Syria: Iran’s loss is whose gain?

The New Neo Posted on by

We certainly don’t know who the ultimate winner in Syria will be. But I think we can safely say a couple of things. The first is that the situation is fraught with peril. The second is that Iran looks like the loser:

The Assad regime was an integral part of an Iranian “ring of fire” that would encircle the Jewish state with heavily armed proxy terror armies. The ring of fire vision was pioneered by the late Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. It was one of the factors that turned the Iranian-led Shi’ite axis into the most capable and dangerous of Israel’s adversaries.

Assad’s downfall is a direct knock-on effect from the devastating blows that Iran’s main regional proxy, Hezbollah, suffered in neighboring Lebanon. Israeli aerial and ground operations left Hezbollah severely weakened. The Sunni rebels in neighboring Syria saw their chance and took it.

Whatever group ends up controlling Syria – or whatever remains of Syria, because it might split – it’s highly unlikely that it will be a friend of Israel. But it almost certainly won’t be an Iranian proxy. Turkish proxy? Perhaps.

There’s also this:

On the ground, U.S.-aligned Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces have moved into Deir al-Zour in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border, while the Israeli Air Force repeatedly struck critical border crossing points between Syria and Lebanon. This means that Iran’s ground corridor—meant to allow the seamless passage of weapons and personnel from Iran and Iraq from the east, into Syria and Lebanon, has crumbled. …

The umbrella Syrian coalition of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Abu Mohammed al-Jolani and formerly tied to Al Qaeda under the name Jabhat al-Nusra, has emerged as the dominant Sunni insurgent force. The Syrian National Army—a nationalist rebel coalition backed by Turkey—is another major player on the ground.

In the meantime, Israel has been busy destroying weapons that the Assad regime had amassed. The idea is to prevent them from falling into the hands of whatever forces are taking over in Syria.

Interesting times.

Earliest sunset

The New Neo Posted on by

Depending on where you live in the US, the earliest sunset is in the next couple of days or even today.

I’m not an early riser, so the earliest sunset day represents an even greater milestone for me than the shortest day. I’m always happy to see the sunsets get later, even if only by a few seconds at first.

Caroline Glick on what’s going on in Syria

The New Neo Posted on by

No one really knows what will happen now in Syria. The Assad family has been in charge for over a half century, and now they’re gone. Some of the forces – maybe all of the forces? – vying for post-Assad control are noxious as well.

But I’ve long found Caroline Glick’s take on things to be worthwhile. Here she addresses the situation in Syria:

And here’s Glick on political power plays in Israel aimed at getting rid of Netanyahu.

And – could it be that some of the hostages really will be returned? And if so, how high will the price be?:

Speaking about Hamas, he says the Gaza-based terror group is “more isolated than ever” after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. “It expected help from Hezbollah — we took that away. It expected help from Iran — we took that as well. It expected help from the Assad regime – okay, that won’t happen anymore.”

“The isolation of Hamas opens another opening to making progress on a deal that will bring our hostages back,” Netanyahu says.

He promises that he and the government are “turning over every stone” to bring all the hostages home.

I don’t see that he mentioned the election and pending second presidency of Donald Trump, but I think most people know that’s somewhere in the mix.

Person of interest detained in killing of United Healthcare executive

The New Neo Posted on by

A suspect has been apprehended in the murder of Brian Thompson:

The man — who sources said is being eyed for the coldblooded, targeted execution in front of a Manhattan hotel last week — allegedly had a manifesto on him when he was taken into custody by cops in Altoona, Pa.

He also had a gun, silencer, four fake IDs and other items “consistent” with what authorities were looking for in the case, sources said.

If all of that is true – and early reports are sometimes erroneous – he certainly sounds highly suspicious. Four fake IDs is a lot of fake IDs. And as far as I know, most people who carry guns don’t also ordinarily carry silencers for them. If this really is the guy, I’m surprised he hadn’t ditched the gun somewhere along the way, unless he was planning further murders to great internet acclaim from the left.

The manifesto is reported to have been “critical of the health insurance industry.” Another thought occurs to me – perhaps the guy was contemplating suicide, and leaving the manifesto as his message to the world?

And now I see that the suspect has been ID’d as Luigi Mangione: he is 26 years old, from Maryland, and “is an anti-capitalist Ivy League grad who liked online quotes from ‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski — and apparently hated the medical community because of how it treated his sick relative, law-enforcement sources told The Post on Monday.”

That’s a lot to digest. Come to think of it, admiration for the Unabomber would make sense for this killer’s profile, as would a generally leftist orientation:

Mangione was valedictorian of his 2016 high school graduating class at the Gilman School in Baltimore, where he played soccer, according to online sites. High school tuition at the all-boys school is nearly $40,000 a year.

He said at the time of graduation that he planned to seek a degree in artificial intelligence, focused on the areas of computer science and cognitive science at the University of Pennsylvania, according to an interview with the Baltimore Fishbowl.

He says in online posts that he graduated from the prestigious school with a master’s of science in engineering and a bachelor’s degree in the same field.

His LinkedIn suggests he is a data engineer at a car company based in California, although he lists his current home as Honolulu in Hawaii.

He’s also very into gaming. Interesting, in the sense that it occurred to me yesterday, on thinking about some of his online supporters, that they sounded as though they regarded Thompson’s murder as a move in a game, in which the shooter was the animated hero against the forces of evil.

The police were alerted to Mangione’s presence by a MacDonald’s customer recognizing his resemblance to a photo released from a surveillance video.

Daniel Penny found NOT GUILTY

The New Neo Posted on by

I have to say this verdict surprises me, and I’m happy about it. I thought the best Penny could possibly hope for would be that the jury would hang on the second count as well. Instead, they acquitted him. So now he’ll be a free man – although he may have to go into some equivalent of the witness protection program.

Then again, a great many people are on his side. And many of them even live in New York City.

I repeat: I’m surprised.

My hunch on what may have happened is that this: We only knew the jury was deadlocked on the first and most serious count. We never know whether the majority leaned towards acquitting him or convicting him. Now it seems fairly clear that that there were probably only one or two jurors willing to vote Penny guilty on that first count. Then the judge gave an Allen warning – basically, that the state had spent a lot of time and money on the case and the jurors really needed to go back and reach a unanimous verdict – but the holdout or holdouts remained.

They may have thought that would be the end of the case, based on the judge’s earlier instructions. But no, they were sent back to deliberate on the second count – the lesser one. At that point, the holdout or holdouts may have decided that enough was enough, and voted with the majority for acquittal rather than spend a lot of time and effort only to be deadlocked again. And they voted not guilty rather quickly, at that.

I believe that justice has prevailed here. But the case never should have been brought.

Centerville piecrust

The New Neo Posted on by

Back in the days when I did a lot more cooking, I used to make my own piecrust. It always was okay, but I never mastered the art of making it really really good. Oh, I got lots of tips that I tried to follow, about the proportions of this and that and how long to rest it or chill it or any number of other tricks of the trade that people swore by. But my piecrust remained merely passable.

So finally I decided I’d done my time in the piecrust saltmines and I started buying prepared crust. That was only marginally better (sometimes worse), and I tried a great many brands.

Over the years, I’ve come to the point where I cook much more simply and hardly ever make pies of any kind. But this past Thanksgiving I decided to make a pecan pie, because the prepared one I had bought at the grocery store was awful.

So this was the first time I’d looked at prepared piecrusts in many a year. I decided to go for the easiest type: frozen. There was a slightly cheaper type and a slightly more expensive type, and I decided to go for the latter. It was made by a company called Centerville Pie Company.

I didn’t have especially high hopes for all the aforementioned reasons. But this piecrust was absolutely delicious, the cadillac of piecrusts. It’s a New England company, though, so it might not be available outside of the area – the website says they’re at the following stores in the Northeast (whatever that means): Market Basket, Big Y, Harris Teeter, Schnucks, Publix, and some Walmarts.. I got mine at a Market Basket. It was everything a piecrust should be. It came in a package of two, so I still have one in the freezer. I’m planning to make a quiche.

They also ship nationwide, but as far as I can tell that refers to the pies rather than just the crust. I haven’t had a pie, but I bet they’re good. And I don’t even get a commission from this. Just the joy of spreading piecrust around.

Please use my Amazon links for your holiday shopping

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s that time of year again: Christmas, Chanukah. If you’re like me, you’ve probably postponed your shopping – although this year I’ve mostly done it ahead of time and I’m up to the wrapping stage.

If you use Amazon, please click on the Amazon portal on the right sidebar on desktops and laptops, and towards the bottom of the site as it displays on cellphones and the like. I get a small percentage from every purchase. The Amazon link is in the text below the “donate” button. You may have to disable your ad-blocker to see it. Thanks very much!

Struggle for power in Syria

The New Neo Posted on by

There are no good guys among the factions vying for power in Syria. Here’s the situation at present, as best we can tell:

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is nowhere to be found in Damascus, according to a source, but Syria’s presidential office and Iranian officials maintain he has not departed the capital. US officials told CNN his regime could fall within days. A Damascus resident says the city is in “a state of tension and panic.”

In the south, a new uprising emerged along the Daraa province, with rebels there claiming to have seized a major military base as they charge toward the capital.

On the western edge of Syria, rebels are speeding toward the major city of Homs — where residents are fleeing ahead of potential hostilities between anti-regime and government forces.

Assad is a Russia- and Iran-backed dictator whose family has been in power for 53 years, and in the process has killed hundreds of thousands of people. The “rebels”? They seem to be an al Qaeda offshoot, perhaps affiliated with Turkey. Or are they more like the Muslim Brotherhood, or the Taliban?

It’s a pity they can’t both lose. Of course, in that neck of the woods, if they both lost something else equally awful might end up being the winner.

On applauding the hit murder of a health insurance executive

The New Neo Posted on by

Perhaps – like me – you’ve been surprised at the amount of venom expressed online in reaction to the hit-style murder of United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson. The anger I’m talking about is against the victim, not the murderer. It seems to be coming more from left than right, although there’s quite a bit on both sides that takes the form of saying either that his death was deserved or that the person is indifferent to it because of some awful experience they report with health insurance coverage, or that they perceive is common with health care coverage.

Health insurance is a business, and like all insurance it’s geared to making money. And yet people need it when they are in a state of stress, and sometimes when their lives are at stake. That makes for a real love/hate relationship that I see as inevitable. The alternative to having the profit motive involved is having the government run the whole thing, and from what I’ve heard of Canada and the UK that’s not a solution with which most people would be happy.

As medical costs get higher and higher, the rules for coverage are going to become more strict. Don’t discount the role played by the uninsured (including in many cases illegal aliens) who can’t be refused at emergency rooms and who are subsidized by the paying customers. The health insurance industry wants pre-approval for certain kinds of reimbursement, and sometimes people simply don’t comply or the situation is such (an emergency) that they cannot comply, and that can cause reimbursement problems or at least delays. And of course there’s managed care, which can restrict choices. Health insurance companies also lose a lot of money to scams and frauds, and some of their scrutiny of claims represents an attempt to detect fraud and deny fraudulent claims.

Here are examples of people’s complaints about their health insurance:

In one stark example, a Facebook post by UnitedHealth Group expressing sadness about UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s death received 62,000 reactions – 57,000 of them laughing emojis. UnitedHealth Group is the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, the division that Thompson ran. …

Almost immediately after news broke that Thompson had been killed, social media users began posting about their frustrations with UnitedHealthcare and other insurance companies.

UnitedHealthcare “denied my surgery two days before it was scheduled. I was in the hospital finance office in tears (when I was supposed to be at the hospital doing pre-op stuff),” one user wrote in an X post that received more than 70,000 likes. “My mother was flying out to see me. My surgeon spent a day and a half pleading my case to United when she probably should have been taking care of her other patients,” she added, before saying the surgery ended up going ahead but calling the process “torture.”

“My breast cancer surgery was denied” by a different insurance company, another X user posted. “Breast cancer. She asked me ‘well, is it an emergency?’ I don’t know- it’s (f***ing) cancer. What do you think? I had to appeal and luckily it went through. Evil to do that to people,” she said.

Their stories could not be independently verified by CNN.

Are these cases of failure to notify the insurer and get pre-approval, or are they some sort of arbitrary denial? Often people don’t say – and that’s an important fact left out.

More:

Restricting access to health care through tools like claim denials and prior authorization, which requires that insurers approve the care in advance, are among the ways that health insurers try to weed out care that’s not medically necessary or not backed by scientific evidence – but it can also increase their profit margins. The practices, which increasingly rely on technology, including artificial intelligence, can infuriate patients and providers alike.

A class action lawsuit filed last year in US District Court in Minnesota argued that UnitedHealthcare uses AI “in place of real medical professionals to wrongfully deny elderly patients care,” according to the complaint. More than 90% of the denials are reversed …

So it often does work out in the end, but people are stressed by the process when they are already mega-stressed by the illness or accident. And AI? If it’s anything like the “chat” help functions I often encounter online when trying to deal with computer glitches and the like, it can be deeply infuriating.

But to go from there to applauding the killing of Thomspson is heinous. And it seems to be quite widespread. People think healthcare coverage should be an absolute right, but whether that coverage is by insurer or by government, health care costs are so high that coverage refusal is inevitable, and rage seems to be inevitable as well.

Pearl Harbor Day

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a revised and expanded edition of a post first published in 2006.]

Eighty-three years ago today Pearl Harbor was attacked.

That’s long enough ago that only a vanishing few remember the day and its aftermath with any clarity. Many generations—including my own tiresome one, the baby boomers—have come up since then, and the world has indeed changed.

Prior to 9/11, the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941 was the closest thing America had to 9/11. The differences between the two are profound, however: at Pearl Harbor we knew the culprit. It was clearly and unequivocally an act of war by the nation of Japan, which was already at war in the Pacific.

But it was, like 9/11, a sneak attack that killed roughly the same number of Americans – in the case of Pearl Harbor mostly (although not exclusively) those in the armed forces. And the Pearl Harbor attack, in the reported (but disputed) words of Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, awakened the “sleeping giant” of the US and filled it with a “terrible resolve.”

In the case of Pearl Harbor, that resolve lasted the duration of the war, an all-out conflagration that required far more sacrifice of the US (and the world) in money, comfort, and the all-important cost of human lives. The scale of such a loss is not even remotely comparable to that of our present conflicts. In addition, the first years of World War II featured many losses and much peril. It was a different world, however, and failure was not considered an option.

Yes, mistakes were made in World War II and in the war that began on 9/11 and has not ended yet. Mistakes always will be made in war. The tactics and even the strategies of World War II don’t fit today’s wars. But tactics and strategies aren’t the issue – although they are extremely important. The overarching issue is will. Without that, a war cannot be won. And, in that respect as in many others, current generations don’t compare to the one known as “The Greatest Generation.”

For some contrast, go back to FDR’s “Day of Infamy” speech (a misquote, it turns out: he actually said “date which will live in infamy”). Following are some of the less famous quotes from the speech; I have selected them because they speak to the question of will. FDR was assisted in mustering that will by the relative clarity of the enemy and its intent in World War II. But it still seems to me, on reading these words, that such unequivocal determination could not be summoned today in the US, even if given the exact circumstances of the infamous attack of December 7, 1941. It may, however, be present in Israel at the moment, but I’m not completely sure:

…No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounding determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.