Althouse: At the Drinker's Café...

July 6, 2018

At the Drinker's Café...

... be convivial.

And think about shopping through the Althouse Portal to Amazon.

36 comments:

Gahrie said...: It's been in the 90's here all summer....today it hit 120 and it's not supposed to cool off soon.; 7/6/18, 9:40 PM
Gahrie said...: The World Cup semi-finals will be all European and none of them will be Germany, Spain, Italy, or Portugal. Imagine the odds you could have gotten on that.; 7/6/18, 9:43 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: In the past few days, a lawyer who calls himself "Techno Fog" has been tweeting a detailed analysis of the transcript of the June 15 hearing about Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller's indictment of the Russian company Concord Management.

Mueller has charged Concord for conspiracy to defraud the USA and the Federal Election Commission by means of "electioneering communications".

A key element of the defense will be the "willfulness" factor. The defense will argue that the judge should acquit Concord if Mueller does not prove that Concord's actions were a willful violation of Mueller's bogus law.

https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1013962336808456198; 7/6/18, 9:53 PM
Michael K said...: The left continues on the road to insanity.; 7/6/18, 9:55 PM
narciso said...: Oh btw the Anne Frank story left out one minor detail, the relevant consulate was bombed and records destroyed.

Dubelier the lead attorney for concord apprenticed in the southern district of New york; 7/6/18, 10:00 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: The website Moon of Alabama has published an article analyzing Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller's indictment of the Internet Research Agency, a company headquartered in Russia. The article explains the relationship between

* The Internet Research Agency

* Concord Management

[quote]

In the early 1990s some dude in St. Petersburg made a good business selling hot dogs. He opened a colorful restaurant. Local celebrities and politicians were invited to gain notoriety while the restaurant served cheap food for too high prices. It was a good business. A few years later he moved to Moscow and gained contracts to cater to schools and to the military. The food he served was still substandard.

But catering bad food as school lunches gave him, by chance, the idea for a new business:

Parents were soon up in arms. Their children wouldn’t eat the food, saying it smelled rotten.

As the bad publicity mounted, Mr. Prigozhin’s company, Concord Catering, launched a counterattack, a former colleague said. He hired young men and women to overwhelm the internet with comments and blog posts praising the food and dismissing the parents’ protests.

“In five minutes, pages were drowning in comments,” said Andrei Ilin, whose website serves as a discussion board about public schools. “And all the trolls were supporting Concord.”

The trick worked beyond expectations. Prigozhin had found a new business. He hired some IT staff and low paid temps to populate various message boards, social networks and the general internet with whatever his customers asked him for.

You have a bad online reputation? Prigozhin can help. His internet company will fill the net with positive stories and remarks about you. Your old and bad reputation will be drowned by the new and good one. Want to promote a product or service? Prigozhin's online marketeers can address the right crowds. ....

At some point Prigozhin, or whoever by then owned the internet marketing company, decided to expand into the lucrative English speaking market. This would require to build many English language online persona and to give those some history and time to gain crowds of followers and a credible reputation. The company sent a few of its staff to the U.S. to gain some impressions, pictures and experience of the surroundings. They would later use these to impersonate as U.S. locals. It was a medium size, long-term investment of maybe a hundred-thousand bucks over two or three years.

The U.S. election provided an excellent environment to build reputable online persona with large followings of people with discriminable mindsets. The political affinity was not important. The personalities only had to be very engaged and stick to their issue - be it left or right or whatever. The sole point was to gain as many followers as possible who could be segmented along social-political lines and marketed to the companies customers.

Again - there is nothing new to this. It is something hundreds, if not thousands of companies are doing as their daily business. The Russian company hoped to enter the business with a cost advantage. Even its mid-ranking managers were paid as little as $1,200 per month. The students and other temporary workers who would 'work' the virtual personas as puppeteers would earn even less. Any U.S. company in a similar business would have higher costs.

In parallel to building virtual online persona the company also built some click-bait websites and groups and promoted these through mini Facebook advertisements. These were the "Russian influence ads" on Facebook the U.S. media were so enraged about. They included the promotion of a Facebook page about cute puppies. ...

[unquote]

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/02/mueller-indictement-the-russian-influence-is-a-commercial-marketing-scheme.html; 7/6/18, 10:03 PM
Jon Ericson said...: This post is somewhat better than the last one.; 7/6/18, 10:20 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: Concord Management, the company that is defending itself in court against Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller, is essentially a company that sells food. That company's owner, Yevgeni Prigozhin, established another company, Internet Research Agency, which puts onto the Internet favorable comments about Concord's food service and about other companies' services.

The trial between Mueller and the Russian food company will disgrace the USA. The trial will be a hilarious circus.

Prigozhin's Internet Research Agency created a variety of websites and webpages that would attract a variety of viewers. The business made money by selling advertisements that were placed on those websites and webpages.

The Moon of Alabama article explains:

[quote]

... The indictment then goes on and on describing the "political activities" of the sock-puppet personas. Some posted pro-Hillary slogans, some anti-Hillary stuff, some were pro-Trump, some anti-everyone, some urged not to vote, others to vote for third party candidates. The sock-puppets did not create or post fake news. They posted mainstream media stories.

Some of the persona called for going to anti-Islam rallies while others promoted pro-Islam rallies. The Mueller indictment lists a total of eight rallies. Most of these did not take place at all. No one joined the "Miners For Trump" rallies in Philly and Pittsburgh. A "Charlotte against Trump" march on November 19 - after the election - was attended by one hundred people. Eight people came for a pro-Trump rally in Fort Myers.

The sock-puppets called for rallies to establish themselves as 'activist' and 'leadership' persona, to generated more online traffic and additional followers. There was in fact no overall political trend in what the sock-puppets did. The sole point of all such activities was to create a large total following by having multiple personas which together covered all potential social-political strata. ....

The sole point of creating a diverse army of sock-puppets with large following crowds was to sell the 'eyeballs' of the followers to the paying customers of the marketing company.

There were, according to the indictment, eighty people working on the "translator project". These controlled "hundreds" of sock-puppets online accounts each with a distinct "political" personality. Each of these sock-puppets had a large number of followers - in total several hundred-thousands.

Now let's assume that one to five promotional posts can be sold per day on each of the sock-puppets content stream. The scheme generates several thousand dollars per day ($25 per promo, hundreds of sock-puppets, 1-5 promos per day per sock-puppet). The costs for this were limited to the wages of up to eighty persons in Moscow, many of them temps, of which the highest paid received some $1,000 per month. While the upfront multi-year investment to create and establish the virtual personas was probably significant, this likely was, over all, a profitable business.

Again - this had nothing to do with political influence on the election. The sole point of political posts was to create 'engagement' and a larger number of followers in each potential social-political segment. People who buy promotional posts want these to be targeted at a specific audience.

The Russian company could offer whatever audience was needed. It had sock-puppets with pro-LGBT view and a large following and sock-puppets with anti-LGBT views and a large following. It could provide pro-2nd amendment crowds as well as Jill Stein followers. Each of the sock-puppets had over time generated a group of followers that were like minded. The entity buying the promotion simply had to choose which group it preferred to address. ...

[end quote]

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/02/mueller-indictement-the-russian-influence-is-a-commercial-marketing-scheme.html; 7/6/18, 10:21 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: RIP Steve Ditko.

The Eye of Agamotto weeps.; 7/6/18, 10:23 PM
mockturtle said...: Gahrie sez: It's been in the 90's here all summer....today it hit 120 and it's not supposed to cool off soon.

It was 118 here. T-storm possible this weekend but it will only cool down to the low 100's.; 7/6/18, 10:24 PM
Jon Ericson said...: I'd like to have a drink with this guy. He looks amoronic.; 7/6/18, 10:24 PM
mockturtle said...: Michael K. observes: The left continues on the road to insanity.

On the road to? I'd say they've been there for some time now.; 7/6/18, 10:26 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller is disgracing:

* himself

* his bogus RussiaGate "investigation"

* the Federal Bureau of Investigation

* the United States of America

However, all this disgrace has not been caused entirely by Mueller.

The US Intelligence Community has for several years been trying to concoct a hysteria in the USA and abroad about Russian activities. Mueller has based his "investigation" on hysterical reports concocted by the US Intelligence Community.

Supposedly, Vladimir Putin personally is conducting and controlling all the activities of all Russian organizations -- such as Concord Management, the Internet Research Agency, and the RT television network -- in a world-wide conspiracy to ruin Americans' faith in Democracy.

Furthermore, Putin has blackmailed Donald Trump in order compel him to collude in Putin's evil conspiracy.

Essentially, the US Intelligence Community has been taken over by the same kind of conspiracy-minded, hysterical zealots who used run the John Birch Society.

Those zealots in the US Intelligence Community -- now including Mueller -- have thoroughly poisoned American politics for many years into the future.

The most pathetic dupes of this anti-Russian hysteria are the USA's liberal Democrats.; 7/6/18, 10:38 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Free the 13 Russian Trolls!; 7/6/18, 10:44 PM
Jon Ericson said...: Free your ass and your mind will follow!; 7/6/18, 10:48 PM
MountainMan said...: @Mike Sylwester: “Some may consider it dangerous to expose senior officials of America’s counterintelligence service as political hacks and fools. They needn’t worry. America’s adversaries have been well aware of this for a long time.” - David P. Goldman 2/2/18; 7/6/18, 10:57 PM
Jon Ericson said...: 1 Zing! for you, MountainMan.; 7/6/18, 10:59 PM
cf said...: michael k said..

The left continues on the road to insanity.

indeed they do. Thing is, it is SO female, Worst Expression of a Woman's Movement Ever. I thought back with Obama we were reaching Peak-HystericalWomen-Moment but No!

And when you include the GayRainbow Gleichshaltungers, it only heightens the Cool-to-be-a-Nazi vibe, yikes. Bake that cake and must leave the Red Hen. Big-hearted, high-minded women and Queers, take a friggin look in dah mirror.

You have become the thing you most hate.; 7/6/18, 11:10 PM
Sebastian said...: "The most pathetic dupes of this anti-Russian hysteria are the USA's liberal Democrats."

I said from the outset that the Dems were willing dupes, fomenting hysteria in a way that exposed to foreigners their utter fraudulence as people willing to put domestic partisan over national interest, creating the division they claimed to lament, all on the basis of claims that would have been transparently specious to the Russians themselves.

Russian conclusion #1: these people are fools.
Russian conclusion #2: these people are more craven and corrupt than we are.; 7/6/18, 11:15 PM
narciso said...: Oh good I thought they are going to do something foolish:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/07/06/cabinet-agrees-brexit-deal-k; 7/6/18, 11:26 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Hmm, so has May just botched Brexit?

Telegraph seems to think so, but it's mostly paywalled.

CNN sounds bad enough:
In return for unfettered access to its biggest export market, the United Kingdom would commit to following EU rules and regulations on goods. It would also accept a limited role for bloc's top court.; 7/6/18, 11:26 PM
Unknown said...: https://www.markazeahan.com/product-category/%D9%82%DB%8C%D9%85%D8%AA-%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%82-%DA%AF%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C%D8%B2%D9%87/
Free your ass and your mind will follow!; 7/6/18, 11:27 PM
Jon Ericson said...: قیمت ورق گالوانیزه. So?; 7/6/18, 11:33 PM
Big Mike said...: @cf, not st all! They have become what they always wanted to be.; 7/6/18, 11:36 PM
Jon Ericson said...: Or is it "free your ass and your mind will follow?"
Discuss.; 7/6/18, 11:49 PM
walter said...: C'mon Sylvester,
Get to the hookers pissing on beds bit!; 7/6/18, 11:51 PM
Jon Ericson said...: Syphilis.; 7/6/18, 11:52 PM
Jon Ericson said...: Syphilis and piss. It's like Ebony and Ivory!; 7/6/18, 11:54 PM
walter said...: And Truuuuump!
Trump eating a syphilis laden pissy mattress!
Mueller's team is ON IT!; 7/7/18, 12:05 AM
Jon Ericson said...: Go for it Walter. Pretend it's Rap.
I'd join in, but you're better at that word thing.; 7/7/18, 12:08 AM
walter said...: He just hired more vesti-gators...undoubtedly highly qualified Special Ists.; 7/7/18, 12:18 AM
walter said...: (poolside twerking with random dude entering frame with thumbs up); 7/7/18, 12:20 AM
Jaq said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/7/18, 5:27 AM
Big Mike said...: When Obama sad that the 1980s called and they want their foreign policy back, he should have warned us that in fact he did mean to restart the Cold War as part of handing over the reins of government to the next President.; 7/7/18, 7:29 AM
Robert Cook said...: "The most pathetic dupes of this anti-Russian hysteria are the USA's liberal Democrats."

It's because they can't believe or accept their beloved Hillary lost the election to the loathsome Trump for any other reason than duplicity and interference by outside parties, (Trump and/or Russians). It's simply childish foot-stamping and blame-casting.; 7/7/18, 3:46 PM
Big Mike said...: Good Lord, Cookie! You nailed it! Now don't do this too often.; 7/7/18, 4:56 PM