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Hi, Norm Matloff here. I’m a professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis, and formerly was a statistics professor at that university, but I also write about social issues. As the saying goes, “My life is an open book”–you can read the details of my background in my online bio. I’ve written op-eds for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Bloomberg View, CNN and so on. Bloomberg gathers together its op-eds grouped by author; click here to see mine, and thus get an idea of my interests and views. (SNIP) In this blog, my topics will...

Israel trying to incite Palestinians against Hamas with sweeping raidsIsraeli occupation forces distributed huge quantities of matchboxes at the entrances of mosques and houses in the West Bank city of Nablus in an effort to intimidate residents. Written on the matchbox is a warning: “Hamas is putting the West Bank in flames”. Israel has been on a rampage in the West Bank in recent weeks, supposedly in an effort to look for three kidnapped Israelis. However, observers believe occupation forces are clearly using the kidnappings as an excuse to incite Palestinians against Hamas. Meanwhile, an elderly woman was declared dead...

When a person has a disease that cannot be cured, do you think doctors should be allowed by law to end the patient’s life by some painless means if the patient and his or her family request it? At first blush, the idea that a euthanasia should be allowed seems to follow a logic. If a person is suffering and wishes to end that suffering then who has the right to tell them no? It is their life, right? Only some troglodyte Bible thumper could possibly deny a person the simple mercy of ending their suffering. In this way it...

KIEV, Ukraine, Jan. 16 - As protests here against a rigged presidential election overwhelmed the capital last fall, an alarm sounded at Interior Ministry bases outside the city. It was just after 10 p.m. on Nov. 28. More than 10,000 troops scrambled toward trucks. Most had helmets, shields and clubs. Three thousand carried guns. Many wore black masks. Within 45 minutes, according to their commander, Lt. Gen. Sergei Popkov, they had distributed ammunition and tear gas and were rushing out the gates. Kiev was tilting toward a terrible clash, a Soviet-style crackdown that could have brought civil war. And then,...

Israel Police spokesman denies claim, says, "The police are working around the clock on this issue."

As the Ukrainian crisis has unfolded over the past few weeks, it’s hard for Americans not to see Vladimir Putin as the big villain. But the history of the region is a history of competing villains vying against one another; and one school of villains—the Nazis—have a long history of engagement with the United States, mostly below the radar, but occasionally exposed, as they were by Russ Bellant in his book Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party (South End Press, 1991). Bellant's exposure of émigré Nazi leaders from Germany's World War II allies in the 1988 Bush presidential campaign...

The Times led its print edition Monday with an article based in part on photographs that the State Department said were evidence of Russian military presence in popular uprisings in Ukraine. The headline read: "Photos link masked men in East Ukraine to Russia." ... The Times has published a second article backing off from the original [link at URL] and airing questions about what the photographs are said to depict, but hardly addressing how the newspaper may have been misled. ...

<p>The Right Sector played a leading role in January's violent anti-Yanukovych protests in Kiev.</p> <p>The Right Sector is the most radical wing of Ukraine's Maidan protest movement that toppled President Viktor Yanukovych in February.</p> <p>Activists claiming to be Right Sector members were involved in Kiev's Maidan protests [link at URL] from late November but the group did not attract much attention until violent clashes with police in central Kiev on 19 January, in which it played a leading role.</p>

Self-defence forces have managed to repel an attack on a checkpoint in Soledar city in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region after unknown assailants landed in a helicopter and attacked in a blitz operation. Over a dozen of gunmen descended from the helicopter and launched an attack on a defense squad guarding a checkpoint near Soledar. As the unknown men attacked, the militia, most of them reportedly unarmed, was forced to retreat. Following the shootout, the attackers have retreated as well, taking one of the defenders hostage, the local self-defense force told RT’s correspondent Paula Slier who is at the scene. There...

A collection of photographs that Ukraine says shows the presence of Russian forces in the eastern part of the country, and which the United States cited as evidence of Russian involvement, has come under scrutiny. The photographs were submitted by Ukraine last week to the Organization for Security and Cooperation, an organization in Vienna that has been monitoring the situation in Ukraine. Some of the photographs were also provided by American officials to Secretary of State John Kerry so he could show them when he met in Geneva last Thursday with his counterparts from the European Union, Russia, and Ukraine....

Russia's foreign minister on Wednesday promised a firm response if its citizens or interests come under attack in Ukraine — a vow that came after Ukraine announced a renewal of its "anti-terror" campaign against those occupying buildings in its troubled east. Although Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov did not specifically say Russia would launch a military attack, his comments bolstered wide concern that Russia could use any violence in eastern Ukraine as a pretext for sending in troops. Large contingents of Russian troops — tens of thousands, NATO says — are in place near the Ukrainian border. "Russian citizens being attacked...

US court charges 5 haredi men for attacking gay black man in New York

Do they prove anything? What comes across from the photos is that at least one unit of heavily armed, well-equipped, pro-Russian paramilitaries has been operating in the Donetsk region. But it cannot be said for sure that they are actual Russian special forces, as the Ukrainians argue. At the same time, the idea that they might be a local militia from Donetsk is belied by their apparent military professionalism. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week there were "no Russian units, special services or instructors in the east of Ukraine" but such denials of military involvement ring hollow for many...

People holding illegal arms and occupying government buildings are perfectly OK, as long as they are permitted to do so, believes Washington’s top diplomat in Europe. But doing exactly the same thing without permission is bad. This piece of infallible logic came from the US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, as she refused to equate the situation in Ukrainian capital, Kiev, in February with the present one in eastern Ukraine. In both cases armed militias have seized buildings and refused to leave. “You can’t compare the situation in Kiev, where now everything that is still being held by protesters...

Slavyansk (Ukraine) (AFP) - Pro-Kremlin rebels in Ukraine braced Wednesday for a renewed military offensive by Kiev as US troops headed to region in a show of force after Washington again warned Moscow over the escalating crisis. The United States said it plans to deploy 600 troops to Poland and the Baltic states to "reassure our allies and partners" after threatening Russia with more sanctions. Ukraine's acting president Oleksandr Turchynov late Tuesday ordered a new "anti-terrorist" operation against separatists holding a string of eastern towns after the discovery of two "brutally tortured" bodies. One of the dead was a local...

Ukraine's Acting President Turchynov appears to be calling for an official break in the "truce" deal... -UKRAINE'S TURCHYNOV URGES RESTART OF ANTI-TERRORIST OPERATION -TURCHYNOV SAYS 'TERRORISTS' HOLDING EAST UKRAINE REGION HOSTAGE -TURCHYNOV SAYS EAST UKRAINE SEPARATISTS SUPPORTED BY RUSSIA So much for Joe Biden's peace-keeping salvation mission to Kiev...

There is no large Russian military presence in East Ukraine, head of EU intelligence, Commodore Georgij Alafuzoff, has said. The spy chief has dismissed multiple accusations from the West alleging Russian involvement in the unrest in the region. In an interview with Finnish national news broadcaster, Yle, Alafuzoff said the Russian military had nothing to do with the seizing of government buildings in eastern Ukraine. “In my opinion, it’s mostly people who live in the region who are not satisfied with the current state of affairs,” said Alafuzoff, referring to the situation in East Ukraine. He went on to say...

A new op-ed prompted by his interview with ABC over the weekend, which generated headlines like, “Rand Paul: Don’t dismiss containment option for nuclear Iran.”He’s not for containment, he now says, but nor is he irrevocably against it. What he’s for is strategic ambiguity, not telegraphing your intentions towards a bad actor lest you inadvertently limit your options later. Does America have any recent experience with that? I am not for containment in Iran. Let me repeat that, since no one seems to be listening closely: I am unequivocally not for containing Iran.I am also not for announcing that the...

When the Ukrainian people overthrew the duly elected President in late February, the office of Prime Minister was quickly filled by a technocrat, and member of the European banking establishment. Thus it is not surprising when on March 20, the interim Ukrainian government is going ahead with plans that follow the path of Cyprus, and are instituting a tax on bank depositors and account holders, and are bringing the program of bail-ins to the Eastern European country. ... It is not coincidence that the 'Ukrainian Winter' uprising occurred after the government chose to bypass the IMF and the EU, and...

Members of German civil society have written an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, condemning Russophobia in mass media and German political establishment while showing support for Moscow's actions in the ongoing Ukrainian crisis. Retired German Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jochen Scholz wrote an open letter to the Russian leader in response to the speech Putin made on March 18, 2014 at the reunification of Crimea with Russia. The letter was cosigned by hundreds of Germans including lawyers, journalists, doctors, servicemen, scholars, scientists, diplomats and historians. In that letter the German intellectuals said that Putin’s speech “appealed directly to...