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Links 6/8/2024

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Researchers Use AI to Decode the Secret Language of Dog Barks Gizmodo (Dr. Kevin)

Why auroras look better on your iPhone’s camera than with the naked eye ZMEScience (Dr. Kevin)

From Chuck L:

Notable Sandwiches #99: Kabuli Burger ButtonDown (Randy K)

Why it’s so challenging to develop vaccines for parasitic diseases BBC (Dr. Kevin)

Bird flu found for first time in Iowa dairy herd Cedar Rapids Gazette (Robin K)

#COVID-19

Climate/Environment

Increased conflict and extreme weather events caused by climate change are intensifying food crises, with more than one in four children facing severe hunger, according to a UNICEF report. Financial Times

China?

World’s Largest Solar Farm Goes Online In China Electrek

China’s Homeowners and Banks Are Trapped in a Mortgage Mess Bloomberg

EU-China trade war brews as EU embraces Japan to fight off common competitor Euractiv

Tokyo’s Government Is Building Its Own Dating App To Combat Falling Birthrates Time

In New Caledonia, ‘No Confidence’ With France After Violent Protests New York Times

Is Shell’s exit from Nigeria a front to dodge legal responsibilities? openDemocracy

European Disunion

Emmanuel Macron: ‘Europe could find itself at a standstill’ if far right wins EU election Euronews

Germany will conscript the young, ration food and turn subway stations into bomb shelters during wartime, according to a new government preparations for a future conflict with Russia Telegraph

Man assaults Danish PM Mette Frederiksen on Copenhagen street Politico

Old Blighty

Sunak’s D-day failure is a campaign disaster – and a sign he’s forgotten the very recent past Guardian

South of the Border

Milei Begins to Slash Energy Subsidies for Low-Income Argentines… heading into a particularly harsh winter Financial Post

Gaza

Israel is on the brink of a second war. Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure to take the fight to Hezbollah New Statesman

‘Horrific’: Israel’s War on Gaza Also Destroying the Climate, Study Finds openDemocracy

New Not-So-Cold War

Putin gives first official idea of Russian losses since start of SMO, + more from the SPIEF Simplicius

West close to point of no return in Ukrainian conflict, clash with Russia looms — Orban TASS (guurst)

“Judging Freedom” on the Russian retaliatory scenario Gilbert Doctorow. Text summary of key points at the top.

RUSSIAN PUBLIC OPINION SHARPENS ON END-OF-WAR OBJECTIVES John Helmer

France to send Mirage fighter jets to Ukraine and train pilots Guardian. Detailed discussion on Alexander Mercouris show of Friday.

The US Embassy in Kyiv stated that Ukraine now has the right to mobilize American citizens if they have a second – Ukrainian – citizenship Top War (Micael T)

Zircons Paying A Visit.. Andrei Martyanov (guurst)

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

When Big Brother Has All The Cards… Libre Technology (Micael T)

Meta faces multiple complaints in Europe over plans to train AI on user data The Register

Imperial Collapse Watch

Patriotism Has Destroyed America Paul Craig Roberts

World War 3 has already started. The West could fall without a shot being fired Telegraph

Better Defense Through Technology? Warfare and Welfare (Micael T)

Patrick Lawrence: Opening US Diplomats’ Eyes Consortium News (Chuck L)

Narcissistic Personality Disorder in the USA Counterpunch (Randy K)

Trump

Trump Unveils New Brand of Racism With Chuck Schumer Insult New Republic (furzy)

NY v. Trump: Judge reveals Facebook post implying juror discussed guilty verdict before trial concluded Fox (Kevin W)

Biden

Daughter’s testimony rocks Hunter Biden trial Axios

Supremes

5 revelations from Supreme Court justices’ latest financial disclosures The Hill

US Supreme Court justices disclose Bali hotel stay, Beyoncé tickets, book deals Reuters (Kevin W)

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-justices-disclose-bali-hotel-stay-beyonc-tickets-book-deals-2024-06-

5 Convicted in Federal Fraud Trial Imperiled by a Gift Bag of Cash New York Times. Mark G:

Scaled up version of something I saw MN refugee communities doing back in the ’90s: seriously working ngo grifts for grant money, govt grants and tax exemptions.

They’re being ultra careful with how they write about this because the names give away the communities involved. If you read to almost the end you’ll see the Somali names. Way too many corners cut plus outright theft.

I worked with these communities, considered myself to be an ally but it’s very troubling to see how MN NGOs operate, practically inviting people to steal. I’ve mentioned before that there are NGOs who specialize in helping minorities set up NGOs.

Abortion

US state abortion ban exemptions aren’t vague by accident. Uncertainty is the point Guardian (Dr. Kevin). IMHO this attributes too much intelligence to the legislators. Language could be vague because it was intended to be broad.

US doctor indicted after reporting child trans procedures RT (Kevin W)

Our No Longer Free Press

How to spot a deepfake: the maker of a detection tool shares the key giveaways Guardian (Dr. Kevin)

Falling Apart Boeing Airplanes

Boeing Passenger Jet Nearly Crashes Due To Software Glitch Independent

Debt bites hard, then chews, and chews, and chews Associated Press (Robin K)

The Bezzle

The Rot-Com Bubble Edward Zitron (Micael T)

EV slump, Hertz fire sale take used Teslas to ‘no haggle’ $25,000 price CNBC (furzy)

Real Estate Investors Are Wiped Out in Bets Fuelled by Wall Street Loans Bloomberg

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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266 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    ‘Pizza Pepe
    @RealPizzaPepe
    Incredible! 97-year-old WW2 paratrooper vet returns to Normandy to recreate his D-Day jump. 🫡🫡’

    Much respect for that combat vet doing that parachute drop at his age. He must have been about 17 or 18 at the time of his original drop. Of course in 1944 it was a bit different. They did it at night time then (gulp!), there was flak and when they got out, there were guys on the ground waiting to kill them with no hope of support until the next day-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCrw_uMWlgI (4:32 mins)

  2. Wukchumni

    Daughter’s testimony rocks Hunter Biden trial Axios
    ~~~~~~~~~~~

    Just when the defense thought they saw a crack in the case, it turned out to be not er… that kind of crack, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

    It could have gone all differently, he had a dream name for a First Son-dutifully wore an old glory lapel pin, and liked guns-the perfect go against the grain (55 worth of them to be specific) bulwark to daddy-o’s wishy-washy position on bang bang shoot shoots~

    …why if the NRA wasn’t in deep disarray, they’d even covet having the only progeny of the President left standing as their spokesperson with the tagline:

    ‘I’m not just Hunter, i’m a hunter too!’

      1. Wukchumni

        He seemed to favor handguns over say a Paris Gun, and everybody knows that they aren’t usually that reliable in terms of hitting the target beyond a short distance, unless you’re Barnaby Jones.

        Hunter in a suit has the appearance of a mortician’s apprentice down pat, by the way.

    2. griffen

      Meandering slowly on his way to Shawshank? Why didn’t he just mimic Andy and throw the gun into the Royal River…nah he’ll never ever serve any prison time. Mean Republicans just have to get their pound of flesh, including from his Uncle James. How mean are they?!?

      The daughter and her testimony proves the axiom when it comes to recall and clear reflection of interactions from years past. Memories aren’t always reliable, but text messaging and emails mostly live on. Well unless you know how to wipe your device that is.

        1. City Name Sports Team

          How galling. She did in fact wipe it. The guy she got to run it was found on reddit desperately seeking advice about it and how much trouble he could be in for destroying evidence.

    3. Benny Profane

      But, but, Beau! Sob, Beau!

      They’re going to be dragging that guy’s body around and propping it u until the Big Guy is gone. Surprised he didn’t bring it up on D-Day. Or, did he? Didn’t listen to the entire campaign speech.

      1. ambrit

        Yes. We were all expecting “Creepy” Joe to eulogize Beau’s valiant demise during D-Day.

  3. viscaelpaviscaelvi

    Wasn’t the pic of the Eisenhower in the linked twit photoshoped? I thought that it had been exposed as a fake.

    1. The Rev Kev

      That Tweet already states that ‘This is Norfolk Naval base Virginia, and a very poor photoshop’ and the video shows it to be a laughable effort indeed.

      1. ambrit

        Yes. The second ‘carrier’ in the picture gives it away. (How many big capital ships can the Port of Yenbo handle anyway?)
        The fact that an aircraft carrier had to “retreat” at all is the real story here. No need to gin up fake “evidence.”
        Ensign: “What are your orders Captain Arthur?”
        Captain: “Run away! Run away!”

            1. ambrit

              The cost differential was probably too much for the American DoD.
              After all, the American Anti-air Defense missiles come branded with logos of big corporations: Raytheon, Boeing, Hughes , etc. The other side has to spray paint over the Radio Shack logo and hand paint “Ansar Allah” in Arabic script and they’re ready to go!

          2. Joker

            Yea, moral support, from a safe distance. After a debacle against Houthis, they probably are not in the mood to test Hezbollah anti-ship capabilites.

          1. Darthbobber

            And his predecessor, that celebrated underrated cultivated nobleman the Duke of Plaza Toro

            1. ambrit

              I had to look that reference up. Great catch! The Ancients had wisdom and humour. The conjoining of those two qualities does not yield an additive sum, but a multiplicative one.

        3. Lefty Godot

          It makes me mad when people say I turned and ran like a scared rabbit. Maybe it was like an angry rabbit, who was running to go fight in another fight, away from the first fight.

          – Jack Handey

        4. scott s.

          >>The fact that an aircraft carrier had to “retreat” at all is the real story here.

          Source of your “fact”.? I mean, ships move around; that’s what they are designed to do. IS any particular movement due to a threat? No idea, but it sounds like “those who know don’t talk; those who talk don’t know”.

          1. ambrit

            One does not gain knowledge by staying silent in the face of questionable circumstances. If I err, correct me. Do not attempt to silence me. Educate me in the subject at hand.
            To the main point: I have read that the Eisenhower had its tour in the Red Sea extended for several weeks. Then the vessel removes itself immediately after an attack on it by shore-based adversaries. The point to which it removed is claimed to be the Port of Yenbo, further north up the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. What facilities are there for it? A resupply base? On Saudi soil?
            The purported video of damage is plainly photoshopped propaganda. However, why no counter to the propaganda, say, authenticable videos of an intact Eisenhower? This is not the sort of story that goes away if you ignore it.
            Stay safe.

            1. Wukchumni

              The purported video of damage is plainly photoshopped propaganda. However, why no counter to the propaganda, say, authenticable videos of an intact Eisenhower?
              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

              Pull a page from the past and force an answer…

              AF was short on water.

              1. Big River Bandido

                The Joe Rochefort bluff! Confirmed that “AF” was indeed the Ultra designation for Midway.

                But I don’t understand the connection here…

                1. Wukchumni

                  Subterfuge…

                  The clumsy photoshopped version of yikes! Ike was to prompt us to not believe anything is amiss~

        1. Old Jake

          Apologies are not warranted, this served its purpose very well. Though I must admit to momentary confusion I quickly caught on.

          1. ambrit

            The same here. It helped that the tweet about the questionable nature of the picture was prominent and included in the screen shot presented.

  4. Mikel

    “The 9th Circuit has decided the ‘Covid Vaccine’ is NOT A VACCINE. Plaintiffs can now use this as cases go forward.

    Buckle up, Pfizer and Moderna. You’re guilty of Mass Murder…”

    It will be interesting to see how the rest of the world grapples with this. Too many let the USA take the lead on something that required empathy and long-term thinking.
    And it seemed like non-sterilizing shots developed elsewhere in the world were redefined in a similar manner.
    J&J may have an out because an exec did interviews early in the shot game and was the first to admit that one or one series would not stop the virus.
    And common sense went out the window because at the beginning, the first thing established was that the virus was in the coronavirus family. Same as the common cold – which there has never been a vaccine developed for.

    1. jefemt

      My recollection was that the FDA and CDC helped officially change the definition during the mRNA rollouts. Big Business being ushered in going forward.

      It will be interesting to see if the 70-some year sealing of the whole development, data, etc that was granted will be rescinded.

      Very ugly chapter of global history, still gestating…

      1. Neutrino

        The whole gestalt looks bad and is going to get much worse. There seem to be capital crimes involved when viewed from the perspective of many around the world. Evidence will out.

        We came. We Injected. They Died.

        Will that be somebody’s campaign slogan?
        Or somebody’s admission on the way to a country without an extradition treaty?
        Asking for a friend. /s

    2. The Rev Kev

      I wonder if this has anything at all to do with the fact that Astrazeneca was recently withdrawn from use as a vaccine. They already have a few lawsuits dogging them about people being killed by it.

    3. Lena

      Does this mean that people who suffered vaccine harm could have legal recourse now? I nearly died from a shot of J&J in 2021. I’m on my way out of this vale of tears so I won’t be filing any lawsuits but it would be nice to know that other people who were harmed or their families might get some justice. Just might.

      1. Mikel

        This sounds like a suit that is based on marketing practices and could follow a similar path of the opioid lawsuits.

    4. Bugs

      Does this mean flu vaccines are not vaccines either? I’m wary of judges doing science.

      1. britzklieg

        Frankly, I never heard it referred to as a “vaccine” rather a “flu shot.”

        …I could be wrong…

          1. britzklieg

            Like I said, I could be wrong… but I don’t use google so I wouldn’t know

            DDG has a lot of “flu shots” in the tiltles as well as “vaccines” (https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=flu+shot&ia=web) and my comment reflects how I heard it referred to most of my life. That’s all. If there were a way to check I’d be curious how the flu shots were routinely referred to before covid, before the wording ” to produce immunity to a specific disease” was corrected to “stimulate immune response against diseases.” https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/verify/coronavirus-verify/cdc-changed-vaccine-definition-more-transparent/536-03ce7891-2604-4090-b548-b1618d286834

            I also think there’s a place for judges to insure that “science” be as linguistically accurate as possible.

            1. Acacia

              I know you don’t use Google (and don’t blame you), but Google trends might shed some light on your question.

              And FWIW, n=1, etc., I have nearly always heard “flu shot” as well.

        1. Vandemonian

          This page from Australia’s TGA has a bit of detail about flu vaccines:

          https://www.tga.gov.au/products/medicines/vaccines/influenza-flu-vaccines

          In Australia, each year’s vaccine is designed to cover the most common strains currently circulating, including those in the Northern hemisphere’s flu season. The process is described on this page:

          https://www.tga.gov.au/news/news/influenza-vaccine-annual-southern-hemisphere-influenza-vaccine-production-and-regulatory-approval-timeline

          “The AIVC [Australian Influenza Vaccine Committee] considers the WHO decision along with the most recent data on virus circulation in Australia. It then makes a recommendation to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). The TGA can accept, reject, or modify the recommendation.
          “Once the composition has been decided, manufacturing of the vaccine can begin.”

          The coverage is usually pretty good, but occasionally a newly emerging strain will catch us out.

      3. Old Jake

        You get a new flu vaccine yearly because a new flu appears regularly. It’s not the same vaccine. So it’s not a truly parallel situation.

      4. Rick

        A big part of the issue is mandates. Are influenza vaccinations mandated? Maybe in healthcare settings?

        Sounded to me like the point was mandating an intervention that was far from stopping transmission was not warranted on public health reasons. Tobacco use was not made illegal, there was just a PR campaign against it.

        I thought the mandates were a bad idea from the start. Why go to all that effort when cleaning the air would have been more helpful in reducing transmission. Starting with schools!

        1. Acacia

          Because cleaning the air would be their responsibility while getting shots is yours.

          Evidently, lots of people have been cowed by this bit of subterfuge.

          1. JBird4049

            Expanding on this: clean air would cost the schools and businesses money while mandated shots would not. Having students and workers get sick, die or be crippled is thought to cheaper. Then add the financial benefits to Big Pharma with the mandatory shots. Finally, cleaning the air is a communal, not an individual, act, and therefore akin to the dreaded, evil communism.

            Really, the goal of the establishment, aside from a few good actors, has never been to successfully end the pandemic while keeping the public whole; it has been to financially profit as much as possible while avoiding any responsibility for anything, which are the acts of grifters.

    5. Lee

      FWIW: The oral polio vaccine (OPV), while protecting the recipient, is also non-sterilizing. It reverts within the recipient’s intestinal track from its harmless attenuated version to the pathogenic wild type that can then be transmitted to others who, if unvaccinated, can become ill. Yet it is still termed a vaccine although it can actually promote the spread of the disease to the unvaccinated. The injectable version (IPV) is truly sterilizing, and is the only one now used in the U.S.

    6. Jesper

      I looked around as I thought it might be considered big news, so far it does not seem to be widely reported news.
      What little I could find:
      https://calmatters.org/education/2024/06/covid-vaccine-mandate-schools/

      They also indicated they were open to arguments over the effectiveness of the vaccine, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes as a safe way to build immunity against COVID-19.

      “At this stage, we must accept Plaintiffs’ allegations that the vaccine does not prevent the spread of COVID-19 as true,” Judge Ryan Nelson wrote. The opinion characterizes that aspect of the ruling as preliminary, and something that would be argued at a lower court.

      Something paywalled:
      https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/california-covid-vaccine-mandate-suit-revived-by-ninth-circuit

      It will be interesting to see what happens, maybe it might lead to it no longer being possible to discriminate against unvaccinated.

    7. Jason Boxman

      Indeed, I learned that here early in 2020, but hoped it might be different. But anyone in public health and vaccine development should have known, it’s introductory material. What a debacle.

    8. Cristobal

      Could the world finally be coming to the conclusión that words mean what they mean?

      1. Angie Neer

        Hell no. I grew up a stickler, learning English from my stickler parents, and used to think words had fixed, “correct” meanings. Then I lived among humans for a few more decades and observed how language really works. Word meanings and, more importantly, connotations, constantly shift and vary among groups and individuals. This is very difficult to navigate, but it’s a fact of life.

    9. Jeff W

      Quoting the tweet: ““The 9th Circuit has decided the ‘Covid Vaccine’ is NOT A VACCINE.”

      The tweet is misleading. The excerpted, highlighted part “is like a medical treatment, not a traditional ‘vaccine’” is the Court citing the plaintiffs’ claim: “And Plaintiffs claim that something that only does the latter, but not the former, is like a medical treatment, not a traditional ‘vaccine.’”

      The Court didn’t directly address the issue of whether whatever was mandated by the LAUSD is a vaccine or “traditional” vaccine, although it does refer to it as a “vaccine”: “At this stage, we must accept Plaintiffs’ allegations that the vaccine does not prevent the spread of COVID-19 as true.”

      It just addressed (aside from a “mootness” issue) the issue—again, using the word “vaccine”—of whether case law, which held that “mandatory vaccinations were rationally related to ‘preventing the spread’ of smallpox,” applied where, as in this case, “the compelled vaccine was ‘designed to reduce symptoms in the infected vaccine recipient rather than to prevent transmission and infection,’” and said that it did not.

      [emphasis added in all quotes]

  5. griffen

    Living a Supreme Life,
    Times are never gonna be tight,
    living a Supreme Life,
    I’ll see Queen B all right

    living a Supreme Life,
    My friends keep me in mind
    I love to hang out with them
    Especially if it’s to Harlan Crowe’s

    It ain’t so bad I suppose
    I’m Set for Life up here
    I’ll die before I retire
    It’s good being Supreme

  6. The Rev Kev

    ‘Malaak Safa
    @MalaakSafa
    I saw this gentleman, Tim, in Boston’s Logan airport with the sister he’d been visiting. It appeared he was both deaf and blind, as I observed her signing into his hand for him to feel her words.’

    Helluva story that. Just goes to show you that no matter how many Bidens, Macrons, Sunaks and Scholzs there are, most people are pretty decent and helpful as shown by the passengers and crew on that jet liner and especially that young 15 year-old girl. Respect.

    1. Randall Flagg

      I would like to nominate that for Lambert’s “Look for the Helpers Hall of Fame”!
      First ballot.
      100% of the vote.
      Honestly, more caring shown to the underdogs of the world by other regular people than any of the thousands the “family blog POS S “that we supposedly call our
      “Leaders”
      Just goes to show that rehabbing our society for the better will have to come from all us at the bottom practicing kindness, decency and generosity to each other and hopefully it’ll work it’s way to the top by example.

      1. Hank Linderman

        Exactly correct – it must begin at the bottom, the grassroots. That is where division can be healed.

        Best…H

    2. Jeff W

      That story is, of course, just about six years old and is related by someone else, which raises the question of why Malaak Safa chose to tweet about it as if it had occurred recently and to her personally. (At least Safa credits Lynette Scribner, who, apparently, wrote the Facebook post on which the tweet is based, but that could easily be mistaken as just a photo credit.)

        1. Jeff W

          Well, given that the actual story had been shared on Facebook nearly 500,000 times when it first appeared (in late June, 2018), it seems like not many people had been that nice, at least not in that particular way, to handicapped people on planes even before COVID. (Teenage strangers stepping up on planes to communicate via ASL with passengers who were both blind and deaf probably wasn’t much of a thing.)

            2. Jeff W

              “But it’s a good reminder of, you know, basic human decency.”

              Very true but, if Safa had prefaced her tweet with something like From a 2018 Facebook post by Lynette Scribner:, she would have informed readers about the account—we’d know what we were reading—and provided a helpful reminder.

              (I’m big on providing provenance, if available, not necessarily because it’s part of a fuller, more accurate picture, although it is, nor because it often gives credit where credit is due, although it might, but because not doing so may allow all sorts of rebuttable inferences as to the nature of whatever it is we’re talking about—as in, say, a tweet relating an incident purporting to be that of a teenage Katharine Hepburn, featured here on this site, when it turns out to be not that at all—and those just propagate like weeds.)

              1. flora

                All your points are good points. And yet… I do think the last 3 years have been so discombomulating to so many,especially for the young, that it’s helpful to remind what normal life was like prior. And what normal life can be again.

    1. Screwball

      My PMC friends love this because they hate her. That goes back to Bernie who they hated as well. They blame the Bernie Bros for not coming out for her majesty Hillary and that gave us Trump. And of course for all of this they are also on the Kremlin payroll. They think she will end up on Newsmax or Fox. She’s also not a reporter or journalist so she couldn’t be trusted anyway. You need to turn to people like Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, or Joy Reid for truthful hard hitting news.

      But it’s not a cult.

    2. lyman alpha blob

      Here’s the interview that got her canned –

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E6Rk3abIBo

      I watched the whole thing. Gray and Robby Soave both asked the interviewee repeatedly if Netanyahu’s policies were hampering efforts to rescue the hostages, and she kept deflecting, claiming she wasn’t really into politics, except of course when it suited her arguments, then she was. And this despite the fact the the vast majority of actual Israelis want Netanyahu gone. The interviewee seemed more interested in deflecting criticism from Netanyahu than genuinely worried for her sister. She also tried to spread already debunked stories about what Hamas did and also disparaged American muslims, both of which Gray correctly called her on. Gray did roll her eyes slightly at the very end, but so what? And she did it after the interviewee got personal with her. But apparently a slight eye roll is a more serious offense than slaughtering tens of thousands of people and blowing childrens’ heads off.

      I’m quite sure the usual AIPACian suspects have had the knives out for Gray for some time. Of all the Israelis they could have brought on, they get the one with a soft spot for Bibi to go head to head with Gray.

      I smell a rat.

  8. Mikel

    “Emmanuel Macron: ‘Europe could find itself at a standstill’ if far right wins” EU election Euronews

    So the Europeans have a choice between the far right and a right wing posing as liberal.
    I still think the alleged “liberal press” makes more nuanced distinctions about the right wing spectrum than the left wing spectrum.
    It’s funny how often immigration is pointed to as a source of division. The right wing, once in power, is going to kow-tow to the cheap labor wants of businesses – just the same as the alleged liberals.

    1. Ignacio

      You know what? I would never vote for what they call “far right parties”, VOX in Spain for instance. Yet Macron’s and other’s idiocies which i find more far right than anything tempt me to do so. Well, instead i will try with far left lunatics or a slice of mortadella in the envelope. Paper voting instead of electronic has such advantages.

      1. Bugs

        Same here. The more he flaps his yap, the more I want to see Marine burn it all down. But I’ll vote LFI tomorrow, like the good commie I am.

        1. Emma

          I am under the impression that Marine is at least as coopted as Georgia and won’t be burning anything down.

          The ‘far left’ are mostly also coopted (or stood up by the deep state to start with) but it’ll be fun to watch how they sell out.

      2. DJG, Reality Czar

        Ignacio! Save that slice of mortadella for your pizza. Things aren’t yet that desperate.

        Here in Italy in the Undisclosed Region, the election is today (Saturday) and tomorrow.

        I am off to vote at the local public school.

        We can compare notes tomorrow.

        1. Neutrino

          DJG and Ignacio,
          Please educate us about how voting goes in your countries.
          Do you use paper ballots?
          Is there early voting?
          Machine voting?
          Drop boxes?
          How and when counted, by whom?
          Are there nationwide standards or do those vary by region?
          Thanks!

          1. Ignacio

            Paper ballots only in Spain. Polling stations are mostly, if not all, public schools. You can vote in advance by regular mail registering previously to do so if you are planning to be out or if you are residing abroad (nearest consulate for registering as a mail voter). They send you all the alternative ballots available except the one for Macron’s party.;)

          2. DJG, Reality Czar

            Neutrino: I wrote a comment back to you with many details about voting here in the Chocolate City of the Undisclosed Region. The post went into the ether.

            Suffice it to say: Paper ballots. One for each election (European and my regional election, which obviously is an Italian election). Hand marked. Hand counted.

            Tomorrow, Sunday, Ignacio, Bugs, and I can likely revisit this issue in the comments because some links for the elections will start coming into play. Let me know if you have questions.

          3. Vandemonian

            In Australia we use hand-marked paper ballots, counted in public. The Australian Electoral Commission maintains an electoral roll with name and address of each person registered to vote in each electorate. When you turn up to vote, your name is crossed off the printed list.

            Voting is on a Saturday. After the polls close at 6pm, the boxes are opened, and volunteers conduct a preliminary count so that a result is (usually) available on the night. Scrutineers, including nominees of each part standing, are present in the room to watch the counting, and any member of the public may attend.

            The ballot papers are sent securely to the AEC for a final count. If the count in an electorate is close, a candidate may demand a recount.

            AEC officers visit public hospitals with a portable voting booth. Postal votes are available on application, with the votes returned in an envelope contains a second envelope signed by the voter on a detachable strip. The strip is removed on receipt to ensure confidentiality.

            State elections are run the same way, with the same electoral roll.

            Voting is compulsory, and there’s a modest fine for those who don’t.

            We watch the sh*tshow you go through in the US, and shake our heads in despair.

          4. BillS

            Paper ballots in Proseccoland as well. Varufakis’ party is fielding candidates under the Pace, Terra, Dignità list.

            1. Irrational

              Paper ballots in the EU’s second smallest member by population, Luxembourg. Also heading to the local school tomorrow.

    2. digi_owl

      Note how the language is always “migration” and “migrants” when usually what the far right wants to go after are refugees, mostly women and children fleeing neolib and neocon made hell holes.

      But by referring to them as migrants, they can willfully confuse them with migrant workers. Usually the kind that do not have work permits and undermine the local economy by skirting laws and unions.

      But those the far right silently welcome, as hey tend fields and erect buildings on the cheap.

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        It would help if you verify your assumptions. Most fleeing conflicts ARE migrants per your definition, as in young men who would compete with locals, even when they are abandoning hell-holes.

        As a result of the war in Syria, as well as other humanitarian crises, poverty, and social deprivation in Africa and elsewhere, European Union countries have experienced high inflows of asylum-seekers, refugees, and migrants.1 Civil unrest and armed conflict generate vital and complex needs….

        In 2015, about 995,000 first-time asylum applications were submitted in countries of the European Union, more than twice the number for 2014….

        In 2015, Syrians represented the largest group of first-time asylum applicants in the European Union. Of all Syrians who applied for asylum in the EU in the first quarter of 2016, almost 90 percent registered in Germany…[what follows is German data and Germany has a good system]

        Recent asylum-seekers are predominantly in the age range 18–34 years (Figure 5). In 2015, 71 percent of applicants were below age 30, and 31 percent were below age 18. Less than one percent of asylum applicants are older than age 54. Over two thirds (69.2 percent) of asylum applicants in Germany from the principal countries of origin in 2015 are male.

        https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/padr.12042

        Mexico is the leading county of origin for illegal immigrants into the US, and that is not a neoliberal shithole: https://www.statista.com/topics/3454/illegal-immigration-in-the-united-states/#topicOverview

        More families have been coming across the border because smugglers tell them they are less likely to be deported:

        https://archive.ph/0wyfw

        So please do not make me do work you should have before making big claims about the composition of migrant flows.

          1. Jessica

            Mexico’s claim to what is now the southwestern US was a future claim inherited from Spain. Those areas were never assimilated into Mexico. Most was still native territory. Much of it was not assimilated into the US for decades after the US seized it. Western Texas in the 1870s for example. New Mexico in the 1840s was a vassal of the Commancheria.
            It is in the nature of nations to claim to be larger than they really are, both over time and space. The US does it too. So does China.

      2. Skip Intro

        It would be interesting to track wages for sex workers in, say, Germany and Poland, over the course of the of the war in Ukraine. Break out by gender would also be useful.

  9. The Rev Kev

    “The US Embassy in Kyiv stated that Ukraine now has the right to mobilize American citizens if they have a second – Ukrainian – citizenship”

    ‘Thus, the US authorities themselves dispelled another myth about themselves – about the “privileges in the world” of holders of an American passport. Washington actually states that it is not against the mobilization of US citizens (with second Ukrainian citizenship) into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and is not against their death at the front.’

    The fact that the Ukrainians murdered Gonzalo Lira – an American citizen – in a prison cell and the US government has not asked once about this tells you all you need to know about American-Ukrainian citizens in the Ukraine will fare. Now contrast that with American-Israelis fighting in Gaza who will be given US veterans benefits for their service tells you a lot. It all depends on the country that they are in.

    1. Pat

      At one time, you had to choose as in you had to give up one passport or the other. That would have solved that issue. They wouldn’t be eligible to be drafted. But now… Any way if you are still claiming citizenship in a country you still hold responsibilities toward that country. If your fellow citizens are being conscripted you should as well, and that includes if America starts doing it. Something that can no longer be considered impossible with the inability to meet recruitment and the Beltway’s insane desire for a two front war.
      I have become very cynical about certain things regarding double passports. And apparently hold some radical anti-traditional American thoughts regarding them. In my world having a second passport would allow you to vote but make donating to political organizations and campaigns illegal, ban the holder from working for any government entity and bar them from running for and holding any elected office. If you can’t decide where you are a citizen your loyalties are divided. But then I have a big problem with Chuck Schumer’s proclamation of loyalty to Israel so take everything as you will.

      1. digi_owl

        Ships have long sailed under flags of convenience.

        These days more and more people, particularly among the extreme wealthy, carry passports of convenience.

      2. Emma

        I don’t think anyone should be allowed to be citizens of more than one country. Anyone who is still a citizen of another country is automatically suspect as to their loyalty in every public action, including any voting, campaign contributions, and how they structure their residency and finances.

        This is an area that Russia really needs to learn from China on. It’s fine to give people with ties to your country by ancestry, marriage, or lengthy residence permanent residency. But they should not be allowed to be Russian citizens unless they renounce all other citizenships.

        1. BradN

          I wish it were possible to be a true cosmopolitan and get a citizenship of earth. If such a thing existed and was recognized, I would be very happy to renounce my national citizenship for it.

    2. chris

      One wonders if our violent prisoners will be given parole via a Ukrainian passport and citizenship so that they can thank their patron with service on the front line…

    3. Darthbobber

      This isn’t really new. In the 60s and 70s units being sent to Germany would replace any troops born in Germany with others before crossing the pond, as Germany regarded them as German and would claim them for their year of compulsory military service.

    4. ET

      I wonder if we’ll see a lot of new Ukraine/USA citizens coming from the US military after graduating basic training. The back door way of putting NATO troops in the Ukraine theater while still maintaining non involvement.

  10. Joker

    Germany will conscript the young, ration food and turn subway stations into bomb shelters during wartime, according to a new government preparations for a future conflict with Russia Telegraph

    So, they plan to skip the blitzkrieg part and go directly to volkssturm and sawdust bread. Heil Scholz, I guess.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Well if people like Robert Habeck and the Greens want to fight the Russian bear in five years time, they are going to have to hurry. First off, they will have to bring in conscription straight away. It takes about a year to properly train a soldier but many more for the specialists that make up an army. And years too in order to grow the officers and NCOs that are vital to make things work. And of course all those soldiers will have to be fully equipped which will be difficult as most of the equipment of the Bundeswehr has been sent to the Ukraine already. And it will take years as well to build the heavy equipment like tanks and APCs that will be needed. Then there is the anti-air missile network that has to be built out. My understanding is that by present numbers, only about 5% of NATO is covered right now. Yeah, they are really going to have to hustle. Or they could just make peace with the Russian Federation. Either way works for the Russians.

      1. Joker

        Once Die Grünen got the taste of (Slavic) blood in 1990s, they got reset to Reich’s default settings, and have been yearning for more ever since. Robert Habeck, and Annalena Baerbock, are just following the path of Joschka Fischer.

        P.S. It turns out Ukraine has Green party too, Partiya Zelenih. The joke is that Zelensky is not a member. :)

        1. The Rev Kev

          And like Zelensky, they will never have to worry about picking what colour clothing they will wear in the morning.

          2. Darthbobber

            This was a groaner joke when I was in the army. Walk in a room full of guys in fatigues and call out “Hey, you in the green.”

    2. Carolinian

      There was another story that said NATO is preparing “logistics corridors” for when the Red Army, er, Putin comes charging through the Fulda Gap.

      We have movie studios that keep remaking the same film and dim bulb politicians in Europe and US that do the same thing. After all the Cold War was their biggest hit!

      1. The Rev Kev

        Of course the real reason for those “logistics corridors” is so that American troops can be funneled through to the eastern front as quickly as possible after arriving in European ports as most of the other NATO countries have de-militarized themselves by sending their weapons and ammo to the Ukraine and have little to give.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l482T0yNkeo (3:27 mins)

        1. Joker

          Nah, that’s not what Cold War Redux is about. The only place where American troops will be funneled trough those logistics corridors are pride parades on the west side of the new Iron Curtain. Parading in full combat drag is logistics heavy, and there will be a lot of it needed in order to keep the plebs down. Romanians are even getting multi billion bucks base to keep them from swimming over Danube to Odessa region (which is where Russian march westwards will stop, probably).

        2. digi_owl

          Only that this time it will truly be hell, rather than the last few times when the GIs came late to the “party” and mostly needed to do mop-ups against an exhausted enemy.

    3. chris

      They will do no such thing. Poll after poll after poll has shown that Europeans do not want to fight. They may get very excited about other people fighting for them, the leadership (who will not be fighting) is also very excited about other people fighting for them, but the people who would be subject to conscription are not going to show up and will riot if forced.

      This article links to repeat poll from 10 years ago. And even then it doesn’t describe the previous results accurately. 10 years ago, the data collected after the Maidan and Crimea annexation showed paltry numbers of Europeans were willing to fight for their countries. That “around the world” description is doing a lot of work in the updated article, because the Europeans weren’t willing to fight then, and they’re not willing to fight now. For example, after 2 years of “Russian aggression” and Putin being labeled as the Uber-Hitler-Stalin-Satan in every official media outlet, 57% percent of Germans still say “No” to fighting for their country?!?! Really? Then what what the hell are we arguing over. Let’s stop the killing and normalize relations before there aren’t any Ukrainians left to surrender.

      1. Ignacio

        True, and latest Eurobarometer polling shows that support for sending weapons or Ukraine EU accession diminishes slowly but relentlessly. A continent filled with deplorables is Europe.

      2. Trees&Trunks

        The Ukrainians were not willing to fight but violent drafting and nazis going behind the front shooting every fellow countryman wanting to avoid the butchery have incentivized them to meet their death within about 4 minutes.
        The EU will with their also heavily armed police force do the same.

        1. chris

          I doubt after the success of the gillet jaunes that the French will respond favorably to forced conscription for Naughtzis.

    4. Cetzer

      volkssturm

      This time it will be the Ungeimpftensturm ~ the unvaccinated will be used as (first class/opportunity) cannon-fodder.

      ration food

      According to German tradition this can only be done by a RationierungsMeister ~ master of rationing or – if Ricarda Lang is chosen – a harsh mistress of rationing.

    5. Skip Intro

      Germany is redoing WWII in reverse order. First they deindustrialize, then they embrace nazism, then they censor/persecute dissidents, then they start building an army. I wonder if they will be desperate enough to militarize that they open up the remaining Nordstream line.

  11. Snailslime

    The type of technological predominance needed to globally enforce “peace” through overwhelming power (aka through terror, intimidation, tyranny) is of course one that many, including Brian Berletic, have very believably argued has zero chance of ever becoming a reality.

    Indeed all the technologies they imagine might give them such a worldbeating superiority are ones where America’s adversaries are rapidly advancing.

    China for example will almost certainly field vast fleets of autonomous drones steered by AI and wingman drones supporting their airforce long before the US and on a much larger scale.

    Which is of course a good thing seeing as the US is exactly the type of completely psychopathic and depraved hegemon who will murder you for any or really no reason at all even when you totally submit to it as it has demonstrated often enough before.

  12. Ron Singer

    I don’t know where to start. Maybe if I work at it I’ll figure it out.

    Aperçus:
    “Now is not the time to panic. You should have done that a long time ago.”
    Hmm.
    “We’re not going to make it, are we?” John Connor asked. “People, I mean.”
    “It is in your nature to destroy yourselves,” said The Machine.
    Hmm.
    “I’m glad that I am not young in so thoroughly finished a world.”
    Could be a bit premature.
    “One must pity the children, knowing they have no future.”

    I’m working on it. I’ll let you know.

  13. Mikel

    “The Rot-Com Bubble” Edward Zitron
    “…However, if I had to choose, I’d say things really began to deteriorate sometime in 2019. Tech had lost something – while there were new gadgets, apps, and services, tech started to feel iterative rather than innovative, and by 2021, even the pretense of gradual improvement was dropped. It felt like they were trying to sell us things that didn’t actually exist…”

    Fintech (especially, but not uniquely these days) is supported by liquidity from the Fed/banks – not “innovation”. The distinction needs to be made between that and technology for uses other than coming between you and your money.
    And “AI” development has been around for the longest…the hype was turned up as interest rates rose. Reminding anyone paying attention the prioritization of performance in the casino.

    “…Windows laptops will soon integrate an AI-powered “Recall” feature that allows you to search everything you’ve done on your computer in the last three months, recording everything from the meetings you’ve been in, to the things you’ve written — a feature that nobody asked for, and that inherently encroaches on the user’s privacy and security, as it involves taking screenshots of the user’s machine every few seconds and storing them (along with the AI-generated inferences) on a locally-hosted database.

    It is, in essence, a pre-installed screen recorder — the kind that a hacker might install on a victim’s computer — and if an attacker gains access to it, the ramifications could be catastrophic. Despite being an inherently AI-powered feature, it can’t distinguish between ordinary computer usage and genuinely sensitive information — like passwords, health information, or trade secrets that must be protected at all costs. It treats, say, a confidential email from your doctor with the same concern as a YouTube video or a video game. …”

    And for crying out loud, that’s just another reminder of the national security origins of so much of this tech.
    Nobody asked for it, but spooks did. Stop acting like they didn’t. Now they can know, for instance, if even in the privacy of your own home you are against things… like say…genocide.

    Meanwhile:
    https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-us-global-war-weapons-race/?srnd=homepage-americas
    America’s War Machine Can’t Make Basic Artillery Fast Enough

    Bloomberg covering industry and industrial policy like it’s some exotic thing.

    1. Dermot O Connor

      Mikel, this filth is why Linux is a necessity for me now. In future if I do need a windows box for work, I’ll rip out the network card and use it offline, then use my Linux (MINT) machine for online.
      These Orwellian bozos are really letting the mask slip now.

      1. Mikel

        Yeah, I had to get a quick replacement laptop the other day. During the setup it was asking me to set up all kind of vague “experiences”…I declined all that were possible to decline.

      2. Mikel

        There is plenty of money to be made innovating features that enhance user control. “Auto-Recall” does not need to be integrated into the system. These could all be separate features that one chooses to download if necessary. There are plenty of ways to achieve recall of data without this dystopian power grab.

      3. Vandemonian

        Is it possible to use a firewalled WINE* environment in Linux to run a circumscribed Windows session?

        Asking for a friend.

        *Stands for “WINE is not an emulator”. Lovely piece of recursion.

        1. Grebo

          WINE is for running Windows applications under Linux, not the whole OS. If you need to run the whole OS for some reason you can do that in a virtual machine. Linux has a built-in KVM system for that, or Oracle offers the perhaps more user-friendly VirtualBox. Tiny10 is a de-crufted Windows image suitable for this purpose.

    2. digi_owl

      I dear say the rot start all the way back in 2008, when “everyone” dropped their own designs to ape the Apple slabs.

      But what is interesting to observe is the amount of “throw it at the wall” creativity coming out of China, as their startups have access to the excess parts from all those supply lines feeding the offshored factories supplying Western brands.

      Here is one glorious example:

      https://www.gsmarena.com/ulefone-phones-124.php

      If you scroll down you find phones with massive speakers, large LED flashlights, IR cameras, walkie-talkie radios, even one with room to store and charge a pair of bundled earbuds.

    3. Craig H.

      The reports coming out of the OpenAI management and safety team drama has me thinking Sam Altman is on the Elizabeth Holmes Sam Bankman Fried trail and destined for the finish line.

      2. paul

        Mr Altman makes Elon* ‘shucks, I’m just a genius who wants to make everyone rich’ Musk very much the wallflower.

        Mr Zitron definitely holds him to the correct measure.

        The pivot to AI is web1/2/3 all too soon again.

        The only thing I think that can top it is Hot WW3.

        Who could resist the disruptive investment opportunities offered?

        *the F is silent

    4. southern appalachian

      You know I support a couple health care organizations and with one just finished going over their hardware replacement needs. This feature has me wondering about potential security/HIPAA violations if one of the staff lose their device. Or it’s stolen. Pretty much everything is browser based but if there are snapshots it’s a problem. Will continue to research this, might have to move off of their platform. What a headache.

      1. fjallstrom

        As I understand it, Recall is available – and on by default – for a new line of AI branded hardware running Windows 11. So it should be enough to define which new hardware is bought.

        Or at least, that is how I understand it right now. Do let us know if you find out something else.

  14. Carolinian

    Re the Simplicius from a couple of days back–he’s saying, based on Putin’s recent statements, that Russia may have suffered 100,000 kia and Ukraine 500,000 in the short course of the war. Meanwhile Helmer tells us that Russian public support for the war is strong and growing.

    Cut to America where a few thousand lost in Iraq made it toxic and the fifty plus thousand dead in Vietnam made it the defining event of the late 20th century.

    I’d say the above totals indicate that the play actors in the Biden government and their media hanger ons don’t even have a clue what they are dealing with. They obsess over Trump and petty nonsense while blithely sponsoring or provoking astonishing butchery overseas. There are estimates as many as a million Iraqis may have died as a result of that wholly gratuitous invasion and of course the slaughter in Gaza is off the charts but for once the public is getting to see what our weapons do to people.

    Surely our elites in DC and H’wood and elsewhere have reason for the current vogue for virtue signaling. As the Bard put it in a play: “out damned spot!”

    1. Daniil Adamov

      I think the SMO is definitely more popular now than it was at the start (granted, a largely anecdotal impression I get from what I read and hear here). Most of those who hated it and the government still hate both, but in a more resigned and sullen kind of way (helps that all protests against it have been decisively suppressed, of course); more people, including those who greeted it with dismay, accept it as a necessity. Casualties might actually contribute to this, creating a desire for revenge or to make sure they did not die in vain. Stories of Ukrainian atrocities, at least some of which must be true, help as well. Most of all I think the initial shock has been absorbed and the feared collapse did not come, while a lot of people have had time to re-evaluate the situation.

      1. Emma

        Serious question. Do people who still oppose it still believe that the West will welcome them into the “common European home” once the dreaded Putin is vanquished? Or just really really want their racist islamophobic vision of Russia with them at the top?

        1. Daniil Adamov

          It’s not homogenous. Part of my point is that (unlike a year ago) they seem to have lost all hope of Putin being vanquished, and so those desired futures have become kind of moot.

          That said, one strain I’ve encountered reasonably often is longing for Russia to be broken up into a lot of “normal modern European states”, for it is an empire and therefore an abomination against history. This is particularly popular among dissidents here in the Urals thanks to a tradition of regionalist separatism, often with ethnonationalist and/or Islamophobic features (though the “handshakeworthy”, respectable types tend to downplay this). “Common European home” thinking is bigger among St. Petersburg intellectuals.

          I’ve also noticed that the younger generation of liberals (those who grew up after the Union was destroyed) tends to be increasingly skeptical of the West (over Israel among other things, incredibly enough). Those ones might not expect to be welcomed there, though they still believe that they’re stuck in a hole inhabited by savages and ruled over by fascists. Older, Soviet-trained liberals are much more West-credulous by instinct, though American culture wars in particular are off-putting to most and helped cause a few notable defections.

          1. Emma

            Thanks very much for your very thoughtful answer!

            The whole broken up into multiple countries thinking just boggles my mind. Have they paid no attention to the breakup of Yugoslavia or USSR? All the Western triggered chicanery in Chechnya and Georgia and such?

            Then again, if they still accept Israel…

            1. Daniil Adamov

              With regard to Chechnya, throughout the 90s and later a lot of them thought we should just let it go on grounds of national self-determination and lacking anything in common.

              As for Yugoslavia, I suppose they expect things to go more smoothly because there aren’t as many long-term ethnic rivalries within most of the Russian Federation. I’d note that those people are, in my experience, overwhelmingly ethnic Russians (or else well-assimilated ethnic minorities in Russian-majority areas). A possibility that they don’t tend to dwell on much is that while a breakup probably would mean Yugoslavia- or Chechnya-style ethnic warfare in, say, North Caucasus, that wouldn’t mean much to most of them in Moscow, St. Petersburg or Yekaterinburg. Again, the Caucasians really aren’t “their people” – and that includes the typically rather conservative, religious and/or communist-leaning ethnic Russians in North Caucasus.

              Or else they would think that it was bound to happen eventually (Russia, again, being an aberration as an empire that outlived WWI), so we may as well get it over with now instead of waiting for things to get even worse. There may be some historically necessary carnage on the way there, but later on, we will have a lot of happy little Germanies or Swedens.

              1. Snailslime

                The probably don’t get that the EU is another authoritarian empire building attempt (even if we leave Out the fact of IT having been hijacked and colonized by a bigger, badder empire) and that to the limited degree the happy little Swedens and Germanies of their imagination ever existed, they now definitely no longer do.

                It’s a nonsensical idea anyway, empires are only going to go away when “civilisation” itself does go permanently, being not anymore abberations than any other form of state/society, for good or bad.

                1. Daniil Adamov

                  That is more or less what I think (though with regard to EU, so far the emphasis is on “attempt”). Those ideas are deeply rooted, though. I think it’s a way of dealing with the many real dissatisfactions of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian life by imagining, based on limited, skewed information and assurances from respected intellectuals, that somewhere else they have things figured out. Then we must only overcome certain societal hang-ups to enjoy the same benefits. I know otherwise intelligent and well-meaning people who keep falling for that. It probably helps that most of those who believe such things are also unlikely to bear the brunt of a Soviet-style dissolution… unless, of course, it turns into a new civil war, but that prospect is thankfully remote.

              2. Emma

                Perhaps the clear consequences from loss of sovereignty in European ‘garden’ countries will eventually wake them up. Or maybe the reconstitution of the United Arab Republic under Syrian, Iraqi, and Palestinian leadership. I’m still hoping for a reconstituted federal Yugoslavia.

          2. The Rev Kev

            I saw a western-sponsored map of a Russia broken up into about two dozen states and it was used at a conference in the EU Parliament about breaking up Russia. I then pulled up a map of Russia’s resources and to a large extent they mapped together. This would make the looting of Russia’s resources much, much easier this time around and if the local Russians did not like it, I have no doubt that workers from poorer countries would be brought in to do the mining and the like. And Russia’s present nukes? The pentagon already has plans to send in teams to seize them on their books.

            1. Daniil Adamov

              I wonder how many of those maps are in circulation. Anyway, I think they represent wishful thinking, and on some level our “partners” must know that. They want to be ready in case a collapse happens anyway, but they cannot bring it about. (Or at least, neither sanctions nor a war of attrition has brought it noticeably closer.)

                1. Daniil Adamov

                  Interesting. Rather more granular than the one I’ve seen (which simply used our current federal districts), though their imagination still fails when they move further east.

                  And I’m sure that they wanted it. There is, however, often a gap between what we want and what we can actually get. I do wonder whether they understood that at the time and whether they understand it now.

                  1. Polar Socialist

                    I think they have given up on the idea for now. Being more focused on preventing The West from fracturing and the rest of the world from gaining any more sovereignty.

                    All and all, there will always be nutter drawing maps like this, but now they’re given the stage in the vain hope that it would create enough internal friction to hamper Russian war effort.

                    A lot in this war can be understood as attempts by Ukraine/The West to cause enough civil strife in Russia to remove “Putin’s regime” (because to The West it’s always about one person that is the problem) and thus ensure Ukrainian victory (by magic).

                    That’s why so many publicity stunts that have very little effect on the frontline. That’s why they nned to strike deep into Russia. That’s why Ukraine keeps feeding meat to the grinder – they just need to last a bit longer and a coup in Kremlin will save Ukraine a la Bandera.

                    Because nothing else will.

        1. Daniil Adamov

          Special Military Operation. I think there are sufficient reasons to distinguish it from the Donbass war in general, which started much earlier. And, of course, we are officially not at war still.

    2. digi_owl

      Frankly it should be clear by now that to DC foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy. Just look at how Pelosi visited Taiwan even as Biden asked her not to. Likely because she needed to show her sponsors back in SF she was not cowed by Beijing.

      There are simply far too many people running around in USA (and perhaps elsewhere, just see that Georgian president) with old money and an inherited wish to roll the clock back to the colonial era where their ancestors were lords of the land.

    3. Lefty Godot

      Our (US) mindset is definitely that taking serious casualties in a war is completely unthinkable, an attitude that’s reinforced when you are mostly shooting desert nomads from the air with 50-caliber machine gun rounds or Hellfire missiles. Even the large casualty numbers we suffered in World War II were dwarfed by what the USSR suffered (plus we had rationing on the home front back then, which would never be accepted now by people who consider wearing masks in a pandemic as a deadly assault on their freedom).

      I don’t understand where the US and the rest of NATO expect to field troops from for the wars their leaders are so enthusiastic about. Is it really going to be an army of illegal immigrants and international mercenaries? The videogamers and Tik-Tok habitués are not likely to be rushing down to the enlistment office to volunteer.

      1. Darthbobber

        In one of the valid points scattered among the largely arid pages of their trilogy, Hardy and Negro pointed out that while the western (especially US) militaries possess a significant capacity to kill, their capacity to die is virtually nil. And for serious business this matters.

        I believe there were fewer Americans killed over the years of the Iraq insurgency than in a single day at Antietam creek, but it was enough to render the war politically unsustainable.

        1. JBird4049

          >>>I believe there were fewer Americans killed over the years of the Iraq insurgency than in a single day at Antietam creek, but it was enough to render the war politically unsustainable.

          It helps that the Civil War was considered a war worth dying for. I do not understand why being able to kill your people for no good reason is a good thing.

          1. Daniil Adamov

            That, I think, is also a major part of it. It’s not like Soviet citizens were willing to throw away lives indefinitely in Afghanistan either. That was an unpopular war because it seemed like we were, at best, fighting to bring socialism to people who were largely not that interested. The SMO is not like that; while I wouldn’t say there is some social consensus about it, a lot of people here do genuinely think it is worth dying for. It would be impossible to sustain otherwise.

      2. Snailslime

        I doubt that mercenaries have magically grown better suited than they historically were for the kind of total war this would or will be.

  15. Mikel

    “Meta faces multiple complaints in Europe over plans to train AI on user data” The Register

    Their “innovation” is blatantly IP theft…they same thing all of these companies claimed the technology would help us to control and break free from those big bad record companies, etc…

    1. Acacia

      True, though isn’t there something in the Meta EULA that more or less says “all your data belongs to us?”

      Not saying it’s acceptable, but just that Meta users should prolly expect to get robbed like this.

      1. Mikel

        I put it like this: The national security agencies called and they want their tech back.

    1. Lost in OR

      Meh… I disagree. The liberal/conservative, repub/dem divide no longer works for me. The most deranged people in my life are well-healed, well-educated liberal democrats

      What occurs to me is some are motivated by blind love for country while others are motivated by blind hatred of others. I’ll have to start paying attention to that.

    1. ambrit

      If only the “Health Establishment” would classify Capitalism as a “Parasitic Disease.”
      I can think of lots of non-pharmaceutical interventions to combat that perennial scourge.

  18. LawnDart

    Re; China

    The low-altitude economy, which is key in nurturing new quality productive forces and a new growth engine, has been written into this year’s Government Work Report for the first time.

    Several provincial-level regions nationwide have unveiled plans to develop the low-altitude economy in their government work reports in 2024.

    Shenzhen and Guangzhou in Guangdong province and Hefei in Anhui province have rolled out favorable policies, such as providing subsidies and incentives, to boost the development of the low-altitude sector and build up related industrial clusters.

    China aims to establish a new development model for the general aviation industry characterized by high-end, intelligent and green features by 2030, according to an action plan issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and three other government departments recently.

    https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202404/09/WS6614977da31082fc043c0e2b.html

    Low-altitude economy = drones

    Dozens of cities are racing to develop “vertiports” and the infrastructure needed to develop this sector of the economy. A “soft-rollout” is already underway as China hammers-out regulations for the commercialization of this tech.

    I’ve been following this industry since 2019, and the pace of advancement has been staggering. Expect a lot more news when approval for commercial flight opperations is given in the next few months, adding another node to China’s transportation and logistics networks.

      1. Emma

        Moon of Alabama. B said he expect to be back by June 6 and his last retweet was from June 1. So it’s worrying.

    2. Martin Oline

      Once he comes back he is neck deep in the gumbo and he knows it. I don’t blame him for delaying the return, especially if he is recovering from a medical procedure. Considering this, we all owe a huge debt to our hosts here who have to put up with our crap every day. (The check is in the mail. . . )

      1. ChrisFromGA

        I saw a few tweets from the MoA Twitter account last week. So presumably he’s OK maybe as you say baby sitting a bunch of mutants on the webs isn’t on the doctors orders.

        I wish him a swift recovery.

  20. LawnDart

    Re; China, additional information: Green Aviation Manufacturing Industry Development Program (2023-2035) [10-page PDF: Developing green aviation manufacturing industry is an inevitable requirement for tackling climate change and achieving sustainable development of the aviation industry. It is an important
    direction for the new round of aviation science, technology and industrial revolution, and a major
    strategic initiative to enhance the future competitiveness of aviation manufacturing industry. The
    20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China made the decision to promote the new
    industrialization and push the manufacturing industry toward high-end, smart and green
    development. To implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the CPC in full, accurate
    and comprehensive manner, grasp the opportunity of aviation power transformation, accelerate
    the fostering of new business forms in aviation industry, this program is hereby formulated.]

    The CAAC issued the Green Aviation Manufacturing Development Outline (2023-2035) in October 2023, which offers guidance on putting a pilot-operated eVTOL in the skies by 2025 and fully autonomous services on a large scale by 2035, including the need to establish practical regulations and insurance plans for flying cars

    [CAAC– Civil Aviation Administration of China]
    https://www.tjftz.gov.cn/tisip/upload/files/2023/10/1815395101.pdf

  21. Mikel

    “In New Caledonia, ‘No Confidence’ With France After Violent Protests” New York Times

    Sounds like New Caledonia was set up like a big reservation. We know very well how those operate in the USA.
    And the thing with the alcohol – a go to old trick.

  22. The Rev Kev

    “Ukraine war briefing: France to send Mirage fighter jets and train pilots”

    This is just goofy on Macron’s part. I think that there will be only five Mirage fighters to be given by France which is really small so will make no difference in this war. And that means that the Ukrainians will have to get the training and spare parts to maintain these fighters – unless the French do it for them. And to train the pilot is going to take a year or so at least so no Mirages flying over the Ukraine this year. And then you will have to train Ukrainian speaking pilots in French planes so everything will have to be translated for them. So this is just a gimmick on Macron’s part which is not surprising as he is not a serious politician.

    1. Benny Profane

      He’s just setting himself up for a lucrative career in the MIC, or a high EU position.

    2. ambrit

      One of the Duranistas mentioned that a confidential informant had told him that this was a done deal. The Duranista then went on to observe that such a deal had a long lead time and that, thus, the Ukranian pilots have probably been in training for months.
      Otherwise, we will have French pilots in mufti flying for the Ukraine. Monty Macron’s Flying Foreign Legion?

  24. Kevin Smith

    re: vaccines against parasites
    “A hookworm is a parasitic worm that feeds on intestinal blood, leading to anaemia and nutrient deficiencies. “Think of it as an animal. You’re making a vaccine against an animal,” Hotez says.”

    It occurs to me that humans are animals too, and in some ways could be considered to be parasites …

    I wonder if this technology could be turned against us …

      1. The Rev Kev

        And according to a UN WHO study given just before the Pandemic broke out, has no history of killing anyone and was extremely safe to administer.

      2. Neutrino

        Will there be any redemption of those early bad thoughts like ivermectin?
        How about hydroxychloroquine or any other non-Big Pharma sanctioned treatments?

        Who said what to whom, and was cash involved? Put those in some Nuremberg After Action Report.
        Social Distancing.
        Ventilation.
        Masks, and which type.

  25. Mikel

    “Real Estate Investors Are Wiped Out in Bets Fuelled by Wall Street Loans” Bloomberg

    Hard to feel too bad about their loss. Their gain depended on ever increasing apartment rents in a time of rising homelessness.

      1. flora

        er…um…what about state employees and teachers pensions funds investing in same? ya know?

        1. Wukchumni

          Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.

          Robert Louis Stevenson

          1. John Anthony La Pietra

            24 years later, in my case. . . .

            I worked for a US subsidiary of a Japanese auto-parts manufacturer for most of the 1990s, and put a fair amount into my 401(k) — all traditional, no Roth, FWIW. And one of the funds I put money into was a general US real estate fund.

            I left it alone, mostly — almost entirely, in fact. And then last year I got a notice that the fund was changing managers — so I took the opportunity to simplify by rolling over that whole account into my IRA.

            Except I couldn’t . . . because the real-estate fund had had a withdrawal limitation placed on it. Some limited proceeds from liquidating assets of that fund have been shifted to the IRA, I believe, along with the other 3/4 of my overall account (not quite $100,000). But there’s still about $30,000 I can’t get at. And I might not until the middle of next year, if I’m lucky.

            Of course, I know I’m already very lucky.
            I’m not direly wounded by this — and I’m better off than many others — but neither is $30,000 a negligible amount for me, my considerably younger wife, and our daughters ages 9-1/2 and 3.

            I don’t expect my moral liability in this situation is zero, but I think (along with flora) that it has some limits.

  26. The Rev Kev

    “Israel is on the brink of a second war”

    if Israel goes into Lebanon it will be a bigger fiasco than their invasion back in ’06. The problem for the Israelis is that Hezbollah has forced the Israelis to clear their people from the north and those people are not happy. Would they be stupid enough to do an invasion? Maybe. They too often let pride do their thinking for them. Trouble is that for them, things have not worked out well for them. Hamas is still fighting them and racking up kills. The inability to deal with the Lebanese border is also a source of frustration. World opinion is turning against them as they can see what the Israelis are doing in Gaza. Then there is their case pending at the ICC and possible arrest warrants which are driving them to distraction. This was not the way that they thought it would work out for them last October. And now there is the UN. The UN is adding Israel to a ‘blacklist’ of countries harming children in conflict and informed them by telephone. So Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan made things much worse by posting excerpts to Twitter of that phone call which is not done in the diplomatic world. Erdan said that Israel’s army is the most moral in the world, that this move rewards terrorists and is motivated by a hatred to Israel-

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/7/un-adding-israel-to-blacklist-of-countries-harming-children-in-conflict

    1. Emma

      They just did a ‘hostage’ (since the only picture I saw so far was a woman soldier) rescue that likely killed at least 200 civilians using the American ‘humanitarian pier’ and possibly with an American hostage rescue team. So deep American involvement.

      https://x.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1799427005177557501

      Its ‘success’ was enough to stop Gantz from making his announcement today. Gantz’s move was also propped up by recent American moves such as the recent ‘Israeli ceasefire plan’.

      Feels like something deepish is afoot.

      1. Emma

        You can probably tell the Democratic population by looking at who AIPAC is trying to primary out. So Bush, Bowman, Omar, and maybe half a dozen others. It’s fascinating that apparently some of these congresscritters actually thought AIPAC was their friends and could be reasoned with. Lol.

        Massie made clear that he’s in no way anti- Israel and just wanted to stick to his libertarian principles consistently, but they targeted him anyways.

    3. Jason Boxman

      I’ve been thinking about these Israeli northern areas lately and the Israelis that are likely impatient to return. I can’t imagine how this ends well. To leave it unresolved is to show weakness. From a country that responds with disproportionate force? Doubtful.

  27. The Rev Kev

    “With Marriages Declining in Japan, Tokyo’s Government Is Building Its Own Dating App”

    I suppose that the Japanese Government had a choice. They could have financially supported couples, especially women, to have children and not only at birth but also in the first vital years of that child’s formation. Take off some of the financial pressure that constantly bears down on them because of the way that their society is built. Or they could have just built a dating app. Guess they chose the later.

    1. digi_owl

      Yep, as i understand Japanese society still expect a young mother to drop any idea of a career and become a full time housewife. The way to quietly avoid that is to go eternally single.

    2. scott s.

      Watched a tv drama on this theme: “Kekkon Aite wa Chusen de (2018)” The synopsis:

      “Due to the nation’s low birth rate and aging population, the Japanese government implements a new policy. The new policy requires single men and women from the age of 25 to 39 to go on government planned blind dates. The government randomly selects men and women as blind date partners. Each person can say no 2 times if they do not like their partners. If they say no for the third time, then they have to serve 2 years on an anti-terrorism activities support team.”

  28. Emma

    The latest Tucker Carlson interview with Congressman Thomas Massie serves up confirmation for something we all should already know.

    https://x.com/AFpost/status/1799160371615506812

    Just as revealing is that right after the relevant that AIPAC has babysitters for Congresscritter except Massie and probably a dozen Democrats, Massie and Carlson says nothing about the genocide and goes on and on about how its their favorite country, love the ‘Israeli’ people and food, blah blah blah. But I shouldn’t expect anything else by sometime who already gave entirely sympathetic anytime to Bukele, Bolsanaro, and Milei in the last few months. You can bet that he’s not going to give equal time to Gustavo Petro or the new Mexican president.

  29. Wukchumni

    All hail the presumptive new Texas record holder, congrats are in order. Perhaps it could supply enough ice to make a blended piña colada?

    Storm trackers in the Texas Panhandle recovered a massive hail stone that researchers say is likely to be a new state record.

    Val and Amy Castor, veteran storm chasers with Oklahoma City television station KWTV, discovered a piece of hail more than 17.78cm long on Sunday along the side of the road near Vigo Park while they were chasing a major thunderstorm system.

    Val Castor said the stone was about the size of a pineapple.

    “That’s the biggest hail I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been chasing storms for more than 30 years,” Castor said.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/massive-texas-hail-stone-sets-new-state-record/2QPKQXIUKBEKXL367PTUYVJOQI/

  30. Es s Ce Tera

    re: Trump Unveils New Brand of Racism With Chuck Schumer Insult New Republic (furzy)

    I tend to think Trump isn’t capable of original thought, so I wonder where he actually first heard the “Schumer is like a Palestinian” line. Like a child he’s undoubtably repeating it from bits and pieces he hazily recollects from some overheard adult conversation somewhere. Whoever it came from, knowing this can inform in terms of how the next Trump administration will conduct itself. Who’s his daddy in these contexts?

    1. Darthbobber

      Like there’s something “new” about hating on “ragheads”, “sandn___ers”, “camel jockeys”? Where has the author been living?

    2. lyman alpha blob

      I didn’t see what was particularly racist about the comment – not a particularly intelligent comment, but just the usual boilerplate bloviation from Trump. The TDS-infected New Republic would be the ones inventing a new brand of racism here if you ask me.

      1. Carolinian

        Being The New Republic they probably think comparing anyone Jewish to a Palestinian is a slur on the Jewish person. Whereas some–less racist than TNR–might call it a complement.

        As for Trump, he’s doing his best with Hannity to show that he really is the agent of a foreign power (like so many others) but on the other hand he desperately wants to win re-election and is perhaps capable of changing his tune if he does.

        1. Daniil Adamov

          He is, of course, capable of that (and if I were American, that flexibility would probably be a point in his favour; not that it guarantees anything good, but at least it means he won’t be chained to the consensus, which is bad enough on some life-and-death issues to take a chance). However, which direction will he change in? I can’t see him finding much political profit in turning against Israel. His base seems overwhelmingly for it, as does the Republican elite.

  32. Blanksy

    “The Rot-Com Bubble”

    The IT Industrial Complex ran out of useful ideas years and years ago. Now it’s basically a bunch of solutions looking for problems. Not finding any that are profitable, they’re making them up as they go along. People are always a problem, so it’s working hard to make them obsolete.

    AI Has Already Become a Master of Lies And Deception

    Didn’t even have to be taught.

    1. Darthbobber

      Other than the somewhat more recent onset of the rot, is it that different from our other industrial behemoths in this respect?

  34. Wukchumni

    Snatch blade of agriculture from hand, grasshopper…
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Grasshoppers have invaded the Sacramento area, with reports of “unusual” insect activity on the rise.

    “In the past week, West Placer, Roseville and Lincoln have received an increase in reports of unusual grasshopper activity,” Placer County said in a Thursday news release.

    This is “way above and beyond what we have seen in Placer County,” said Josh Huntsinger, the county’s director of agriculture parks and resources.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article289095479.html

  35. The Rev Kev

    “Disaster narrowly avoided as plane clears Bristol Airport runway with just seconds to spare’

    ‘Pilots manually set the thrust level following a software glitch that Beoing was aware of before take-off.’

    And it was a Boeing 737-800 to boot. How is it that the aircraft could not have given a warning of ‘Insufficient thrust’ or some such? Maybe from now on, Boeing 737 pilots should manually set the thrust every single time when they take off. But what was Boeing thinking?

    1. flora

      It’s almost like self-regulation without consequences for malfeasance doesn’t work in or for the public’s interest. Who could’a knowd? / ;)

    2. scott s.

      Actual problem was the pilots did not set the proper thrust for take-off. I think in the “old days” it was Flight Engineer responsibility, but today the “pilot monitoring” (PM). On Boeing, the thrust levers are moved physically, either by hand or via servo motors so the commanded thrust is visually ascertained. This in contrast with the Airbus, where the throttle is placed in a “detent” position and doesn’t move, until the “climb” detent is selected.

      It seems that Boeing had a recommendation to replace the servo motors issued 2021, but the operator (TUI) hadn’t done it.

      1. Es s Ce Tera

        Isn’t it part of an FMS checklist, though? You plug in your departure airport and gate (which adds altimeter), you plug in the weight and fuel, you plug in the runway (or length), you plug in temperature, wind and direction, then the thrust regime per company policy for the conditions, and the FMS crunches the numbers and warns if you don’t have enough thrust for takeoff on that runway length under those conditions? At least that’s how it is with the A320, if that’s not how it is with the B777 then oh dear.

    2. scott s.

      Did a lot of work with Boeing (actually McDonnell Douglas) as contractor in my working days. The people working for us were pretty dedicated at providing systems and tech support that met our requirements. It’s fair to argue that the requirements were wrong, but that’s not the fault of the work force. Sure, McD was important to St Louis and their congress people reflected that.

      1. Carolinian

        The problem is that military Keynesianism isn’t a benign job creation phenomenon. Eventually someone like Madelyn Albright is going to say “what do we have this large military for if we aren’t going to use it?” It’s Chekhov’s pistol that appears in the first act.

        So yes the requirements were wrong IMO. Others may disagree.

  37. Jason Boxman

    COVID is that you?

    In fact, healthcare led all industries in job growth in the May jobs report, adding 68,000 jobs largely in ambulatory healthcare services, hospitals, and nursing and residential care facilities.

    “There are still shortages of workers to perform in-person jobs that are physically demanding or involve interacting with big crowds during cold and flu season,” Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica (CMA), wrote in a note following the JOLTS release.

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/getting-hired-now-is-easier-if-you-make-less-money-080044034.html

    1. flora

      How many docs, nurses, and staff quit or were fired during covid ? Filling the gap now?

        2. Neutrino

          Some have been solicited* to return, with predictable rejoinders! A former Kaiser Permanente nurse was in the news recently sharing the attempts to entice her.

          There will be an element of revenge porn for some, and more despair for others, with precious little acknowledgement of real costs borne by caregivers.

          *Solicitation, a term used in various legal contexts, ahem!

  38. flora

    apropos of nothing: I think the public statements by various groups supporting AI and DEI, (their public statesments, not necessarily their private rationals), both proceed from the same fundamental error: The belief that human minds are blanks slates that can be “reprogrammed” just like a computer, human mental “operating systems” can be rewritten.

    Except, neither AI boosters or DEI adherents ask themselves how humans “know” what they know. Shorter: you can lead horses to water but you can’t make them drink. See the dismal theatre box office receipts for new movie releases this year’s Memorial Day Weekend. / ;)

    1. Ron Singer

      ‘The belief that human minds are blanks slates that can be “reprogrammed” just like a computer, human mental “operating systems” can be rewritten.’

      Ah, but they can. One of my exes joined an Adventist cult but missed out on the Waco experience. You’d be amazed at how common mass induced psychogenic disorder is and has been. Ever hear of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon? Tanganyika laughing sickness? Social media? Young Republicans? There are many examples.

      That said, because humans are bad by nature, it’s difficult to use mental malleability to actually improve people but it’s time-tested to make them worse. It’s how mass-marketing works, and I’m not just talking Edward Bernays. Humans possess one characteristic shared with no other animal: the neurotic need to feel ‘special’. That makes people susceptible to all manner of con artists, and it’s believed by particularly insightful scholars to inevitably lead to the extinction of the species.

      You can watch it happen in real time.

      1. flora

        I enjoy your comment here. On the other hand, it does rest on a bit of begging the question (or two). / ;)

        1. flora

          adding to be clear, while I enjoy your comment and its argument, I don’t necessarily agree with its premises and conclusion. / ;)

          1. Ron Singer

            You’ll be happier without a fuller explanation, Flora. The interpretation underlies a certain understanding of why several catastrophic risks all seem to be too consistently trending down. Your overlords (and overladies) do not appear to share our preferences for how things should be. The way things are, and have been, and are becoming, I find it difficult to disagree with the pessimism of so many far finer minds than mine. Ce ne fait rien.

            The bad news on human nature, in 10 findings from psychology

            I could be wrong. But I doubt it.

            1. Daniil Adamov

              I don’t find those findings either difficult to accept or particularly dispiriting. Maybe it helps that I never consciously expected more of humanity to begin with and so could not be disappointed by it (if anything, I’ve had to revise my opinion of it upward over time, if not drastically). I think the article is right to note that people can fight those tendencies in themselves, if they are aware of them and care enough to do so. I also don’t think this “human badness” makes extinction inevitable, though it does make both a perfectly organised society and unfaltering linear progress impossible. (Extinction is probably inevitable in the long term, but not because of that. In the short term it may be avoided nonetheless.)

              1. flora

                To each in his own.

                or per google translate from English into French:
                À chacun ses goûts.

      2. Lefty Godot

        They’re not really blank slates, they mostly have the same programmable dials and levers that can be changed to reflect some socially reinforced settings. Because basically we are imitative creatures who want to fit in. But there are limits to what you can reprogram people to believe and act like, and those limits are enforced in the “wetware” of the human nervous system.

        I think the bigger problem with DEI and other idealistic PMC projects is that they mistake talking about a problem with the approved language and enforced consensus (groupthink) as actually solving the problem. When in reality it’s just talk. It’s part of a more general mindset, with some aspects derived from the “blank slate” theories, that physical reality and our embodiment as biochemical organisms are either illusions or secondary phenomena that can be infinitely shaped by our minds. In other words, that mind is everything, and that reshaping our mental attitudes by telling better stories about ourselves will change reality to conform to our new stories. It’s a deadly misconception that willfully ignores our physical basis and the limitations that our bodies and our physical environments place on us.

        1. hk

          Emperor’s new clothes problem redux. Having said that, though, it’s a more complex problem than what it seems, though, I think: if everyone agrees that the emperor is wearing the most wonderful clothes, does it matter if he is in fact naked? Well, it would matter in two contexts: first, if he comes into contact with the people who are not socialized into the “correct” belief, and this can be “solved” by forcing them to buy into the agreed upon convention one way or another. Second, and more difficult, challenge is when the emperor actually needs that wondrous outfit…but those occasions are rare anyways. So an agreed upon “falsehood as truth” can last a really long time, and even longer if the key people in the charade in fact know the truth and steer clear of the awkward situations where the clothes really are necessary.

          To be honest, I think this is where most “conventions” are. Dan Kahan, who did a facinating series of studies on creationists, noted that creationists are in fact often better educated than average people (b/c they are wealthier than the average people) and are correspondingly more “knowledgeable” about science. They are perfectly capable of giving right answers about evolution on biology tests even if they don’t believe it–because they have studied biology and know what the expected answers are. Unless they actually want to be in a field where they have to come to face to face with actual evolution, why should they actually “believe” it?

    2. Es s Ce Tera

      I would argue the drive for AI is mostly wishful thinking combined with lack of awareness of its limitations, whereas the drive for DEI is long based on reality and for that reason alone is changing minds – though I wouldn’t describe it as reprogramming.

      I think I might describe it as if everyone were their own operating system, they are also (collectively?) engaging in a process of identifying and correcting bugs and defects in their own programming.

      We could probably describe it as an epistemological process. “Why do I have this belief that black people are criminals, incapable of managing money, that women are weaker and emotional, and that both are incapable of leadership roles? Is there basis for it, or is it an unjustified and unexamined belief? Was I taught this as a child? Did I inherit these beliefs from somewhere? Are such beliefs unfounded generalizations, always incorrect, a type of error, or are such generalizations sometimes warranted? Should I try to avoid making generalizations of this type, are these beliefs incorrect, have they become habit, do I need to actively correct for it? How can we ensure such beliefs aren’t unduly influencing our business processes? How do these beliefs manifest in the workplace, does this reinforce them and what can we do to combat such?”

      Otherwise we’d all just be Archie Bunkers, entrenched in our views and incapable of changing or progressing. Women would still be in the kitchen unable to vote, would still be property. And I wouldn’t have just convinced a certain stubborn relation that the Indians aren’t taking over Canada.

      Also, anti-bias and DEI initiatives have been achieving measurable results, hence why the corporations do it.

      1. Daniil Adamov

        Having never encountered DEI in the wild, I can only assume that it can work when all participants really want it to work. But that if employees resist it (actively or more likely passively) or management only does it perfunctorily, or both, it falls apart. Which would happen often enough to make it look like a sham to outsiders.

  39. more news

    https://x.com/ArmchairW/status/1799285414424912340

    Krynki is back under full Russian control.

    In the annals of war, there have been few operational moves quite as boneheaded as the nine-month battle for this village, in which the AFU fed a division of elite troops into a cone of fire a squad at a time via small boats.⬇️

    As much mockery as the Ukrainian Hundred Days Offensive in Zaporozhe came in for, this benighted operation lasted close to three times as long and consisted largely of an extended, one-sided battle over a single village. Every day, the Ukrainian Army would brave Russian artillery to launch troops from the right bank in small boats. The ones that survived the shellfire would endure a hail of antitank drones to reach the left bank. The ones that survived the crossing would stagger ashore into a hellscape of mud swept by Russian fire, from which few returned. The couple times that the Ukrainian command got confident enough to try to send heavy equipment across, it was sunk in the river or quickly mired on the banks and destroyed.

    That this operation was launched at all in October 2023 – under the known to be false (and in any event instantly disproven) assumption that the Russians would break on contact – was insane. That it continued for as long as it did, costing of thousands of casualties for no gains of any significance, is a genuine “lions led by donkeys” moment.

    It’s more than a little ironic that the Ukrainian corps responsible for this historic debacle was rather optimistically dubbed the “Normandy Tactical Group,” and they finally lost the beachhead the day after D-Day. After this war is over, the Russians should raise a memorial at Krynki – not as the site of a great victory, for that it was not, but to commemorate a massacre.

    1. Cetzer

      Sounds like Paths of Glory by Kubrick with Kirk Douglas.
      And who knows? Perhaps the conquering of Krynki was planned as a birthday surprise for Zelensky… and then no one found the switch to turn the meat grinder off.

  40. Wukchumni

    Austrian-Canadian auto parts billionaire Frank Stronach was arrested Friday on sexual assault charges covering decades, police said Friday.

    Stronach, 91, was charged with five crimes including rape, indecent assault on a female, sexual assault and forcible confinement, Peel Regional Police said. He was released with conditions and will appear at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton, Ontario, at a later date, the police statement said.

    Peel Regional Police Constable Tyler Bell said there is more than one accuser but declined to say how many.

    https://nypost.com/2024/06/08/world-news/canadian-auto-parts-billionaire-frank-stronach-arrested-on-sexual-assault-charges/
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Interesting timing coming on the heels of the final leg of the Triple Crown…

    Stronach is co-owner of Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia-the most beautiful ‘oval office’ in the land as far as I’m concerned, and worth a gangload more as residential property as the Sport of Kings keeps fading away.

    It has an awful lot of ill-used land if you were looking at developing the property, with parking lots capable of parking 20,000 cars and extensive stable areas, etc.

    They tend to like to name housing developments in Cali after what used to be there, and ‘Backstretch Apartments’ has a nice ring to it, first month rent free!

    1. LifelongLib

      Apropos of nothing, “Hollywood” is a pretty name when you forget its current associations, and I once had the notion that there had been a grove of holly trees there. I was disappointed when I found out it wasn’t so…

    2. Jabura Basaidai

      when i waited tables at a high-end, white table cloths and napkins place in downtown Detroit we worked split-shifts – the long-time wait staff and some from the kitchen were horse-racing fanatics who would use the 2.5hr split to head to the track – i would usually go to Baker’s Lounge and chat up the owner before he opened the club – back then we had 3 race tracks – Detroit (DRC) and Hazel Park both which closed a while ago and a trotter track of harness racing called Northville Downs which closed last February – the only tip i was given when a waiter was find out if any jockeys are having a birthday and bet on them – there was one attempt to create a new race track by Detroit Metro airport around ’07-’08 to be called Pinnacle with big money behind it – promoter had two plans on the drawing board which would have transformed the area north of the airport, but the plans drew extreme criticism and threats of lawsuits from the Detroit casinos, as well as threats from Indian-based casino operations nearby – these plans were eventually withdrawn – when i was a teen would regular go watch the trotters and the friend i went with bet – Wuk you sound like you have a bit of gambling experience

      1. Wukchumni

        I was a regular visitor the to ‘oval office’, becoming a numismatist’s apprentice in Arcadia when I was 15.

        When poker came in vogue long after my gambling daze, i’d laugh at how elementary it was compared to playing the ponies, which has only about a few dozen factors you have to figure out, and that’s just on each horse in the race, it was akin to doing homework, and even with astute analysis you got it wrong most of the time. A humbling pursuit~

        One factor that had nothing to with form I utilized, was whether a nag took a dump in the post parade just before the race, I know i’d perform better with that task beyond me.

      2. skippy

        All Horse racing should be viewed in the context of the movie by Richard Dreyfuss, David Johansen, Teri Garr; Let it Ride.

        https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097731/?ref_=vp_close

        Pretty much encapsulates ever thing I saw and experienced back in the 80s/90s going to the track and high rollers casino AO’s. A complete vivisection of human behavior in that mind set due to environmental social factors.

        The only thing that comes close to it in my experience is big regional AmWay conventions in the 90s.

        1. Wukchumni

          A silly* fun movie, but 1980’s racing has nothing to do with today’s game where the tax breaks went away, and competition from the myriad of other gambling possibilities has the track reeling with short fields (Sunday’s races have a bunch of 5 and 6 horse** fields) and a lack of interest for fans who stay away in droves, as when you pay for parking, admittance, Daily Racing Form and program, you’re out about $25 by the time you make your first wager.

          I liked playing the ponies in Aussie in the 80’s, where you could bet on the tote, or with individual bookies on course-which was pretty trippy, you’d never see that here.

          * I tried to make a $2 blackjack bet ride a number of times, and the most I ever got it to was $160 with a blackjack in the middle after 6 wins in a row, number 7 was my downfall.

          ** One of the cruelties of the game is that it costs about as much to train & board the best horse as it does the worst horse, and nobody really wants to own the worst horses-which are claimers that can be bought by a new owner every time they race, for an established price.

          1. skippy

            Yeah I know its changed but, my thoughts were more about the psychology of the environment and watching people change due to it. Akin to Basic Training in the Army where you see people from all over mixing in a narrow environmental back drop … shenanigans lol.

            Yeah the bookies in OZ is a very old school thing and does add a bit of colour to the whole experience. That said big track days in OZ are just a huge piss up and high comedy for watching frocked up lasses get legless or worse … did the Doomben 10,000 high rollers tent more than a few times, when I first came. Then its off in limos to the casino after … never seen so many big boobs flying around on a dance floor and then zig-zag to the limos lmmao …

            Stocked [endless grog] private rooms filled with lots of testosterone and bloke only land, girls were in the stands and doing there thing till it was time to hit the first pub down the road and end up in Fortitude Valley Brisbane later than night.

            Still remember my 90s experience Santa Ana race track in the late 80s with some some Champaign, IL. sorts, big dog plonked 20K to win and then it was 8 balls and wild times in Hollywood, came a close second.

            At the end of the day I now find it a case of this is your brain on unearned yield psychological dynamics e,g, dopamine vs expectations thingy …

          2. skippy

            I would only add that Two Up at the Casino was a fun game, 50/50 odds and flipping in the pit was fun. Once saw a girl flip 20 times and get heads which really messed with the punters.

  41. Vander Resende

    “”Copernicus’ data showed each month since July 2023 has been at least 1.5 degrees warmer than temperatures before industrialization, when humans started burning large amounts of planet-heating fossil fuels.

    The average global temperature over the past 12 months was 1.63 degrees above these pre-industrial levels.””
    https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/05/climate/12-months-record-heat-un-speech/index.html#:~:text=Copernicus%E2%80%99%20data%20showed,pre%2Dindustrial%20levels.

  42. Jason Boxman

    Such hopelessness. Latest report from Pandemic safe messaging on online dating, NIH nurse just told me that the Pandemic is over, and they’ve just lifted the mask mandate there. Someone else viciously told me off, and asked if I was seeing counseling, which I found amusing, since the deniers won, why be so angry? I passed the nurse along the latest FRED disability numbers from BLS. I don’t expect a response.

    1. Lena

      This is very sad, Jason. Is there a Covid aware/conscious online dating site that you could join? I don’t know any but it seems like a possibility. If not, someone should start one.

      I am fortunate to have a longtime partner who is Covid aware and he is careful of my safety. Trying to find a partner during this ongoing pandemic would be difficult, no doubt. I wish you the best.

      1. JM

        I understand that there is a Covid conscious dating group on Facebook, it came up in a discussion I saw on a general “still coviding” one a short while ago. I didn’t look deeper into it, but that might be with considering. I’ll probably give it a try myself when I start looking again.

      2. Jason Boxman

        Thanks!

        I actually did get a response from the NIH nurse. I think she was generally curious what my deal was, so I explained at length the dangers as I understand them, and layered mitigations. She said you can get hit by a truck too tomorrow. I explained risk reduction, precautionary principle, and so on. Other than briefly derisively commenting that she hopes I find my anti-COVID queen, she’s been polite, and I think genuinely curious why I’m concerned.

        I did finally ask what level of evidence might convince her that infection and repeat infection is dangerous, and whether 70k dead Americans confirmed from COVID last year, way more than the flu, is too low a threshold to merit consideration. That’s somewhat combative, I guess, so that’s probably the end of that.

        The person quoted in Scientific American I linked earlier actually works at NIH as well, I suggested that she can email him, as she works at NIH, and perhaps have him confirm COVID infections are dangerous.

        Who knows, maybe some of this will end up reducing some harm in the world; but I don’t expect any more than that. In half a dozen chats with women in healthcare, not a single one takes it seriously, at all. An emergency nurse even related that she was there when people were dying in droves, but it really is over now, did I have a bad experience?

        Sigh.

  43. Craig H.

    Googling world’s largest solar farm was fun.

    This one

    4 Million Solar Panels Seen from Space

    is from 2017. But from my computer today the google satellite image is the before shot, not the after shot. I was sort of hoping I could find the new one for a couple minutes there. : (

  44. Jason Boxman

    Garbage article in Scientific saying we just don’t know if reinfection is bad

    How Risky Are Repeat COVID Infections? What We Know So Far

    Do have this quote early

    “However you slice it, whatever long-term health effect you look at, the risk [from reinfection] is not zero,” says Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “The truth is that, yes, we’re sick and tired of the virus, we’re sick and tired of the pandemic—but it’s still here. It’s still hurting people.”

  45. Jason Boxman

    From Real Estate Investors Are Wiped Out in Bets Fueled by Wall Street Loans

    But for many apartments, the highest bids were coming from companies that virtually no one had heard of — firms known as real estate syndicators. They pool money from affluent individuals to buy properties, enabling investors to benefit from rising values and rents without having to deal with the headaches of renovations and financing.

    What a debacle; On the Twitter I’d see quite a few posts about real estate deals. The best advice I ever saw was never invest more than 5% in a syndication, and if you don’t have at least 5 million dollars in investable cash, don’t get involved. And do your due diligence, as good GPs don’t want for LPs. Why would a successful GP need to talk to you, particularly from Twitter? But a lot of people seem to be getting into these things, without understanding the risks, sucked in by players on Twitter.

    “When you’re at a casino, you know what you’re doing is gambling,” said Aleksey Chernobelskiy, whose firm, Centrio Capital Partners, runs a service helping retail investors salvage their investments in multifamily deals. “Here, people were gambling but they didn’t know it.”

    And I see Chernobelskiy on Twitter, where he offers deal reviews, as a service.

    Nathe shifted her retirement strategy during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it seemed like everyone in the world was getting rich. Her family had lived well on her husband’s earnings as a dentist, but after putting four kids through medical school, their 401(k) wasn’t cutting it.

    Oops. I dunno what possesses people to think that they can do better than VTI and chill? There’s no free money out there, unless you know someone in the government that can hook you up on some grift.

    The idea of pooling money from multiple investors to buy and manage real estate is an old one. But legislation during the Obama administration opened the way for such investments to be marketed through public channels, including social media. One of the catalysts for explosive growth came from CLOs, a cousin of the high-risk financial product that inflated the subprime lending bubble of old.

    lol Obama

  46. Trees&Trunks

    I have to give kudos to this guy. Maybe the only one in the AI-swamp that is inflicting it on himself. His face really captures the stench of AI.

    Local AI Developer Braces Himself For Potential Hallucinations By His Latest Model ✨

    MISSOULA, MT—Despite extensive testing on his local machine, the ambitious software engineer couldn’t be too sure how his new AI model might behave in the live event that Wednesday.

    “Every time we rehearsed this demo, things went pretty smoothly, although we had a few near misses. I always get a little nervous in front of a live crowd.”

    “I trained it with cheap data and to be honest, we didn’t have time to review it all. Fingers crossed.” 🤞

    Although in his experience, his AI agent tended to use so-called RAG techniques effectively; the results were not 100% to be trusted.

    “There’s always a risk that the guardrails that I put in place might not work. I can’t be sure, so I have to trust the process and celebrate the creativity.”

    https://www.tiktok.com/@gloss/video/7377887236567731498

      1. flora

        adding: “not 100% to be trusted.” When AI becomes its own references in its algorithm, equal to and not subordinate to all other references, well there ya go. Not sure error is “creativity.” I had many “creative” answers in math tests back in the day. Indeed. / ;)

          1. flora

            Shorter: AI might be a good assistant in many cases, but never the final arbiter of relevant facts. imo.

            1. Polar Socialist

              And that’s how it will emerge after a lot of current investors have burned themselves and most of the over-hyped startups have disappeared. Then people who know what they are doing will collect the pieces and build usable implementations.

              That’s how most of the tech “innovations” progress trough their lifetime: first barely noticed for a long time, then the Next Big Thing, then the overdrive, eventual fall and finally – maturity. The phenomena is so prevalent it even has a name: Gartner Hype Cycle.

    2. c_heale

      If LLM’s can’t be trusted they have no use, since in most applications reliability is the most important thing.

      This is the elephant in the room. LLM’s are junk.

  47. ChrisFromGA

    So I think I have kind of pieces together what sort of skull-duggery the Blinkenator and his brain-damaged boss are up to with their fake ceasefire.

    (The media continue to not report honestly and with a spirit of adversarial journalistic techniques to get to the truth.)

    The Economist had a piece yesterday that explained some of the spy v. spy machinations. I don’t have to e link handy, but it stated that the peace plan was based on an earlier Israeli working document that had not been accepted nor approved by the Netanyahu government. It was deliberately leaked on a Friday after Israel has gone to bed for the Sabbath. This is the equivalent of breaking into a lawyers office and stealing a draft document of a contract that has not been approved by the firm.

    Then presenting it as a legitimate offer to the other side.

    So by falsely representing the draft proposal as being an approved Israeli document, they tried to pull the wool over everybodies eyes.

    This explains a lot – why Netanyahu repudiated it; why Hamas rejected it (this is not being widely reported in the press, either.)

    Seems that there is collusion as well in the MSM (besides the Economist) in not reporting fairly that this is all a bad faith move. No peace plan based on outright lies that misrepresent one or both sides true positions can succeed.

    1. ChrisFromGA

      Sorry for the typos – sent from iPhone. Should read “I think I have pieced together ..”

      1. ChrisFromGA

        Of course! Permission granted.

        It’s shorter than “he who strums his Stratocaster while Kharkiv burns” and catchier.

        1. Wukchumni

          We were eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow is just Blinken. (with apologies to Dean Rusk…)

  48. juliania

    “…Slightly contradicting Mao …, real power does not come from the barrel of a gun (or from a hypersonic nuclear missile); it comes from narrative control, or what we used to call “soft power.” The difference now is that the H—— does not control soft power anymore. The Global Majority is perfecting, in real-time, its own soft power counterpunches …”

    [from the latest editorial of Pepe Rodriguez at The Cradle]

    I was looking for a ray of hope this morning. Even if this one isn’t very bright at present, maybe, if we think about it some more, it will grow stronger.

  49. steppenwolf fetchit

    . . . ” Sunak’s D-day failure is a campaign disaster – and a sign he’s forgotten the very recent past Guardian” . . . really? What if it is a sign that he secretly wants to lose the election to Starmer so that Sunak does not have to be the “wartime Prime Minister”?

    I remember a phrase from that journalist who used to run the From The Wilderness website. I forget his name. But the phrase was . . . ” throw the election like a flaming bobcat on meth”. What if Sunak wants to throw the election like it was a flaming bobcat on meth? And let Starmer catch it?

    Starmer will end up like the proverbial ” dog who caught the flaming bobcat on meth”. What will Starmer do with it after he catches it?

    1. Lefty Godot

      Mike Ruppert (“that journalist who used to run the From The Wilderness”). R.I.P.

  50. Carolinian

    Patrick Lawrence on the (still a bit murky) Scott Ritter incident.

    This is why Clinton’s defeat landed so hard among the mainstream Democrats. It was more, much more, than a loss at the polls. Trump’s victory contradicted what had become a prevalent consciousness among American liberals. Biden’s win in 2020 was a kind of salvage job: It put the liberal narrative back on track. But something had happened in the years after Clinton’s November 2016 loss. Liberals had assumed an uncompromising ideological righteousness such that we can now legitimately call them authoritarians—soft despots in de Tocqueville’s terminology, apple-pie authoritarians in mine. The cause is upside-down to the Cold War cause, but these people are at least as dangerous as the McCarthyites, and, as I have suggested, maybe more so.

    We learned something important during those years. Deprived of what they considered their right as conferred by the force of history, liberals demonstrated that they would stop at nothing in the cause of retrieving it. Even those institutions that must stand above the political pit if a democracy is to have any chance of working, notably but not only the judiciary, were intruded upon in the liberal authoritarian project. Nothing was off limits.

    https://scheerpost.com/2024/06/08/patrick-lawrence-scott-ritter-and-the-liberal-authoritarians/

    One agrees while hoping this is overstated. After all this time around the Maddow crowd will be defending, not a righteously entitled (in her own mind) HRC, but an addled old man who many of them admit needs to go. The ravages of old age may have the last word.

  51. Wukchumni

    Watching the Stanley Cup finals and the Russian goaltender for the Florida Panthers is having an amazing game, along with the other Russian players on the team, but you hardly hear the ‘R’ word mentioned, hmmmmm.

    An advert for Stoli Vodka is prominently placed on the ice, too.

    You’d almost never know we have given arms to Ukraine to hit targets within Russia~

  52. The Rev Kev

    “Sunak’s D-day failure is a campaign disaster – and a sign he’s forgotten the very recent past’

    It should be added that Sunak deliberately blew away a photo op of him standing with Biden, Macron & Scholz at the beaches of Normandy forcing Cameron to stand in for him. And the reason that he did so was to do a TV interview that will not be aired till Wednesday. For all his wealth, the guy is in dire need of a clue.

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