Not a prophecy, just a prediction

In my last post on Iran nearly two months ago, I wrote that "Things are heating up to the point that the next move is going to make world headlines." Well, there have been several headlines made since then, but actually the most significant events are still taking place behind the scenes. There is a reason for this, and I quote DEBKAfile in full:

US troops land in Israel. Aircraft carrier coming soon DEBKAfile Exclusive Report 06 Jan. The first of 9,000 incoming US troops have arrived in Israel – not just for the joint Austere Challenge 12 exercise but for a longer stay. They are part of the joint US-Israel deployment ready for a military engagement with Iran and its possible escalation into a regional conflict. A US aircraft carrier will soon dock in Israel for joint missions with the Israeli Air Force. Most of the US arrivals are airmen, missile interceptor teams, marines, seamen, technicians and intelligence officers. The decision to bring them over now although the war game is scheduled for April was taken in consultations among US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the two army chiefs, US Gen. Martin Dempsey and Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz. British Defense Minister Phillip Hammond, on a visit to Washington, was brought into the discussion. The handout circulated to US correspondents from Hammond's talks in the US capital affirmed that Britain stands ready to strike Iran if the Strait of Hormuz is closed. However, that phrase was omitted from the British minister's remarks at a news conference, following a last-minute request from Panetta, signifying the Obama administration's interest in keeping a low profile on plans for attacking Iran.

There you have it, folks. The US are committed to war, but don't want anyone to realise it.


Keep your gasoline tanks full, because energy prices are going to skyrocket.

The Curious Case of Kenneth Miller

The White Man continues to get a lot of inquiries concerning the arrest of Kenneth Miller for aiding in the "kidnapping" of Isabella, Lisa Miller's biological daughter who remains with her mother against the full force and power of the U.S. federal government. That I have anything further to add to the knowledge of this case is mainly due to an FBI document that, most curiously, is unavailable on the World Wide web except on a couple of homosecksual advocacy sites.

It's an excerpt from Kenneth Miller's arrest affidavit, which, unlike in the case of Timothy Miller, has not published on the FBI website. It mostly refers to a communication between Kenneth and Timothy which had to be translated from Pennsylvania Dutch by "an FBI Contract Linguist."

Kenneth and Timothy made a mistake that has been made many times, in many places: that is, assuming that by using their own native tongue to communicate, they were protecting the content of their communication from being understood by hostile parties. The problem is that the FBI offers between $60 and $100 an hour to its contract linguists, and at those rates, it's possible to get just about any unencrypted text translated in a matter of hours.

Encrypting a text is very easy; fourth-graders do it all the time, just for the fun of it. Now, with few notable exceptions, every encrypted text ever confiscated by the government has eventually been deciphered. But encrypting a text in another language makes this up to a couple hundred times harder. You see, it wasn't very hard, even for the FBI, to identify the language that Ken and Timo were using. Timo was in Central America, and Ken was in Europe, but they were both American Mennonites, so it wasn't at all unlikely that the language they were using was the Mennonite dialect of German, known to those who speak it as Deitsch (Pennsylvania Dutch in English). Then, all they had to do was contract a member of the Mennonite ethnic group to translate the text.*

If, however, Ken and Timo had run their entire conversation through an encryption program, the FBI would have wasted a lot of time trying to decipher it on the assumption that the base language was English. Only after multiple attempts failed would they have started working on the assumption of another base language, and to do that they would have needed the services of a contract linguist for much longer. Much has been said about the money the litigant parties have spent on this case, but now it appears that the government has outspent either side in its relentless pursuit of of a nine-year old escapee.

Just as an example, here is some information on the case (AFAIK, not known to the FBI) that I have encrypted:

TDIASZOSTN ORRYYIBESX AHBODUTHQW SANIZMRANN YHOEXANATM ELQTFIMCOZ MANUYHGEXP LAWSQBNABM EWZMPILGLA UVYMHECXBF EQLWALNTFI NCZTMOYUGO GXTPOQWWAB NZTWEADION YNINRXPILE SSQHKADLLH ZISNDIIARN ANCYOBUATX THELQLFIFC INMZIUNYGF APXKWUNBTR JYQJNIBKAW RAPGUGAVUZ SMOYCHEFXF LLYTQPALAO NENZTROYIF ISRGHINDIA KXBKUTHQGS OFIERRMENN TOZMAANTYK KESLHXFHIC MQMATUZDGE PYAWIRBPOJ RTJXABNDWQ KPUFGFZUHE MYHCANFXSL OQJHETZNAOT OYANYBRULI XTSOQHREDE SKHZHINSDI IANRAYNFOO RXALOFNGMV QUBUGTZPJU WSTBYIPNXU TIMMECQTFH ETYZMSANYY AOKDAYGCXJ YOLUQKMAHY ZGGODDYAAN WXHREQYMAI KEPZIOTYUT OTXWEEDCDI BNQMANNYWX AYVZAZTYQR AGMEHRXVYO KOTCQBAIDA DITNGWVVPX

It took me less than an hour to compose, translate, and encrypt the information. Anyone with the key (which is easy to memorize) could decipher this message in ten minutes.§ Then all they would have to do is translate it back into English. The FBI could definitely do it, should they enlist the help of the NS A. But I doubt they could do it for under $150,000. There are just too many possibilities to run through before they would hit on the solution.

By the way, I am so confident of the security of this encryption that I guarantee approval of any comment that gives the solution.

* Actually, it was just a professional linguist, not a member of the Mennonite community. That makes me feel a little better about the Mennonite community! 
§once they take into account that this message, as is often the case, has some encoded mistakes.

Tracking the Orthodox Corruption of a text back to the archetype

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I've been working for a few days on an article over on the Nazaroo Zone, where I am a guest author. Unfortunately it's virtually impossible to find it there, as the blog owner himself has filled several web pages with images he calls "Demotivational Posters." Once I was finally ready to publish it, Blogspot kept my post back where I first started it, so only by paging down quite a ways from the home page will anyone be able to find it.

So, for the benefit of those of my readers interested in arcane theories of textual criticism and how they actually work out in real life, I provide this link to the article.

ADDED 2017:
Since Nazaroo's blog is going dark, I here present a copy of the article for the archives:

The author of the following text was an American politician who was born in Constantinople to Orthodox Greek parents. The archetype is among his archived personal papers. Yet, incredibly enough, three very different versions of this text have long circulated in print--and now on the internet--the second text emerging the very year it was first published, and the third sometime in the following decades, while the author was still living.

I first ran across the quote in an online publication, in which the editor (a textual critic himself) expressed bewilderment as to which of the two versions most commonly found might be the original.

I give first of all the shortest version of the text, as published in the Readers Digest of October 1952 and republished in the January 1954 number.

"I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon - if I can. I seek opportunity - not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence [n]or my dignity for a handout. It is my heritage to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done. All this is what it means to be an American."


And here is the longest version, printed (as reported on the internet by the owner of the 'manuscript') on the back of an entry ticket to the Flying W Ranch in 1968 (plusses in bold):

“I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon. I seek opportunity to develop whatever talents God gave me – not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficience nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any earthly master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say – ‘This, with God’s help, I have done.’  All this is what it means to be an American.”

Now, were we to use the "lectio brevior potior" approach to textual criticism, the "oldest and best" reading would be that found in the Reader's Digest. But there's a problem with that approach that will be obvious to anyone familiar with the publication aims of the Reader's Digest: they deliberately shorten pieces of literature in order to make them more available to the busy reader. Thus it's inconceivable that the Readers' Digest version, being the shortest, would most accurately reflect the original.

Next, we look at the possibility that the text has undergone Orthodox Corruption. Note that all references to God are in the expanded version. Is it more likely that Orthodox scribes have deleted this material, or added it? To answer this question, we should probably find out a bit about the author, Dean Alfange Sr.

A published biography reads as follows:

Dean Alfange was born in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) of Greek parents, December 2, 1897. His family migrated to the United States and settled in Utica, New York, when he was very young. He attended Hamilton College where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1922. Later he attended Columbia University Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1925.

Alfange's interests led him to pursue a career in politics as well as law. He was also deeply involved with the Order of Ahepa, a Greek-American cultural organization, acting as its national president from 1927-1929. He ran for New York State Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1942 against Thomas E. Dewey and was a strong advocate of the New Deal and a great admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

During World War II he was the Vice-Chairman of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe. He made speeches for aid to the Jews against the Nazis, and at a hearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives submitted a plan to save the Jews in Europe. After World War II he became chairman of the Committee to Arm the Jewish State, a group aimed at lifting the arms embargo on Palestine.

He was instrumental in the formation of the Liberal Party in 1944 when the American Labor Party split between pro-communist and anti-communist factions. Alfange held nominations or appointments from Democrats and Republicans as well as the Liberal and American Labor Party. As early as 1954 he expressed opposition to the American policy of military aid to the French government in Indochina, his position being one based on anti-colonialism. This position continued throughout America's involvement in the Vietnam Conflict.

Other positions held by Alfange were: Deputy Attorney General of New York State, Trustee of the Fashion Institute of Technology and New York State Quarter-Horse Racing Commissioner. Among his awards are the Freedom Foundation Award (1952) for his composition “My Creed” (included in Box 5, folder 3) and the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Award for his book The Supreme Court and the National Will (1937).

He died in New York City on October 24, 1989 at age 91.

Well, there you have it. Just in writing this piece, Alfange was expressing opinions very much out of synch with the political circles in which he moved. But is he likely to have included references to God, which his admirers edited out? It is highly unlikely for either to have happened. Alfange's interests seem to be totally secular, and his followers were unlikely to even share such sentiments as are expressed here, much less republish them. No, far more likely that people from the other edge of the political spectrum picked up the quotation and 'improved' it a little. Remember, this was the very time-frame in which "under God" was added to the American Pledge of Allegiance.

Well, there is one more main edition of this text to consider--leaving aside such spurious editions as the one falsely attributed to Thomas Paine and ending, "This, with God's help, I have done. All this is what it means to be an Entrepreneur."  This edition has what we could call Early Patristic Support, and I give it in the context in which it was published--as a comment on the very web page where the aforementioned spurious text is found (plusses in bold):

"Although this work is certainly appropriate for the entrepreneur, it is not from Common Sense nor was it written by Thomas Paine. It was written by Dr. Dean Alfange, a Greek immigrant, who at one point ran for Governor of New York. He died in 1989. He titled the piece: MY CREED. I know this because a few years ag[o] I spoke with his son Dean Alfange Jr. to get permission to print and market this work. Below I have include the work as he wrote it." --Al Zapata

MY CREED by Dean Alfange

"I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon—if I can. I seek opportunity—not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done. All this is what it means to be an American."


So. Neither the shortest, nor the longest, nor the oldest extant text (on the internet) is the most accurate. The singlemost accurate copy of the text has been tampered with in both ways--both by addition, and by subtraction. But it was, in its entirety, passed on correctly by those most interested in transmitting it exactly as it came from the author.


Should this surprise anyone?

IRAN CAPTURES US SPY DRONE

From David Dolan:

American government officials reluctantly admitted in early December that Iran had taken possession of a highly sophisticated US stealth drone aircraft that was apparently in the middle of an information gathering flight over Iranian territory when it was intercepted. The US initially claimed that the drone had fallen into Iranian hands due to a “technical malfunction” on board. However according to an Iranian engineer who was interviewed by the American Christian Science Monitor newspaper later in the month, Iran was able to hack into the spy drone’s GPS navigational system in order to redirect it to land at an Iranian air base. If so (and most experts said this was probably the case), an electronic interception would be an extremely serious development that demonstrated Iran might be a more formidable opponent than previously anticipated if a full blown war develops as a result of any attack upon Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Known as the RQ-170 Sentinel, the pilot-less aircraft was subsequently closely inspected by Iranian officials. US defense experts said it was highly likely that Iran will share whatever information it gleans from the inspections with its Chinese allies, and possibly also with Russia as well. The Sentinel drones have been heavily deployed in recent years in Afghanistan, Pakistan and in Iraq, which is now empty of US ground forces after the last American soldiers were pulled out in December. According to the report relayed by the Iranian engineer, Iranian specialists somehow figured out that the RQ-170 Sentinels weakest point is its GPS. They apparently acquired this vital information by examining previously downed American drones in September. "By putting noise (i.e. jamming) on the communications, you force the bird into auto-pilot. This is where the bird loses its brain," the engineer told the American newspaper. He maintained that the Iranian scientific team then simply programmed the drone to "land on its own where they wanted it to." American defense experts said the Pentagon has known since 2003 that the GPS system on the high flying drones is vulnerable to outside manipulation. The intercepted Sentinel’s base was reportedly in next door Afghanistan.

Earlier last year, an entire fleet of drones was infected by a computer virus, while two years ago, live drone video transmissions to American ground communications stations were successfully intercepted by Iraqi insurgents. Israeli media reports said that the captured drone was one of the subjects discussed between American President Barrack Obama and visiting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak when they met at Camp David in Maryland the middle of December. However the main focus was said to be the evidence mentioned by the unnamed senior American source indicating Iran has actually begun to assemble a nuclear bomb, or is at least on the verge of doing so.

This is actually good news, in a way. It means that drones, which pose such a tremendous threat to an oppressed civilian population, can be neutralized with a bit of technical know-how. Were the US military to ever loose armed drones upon its civilian population (so far they are only being used for unarmed  surveillance), there is always the threat that a computer-savvy civilian will reprogram the drone to fire on its own controllers.

UPDATE June 2012 DEBKA now reports that it was Chinese cybersleuths in Iran who brought down the drone--no doubt finally putting into practice the information they have long been bleeding from the US Defense network in general and the drone program in particular.