(CNN) Assad Regime Falls.

The likely course of the next few years is a rough analogy to the French Revolution. Read this  first: Iran and The Anatomy of Revolution. The stages:

• Euphoria.
• Displacement — or should we say, liquidation — of the moderates, such as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. The origins of Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham imply the presence of many sleepers, awaiting their call as single-use suicide weapons.
• Domination by the extremists, who currently hide under the umbrella of expedient unity.
• Terror, forced by  the competence of internal enemies.
• Impulse to extend the revolution, or defend it against perceived threats, by military aggression. Since the dominant Sunni religion is now identical with the Gulf Arabs, a new funding source, illicit donations, supplements Captagon.

If this progression is arrested, it will be by bloodbath purge, Stalinists over Trotskyites. We continue with the assumption it will not.

The first or second victim will be Iraq, centering on Anbar, where extremist elements will attempt to redress the “oppression” of the Sunnis. Depending on U.S. presence or absence, Iranian intervention may result. Who will be the new Napoleon? Not Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. New figures will emerge.

The true colors show with the conditional amnesty offered the Alawites, contingent on abandoning heresies.

The speculations of Turkey in Syria; The New Ottoman Empire; a Brief Note about Cultural Affinity and Turkey & the New Ottoman Empire, are now unlikely. In brief interventions into Idlib, unacceptable losses occurred, revealing doctrinal weaknesses in Turkish land forces.  The lessons of Ukraine shadow adventurist impulses, which would require years of preparatory nationalist foment by Erdoğan.

Most recent revolutions in the Middle East have not become externally militaristic. The Iran revolution did, with stages that mimicked the French. All three have a religious element, immoderate components,  and perception of external threats. Türkiye may well rue the day they let the leash slip on their Idlib proxy.

(CNN) Scientists find huge trove of rare metals needed for clean energy hidden inside toxic coal waste. Quoting,

These so-called rare earths are a cluster of metallic elements, with names like scandium, neodymium and yttrium, which exist in the Earth’s core. They have a critical role in clean technology, including electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines.

This is FALSE. The rare earth elements are not believed to exist in the core to appreciable degree. They have been concentrated by geochemical processes in the mantle.

(CNN) Police release unmasked photo of person wanted for questioning in CEO shooting. Quoting,

Among the interviews they’ve been conducting, law enforcement interviewed a female employee at the hostel who said, at one point, she asked the then masked man to lower his mask while flirting with him — which is when the photos released by the New York Police Department today were captured, the official said.

This indicates that  the suspect is more than normally communicative, inclined to engage a stranger when a less socially capable individual would isolate.

Quoting,

Law enforcement sources told CNN “depose” was written on a shell casing from a round that was fired into the victim. “Delay” was written on a live round that was ejected when the shooter appeared to be clearing a jam.

This indicates the suspect has a grudge,  common when healthcare insurance denies coverage perceived as life-saving for a fatal disease.

The social nature of the suspect implies that he inevitably verbalized his discontent to others. In combination with the photo,  and the likely region of residence, this implies a clue soon to drop.

An important clue as to his identity may shortly come from someone who knows him.

Google Search: United Healthcare denies claims.

(CNN) Calls grow for South Korea’s president to resign after martial law chaos.

There has been widespread comment at the political ineptitude of the move. About the motivation of Yoon Suk Yeol, there are these possibilities:

• He simply wanted to subvert democracy in South Korea, which is currently in legislative deadlock.
• The current North Korea vibe gives  him really bad nerves.
• He thinks he knows something.
• He actually knows something.

In the past few months, some analysts have seen disturbing preparations by the  North. See also (BBC) Man in US charged with allegedly shipping weapons to N Korea.  Despite the problematic presidency of Yoon Suk Yeol,  the fourth possibility should not be dismissed.

Is there a hair-trigger mechanism in place, subject only to the whim of Kim Jong Un? This question cannot be answered by open-source.

President Elect Trump should be aware of the circumstances that preceded the Korean War. Quoting  from (National Archives) US Enters the Korean Conflict,

However, the entry of the United States into the conflict signaled a reversal of policy toward Korea. Although it backed the government of Syngman Rhee, the United States had begun withdrawing its troops from South Korea in 1948. As late as January of 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson had implied that the Korea Peninsula lay outside the all-important “defense perimeter” of the United States, a statement that some took to mean that the United States would not defend the ROK from communist attack.

Some historians fault Acheson for tipping Stalin’s judgement. What lurked in Stalin’s head we will never know, but it’s plausible.

***Be careful what you say***

(CNN) China hits out at latest US effort to block Beijing’s access to chip technolog.y. Quoting,

On Monday, the US Commerce Ministry announced curbs on the sale of two dozen types of semiconductor-making equipment and restrictions on numerous Chinese companies from accessing American technology.

There is a little problem with this.  There is no US Commerce Ministry.

We do have the  U.S. Department of Commerce.

Wait till the U.S. Parliament hears about this!

EDIT: As of 2 p.m., this has been corrected.

(click to enlarge)

Once, most of us were  rabbits. With the distance of time, we imagine we were happy. Want to go back? You can’t.

Except, possibly, tomorrow. If you try really hard with the trick of the imagination.

***Try hard***

“Live at 5. Shocking News About Rabbit.” Digital, Artrage.

For those with Machiavellian inclinations, the host provider story is here: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=gkg.net%2C%20inc.

CNN, before you upend the lives of hundreds of faithful employees, you should seek both internal and EXTERNAL advice.

Positive change can come fast: Though Rome wasn’t built in a day, Mark Zuckerberg wrote the original Facebook in a month.

“Things are never as bad or as good as they seem.”

― Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

See also Att David Zaslav; Warner Bros. Discovery signals rapid deterioration of television business, sending stock

and Att: David Zaslav; Future of CNN

There are no plans to discontinue this blog. Outages are due to technical problems encountered by the host provider.

(CNN) Iran says it is ‘entitled’ to defend itself after Israel attacks .

If Iran chooses to continue the cycle of retaliation, it may choose to obtain hostages. With note that the psychological effect of hostages is disproportionate to numbers, one way to obtain them is the SAM trap.

The canonical approach to deep penetration involves:

• Disabling of radars with HARM missiles.  Since the AGM-88 HARM does not currently fit in the  internal weapons bay  of an F-35,  non-stealth aircraft may have been used, a potential vulnerability to the trap.
• Interdiction and destruction of command/control, missile launchers, and aircraft runways with weapons delivered by stealth aircraft.
• Deployment of heavy, short range munitions, such as bunker-busters and glide bombs. The non-stealth F-15E has the maximum ordinance load of Western attack aircraft. The role of the F-35 may include some light penetrators.

The above is subject to modification by advanced technologies. For example, if the precise location of a non-transmitting radar site is known, it can be attacked by other means.

This multi-phase tactic is vulnerable to spoofing. A trap consists of a desirable target, surrounded by defenses that appear to have been neutralized, but are actually operational. Decoys and hidden backups are also used.

The prize: a few Israeli pilots, to serve as a decades-long irritation. Taking hostages  is part of the culture.

(CNN) Telescope with world’s largest digital camera will be a ‘game-changer’ for astronomy. Quoting,

Under construction since 2015, the telescope is named after pioneering American astronomer Vera Rubin, who died in 2016 and, among other achievements, first confirmed the existence of dark matter — the elusive substance that constitutes the majority of the matter in the universe, but has never been observed.

Big error! The existence of dark matter is unproven. Competition includes a variety of theories collectively referred to as modified gravity. Vera Rubin herself did not exclude alternative explanations;  neither she nor the theoreticians who followed have, to this day, been able to determine what dark matter is made of — if it exists at all.

Rubin  did not confirm  the existence of dark matter. She was what we call an experimentalist, the first to systematically observe that galaxies rotate faster than predicted according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Preceded by Fritz Zwicky, it naturally occurred to her that missing, invisible mass might be responsible. But while Einstein’s theory is well tested on the scale of the solar system, benchmarks are lacking that would enable testing on galactic scale. Alternatives remain viable.

The article contains these errors of fact, procedure, and philosophy:

• Conflation of popularity of a theory with scientific truth.
• Failure to consult diverse sources.
• Failure to acknowledge the essential role of skepticism in scientific inquiry.

What’s left? The story of a new scientific instrument, named after a woman who spent her life seeking elusive truth. To honor her, honor the quality of her mind.

See Bad news for dark matter: This data doesn’t fit at all, for an explanation of one aspect of the controversy by one of my favorite YouTubers, Sabine Hossenfelder.

At least it’s not as bad as this: Sloppy CNN; Earth’s core has slowed so much it’s moving backward, scientists confirm. Here’s what it could mean.