And then there’s Serbia and Kosovo
More news from the White House:
Today, I am pleased to announce yet another historic commitment. Serbia and Kosovo have each committed to economic normalization. After a violent and tragic history and years of failed negotiations, my Administration proposed a new way of bridging the divide. By focusing on job creation and economic growth, the two countries were able to reach a real breakthrough on economic cooperation across a broad range of issues.
We have also made additional progress on reaching peace in the Middle East. Kosovo and Israel have agreed to normalization of ties and the establishment of diplomatic relations. Serbia has committed to opening a commercial office in Jerusalem this month and to move its embassy to Jerusalem by July.
Let’s give Trump at least two Nobel peace prizes.
Yeah, but remember, he doesn’t respect the military. Somebody told the Atlantic, so it’s gotta be true. 🙂
Generals Kelly and Mattis haven’t spoken lately. What disappointments they turned out to be. And one ring to rule them all (with five sides).
It’s being reported even John Bolton said it’s not true.
Yes, two Nobel Prizes!
Successful peace deals in the Middle East and in the Balkans. If the Nobel Peace Prize were still worth respect, Trump would win it.
Rick Grenell gave the press quite a tongue lashing in the WH Press Room for asking unserious gotcha questions rather than probing the specifics of this important deal. One of the more senior reporters tried to push back saying he ‘didn’t come for a lecture’ but Grenell wasn’t having it. Nice having your own Honey Badger around, I hope Trump gives him something to sink his teeth into, in the second term.
I’m getting very happy with Ric Grenell.
Zimri Goldberg is not trustworthy
I spent about 18 months in Kosovo with the National Guard…most of it at Camp Bondsteel, but some at Camp Monteith. Some of what happened in Kosovo was a carryover from the days of the Ottoman Empire. “ Mother “ Theresa was from Kosovo, part of the minority Albanian Roman Catholics. Most Albanians in Kosovo were what I call MINOs, Muslim in Name Only.
I’d be interested to know if there was anything in this deal relevant to the situation of the Orthodox minority in Kosovo. They’ve been having a very tough time, I understood.
Never saw any of that in the news…
J.J
My favorite part of this whole damn story is how obvious it is. The report uses all anonymous sources. When it falls apart another reporter simply goes and confirms it with the same anonymous sources. So clearly they are not anonymous in any real sense of the word. These sources are known and clearly want to be known by everyone but the public.
Only two Nobel Prizes? If you divide by what Obama did for his it would be considerably more …
I listened to some of the other snippets from Grenell’s press conference on this subject; I suppose it would be instructive to listen to his angry self, but I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I appreciated that Grenell got into some of the details of this agreement. He talked about something involving strengthening the job market and commerce around some lake that straddles the border between Serbia and Kosovo, for example. On the map, I can only see one body of water that fits that description – it looks like an artificial reservoir.
I have to be honest, I’ve had mixed feelings about having Grenell in the government, but he does seem to be good at getting things done, at least in certain respects – not without ruffling feathers along the way, to be sure, but that’s how life is in world affairs. I’m reading through Smith’s bio of Eisenhower right now and so many of the most accomplished people back then were such SOBs. No wonder I’ve never amounted to much – I just can’t be that alpha type. (Although in fact, I think my chess career helped toughen me up a bit.) Perhaps if Grenell has Trump’s back, I should relax and welcome his involvement.
At a big picture level I think what has happened is that our overeducated elites have over optimised our system to a standstill, and an outsider who understands the world of action – Teddy Roosevelt’s ‘man in the arena’ perhaps – has come along and begun to move things along. Unsurprisingly he is a barbarian whose mother was a Faroe Islander directly descended from those red headed barbarians who once fought in ‘the arena’ and eventually sacked ‘the city’. Here he is winding back the tensions in the Balkans that tore Europe apart and from which it still has not recovered. And that on the back of midwifing an impossible deal between Arabs and Jews. Real accomplishments? Looks that way to me and I am as overeducated and as big a fool as the next man. Hats off to The Barbarian I say!
Good so far, but the Balkans–which produce more history than they can consume locally–should be walled off from civilization.
Forgive me if someone has already posted a link to this. I gave up on television four years ago but my wife still watches it. I walked in the room and this cr*p was playing in English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9cxIxMatnE
Why must humanity repeat the horrors of the past?
It’s a pity. I like Lavazza coffee but now it is on my no-buy list. Why can’t this company just concentrate on making good coffee? Do they have so much free time and money on their hands that they can indulge in propaganda? I have an idea. Cut loose the activists in your company and pay your growers more. I’m sure the growers would agree that they’ve had enough of communism too.
Serbia and Kosovo; yet another reason for the anti-Trumpers to hate his guts.
Another reason for the media (the propaganda organ of the demokrat party) to lie, deceive, obfuscate regarding Trump and his policies.
If Obama had accomplished 1/100 th of what Trump has done, Obama would now be on his 10th Nobel Peace Prize.
Another accomplishment that will immediately be undone by Biden’s team after they assume the presidency.
With mail-in ballots, it will be virtually impossible for the Democrats to lose any of their elections in November. They will know the exact deficits they need to make up on election day, as republicans will mostly vote in person, and will be given plenty of time to manufacture “mailed in” ballots to eventually win every race to ultimately control the Presidency, House, and Senate. Mail-in voting will be made the law from now on (due to the omnipresent threat of disease), and every election after will go the same way.
Well done Rick Grenell !
He irritated Jeff Mason – the genius responsible for Michelle Wolf’s ultra-vulgar appearance at the Correspondent’s dinner a couple of years back.
Get rid of anonymous voting, in an age when everyone has already have their Party affiliation printed on their drivers’ license why do we need to be afraid of having records of whom we voted for? I see no benefits of voting anonymously except giving democrats every chance to cheat because ballots are unmarked and can’t be traced back to anyone and we have no system for voters to check whether the vote they casted was in the system or to the right candidates, which is the fundamental reason voter frauds can be committed in the first place.
Hey, a chess master? Ok, I’m not a chess player but …
So, what are your thoughts on the English opening? I didn’t even know what it was called until I got sick of playing the conventional King’s pawn white opening with the computer and figured I’d try something different, because there is no public shame or stress in losing to a machine. haha
Also, your estimation of white taking a fianchetto position on the queen side as prelude to a delayed assault on black’s flank. At level 6, I can make it work consistently, sometimes with great slaughter, sometimes with surprising results. It seems to me though, that if you drop more than half a move behind you have probably lost all freedom (unless black blunders) and are forced on the defensive.
Gotta finish packing my gear and tools for a trip, but will look in tomorrow if I can.
Hi, DNW. I’m Expert, not master. (Still lacking one Candidate Master norm, or is it two? It’s on my bucket list.) The English was the opening with which I started it all. I was intimidated by 1.e4 back then, but later came to play that and left the English behind. I’d have to see what you mean in a couple of representative games, as your descriptions are a little cryptic. I suppose, though, that you mean a kingside attack after suitable preparation of the break on f4 or f5, depending on Black’s structure…?
The English Opening is tough to understand and very protean. I came to prefer direct aggression and forced myself out of my strictly positional style. I find the English to be strangely popular in my area – it seems to me to be often played by folks who, I think, use it to justify a certain timidity over the board, that is, their unwillingness to grapple with the more overt and even violent problems associated with the d4- or e4-phyla. That was my problem early on. Not that the English isn’t a serious opening, of course; but the huge variety of structures available to both sides makes it hard to take a single approach. 1.c4 with all its associated complexes is just a whole different world. If I were playing the English regularly now, I wouldn’t mind using the Wedberg/Botvinnik type of setup.
As to the danger of falling two tempi behind in your development, there are many openings in which that degree of loss of initiative is an almost unacceptable risk (e.g. Marshall messing up his own pet gambit vs. Capablanca), but I would not suppose the English to be one of them in general – it’s just not that sharp; there may be some other problem with your play to explain that phenomenon.
@ Philip Sells,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Great answer.
As for “my game” there are plenty problems with it, including the fact that not only am I not a serious player by any stretch of the imagination, as well as a guy who wants the game over in 20 or 30 minutes, but I cannot really be said to haved a game in the sense of a firm grasp of theory. Having learned the moves as a kid, I was using computer chess as a distraction to wind down after work, thinking it better than some mindless activity.
Your remarks about the use of the English opening in order to avoid an instantaneous slashing response by black, which prevented any leisurely development of white’s, i.e., my center after 1.e4 at any computer setting above “stupid”, was precisely the reason I stumbled onto it. LOL
After at few dozen computer games that resolved to competing pawn races to obtain a queen, or end games that played out with white chasing the black king around with a knight and a bishop, I figured I’d try something less conventional and see what the computer did with that since it obviously had my number as soon as a went for the center. It was either that, or dumb down the program, or spend real energy thinking.
I mean come on. Why wasn’t black letting me do what the intro chess books said I should do, but instead responding with Kamikaze like ferocity that resulted in early queen swaps and long nerve wracking end games?
Seriously – more or less- though, one thing I did learn in playing those frustrated 1.e4 development games, was that indulging my taste for thoughtless, emotionally satisfying knee-jerk retaliation, against a math program, was a losing strategy.
And now that you have responded as graciously as you have, I might even be shamed into approaching the game a little more seriously, despite the trauma that inevitably results from having to face your own limitations.
DNW, you’re welcome! I had some years doing local coaching, too. I had to help a variety of the area’s kids work out things like what you describe. There were some successes and I got to meet some fine youths (adults, too). That was on top of my tournament schedule. I’m on ‘sabbatical’ these days.
A note to the chess players – DNW & Philip.
If you like to read solid historical fiction, and have an interest in the early Renaissance, try “The Game of Kings” by Dorothy Dunnett.
Real life in the courts of Europe is not unlike LARPing a chess tournament.
(Think “Game of Thrones” without the dragons and wizards, and more PG-13 than R.)
“These sources are known and clearly want to be known by everyone but the public.” – mythx
If they exist at all.
Aesop, thanks – I’ll put it on my list 🙂