, I think if he's got an important leak to make that would affect the election, I think we should know about it. The problem is, Trump is hiding a bunch of shit as well, and that information could affect the election, and Assange is basically giving him a free pass. (For the record, I consider both major party candidates to be terrible. But Trump is getting away with all kinds of things that would sink any other candidate because the media is in love with ratings.)
And hell, I honestly consider Trump to be the more dangerous candidate when it comes to a free and open press. Hell, he's said he wants to make it easier to sue publications if they publish something he doesn't like.
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And hell, I honestly consider Trump to be the more dangerous candidate when it comes to a free and open press. Hell, he's said he wants to make it easier to sue publications if they publish something he doesn't like.
You mean easier to sue publications that publish things that are a lie. Like the a-typical clickbait, full of lies type of garbage that most of the media is publishing these days? Or the "we're gonna scour social media, ruin someones life, and when they get bullied/lose their job/commit suicide over it" that the media is running wild with these days. Oh I can see how people would be upset over that, especially people who work for companies like Gawker, Buzzfeed, or Huffington Post.
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Trump's already threatened legal action against the New York Times for releasing a couple pages of his tax returns from years ago. He'd likely lose that lawsuit, mind you, even if it actually comes to that, but Trump is opposed to anything that shows him in a light other than the one he projects.
No reason why he shouldn't either. Keep in mind that his tax returns aren't public record anymore then yours are or mine are.
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Now, Trump is still free to sue them, but it should be a difficult case to win. And nothing is stopping Trump from rambling on at three in the morning about how awful/sad/whatever the Times is.
But that's about all he can do.
Well he's right about the Times being awful/sad/whatever. Since they were right up there lauding him with huge heaping's of praise for doing exactly what he did in 1995/1996. Which should tell you just how far invested they are in Clinton.
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Most likely he just doesn't have any stuff on Trump. What should he do, step in front of cameras and declare boldly that he doesn't have jack shit about Trump?
Assange is a sales man. He knows how to sell what he has. But even he knows he can't sell what he doesn't.
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Stuff on Trump doesn't need to be sent to Wikileaks. Any news outlet at all will publish anything they receive about Trump. Except for Fox News, which no one will believe, no media will actually release any dirt on any Democratic candidate or organization.
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Provably false if you've read a newspaper in the last 25 years.
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Newspaper? You mean the window cleaning paper that gets left at my door at hotels?
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For the record, I consider both major party candidates to be terrible. But Trump is getting away with all kinds of things that would sink any other candidate
Both candidates do. That's why they are still in the race. A crucial skill in a world where negative ads are so common.
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I feel I didn't make myself clear.
You have the Republican candidate attacking veterans for being captured, attacking the families of fallen veterans, and attacking veterans who suffer from PTSD, just to name a few things Trump has done.
If this were any other candidate who ran for the nomination this year, not only would they never have said these attacks, they would have torpedoed their candidacy by doing so.
He's single-handedly destroying any attempt at outreach to the Latino communities that the Republica
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You have the Republican candidate attacking veterans for being captured, attacking the families of fallen veterans, and attacking veterans who suffer from PTSD, just to name a few things Trump has done. If this were any other candidate who ran for the nomination this year, not only would they never have said these attacks, they would have torpedoed their candidacy by doing so.
My point was, that knowing how to handle these sorts of problems without it torpedoing your campaign is a crucial skill for modern presidential candidates. The Clintons maybe mastered it first (and watching them is like watching a great artist at work), but Trump is good at it, too.
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You should read more about Assange. That's always been his MO. You just didn't mind when he leaking information about the US military but now that he's crapping on the Democratic party he's a bad bad man.
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Back when he published the Manning leaks, I didn't know much about Assange and what he was doing, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Since then, he's been systematically removing the doubt.
Since then, he's been a fugitive from justice, and blamed the big bad US for his own misconduct. He's pulled personal publicity stunts in an effort to stay relevant. The fact that he's trying to leak biased information to influence a US election for personal reasons is absolutely no surprise.
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In what way is the information "biased?" Was the information he released biased before, or is it only biased now?
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When he was getting what he could from Manning, he wasn't showing bias. By publishing private emails from one specific private organizations, he's showing bias.
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But that's the organization he has the emails from. Should he not release DNC emails unless he also has RNC emails to leak?
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Let's imagine for a moment that Sweden concedes to Assange's offer, and at the end of it, they are dissatisfied with responses. What exactly would happen? Unless Ecuador agrees to allow him to be taken from the Embassy, all that's happened is Assange has once again jerked their chains.
And let's be even clearer. Even if Sweden abandons prosecution, Assange still violated British law, so the only two possible ends to this whole process at this point is his removal in handcuffs or in a coffin.
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Of course the Swedish authorities could still claim that he needed to appear in Sweden to face charges, but there's no reason he couldn't have been questioned in Britain anytime in the last 4 years.
As of now, Assange is subject to arrest in Britain or any European country, but only because of treaty obligations related to the extradition request from Sweden. If that goes away, so does the EU-wide arrest warrant. What crime did he commit in Britain? Something like "resisting arrest" because he ducked Brit
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He was due to surrender to British authorities to be extradited to Sweden, so he almost certainly would still face charges in the UK. Now if the Swedish charges still stand, I'm certain British authorities would stay their own proceedings, but if Sweden drops their charges, I think the Crown Prosecution Service and Scotland Yard both would like to send a rather strong message to anyone else thinking of using an asylum scheme to evade arrest and/or extradition.
Blame Obama (Score:2)
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This is smearing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is smearing (Score:5, Insightful)
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We don't like click-baity, misleading, and misrepresentative headlines here. They're disingenuous and you should be ashamed for having snuck this one past the editors
Have you been in a coma since 1998? Click-baity, misleading, and misrepresentative headlines are almost all Slashdot does these days. At least the new management has damped down the sexism/racism-related clickbait articles - I'll give him that much - but it's still mostly clickbait.
Soon (Score:2)
credibility = zero (Score:4, Insightful)
Assange lost all credibility when he played his partisan hand this session. He is no longer democratizing information, he is selectively choosing information to further his "side" because he has a grudge. He blew it. Someone else needs to take the helm.
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In other words, you support Hillary Clinton. You sound just like the Bush supporters when Assange revealed their secrets. I bet you didn't call him partisan back then.
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I know, I heard all about how good Trump and his son Baron are at cyber. Very smart, his son. Very smart at cybers.
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Re: Too much bias ... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, editorial review is what would inttoduce bias. They're not journalists, and they're not really activists, except in the narrow realm of information trandparency - they're a data source. Sure, there's a lot of noise with the signal, but thats why other organisations that *are* journalists filter through it and provide editorialised opinions on it.
Don't make wikileaks into something its not - we need an open data dump more than we need someone selectively picking the facts that support their position and rolling them up into an article. We've already got plenty of those.
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"Editorial review" is not just redacting or withholding of certain documents, it is also choosing the time and context of the release. I'll also point out the obvious:that they almost certainly withhold documents harmful to Wikileaks
Assange has a professed his dislike of Hillary Clinton, and his timing of releases is clearly intended to harm her campaign. Information transparency is not their cause, otherwise they would have been more honest about today's fundraiser. Instead they hyped it as the end of the
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A-men. That's it in a nutshell.
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If Assange's goal is to damage Clinton, then this faux-press release only helps her by discrediting Assange and Wikileaks. Since his previous "killer revelation" turned out to be some emails bad mouthing Sanders, it really was a "and...?" kind of moment. When you consider what Ted Cruz did DURING the RNC, it really came off as an example of hyperbole which only served to make Wikileaks look foolish.
Maybe Assange is finally cracking, maybe he has become yet another tired celebrity trying desperately to manuf
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How is the timing specifically geared to harm Hillary? Surely any period in the year-long shitstorm that is the American electoral process would be equally harmful, except possibly directly before the election, such that there isn't time to run damage control if it proves necessary.
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To be honest, as a non-American, this was the first time I'd heard that phrase.
Whose side is he on? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless they just came into the info in the last couple months they should have released any damning revelations they had about Clinton during the primaries when it might have helped Sanders win.
At this point however the only realistic options are Trump and Clinton. And honestly even if wikileaks did have proof that the Clintons make a habit of murdering their political opponents (citation needed oh so very much) i'd still probably vote for Hillary. Trump doesn't know what an act of war is, he doesn't know how treaties and alliances work, he thinks nuclear weapons were made to be used, and he has a propensity for letting his temper get the better of him at 3am and lashing out. If he gets elected i'm honestly worried that the world might end in a nuclear fireball.
From a pure game theory standpoint in this situation i'd far rather hold my nose and vote for a known murderer who also happened to be skilled at international politics.
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I'd still probably vote for Hillary. Trump [.. is basically Hitler]. If he gets elected i'm honestly worried that the world might end in a nuclear fireball.
Which is exactly what the Left said about Reagan, Bush, and Bush (and probably more before I was born). Very tired old propaganda. I'm sure he's also racist, sexist, transphobic, Isamaphobic, and all the new bad things that, well, are also too played out for anyone serious to care about.
Trump has been a moderate Democrat most of his life, and most of his positions are still the same. His only real talking point is immigration, and he doesn't seem too firm on that. In short, nothing worth worrying about.
Re:Whose side is he on? (Score:5, Interesting)
But Trump has said that he's okay with using nuclear weapons offensively:
https://thinkprogress.org/9-te... [thinkprogress.org]
Trump has also said that he won't guarantee defending our allies, which is potentially a very destabilizing action:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli... [nbcnews.com]
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-... [bbc.com]
He said during the first debate that attacking an Iranian ship would not start a war. (To be fair, doing so wouldn't _definitely_ start a war, but almost identical actions have been considered acts of war in the past and could easily be considered so again, so saying that it definitely wouldn't is 100% wrong.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
And i can find any number of references for the off the wall stuff Trump has posted on twitter at 3am, in fact there has been analysis presented here on slashdot about the emotional tones of his tweets then vs when his staff is in charge:
https://politics.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
Now normally i wouldn't say "this person acts unhinged on twitter, therefore they'll end civilization." However he has stated himself that he's willing to cause turmoil among our allies, which will lead to politically unstable situations, he's said himself that he's willing to preemptively use nuclear weapons, and he's said things that seem to indicate he doesn't know what is and is not an act of war.
If you combine that with the kind of temper and tendency to get unhinged when he feels he's been attacked or insulted that he's demonstrated both in real life and in his late night twitter sessions, i feel that it's reasonable to be very concerned.
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So, what you're telling me here, is that Trump is the one politician who's campaign statements you actually believe?
Trump could do wonders for the Congress and the courts remembering that they're supposed to be 3 co-equal branches of government, instead of just rolling over for the president on almost everything, letting executive orders go unchallenged, and so on.
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I assume all politicians are lying at all times. Doesn't any reasonable person? Past actions are useful to examine however.
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Apart from his positions, which seem to shift depending on the audience, the time of day, his blood sugar levels, position of Uranus as compared to Mercury, or whatever it is that shifts Trump's views, the chief issue as I see it is his temperament. The first debate showed that so very well, that he really cannot hold it together for more than a few minutes, and responds to be baiting in a sadly predictable fashion by lashing out, saying absurd things, being offensive, and in general behaving like a demente
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The Bushes weren't going to start a nuclear war.
Reagan, on the other hand, deliberately pushed the Soviet Union into a position where they could attack or collapse, their choice. The Soviets chose to collapse, but that's not the automatic choice, and lots of regimes under great pressure have gone to war to try to fix things on the home front (and that does include Russia not too long before the Bolshevik takeover). I think we were in greater danger than we'd been since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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Reagan understood the USSR better than you do. Weakness invites attack; strength doesn't. That's just how bullies think. Why is it people think an enemy is just someone we haven't hugged enough? I blame lack of studying history.
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Weakness doesn't provoke the likely opponent to additional military spending, but strength can. It's possible to do some primitive mathematical modeling of trade relations and military rivalry between countries, and predict whether an arms race is stable or not. As long as it's stable, it's just expensive but not otherwise dangerous. When it gets unstable, one side is likely to think that war is it's last chance to rectify the balance. It's happened before. One reason for the German role in starting W
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Weakness doesn't provoke the likely opponent to additional military spending, but strength can.
Yes, Exactly. That was the strategy. Cause the collapse of the USSR, while maintaining the show of strength to prevent them from attacking us. It worked, and ended the cold war and threat of global nuclear war (at least for a couple generations).
It seemed more scary at the time than it was, because we could only assume the USSR was as strong as it looked, but it turned out they were only putting on a show. Most of they're nuclear silos were empty (built just to show up on our intel photos), and most of
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Of course, the US could have pursued a different policy, and possibly ended it all sooner, with less bother for everybody.
Or, you know, killed us all in a nuclear holocaust. But in the real world, the plan actually did work, the USSR crumbled, the cold war was over, no nuclear war. Happy ending.
But some people will criticize anything, it seems.
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It's not about who cares about you or not. Trump has made it pretty clear for most of his adult life that he doesn't care about anyone beyond perhaps his immediate family (wives excluded). It's about who actually seems to have a fucking clue. The man cannot even make it through a 90 minute debate without being baited into saying idiotic and offensive things.
In some ways, he reminds me of Napoleon III, another populist (though one of more demonstrable ability) from the not-so-distant past whose ego allowed h
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Everything i've read about both the email servers and Benghazi so far make them sound like pretty mundane fuck-ups, the kind that pretty much all politicians make from time to time (and Bush in particular did much worse.)
But let's assume that Assange is about to leak documents proving that _everything_ the Hillary haters say about her is true. In that case then as long as i don't become a vocal political opponent of hers i can expect that she won't a
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I don't know about you but i've been worried about war with China since the 90s, and it was only that late because that's when i first learned the history of the region. Taiwan has been a ticking political time bomb since the 50s, and there was a big uptick in the potential for conflict when the Taiwan Relation Act was passed in 1979, after Nixon and well
Re:Curious (Score:4, Informative)
So Wikilinks is under a malware attack when they release files and documents that were already infected? That's like saying you got beat up by your own fist punching yourself.
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Yes, it is a vast conspiracy. The New York Ties in particularly loves Hillary. The thousands of federal agents who pored over Clintons emails were each one pinkie-sworn to secrecy too.
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The idea that he doesn't care for either side and only cares about his own well being is impossible? Really?
Personally, that's what I'd assume first.
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Indeed. It's a sad state of the world when Russia is the only country willing to shelter people who expose the lawlessness of the US government.
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Russia isn't sheltering Snowden out of the goodness of their heart. It's a deliberate kick in the face.
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No. For an obvious reason. If he could somehow even remotely prove he is, the whole charade about him hiding in that embassy would be over and he could travel about and be the flamboyant self-promoting narcissist that he is.