Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

Farcical Coverage of Julian Assange’s Farcical Hearing

US corporate media have buried coverage of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing in the UK, despite its being the media “Trial of the Century” (FAIR.org, 9/25/20). But even in the scarce coverage that does exist of this unprecedented case with immense implications for freedom of expression, one would hardly get the impression that the US and British governments are involved in an illegal conspiracy—in violation of their own laws—to punish Assange for the “crime” of journalism.

Coverage before and at the start of the trial by establishment media outlets like the New York Times (9/7/20), Wall Street Journal (9/7/20), USA Today (9/6/20) and the Associated Press (9/6/20) largely omitted simple facts, like Assange displaying signs of abuse. Of these reports, only USA Today cited Nils Melzer, a UN special rapporteur on torture, who observed that when he visited him last year, Assange displayed symptoms of “psychological torture,” likely caused by extreme stress, chronic anxiety and isolation.

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China uses microwave weapons to blast Indian troops in disputed border region

China got round a no-live-shots agreement during a border stand-off in the Himalayas by deploying microwave weapons to “cook” enemy troops from India, a Beijing-based academic has claimed.

The Chinese military used “high-energy electromagnetic radiation” technology to effectively turn “two strategic hilltops that had been occupied by Indian soldiers into a microwave oven”, The Times reports.

The attack left the Indian troops “vomiting” and unable to stand within 15 minutes, enabling the People’s Liberation Army to “retake two strategically important hilltops in the Himalayas without any exchange of live fire”, according to Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at China’s Renmin University.

The academic told attendees at a recent lecture that China didn’t publicise the victory, in late August, “because we solved the problem beautifully”.

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Russia isn’t a ‘superpower’ because it doesn’t project ‘military power across the globe’ says former US president Obama

If it wants to be taken seriously on the world stage, Russia should take a leaf out of Washington’s book and deploy more of its soldiers in other countries. That’s according to former US President Barack Obama.

In his new book, ‘A Promised Land’, the two-term president claimed that while Russia has “a nuclear arsenal second only to our own,” the country “wasn’t a superpower anymore,” as it “lacked the vast network of alliances and bases that allowed the United States to project its military power across the globe.”

Despite this view, Obama vented frustration at how effectively Moscow had been able to oppose many of Washington’s diplomatic goals. In particular, he bemoaned that “when US-backed initiatives came before the UN Security Council … Russia blocked them or watered them down.”

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Pentagon Fails Another Audit, Will Likely Get Budget Increase From Congress Anyway

The third time wasn’t the charm for the Pentagon, which has once again failed to successfully complete an audit.

Thomas Harker, the Pentagon’s comptroller, told Reuters that it could be another seven years before the department can pass an audit—something that it has never accomplished. Previous attempts in 2018 and 2019 turned up literally thousands of problems with the Pentagon’s accounting system and millions of dollars’ worth of missing equipment.

In a statement, the Pentagon lauded the fact that auditors had “cleared” more than 500 issues identified in previous audits. That serves as compelling evidence that the effort is worth it, even if a clean review is still impossible. The Pentagon had resisted being audited for years. Though Congress passed a law in 1990 requiring all federal departments to be audited every year, it still took nearly two decades for the first Pentagon audit to be attempted. The department now says it is benefiting from the process.

A full report on this year’s audit, which covered more than $2.7 trillion in military assets, is expected to be released in January.

Before that, Congress is likely to sign off on a boost in military spending. As part of a new $1.4 trillion discretionary spending bill expected to be passed during the upcoming lame-duck session, the Pentagon is expected to get about a $10 billion boost in funding. That will happen in spite of another failed audit and regardless of the fact that America’s budget deficit has soared to record highs in the past year as the COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll.

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