Turkey’s info op against Saudi Arabia is masterful.
10 A powerful (but vague) opening gambit: “JK murdered in Saudi consulate”
20 🇸🇦 is caught off guard, reacts clumsily
30 🇹🇷 allows time for outrage & jeers
40 Then riposte! More details, new evidence. Touché
50 GOTO 20

Turkey, no bastion for dissidents or freedom of the press, looks moral and good. Saudi can’t catch a break, they’re totally out maneuvered and out classed. I don’t know what Turkey’s end game is, but they’re definitely winning. What they hope to win, I have no idea.
In an era where almost all press coverage is in someway about Trump, and nothing lasts longer than a day in news cycle, Turkey has made one horrific event stay front and center for almost 3 weeks. That is amazing.
DPRK manipulated sex workers into murdering a VIP with nerve gas in an airport, in public, on camera... and that story got less play than this.
Another interesting dimension to this info op — all the info war experts frantically churning out analysis of the tiny Saudi Twitter bot army have totally missed Turkey using the media as an information delivery channel. The BBC is a more powerful weapon than a few Twitter bots
Information operations are about getting information to the target audience to persuade them to act in a manner that benefits the ppl conducting the info op. Info ops aren’t restricted to social media.
Turkey’s exploitation of Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal torture and murder in no way diminishes the horrific tragedy. Would that all state sanctioned torture and murder were covered so extensively.

That said, this is an info op and Turkey has some reason for conducting it.
The info war experts are off counting Twitter bots and the media is oblivious (or at least pretending to be) to their role as information delivery weapon. They still haven’t reckoned with their complicity in l’affaires Russe of 2016. Upton Sinclair definitely nailed that one.

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I’m torn on how to approach the idea of luck. I’m the first to admit that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical.


I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.

In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.

So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.

Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.
॥ॐ॥
अस्य श्री गायत्री ध्यान श्लोक:
(gAyatri dhyAna shlOka)
• This shloka to meditate personified form of वेदमाता गायत्री was given by Bhagwaan Brahma to Sage yAgnavalkya (याज्ञवल्क्य).

• 14th shloka of गायत्री कवचम् which is taken from वशिष्ठ संहिता, goes as follows..


• मुक्ता-विद्रुम-हेम-नील धवलच्छायैर्मुखस्त्रीक्षणै:।
muktA vidruma hEma nIla dhavalachhAyaiH mukhaistrlkShaNaiH.

• युक्तामिन्दुकला-निबद्धमुकुटां तत्वार्थवर्णात्मिकाम्॥
yuktAmindukalA nibaddha makutAm tatvArtha varNAtmikam.

• गायत्रीं वरदाभयाङ्कुश कशां शुभ्रं कपालं गदाम्।
gAyatrIm vardAbhayANkusha kashAm shubhram kapAlam gadAm.

• शंखं चक्रमथारविन्दयुगलं हस्तैर्वहन्ती भजै॥
shankham chakramathArvinda yugalam hastairvahantIm bhajE.

This shloka describes the form of वेदमाता गायत्री.

• It says, "She has five faces which shine with the colours of a Pearl 'मुक्ता', Coral 'विद्रुम', Gold 'हेम्', Sapphire 'नील्', & a Diamond 'धवलम्'.

• These five faces are symbolic of the five primordial elements called पञ्चमहाभूत:' which makes up the entire existence.

• These are the elements of SPACE, FIRE, WIND, EARTH & WATER.

• All these five faces shine with three eyes 'त्रिक्षणै:'.