Just a thought.

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Hullabaloo...

Lost in the hyper-politicized hullabaloo surrounding the Nunes Memorandum and the Steele Dossier was the striking statement by Secretary of Defense James Mattis that the U.S. has “no evidence” that the Syrian government used the banned nerve agent Sarin against its own people.

Mattis offered no temporal qualifications, which means that both the 2017 event in Khan Sheikhoun and the 2013 tragedy in Ghouta are unsolved cases in the eyes of the Defense Department and Defense Intelligence Agency.

Mattis went on to acknowledge that “aid groups and others” had provided evidence and reports but stopped short of naming President Assad as the culprit.
[News Week 2/8/2018 by Ian Wilkie.]

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Insight...*

Image result for woman as a boss cartoon

So what makes lunatic bosses act the way they do? Brian Stern, president of management consulting firm Shaker Consulting Group, contends that tyrannical behaviour often stems from bosses not knowing what they're doing.

A false assumption is thinking that bosses actually know how to manage people. Mention the word "boss" and we immediately think that the person has some special abilities or training. There are rules and training programs for almost every conceivable job, from sanitation engineer to nuclear physicist, but no set curriculum teaches you how to be a boss.

An obvious way to compensate for a lack of skills is to be tough and unyielding. You stand a better chance of being left alone and unquestioned this way. Yet training alone won't turn a crazy boss into a sane manager.

Tyrannical bosses come in one of two packages. "The first is the hard-nosed, tough, demanding perfectionist," says Stern. "They can be difficult to work with, but they will listen to reason because they're all about doing the best job they can. They also know that talented people make things happen. But they can drive you nuts trying to achieve goals."

The second type, however, is even more difficult to work with, says Stern. "They are unyielding control freaks and have a total disregard for the facts. They demand that things be done their way."

You may have one mixing and matching the two.... Dealing with humans is not their strong suits.

Lose it...

Extend...

Image result for churches bombed in egypt

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has extended a state of emergency in Egypt for another three months.

The decree says the armed forces and police should take all necessary measures "to confront the threats and funding of terrorism and maintain security throughout the country." It was published Saturday in the official gazette.

The state of emergency has been in place since April 2017 after bombings struck two Coptic Christian churches on Palm Sunday, later claimed by the extremist Islamic State group.

In February, Egypt began a wide-scale anti-militant operation mainly in the restive Sinai Peninsula, the epicenter of a years-long Islamic insurgency. It involves land, sea and air forces and covers parts of Egypt's Nile Delta and the Western Desert, along the porous border with Libya.

Who's funding these terrorists in Egypt?