Does the Fed Still Believe in the NAIRU? J. W. Mason’s Money and Things
Life makes mistakes Aeon (alynch)
Climate/Environment
Silicon Valley’s Elite Pour Money Into Blotting Out the Sun Bloomberg
Geoengineering: Building ethics, transparency and inclusion into climate intervention research World Economic Forum
***
Arkansas could be a lithium treasure trove Supply Chain Dive
In a first, US approves massive new lithium mine in Nevada Electrek
Could seaweed farms become the next generation of mines? Mining
***
A cooling shift: Slowing ocean circulation may temper Arctic temperature rise Phys.org
Float On The Baffler. “Utopian scheming in the Maldives.”
Water
Federal Court Ruling on a Reservoir Expansion Could Have Big Implications for the Colorado River Inside Climate News
We can Terraform the American West Casey Handmer’s Blog
Africa
World Bank Rhetoric Still Sounds a Lot Like Structural Adjustment…A Micro-Case Study from Nigeria Sawahil
What’s next for the Nigerian left? Africa Is A Country
India
The Big Bharat Boom Open Magazine
Consumption Data Shows the Indian Middle-Class Is Shrinking The Wire
Japan
Japan’s ruling bloc suffers historic setback, losing majority in parliament Anadolu Agency
The End of the “Abe Era”? Tokyo Review
China?
China launches new lending tool ahead of year-end loan expiry Channel News Asia
Analysis-Some companies change tack in China with no recovery in sight Reuters
China punished 589,000 people for graft in nine months The Business Times
China to offer Taliban tariff-free trade as it inches closer to isolated resource-rich regime Reuters
Old Blighty
Britain Plans to Challenge China’s Pacific Dominance – And Why It Matters Bloomberg
European Disunion
US likely to pressure EU for more curbs on China exports, ASML says Semafor
Protests in Germany against nuclear cooperation with Russia Ukrayinska Pravda
Bulgaria’s populist former PM Borissov seeks comeback after general election win Bne Intellinews
Syraqistan
A month into war, Lebanon operation takes toll – analysis The Jerusalem Post
‘We thought we were the only ones developing drones, we weren’t prepared for attacks’ Ynet
Gallant said to tell Netanyahu management of war directionless, goals need updating Times of Israel
Israel’s Netanyahu rejects Egyptian cease-fire initiative in Gaza Anadolu Agency
Israel wiping out Gaza health sector to ‘kill as many as possible’ The Cradle
***
The Israeli attack on Iran: what do we know? And what does it mean? Gilbert Doctorow
Netanyahu has high hopes of Trump. Might he be mistaken? Christian Science Monitor
Israeli Digital Intelligence Firm Aims to Become Top U.S. Contractor Drop Site
***
Turkey strikes multiple SDF sites across northeastern Syria The New Arab
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine Is Striking Deeper Inside Russia—and Reshaping the War WSJ
Putin hopes NATO heard warning on long-range strikes RT
Ukrainian President’s Office asserts Russia must withdraw to positions as of 24 February 2022 to start peace talks Ukrainska Pravda
Zelenskyy expects more support packages for Ukraine in coming week Ukrainska Pravda
Ukraine hopes Washington will support Kyiv’s NATO bid after elections, as opposition in Europe persists Kyiv Independent
Why are young Russians becoming ‘saboteurs’? Deutsche Welle. The deck: “Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, arson attacks by juveniles on rail infrastructure and military in Russia have increased. Sometimes, youths are promised money for carrying out these attacks.”
The Caucasus
President of Georgia: “The elections are illegitimate; this was a Russian special operation” JAM News
EU Parliament calls for sanctions against Azerbaijani officials OC Media
South of the Border
The Caribbean
The U.S. Continues Its Terror Campaign Against Cuba Black Agenda Report
2024
“The evils of ‘lesser evilism.’” The Floutist
Michelle Obama Scolds Michigan: It’s Not Funny Matt Taibbi, Racket News
***
As Trump courts their vote, comedian at his rally makes racist jokes about Latinos and Puerto Rico NBC News. Such as:
“There’s a lot going on. I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico” pic.twitter.com/IXbXqDijyU
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 27, 2024
***
The Small Midwestern Cities That Could Play a Pivotal Role in This Year’s Elections Alec MacGillis, ProPublica
In defense of the non-voter The Hill
Antitrust
Monopoly Round-Up: Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post Teach Democrats About Billionaires BIG by Matt Stoller
Our Famously Free Press
Literary Institutions Are Pressuring Authors to Remain Silent About Gaza Truthout
Our web host has confirmed seven recent data breaches and now it appears that our site has been totally replaced. We have been hacked.
— Consortium News (@Consortiumnews) October 27, 2024
Screening Room
Gates-washing the future Disconnect
Groves of Academe
US universities intensify crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism Middle East Eye
Digital Watch
Instagram saves the best video quality for the most popular content The Verge
Mexican TikTokers have code words to report on narco-violence without getting banned Rest of World
Sports Desk
Take Me Out to the Mallpark The Baffler
Class Warfare
Private Equity Is Gunning for Wisconsin’s County-Owned Nursing Homes Barn Raiser
Demonize the Rich Hamilton Nolan
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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(melody borrowed from Sinister Purpose by Creedence Clearwater Revival
(Anyone who hasn’t explored Israel’s Lavender AI targeting software system for
killing humans faster can find the details here)
Pink skin turns to gray
We got here too late
Use a phone they’ll hit you
Eyes have gone opaque
Lavender searches
Zion’s way of war
Digital commands
Ones and Oh’s are godless
Perfectly insane
Kills more people faster
Delerium shall reign
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Running up the score
AI’s Holy Land
(musical interlude)
End your family tree
That’s been normalized
Damn if we aren’t clever
Killing from the skies
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War to end all war
AI’s Promised Land
“Ukrainian President’s Office asserts Russia must withdraw to positions as of 24 February 2022 to start peace talks”
1945 – ‘Japan’s Emperor Hirohito asserts the US must withdraw to positions as of 4th June 1942 to start peace talks’
nice one, a keeper
Zelensky is merely waiting for Steiner’s attack to save him…
He means Gostomel airport.
1865 – Jefferson Davis insists that Lincoln must withdraw from Kentucky, Missouri, and “NW Virginia” to before negotiations can start.
Seems a silly thing for z to say. Or maybe not… would he be shot if he avoided silliness?
Looking at the situation on the Donbass front, where the Russians seem to advance kilometers per day now (do 8 mile pincers in a few days count as “big arrow”?) saying silly things is all he has left.
It may be too early to say the Ukrainian front in the south has collapsed, but it is in a deep, deep crisis at the moment. Russians can already pull off armored surprise attacks indicating either communication problems or intelligence failures on Ukrainian side.
In a few days (or weeks) Russians will be gaining “operational space” with the Ukrainian lines stretched from thin to non-existent while there’s no more “natural” defense lines between Russians and the Dniepr.
Leonard Peltier asserts FBI and Coleman correctional staff withdraw to positions on Plymouth Rock as of December 1620 in order to commence parole talk.
Re: Netanyahu deep-sixes Egyptian proposal for two-day ceasefire
I need some help from Peanuts aficionados. Did Lucy rip the football away from Charlie Brown that many (eleven) times? I think that by the 7th or 8th time, even Charlie Brown figured it out and stopped playing the game.
Are they going to bomb Egypt’s President Sisi like that have for every other leader that was trying to negotiate a cease fire?
Good question. I’d be very careful if I were al-Sisi, at the next convocation of the Lucy/Charlie Brown field goal attempt. Hire a food taster, and bring explosive-sniffing dogs.
Like flipping a switch, the “rules based order” could turn Sisi into Saddam.
Well, that presupposes that al-Sisi is any sort of threat to Bibi. His behavior thus far is more like a lapdog, so maybe he can sleep a bit easier, for now.
Erdogan, on the other hand, needs to hire a food taster tout-suite.
Sisi also has to mind more than one string attached to his rule.
Amazing what you can find on the Net:
“There are 37 strips where Lucy herself actually pulled the ball from Charlie Brown”
On the bright side, any world leader that gullible… probably wouldn’t be a world leader.
Blinken is only at try number 11, so he’s got a ways to go to reach Charlie Brown-level futility.
But then again, after the election, I suspect that this game will be cancelled due to darkness.
But would be a serious candidate to replace Zhelenski.
Despite living about 15 miles from the Charles Schultz museum in Santa Rosa, Ca, I was unaware of the rich history of the Charlie Brown – Lucy football.
https://slate.com/culture/2014/10/the-history-of-lucys-pulling-the-football-away-from-charlie-brown-in-peanuts.html
I don’t believe Brown ever gave up hope, a metaphor for eight years of Obama.
I think I read that Lucy was a stand in for Schultz’s wife and he identified with Charlie Brown. Somehow he found the motivation to stay married to her.
Schulz kept a low profile even in his hometown. About 30 years ago I happened to be in Santa Rosa. One story from the locals told to me was that Schulz was turned away from a local eatery due to a lack of a necktie. When the management were informed of their gaffe, they were horrified and set about making things right.
A public apology and a change in dress code go a long ways toward restoring goodwill.
In a way, he got to kick that football after all.
I remember the news reports about Schulz being turned away from the restaurant.
Schulz taught a class in cartooning at the local junior college in the early years.
He would also quietly give money to people in need.
I haven’t been to the small restaurant in the ice rink Schulz built for a few years, but as I remember the restaurant permanently reserved the table at which he would have breakfast.
When Schulz had heart surgery at the local hospital, he drew a Snoopy cartoon on one of the hospital walls. When the hospital remodeled, they preserved the cartoon.
Schulz is a good example of a civic minded person who was very wealthy.
Re: Britain Plans to Challenge China’s Pacific Dominance – And Why It Matters
“Still, Britain can’t project maritime power the way it once did. The aircraft carriers have been dogged by engineering problems and the Royal Navy has fewer than 70 surface ships”
Hahaha ok sure. In other news I, a 78kg man, plan to challenge the moon’s dominance of the night sky.
Opium War, or just a Hopium War?
Hopium, no understanding of reality whatsoever.
Late, late Soviet style delusions.
What’s the neoliberal analogue to the Berlin Wall? I’m afraid it might be Gaza, it appears the Soviets were much nicer people.
The last time the Royal Navy sent a ship called the Prince of Wales to fight in the Pacific, it did not turn out well.
Starmer has evidently decided that Gladstone was thoroughly wrong, and is preparing the UK for Opium War III:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/26/uk-increase-military-presence-indo-pacific-counter-china
October 26, 2024
UK to increase military presence in Indo-Pacific to counter China
Keir Starmer to announce expansion in region that will also include business club to increase economic ties
You would think that what happened when the UK sent the “HMS Prince of Wales” and “HMS Repulse” to the Far East would be warning enough-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_Prince_of_Wales_and_Repulse
Yep, and this time China is actually building a functional “Co-Prosperity Sphere.”
Yeah, but without the bombings, the massacres, the Nankings and all the rest of it.
And the Royal Navy no longer has Hong Kong nor Singapore to operate from.
Will there be submarines with hungry sailors?
A long voyage so be sure to pack the limes.
As
Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon
Ourselves to be, We do.
Send your manufacturing to China and other Asian countries and… lose your manufacturing capacity. One thing about the neolibs: they are clueless about how the analog world works. They know the price of everything and the value of nothing… like a strong manufacturing base. / my 2 cents
I think they envision a world with privatized militias that protect corporations and oligarchs even more explicitly. And the desire is for these to be more powerful than governments that are alleged to represent wider populations.
Like feudal lords with armies and other military equipment.
Imagine going back to the Middle Ages – but with smartphones!
Paging Eric Prince … please come to the melanin-absent white phone …
The MaddAdams Trilogy by Margaret Attwood perfectly encapsulates such a world.
Which dovetails with the ProPublica article about the small midwestern cities. I’ve lived in or near these places most of my life. It is easy to see things were not as they have become in Flint and Peoria and Lima and South Bend and so on. Which dovetails further with Michelle Obama lecturing Kalamazoo. The Kalamazoo Battle Creek area had a horrible oil spill during The Most Holy O’s first term, same time as the big one in the Gulf of Mexico. Flint had its water crisis come to the fore in his second. What did the donkeys do for these Michiganders? (Still waiting…)
They only needed one boat, one BBC defence correspondent, and a set of replacement underwear, to challenge Russians in the Black Sea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Black_Sea_incident
I guess Keir Starmer would never have given up Hong Kong Island. Probably would have evicted all the residents and leased it to the Americans as a military base.
“Silicon Valley’s Elite Pour Money Into Blotting Out the Sun”
I wonder where they got the idea for that from?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3LbxDZRgA4 (1:36 mins)
What would happen if you dropped a bomb into a volcano?
According to Wikipedia, Mount Pinatubo is still active, so why build a big gun called Pina2bo if you can simply “use” the real thing? Maybe the plan here is to have a quick hot war in the Pacific so that either the US or China can drop a bomb inside the volcano so we can pollute the world for a few more years?
Maybe they can take up Trump’s idea of bombing a hurricane to see if it can be broken up instead. Of course they would have to use a nuke because of how large they are but if it did not work, then you would have an “atomic hurricane” to deal with. Can you imagine?
bleach and blacklight futures. Get rid of that long covid so one can get after re-developing that Florida coast line!
I thought thought that’s what the headline was going for. Some fussbutt probably cut mankind’s greatest dream.
What we really need is a demonic sword that works as a key to unlock a river that flows into a volcano, prompting it to explode violently.
This will solve climate change.
Sounds like Yellowstone Park!?
The demonic sword… I am thinking Kevin Costner and Hollywood. Yellowstone!
A Realtor Runs Through it? That was Brad Pitt…
>Silicon Valley’s Elite Pour Money Into Blotting Out the Sun Bloomberg
From the article:
A couple of startups are already trying to deploy this untested technology or betting governments will eventually use it, while a cluster of Bay Area nonprofits are backing research into its planetary impact.
Recent Tennessee legislation
Republican Gov. Bill Lee has quietly signed a bill into law that sponsors say will prohibit the deployment of “chemtrails” over Tennessee.
This weekend I took pictures of chem/con trails over my rural central PA town. The weather here has been exceptionally nice this year and the fall foliage as colorful as I can remember. So when on certain days there is a lot of activity overhead that scars the sky with plumes of white emission that persist and spread until the cerulean blue becomes a faded ashen gray, it gets my attention. I can definitively assert that these overhead planes are not commercial jet airlines, since I deal with airline routes as part of my job
What they are doing and why I don’t know. What I do know is that language is manipulated so that when a “thought-terminating cliché” like “conspiracy theory” is attached to an informed opinion on a matter like stratospheric aerosol injection, further discussion on the topic is problematic at best and takes a certain level of trust that people are reticent to give you, at least that has been my experience.
So we’re proposing blotting out the Sun to reduce temps.
Any input from the solar panel industry?
I needed that laugh.
At this point, it’s all about just attracting funds for stock options.
Or an edge in Satellite technology?
Draper is currently canceling all his federal contracts and redoing taxes to excluded credits and incentives, no doubt.
Yep. I’ve mentioned this before and received scoffs of disbelief. That’s OK. I believe in free speech and challenging assertions. That said, I see in my state what you see in your state. One question is what chemicals are being sprayed. What polluting effect is it having on air, surface water and soil? Calling it a Connecticut Theory (/ ;) is a way to avoid or derail questions. And if the spraying is designed to keep radiant energy from entering the earth’s lower atmosphere, how is it not preventing the earths own radiant energy from escaping the earths atmosphere at night? Here’s a docu on the spraying from Geoengineering Watch. Are they right about somethings, if not everything? I don’t know. I do think something is going on. Questions need to be asked, imo. utube. ~2 hours.
The Dimming, Full Length Climate Engineering Documentary ( Geoengineering Watch )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf78rEAJvhY
Yes, the background music is distracting, even annoying. The data is interesting, imo.
Dane Wigington is persistant if nothing else, history will prove him a saint or a charlatan, personally I’m betting on sainthood.
Without wishing to endorse anything, the incoming and outgoing radiations have different wavelengths. The same material might reflect one but transmit the other.
Delivery drivers in China are having a meltdown
Its seems poor labor protection for gig delivery workers is not limited to the West.
>The End of the “Abe Era”? Tokyo Review
The inauguration of Ishiba Shigeru as the 112th prime minister of Japan signals the end of what can be described as the “Abe era” of Japanese politics
I’m still not clear on all the circumstances surrounding Abe’s assassination and how his policies conflicted with the trajectory of U.S. policy in the region.
On 8 July 2022, Abe was assassinated while delivering a campaign speech in Nara two days before the 10 July upper house elections.
But don’t worry, Rueter is on the job making sure that there are no wild and unsubstantiated claims floating around.
No evidence Shinzo Abe killed for not following ‘WEF orders’
https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/no-evidence-shinzo-abe-killed-for-not-following-wef-orders-idUSL1N2YT0XV/
“EU Parliament calls for sanctions against Azerbaijani officials”
Jesus wept. The EU Parliament just can’t help themselves, can they? It was only a coupla days ago that European Council President Charles Michel came out and said that the EU had to stop lecturing other parts of the world and be more respectful of partners. The EU wants to get its grubby mitts into the Caucus but here they are demanding that Azerbaijan re-orientate their foreign policy to the EU’s liking, reorganize their justice system, release all ‘political’ prisoners and trash their economy. Do they even hear what they are saying? This will not win them many friends in the Caucus.
https://www.rt.com/news/606444-eu-stop-lecturing-world/
Parenthetically, of late I’ve taken to watching Aliev’s – der Fuhrer of Azerbaijan – body language whenever he shows up to any sort of summit or meeting, and he shows up to a lot of them, the BRICS summit being the latest. The man is HAPPY. Like a cat that’s just consumed two whole canaries. Which makes sense, since between the demand for his gas, primarily from the Europeans, the north-south trade routes being established through or past him, and the Armenians being forced to essentially accept any demand he makes of them, life is good. Life is better than good. At least for as long as he does not do anything to unduly annoy the Iranians, who seem highly sensitive about a strengthening Azeri state on their border.
My point being, I don’t think he cares what a bunch of nitwits in the EU Parliament say, or do, or perform an interpretive dance about. Because the EU countries will still buy his gas, among other things.
> Life makes mistakes Aeon (alynch)
> A cooling shift: Slowing ocean circulation may temper Arctic temperature rise Phys.org
With regard to the first, mutations are errors that (in aggregate) increase the species capacity to deal with change, which are different than the volitional errors of decision-making. Philosophers get this.
As for the second, the highlight indicates a word I see a lot in climate science, and it’s been a decent surrogate for error bars. But the world is twisting the parameters used to build the knowledge, and now that may is becoming a big Error.
The first mention in Google Scholar of ‘Central American gyre’ is:
> The Influence of a Precursor Central American Gyre and a Northerly Surge into the Gulf of Tehuantepec on the Formation of Hurricane Patricia in October 2015
Scholar lists 26 articles referencing the gyre. The gyre is the cauldron which cooked up Hurricance Beryl, which went Cat 5 before landfall. No one saw it coming. That’s multiple Cat 5’s that blew up fast, without model warming.
So it’s not the uncertainty within the model, it’s that what is most important is not even represented in the model. That’s a Mistake.
We’re gonna need a bigger model.
On a more serious note, have you any ideas as to the nature of the Mistake within the current model? In layman’s terms, please.
Philosopher John Boyd:
> When this orderly (and pleasant) state is reached the concept becomes a coherent pattern of ideas and interactions that can be used to describe some aspect of observed reality. As a consequence, there is little, or no, further appeal to alternative ideas and interactions in an effort to either expand, complete, or modify the concept. Instead, the effort is turned inward towards fine tuning the ideas and interactions in order to improve generality and produce a more precise match of the conceptual pattern with reality.
Weather models are extremely refined and successful. However, the inputs used to create the parameters the models use have changed with the massive increases in Earth’s energy imbalance. While the models are better, the outcomes are worse.
In the groundwater lab, we modeled wells as point sources. We could tell if a new well was present by the effect on the water table, even if it hadn’t been logged. So, bootstrapping, you could paste in a new heat source in the gyre, and maybe get better short-term results. But the real problem is, a complex system is starting to pop in unexpected ways, and current models are now dangerously insufficient.
I am just above layman in my expertise on groundwater hydrology, but I have about 100 observational wells with data on water levels as well as drought levels and would like to see if there is any association there (don’t have data on extraction levels though). I am also thinking to use lags for drought data as well. Could you provide any pointers?
More data points, less precision per point, as levels could change significantly due to things like atmospheric pressure, so there’s lots of local variation. Same with rainfall. So you need some form of data smoothing.
Lags would be interesting, but permeability differences could be vexing. It depends on the underlying rock structure. What could work well in a sand aquifer could be misleading in fractured limestone.
These all all great points, thank you Steve! I might have access to some of that information.
>Rethinking International Law After Gaza Symposium: International Law Beneath the Rubble – Academic Complicity in Gaza Genocide OpinioJuris
The article nails it…saved to my ever growing digital folder on the subject for reference; though I wonder to myself, to what end do I save these articles.
…the ruling class upholds zionism, whether through IHRA, the university board statement, or the academic-military-research pipeline. Samir Amin describes this cabal as a ‘clergy’, an academic clergy, devised to give a semblance of legitimacy to the ruling class through intellectual levers of power. The neoliberal veneer of inclusivity is not a commitment to justice but a strategic mechanism designed to maintain power, manage dissent, and counter-insurgency. It co-opts Palestinian scholars and activists, incorporating them into the very institutions that continue to actively participate in their oppression whether by virtue of their entanglement with the military industry or through advancing Western imperialist propaganda.
Any news from ConsortiumNews?
I am bit early it being Monday and me in Europe.
But I really hope their archive stayed safe.
And I am sure this was Russian government hackers.
I hope NC has safeguards against this kind of shit…
Serious knowledge is at stake in these spaces.
Just think of the bust of Chris Hedges´s site with RT and how valuable that was and that´s just one person.
Probably not directly related but when I try to reach one of my go to sites, Microbe TV, I get the following warning:
There are no password requirements to access the site, nor have I provided the site with any personal or financial info. I’ve tried a number of suggested remedies but none work. Their content is still available, evidently safely, on YouTube but that content is inconveniently lacking the show notes and links to the research papers they discuss that are provided at their own site.
It’s not related. You’re seeing a standard warning for non-https sites.
As I understand it, this is your browser letting you know that it cannot verify a secure https connection to the site you are trying to access. It could be because https is not configured, or because of an expired, or invalid, SSL certificate for the site (the responsibility of the site owners/administrators) or it could be something else, like a 3rd party proxy, or some kind of man-in-the-middle style attack, where another party can see your unencrypted traffic. If you are using a company-issued computer, or other remotely managed device, there is likely a proxy in place that exposes your traffic to an IT monitoring system. If you are not providing payment or login credentials, or otherwise sharing PII or sensitive data, and not violating e.g. corporate policy for use of that property (if this is not a personal computer) there is likely minimal risk, but I wouldn’t assume that what you do or look at is private.
Craig Murray now has a discussion forum about this.
Trump event at MSG. Who is the adult in charge of clearing their line up of speakers? That knuckle headed comedian manages to insult many people in one felled swoop. Seeing this particular instance of the campaign highlighted on a CNBC interview this morning.
FFS. Don’t book that guy. Was Bill Burr ( by example, IDK where or who he might lean towards ) not able to be there instead?
It’s laughable when people think it was a boo boo. He was booked for a reason.
Isn’t Puerto Rico still recovering from not just the last hurricane to hit the island but is in fact still recovering from Hurricane Maria which was way back pre-pandemic?
I think the Puerto Rico joke is one told by Puerto Ricans. Their island is a mess thanks to federal negligence, and they know it.
Yep. T was pres when Hurricane Maria hit in 2017, and he turned to FEMA who turned to crony contractors, some of whom were T favored contractors, to do the cleanup and restoration. What did T learn from that process, if anything? Imo, on the disaster recovery front, W, and B and T are a wash.
Trump has some paper towels to offer… is the clean-up a black job?
Krystal and Saagar talked about the MSG rally for what I thought was an interesting 30 minutes that pertains to the topic of this posting, i.e., whether it was dreadful, triumphantalist, just non-censored fun, actually appealing to latinos, etc. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=415V31TGse0 .
Yep. Ya know it’s getting down and dirty, down to the wire, and brass knuckle politics time in the US with stuff like this.
Time for me to step away from the keyboard until after the election. / ;)
See ya.
Perhaps Trump’s people thought they were booking this character for a lounge gig at one of his casinos, circa 1989, when he was adding so much value to the narrative over the Central Park Jogger case.
The man’s father was arrested at a Klan Rally in the 1920’s – an anti Irish/Catholic, not anti Black, affair, as it happened – and was sued for his discriminatory practices as a landlord. Trump is steeped, infused, bred to the bone with the white-flight era fear and racism that was endemic in outer borough NYC in the 1950’s-70’s, and his career in real estate and as a public figure played on that from the 1980’s onward.
It’s a shame he’s been so, so fortunate in his enemies.
Wait, what? Monosodium glutamate is a place?
We can also learn meaning of words before using them, but we won’t. Terraforming Earth means making Earth be like Earth.
Yea, and everything else too. As a matter of fact, the whole planet came pre-terraformed out of the box.
The article has some totally wrong numbers. For one, $.07 watt for solar panels is people dumping panels to get cash flow due to a surplus right now because not as much is being built as they forced in the US. The actual numbers out of china are about $.18-.20 per watt. Then you have to ship them adding cost. Then you have to mount them, wire them, connect them to what ever you’re using, cost of the land, cost of the money, labor, maintenance, inverters, etc
The usually cost for utility scale is right on $1 per watt. It would be less if the biden/harris, trump, obama didn’t put all sort of tariffs on solar, but thats another story.
He quotes batteries at $50 kWh. That maybe, but battery cells are not batteries, they have to be built into usable blocks, tested, BMS, secondary cases, wired, shipped, installed, cost of money etc and so its much closer to $200 kWh.
In his article, where he states costs, he leaves out batteries and lists solar at $4 billion for 20gw, which in the real world is closer to $20 billion.
He also jumps around between up front cost and over time cost which makes it quite confusing to make the math square. The usual way this is done is by cost per kWh which takes into account everything. Which for most solar is about $.03-.04 per kWh, which is up quite a bit from around $.025 mainly due to the cost of money.
In the real world, the solar would come in at $20 billion not $4 billion. He leaves out the battery cost and the other costs are not divided up in a way that makes review possible. I don’t know anything about desalination costs but if he has those as accurate as the solar/battery then the costs are about 5X over what he states.
Cheaper cleaner energy would certainly alleviate some looming, catastrophically serious problems. But what then? Growth imperative driven increased consumption of other resources? Drawing attention to line two of the Buddhist prayer, all I can say is good luck with that.
Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them
Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them
The Dharmas are boundless; I vow to master them
The Buddha Way is unattainable; I vow to attain it:
The author uses a lot of exciting, profit-laden phrases, like “cheap solar” that unlocks “cheap desalinated water.” Further, he promises we can “jump start an enormous brine mineral extraction industry” that will “pay for itself in short order.” We can “produce cheap water with no technical risk and almost no market risk.” Oh, and “there’s an easy path to unconditional future abundance.” Meanwhile turning Utah into a lush paradise that Joseph Smith and his band of Latter Day Saints could not have conjured up in their wildest dreams.
Does he not realized that there is a ‘cost’ to every technological innovation? Negative externalities. The fact that we have been ignoring them for decades (centuries?) has produced results like, climate change, and all that that entails.
It seems as you see really old orchards in every little Utah town, early Mormons were really industrious and still are. We have passed maybe 100 smaller farms with say 50 cows each, and they are growing alfalfa to feed them in extensive fields adjacent to the cows.
>Further, he promises we can “jump start an enormous brine mineral extraction industry” that will “pay for itself in short order
Shades of Rumsfeld ( or was it Cheney?),telling us the oil from Iraq would pay for the war.
I’ll have my unicorn ranch up and running before this guy’s plan comes true.
It was future World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz.
There should have been an upsurge of protest against this statement.
If one party has obviously harmed another party, even with alleged good intentions, the harmed party would be expected to recover damages from the harming party (USA in this case).
Expecting Iraq to fund its own reconstruction only heaped more damages on Iraq.
But, as I have mentioned before, where is the movement for the USA’s reparations to Iraq?
This has no visibility in the USA.
I was waiting for the bit where to create a canal to funnel water from the Pacific Ocean to Nevada, that they were going to have a long string of nukes to blow up whole sections to make that canal excavation work go faster-
https://www.kqed.org/science/710956/the-nuclear-canal-when-scientists-thought-h-bombs-would-make-awesome-earthmovers
I was shocked that people still think like that. It reads as self parody. I can hear Donald Fagen’s IGY playing in the background. Minus the irony. Or tongue in cheekery.
“Just machines to make big decisions
Programmed by fellas with compassion and vision
We’ll be clean when that work is done
We’ll be eternally free yes and eternally young.”
Maybe Miami should have stayed a pestillebtial swamp. The gators didnt mind. Maybe LA shouldn’t have had its water table lowered. Maybe there ought not be golf courses and fountains in Palm Springs and Las Vegas. How’s Florida doing of late annyway?
IGY a song ahead of it’s time in 1982 – even better now – thanks for the reminder – also reminded me of other works by Steely Dan – the fifth album cover art of “The Royal Scam” seems appropriate for today –
Indeed. Get rid of humans, problem solved… no more petty bickering in the west regarding over-claimed over-subscribed phantom water. And the magic wand of money—- political will, and political won’t.
My bet is not on terraforming– the apparently scarce resource that is fiat money is beyond fully allocated —unless it is tied to bullets bombs and empire.
Read the first couple of paragraphs and, instead of reading on, decided to do a few quick word searches which yielded zero results. Searches include: temperature, weather, land acquistion, eminent domain, supply chain, enviromentlal impact, and so on.
Seriously though, to cut our author a little slack, he’s a wildly ambititious (perhaps of the fake-it-till-you-make-it sort) and exceptionally green PhD out of CalTech––not someone yet worthy of serious attention IMO.
For more info about him, see:
https://www.caseyhandmer.com/home
https://terraformindustries.com/
https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/06/26/the-terraformer-mark-one/
I have seen nothing about increase evapotranspiration due to warming. Thus, heat and some added humidity, the wet bulb temperature will be a problem. NYT has an article with studies of internal temperature related with wet bulb temp and it is glooomy, we are more vulnerable than we thought…
Foreign Minister, after repeatedly demeaning the Chinese, decides to invite herself to Beijing:
https://x.com/clashreport/status/1850843932415959465
Clash Report @clashreport
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock touched down in China, but she wasn’t so welcome.
6:15 AM · Oct 28, 2024
The Chinese did not even bother sending one of the airport’s janitors to meet her and she stepped down onto that runway looking more clueless than usual. But after calling China’s President a dictator last year, what else did she expect?
Tony, erh, Blinkin invited himself to Beijing too in order to demonstrate his relevance. Hung out for a few days. Talked with Wang Yi. Tony got into the big guy’s office where Xi gave him the LBJ treatment.
Are you referring to how LBJ would discuss policy through the bathroom door while he was taking a dump? (Caro included that in his LBJ bio.) Xi might have a bathroom directly adjacent to his office for that level of consultation.
Thanks for the Taibbi link.
Here are the Due Dissidence guys talking about MO’s rant. utube, clip starts in the middle of their longer podcast. ~15+ minutes.
Libs LOSE IT Over WaPo NON-ENDORSEMENT, Kamala PROTESTED in MICHIGAN, Trump and Rogan Break Internet
https://youtu.be/EgssSMBi7Co?t=6061
Thanks Flora! And here’s Devory Darkin’s video on the same subject. He’s an African-American and his video published yesterday already has over 3 million views. I love seeing the obamas go down like this!!
https://youtu.be/sHfTHSVHoZ0
He might have lasted more if he did not lose the costume.
https://www.8days.sg/entertainment/asian/japan-newest-pm-dress-dragon-ball-villiain-majin-buu-836416
insert meme of Assad laughing as Assad has outlasted all his rivals in office
Re Demonize the Rich … yeah, that’ll work /s. People want to be rich, they still believe in The American dream for some strange reason. They won’t go after the rich because they see themselves as being rich one day. In amongst the shaming though, Hamilton has some good ideas. Capping the top wage is a good idea, although we know most of the Uber rich don’t have a salary so that only goes so far. The politician willing to try to bring some semblance of equality back to the US will have to live in a bullet proof bubble, as suggested in the article, Hamilton says bullet proof skin.
My money is on (heh) removing the current CEO stock options compensation package in its current form. This goes back to the Reagan years and is, imo, where all the modern Wall St. market f*k-uppery and fiddling began. Hire a CEO who doesn’t care about the company, only care about the value of his options package. See Boeing CEOs of late who’ve presided over the destruction of a once great company and walk way with multi-million dollar payouts.
Attacking that Reagan era setup is not attacking the rich, it’s attacking a system ripe for both corruption and destruction, imo.
That’s true. And it can be discussed without trying to explain the difference between “rich” as broad category and the people who need demonizing.
People think rich just means you can go in vacation or eat at restaurants whenever you want.
Recriminalize buybacks. Maybe to the point of capital crime.
This makes good sense Flora. As does undoing Citizen’s United. And recriminalizing stock buybacks. But I think my question remains, what politician will go there? The Occupy movement was a start back down the path to a more equitable society. Look how quickly a Democrat president shut that down.
But what if going after the rich is the way to get rich? Wolf of Wall Street, anyone? Gordion Knot untied.
Roman style proscription is the fastest way to get rid of the ultra rich.
It entailed some blood letting as well. Colleen McCullough has a nice series of novels, eminently studied, on that period of time.
General Revolution Theory says that “Demonization” is but a step to the ultimate goal of the Historical Process: Termination of the Wealthy and their compradores.
Go long IEDs and guillotines.
Oh, and try to stay safe yourself.
Yup. I think Lenin was onto something, studying past revolutions and putting things to the limit…
Yes, that’s how reasonable people think right now, but their thinking has been heavily distorted by our press and culture’s glamorizing and admiration of the rich, along with the natural wish to protect the hardworking entrepreneur down the street to enjoy their hard earned wealth.
The author’s whole point is we need to fight that distortion, and loudly call attention to their now incredibly excessive ‘take’ from society, including good old shaming. And that we don’t need to cap or ‘punish’, we just need to go back to a decent tax system. Used to be the rich were incentivized to invest in research and capital projects, employees, and charities, else lose 90% of the last dollar to Sam. Now they are incentivized to sit like fat dragons atop ever growing piles of lucre, while keeping unions and rabble crushed by pitting left against right, and throwing cash to pols to keep it that way.
There can be no “shaming” without some kind of moral code. In the US and perhaps the rest of the Empire, there is no clear moral code other than get what you want if you have the means–if you don’t you are out of luck. The rich don’t care about the lower orders because they associate mainly with other rich people and servants and employees. I don’t think there is a thing we can do without major cultural change.
Having said that, our job is to assert and spell out clearly what our moral code is because whatever old code was in place–it is no longer valid. We need to rediscover community or be turned into virtual people as in The Matrix movies.
Maybe the bullets should be flying in the other direction?
Helen Branswell 🇨🇦
@HelenBranswell
·
49m
.@USDA reports a major jump in the number of #H5N1 #birdflu infected herds in California. Up 41 herds.
There are ~220 herds in the Central Valley; seems like the vast majority are infected. This has moved like wildfire.
Latest Michigan herd (on my chart) still not confirmed href=”http://https://x.com/HelenBranswell/status/1850874142611915106/photo/1″>
Something I don’t understand in Gilbert Doctorow’s analysis of Israel’s attack on Iran.
First, how does refueling allow IAF to get close enough to high-value targets to drop bombs? If defenses work as well as they appear to on missiles, how does the availability of US tankers change the decision to do bomb-dropping raids?
Second, while I suspect Doctorow is right that the Pentagon is less enthusiastic to get into a war with Iran than American politicians are, I don’t see how this is evidence. If Israel had really wanted the tankers, it can pull the strings.
Funny about the American air tankers. Israel has several of the older but quite serviceable 707 based air tankers of its own.
Israel is America’s “Tar baby.”
“Don’ts us jump into that dat dere briar patch Mr. Wolfowitz!”
Attack vectors. The F117 was shot down in 97(?) because it used the same route. The tankers would open more given the routes.
Then more tankers open up more planes. The Israeli goal would be to get back where they can bomb an Iranian facility to shore up poll numbers. It’s just that Iran’s missile industrial capacity means Israel has crossed that line where the little peoples would catch up. It’s like any other military innovation.
Israel is an ethnostate. They can’t conceive of their opponents catching up or countering their moves.
We are working from speculation on this side. Iran is quite large, so we can’t rely on residents of Tehran to cover everything. The Israelis aren’t high fiving, so the speculation by Armchair Warlord is likely right, the two missile waves failed, meaning the planes aren’t going to be used. Israel doesn’t have sufficient, long range missiles to sustain too many strikes. If they really believe Iran is a threat, they will want those missiles to hit oil capacity.
Israel did not deploy gravity bombs against Iran this time, unlike Gaza, West Bank and S. Lebanon. Strike was apparently about 300 of some species of hybrid cruise missiles, from over 100 strike aircraft. Launches were well outside Iranian airspace.
The US provided midair refueling two years ago (along with the usual ISR and concierge services) in a practice exercise for this attack, which included 100 or so Israeli strike jets. https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-us-refuelers-to-take-part-in-largescale-israeli-drill-for-strike-on-iran/ The few tankers Israel has would not serve the need. (BOEING to provide four new KC-46 planes by next year.)
So, the plane trackers say at least 10 US refueling aircraft were moved to the area before the show. Did Uncle Samuel then reprise the US role in the practice run? I’m sure Putin and the Iranians know.
Here’s hoping the competent actors in the Great Rework can figure out how, consistent with their interests, to foam the runway for the crippled Empire, to allow a landing we mopes can walk away from.
Assuming the US made the tankers and other services available, does this cast doubt on the confidence of Pentagon and/or IAF in the practical value of their stealth tech?
First question, USAF has a lot of experience refueling fighters over north and south Iraq, from the Clinton no fly zone days. An F-16 has a 6000 pound fuel load, a KC 135 can off load nearly 200,000 pounds that is a lot of F-16 loads. Numerous tankers reduce the queue for refueling. An F-16 with weapons load uses a lot of fuel to get to an economical fuel consumption altitude, fueling at some point adds long range. That said I doubt IDF cared to risk F-16’s going “down town” Likely stand off air launched ballistic missiles used.
Doctorow is right, US not wanting to beard either the Russians or Iran.
100 sorties Friday is small tactical operation with no obvious operational nor strategic value.
Headlines about missile propellant mixing losses are filled with hope!
Fighter-bombers loaded down with bombs have a short combat radius–around 1000km–barely long enough to reach the Iranian border from Israel. You can bridge the range gap with air to air refueling but only the US has a big capability here–although Israel is working on it. It sure looked like the US participated with all those tankers in the air. Maybe it was maskirovka.
The US but especially Israel are massively invested in air power for their strike capability, most of which consists of quite short-ranged weapons. Israel will risk its F-35’s if the air defense system is sufficiently suppressed or compromised (Syria, where Russia refuses to lift a finger). In areas without air defense (Gaza, Lebanon) Israel uses its old non-stealth fleet. But Iran has cobbled together an air defense system over the years that includes some Russian S-300’s from a 2007 sale.
Further, Alistair Crooke today implied that Russia sent a (single?) Nebo or similar low frequency radar to Iran to give the Israelis pause. He suggested Israel’s strike group contained a substantial short range component but that they were unable to get close enough to use it and instead fired off a few longer-range missiles and called it a day.
The implication being that:
a) Russia provided a Nebo or perhaps Iran has wisely constructed their own low frequency search system*.
b) Even Iran’s older export S-300 system can be integrated with that to shoot down stealth aircraft… or at least create sufficient risk and uncertainty for Israel.
Anyway, Russia and Iran’s recent experience suggests that unmanned strike + air defense tips the balance against big air force these days.
* Much better at seeing stealth aircraft but cannot guide missiles all the way to a target. You must do some clever integration with other systems to actually shoot down stealth planes. The S-400 and other newer Russian weapons appear designed to do this but they are unproven against stealth as yet.
It turns out Iran has indeed been building the kind of low-frequency search system described above for several years now–with some Russian help apparently dating back to around the time of the S-300 sale. Interesting…
I’m not clear on whether this is a completely fixed system or not, but that would certainly make it a tempting target.
In fact some OSINT types are claiming part of the system was hit in the Israeli strike, but it’s disputed.
Re: ugly joke about Puerto Rico
I followed the links to the tweets and it is legitimately horrible. Also not only not funny, but lacking any hope of being funny.
This is like a case study: the Democrats have cynically misused accusations of bigotry so many times, and done so many bad things to Puerto Rico alongside all the war and genocide and everything else, who is going to get their feathers ruffled over a bigoted joke?
Quick, push for statehood as reparations, with immediate voting this week and retroactive census counts, too. /s
He says he holidays there and the joke seems to have some basis according to this and he may have assumed, as mant of us do, that some insider jokes have a more general currency: https://www.odotonline.org/more-than-47-thousand-pounds-of-trash-removed-from-beaches-in-puerto-rico/
A cooling shift: Slowing ocean circulation may temper Arctic temperature rise –
Seems like a “Good News/Bad News” situation. A slowdown in projected ice melting and sea level rise (Good). However, if that leads to greater increases in the temperature of ocean waters in the southern latitudes wouldn’t that lead to greater intensity Hurricanes (Bad). I’m not a climate scientist but, this doesn’t seem like a plus. They might need a new “Category 6” designation.
File under bad campaign work. Due Dissidence guys, utube. ~13+ minutes.
Muslim Democrat RANDOMLY EJECTED From Kamala Event
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUP0EM1ciQ4
NAIRU obviously just the stick used to beat a chimerical dog, a meme as it were, that the Feds and “economists” call “inflation.” Which I believe recent data show to be largely a product of price fixing and greed. Like KH says, “Prices for everything keep increasing.” Explains it all to her satisfaction.
Empirically, the Fed is all about making the rich people richer. Taking a nice cut for the member banks along the way.
Anyone think TrumpHarris will dismantle the Fed, maybe as part of a larger program to re-integrate with the world economy?
“I’m melting! Melting! What a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?“
Was anyone aware of this? I was not.
“On January 27, 2020, the state of Virginia became the 38th state (of the required 38 states needed) to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Two hundred and forty four years after the Declaration of Independence declared that all men were created equal (but only if they were, in fact, men who were white and owned land), women’s Constitutional equality was finally recognized!
Except it wasn’t.
The Trump administration’s Department of Justice refused to publish the fully ratified 28th Amendment to the Constitution, saying it “took too long” and now a few red states wanted to “de-ratify” it. But the Constitution grants no power to rescind a ratification.”
https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/bucket-list-joe
Congress passed the Amendment and sent it to the states for ratification, but with a time limit. The proponents fell short and the Amendment failed of ratification. Virginia taking up the amendment now is moot because it’s 40 years too late.
Let’s start a new Amendment process:
The amendment will simply state:
1) Money is not speech.
2) Corporations are not people or citizens but a construct of government.
if I may be so bold I’d add 3.
3. Every dollar of money donated to an elected or aspirational candidate must be matched dollar for dollar, to be placed immediately into the fund for Social Security.
Montana’s contested senate seat would have dumped an obscene $150 millions —not Trump change!
Yes!
“Michelle Obama Scolds Michigan: It’s Not Funny”
So the Obamas are trying black shaming, men shaming, women shaming, non-voter shaming, Green voter shaming, etc. I’m beginning to see a pattern here. How could this not appeal to American voters?
It’s a big tent. / heh
In the concert going on in my head, Big Tent is the band opening for Bolivian Coup Attempt.
Is there space on the bill for The War-Pigs?
Should fit right in with the outdoor festival coming up. It still needs a name.
Burning World?
Hey it’s the start of a new week, and what better to begin the equity trading session than to trot out enough brown coloring to polish the big turd we call Boeing.
Dial those numbers quickly, young brokers! “Hi this is Bud Fox, Mr. Gekko sir, can I interest you in a transportation stock offering today?”
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/28/boeing-launches-offering-to-raise-roughly-19-billion-to-shore-up-finances-.html#:~:text=Boeing%20on%20Monday%20launched%20a,%245%20billion%20in%20depositary%20shares.
Goldman to clients:
“Everybody gets to take bite of that big poop sandwich! Do it for the team!”
Wise man once said ‘Life is like a s*** sandwich. The more bread you have, the less s*** you have to eat.’
That was Confucius, right?
I’ve always heard it a little different; Life is like a big s*** sandwich and everyday you take another bite.
I guess both can be true.
Michelle Obama Scolds Michigan: It’s Not Funny Matt Taibbi, Racket News
*** I hope someone in the audience offered Michelle a glass of vintage (pre cleanup) Flint, Michigan tap water. And that’s not funny either, Michelle.
From the EPA Alumni Association this morning, an invitation to an undeserved back-patting session on November 14:
Lead in Drinking Water, and
the Newark, NJ Experience
Thursday, November 14, 2024
4:00 PM Eastern
REGISTER
Did you know that the 50th Anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act is Coming Up? Come help us celebrate that historic event by joining a conversation about lead in drinking water. We have asked Eric Burneson, Director, Standards and Risk Management Division, Office of Ground and Drinking Water, to start the discussion with an overview of the planned Lead and Copper Rule Improvements.
The second part of this session will be given by Christine Ash, Deputy Water Division Director in Region 2. She will describe the extraordinary city, county, state and federal partnership that enabled Newark, New Jersey to avoid becoming another Flint, Michigan, after alarming levels of lead in drinking water were found in homes. Every level of government quickly stepped up to help address the problem — providing bottled water and point-of-use filters, engaging in extensive public outreach, researching the source of the problem and the efficacy of the filters, and financing and implementing a highly accelerated program of lead service line replacements.
Come join us to learn more!”
It apparently takes a village of agencies to save a city from Pb poisoning. Didn’t happen for Flint, where “the problem” is still “problem:” “Flint Water Crisis: Everything You Need to Know
After officials repeatedly dismissed claims that Flint’s water was making people sick, residents took action. Here’s how the lead contamination crisis unfolded—and what we can learn from it.” https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flint-water-crisis-everything-you-need-know#summary
How much bad news is too much?
She’d sniff and sneer that only the right premier cru would do. Find that vintage from her Paris Notre Dame tour to capture the overtones and after notes with a smoothish finish of fine hypocrisy.
I received an email from an old friend’s wife yesterday that is of relevance. They live in Michigan and she is an active Dem supporter. I happened to call them to arrange a visit the other day and she said she was busy mailing out postcards re beating Trump. When I told her I voting for Stein she was flabbergasted. Last evening she texted me with words of reproach almost identical to Michelle’s speech. I replied by thanking her for shading her views with me.
“shading” her views, that’s perfect
My wife and daughter and mom are all in for KH, and they know how I feel about the genocide, and I point out they cancel me 3-0, cause I’m a double hater. I doubt Jill Stein is on the Iowa ballot, so I’ll leave it blank.
Antidote du jour is the president of Georgia saying: “The elections are illegitimate; this was a Russian special operation.”
Maybe it is more like one of Alex Christoforou’s Clown World segments. BBC reporter Steve Rosenberg, fresh from having Putin hand him his own a** to him, was in Georgia “reporting.” He was talking to people whining that the wrong party won and the US and the EU had to change the result for them. But when he went out to the streets, found the people calm and happy with the results and people just getting on with their lives.
Whenever I see “Georgia” in an elwctoral context, I keep finding that I need to double check if it’s the country or the state…
I live in the state of Georgia and I never saw any of the famous Columns Of Russian Tanks the media kept going on and on about. /s
You gotta love her explanation for the lack of proof – “not even USA could find any proof of Russian interference in their election, so how can you expect Georgia to find any?”
It would be easy to find a lot of Western interference, though. If anyone bothered to look.
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” redux, but the next logical step she takes is quite strong — in the absence of evidence we must discard the alternative that there was no interference and assume there indeed was one.
Or to summarize: if we cannot find evidence of interference then this proves that there was interference. Scholastics from the Middle Ages would have been envious.
So delightfully French…
“Google Is Reportedly Developing An AI That Will Take Over The User’s Computer Browser To Complete Certain Tasks, And Is Codenamed Project Jarvis”
Over my dead body. To have an AI fill out forms for you, it would have to have a file of your personal info. Will it hallucinate some of the info that it fills into those forms? Do I want it shopping for me? To do so it would have to have my banking details. If they try to bolt an AI onto my browser, it gets dumped straight away. This is just a bad idea waiting to happen.
“To do so it would have to have my banking details.”
The entire point. Bigger picture scary: It would be a bit like handing over power of attorney to a non-transparent third party.
Where would the legal liability lie for hallucination-caused errors?
If the AI assistant decides I need 10000 copies of “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” will there be any way to undo it’s mistake? What about if it breaks the law while acting for me?
I think we can assume that a long, dense Terms of Service will leave the mess firmly at the user’s door.
If it was a loom, I would smash it.
I am sure that, hidden somewhere in the software license, there is a clause stating that
“THE SOFTWARE IS SUBJECT TO A LIMITED WARRANTY THAT REPLACES ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED; THE LICENSOR OF THE SOFTWARE DISCLAIMS ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF TITLE, MERCHANTABILITY, NONINFRINGEMENT, OR OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
EXCEPT FOR DIRECT DAMAGES UP TO $5.00 (FIVE US DOLLARS), THE LICENSOR OF THE SOFTWARE IS NOT LIABLE TO THE LICENSEE FOR ANY OTHER DAMAGES, INCLUDING COMPENSATORY, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, CONNECTED WITH OR RESULTING FROM THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT OR LICENSEE’S USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.”
Harris only gets 66% support of NYC voters, for NYC this is a landslide for Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/26/us/elections/times-siena-nyc-poll-registered-voter-crosstabs.html
I suspect that the Democratic support in the state is hovering lower than even those city numbers might indicate. There are multiple issues here, and the Governor and Mayor of NYC have inflamed more than a few usual democratic voting residents. What is not going over well in the city is worse in purple to bluish counties upstate. Plus Harris is not addressing anything that might concern them.
She will win, but I will be very curious about the numbers. I don’t think NY will stop gap the popular vote as much as it has in the past, and not just because we have been losing population. Whether it is razor close as the pundits want or not, I have a sinking suspicion that Democrats will not have the overwhelming popular vote victory they are used to in this replay.
This is gold:
Does the Fed Still Believe in the NAIRU?
Praising the analysis in the (source) paper, in the notes:
okay, so it’s not just me ?…
Re Stoller and the demonize the rich link–ho hum. These are mere revivals of the Bernie “all about the billionaires” pitch and ignore the obvious to everyone but them problem that the reason the Dems don’t go after the rich is that they are the rich. If they really want a class war they will have to go after Beyonce and Taylor Swift and Clooney not to mention Michelle and Biden’s many houses. People who assert that money and power are the problem while themselves being rich and powerful are mere hypocrites.
This is the reason they have to make it all about Trump or maybe Bezos because to admit the truth–that they themselves are the villains of the tale they are spinning–would pose an existential threat.
So instead of demonizing the rich we should instead understand that hierarchy is a behavior we all are subject to and that the ten percent can be more threatening to social peace than the one percent because they in fact are the ones propping the one percent up.
Hate the sin not the sinner is good advice even if one isn’t religious–profound advice even. Somebody tell the Dems.
I think you were reading the party ID numbers. Harris pulls 59 or 60% of registered voters in NYC, depending how the question was asked. “Registered” is a weak way of assessing a candidate’s support, especially this close to the election. A self-identified “likely voter” might not actually fit the profile. Another wild card: this poll is limited to the two major clown candidates and tries to force all respondents to commit to one of them. That choice cannot be forced in the ballot booth.
I’m not sure these numbers are as dispositive as you say, especially since the sample is too low and the questions overly biased toward the establishment candidates. But I agree this looks terrible for a Democrat in a one-party state.
This was supposed to be a reply to Louis Fyne, above…
Bandido, third party is not going to be a factor in NY. While us plebes can still write in someone else (and they have to be registered to even have a chance of being counted), the only two candidates on the ballot line are Harris and Trump. Since I don’t expect them to actually count even the registered candidates they legally are supposed to count, it is Republican, Democrat, Undervote. And as we well know the Undervote count is only recognized by those looking for it – not our media.
“The U.S. Continues Its Terror Campaign Against Cuba | Black Agenda Report”
What happens if BRICS offers them membership? Will the US try to blockade that island rather than have all that business go to them? I think that the thought of a prosperous Cuba would drive certain groups living in Florida nuts.
The OSCE weighs in on the Georgia elections.
TL;DR: many things to critique, but they grudgingly admit the election was legitimate.
That’s probably the nicest thing the OSCE can say without risking their funding.
Sounds about right… granted, that’s not just the state of Georgia but the entire us of a.
My favourite quote from the OSCE report: “numerous civil society organisations reported on the stigmatizing impact of the ‘law on transparency of foreign influence’”, when I always thought that having laws to counter foreign influence in elections was the key point of the law. Isn’t that the case in the US?
I’m in the field not far from Big Lurk in Utah as far as watching our every digital move, that is.
A resplendent morning in the Valley of the Gods with a vibrant sunrise lighting up the deities real-not imagined.
Reading a book that came out in 1945 titled 100 Best True Stories of WW2, and every Japanese is a buck toothed nip or merely a Jap!
Funny how after the fourth turning, I’m now pulling for Yamamoto to come through in his next start (I’ve bled Dodger Blue since day 1) along with hope that Ohtani’s injury doesn’t curtail his brilliant play on the field…
…play ball!
The stories in the book are amazing, and fresh at the time of publication, my favorite being 1 Cecil Brown, a reporter for CBS in NY who is on assignment in Singapore and in a bar when a British Commander asks if he’d like to go on board the HMS Repulse accompanying the HMS Prince of Wales, and of course he does and the rest is an interesting bit of history.
re: “the Big Lurk.” That’s keeper. / ;)
adding an oldie but a goodie from 2015:
Edward Snowden talks about NSA’s Utah Data Center and more in Park City digital address
Speech • Scope of government surveillance — including Bluffdale facility — prompted him to act.
https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=3270149&itype=CMSID
Valley of the Gods–you are clearly closing in on Monument Valley. Good luck with the washboard road on the way to John Ford point unless the Navajo have paved it and put in a McDonalds
Ukrainian President’s Office asserts Russia must withdraw to positions as of 24 February 2022 to start peace talks – Ukrainska Pravda
I suppose the idea is to see if Russia can keep up the occupation for a decade or more.
Everybody thinks the West will run out of resources, but it’s already been demonstrated that 1) there are no institutions that are holding the people accountable for regime change fiascos or further concentration of wealth 2) the “rules based order” will trash any social contract with citizens of their respective nations to divert resources to their grift and greed. And to repeat – there are no institutions holding people in charge of the bad ideas accountable for any failures and destruction.
RE: President of Georgia: “The elections are illegitimate; this was a Russian special operation”
Once again, claims made with zero evidence given. Alex Christoforou provided some added context in his recent video , noting that that the US had provided some advanced polling, surely just out of the goodness of their hearts, predicting a win for the pro-Western coalition much like they did recently in Venezuela, with the spooks coming out with polls favoring the opposition to Maduro in advance of the actual elections. Why these countries can’t be allowed to do their own polling and the whole world is supposed to trust spook-inspired Western polling that can’t even predict the results in the US correctly is of course also not mentioned.
Tone deaf photo op in front of Mt. Rushmore aside, that Shaun Cammack guy sounds like the real deal.
I’ve been thinking about how I can calm down the people I’m acquainted with who are so frightened of a Trump win.
These are highly educated people who hold themselves to the highest standards of ethics and morality and they should be approached with that in mind (Farts silently).
I will simply mention that as soon as Trump sends one more bomb or bullet to Israel he will have violated several US laws and the genocide convention.
Impeach him instantly, the statutes are crystal clear and all it will take is half a dozen videos of dogs feasting on the bodies of dead children and the statements of Israeli officials, including Bibi.
Two days and done.
Add that holding Trump in jail here in the USA might be problematic, so ship him to the Hague to be tried for the murder of Ambassador Soleimani.
He’ll spend the rest of his life in a comfortable cell and justice will have been served.
Remember that America’s PMC are the most moral people on the planet, dedicated to ensuring Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ( Except for “Those People”) and they should be approached on that basis.
Remember that America’s PMC are the most moral people on the planet, dedicated to ensuring Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ( Except for “Those People”) and they should be approached on that basis.
Those same people (that I know) said today, the comedian at the Trump Nazi rally yesterday should be killed. Yes, killed. Someone said that and many agreed. These are the same people who also today said the Nazi rally yesterday was the start of the movement for the red hat Trump Nazi army to go door to door and kill liberals.
Yes, they say and believe that. These oh so moral people who pride themselves on their own intelligence, morals, and virtue.
This is where we are. Ain’t it great?
And then the smart set of republicans will finally get the man they really want, jd vance, and the millionaires and the billionaires will turn him over and over in their soft, and very, very, white hands, and will make sure that jd will always run on just the right sort of batteries, and peter thiele will be thrilled to death. Thrilled! 😄
I’ve seen an article being linked at right wing sites that I read (Automatic Earth and Zero Hedge for two) with the headline “Americans Are More Dependent Than Ever on Government Handouts”. I am so sick of this crap. Why don’t we ever read “Billionaires Are More Dependent Than Ever on Government Handouts” or “Corporations Are More Dependent Than Ever on Government Handouts”? Because they are. We, the ones who have been paying throughout our working careers for the “handouts” mentioned (like Social Security and Medicare) are somehow shameful because we want to get the services we’ve been paying for; and there’s damned little else that we’ve been getting from the federal government the last half century, unless you think interfering in other countries’ affairs and waging perpetual war are being carried out in response to popular demand. I haven’t seen any polls showing that.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2024-10-27/gavin-newsom-film-tv-tax-credit-california-hollywood/
Newsom calls for big boost in funding for California’s film and TV tax credit, throwing Hollywood a lifeline
This part:
“But such a move is considered politically untenable in California, where the film incentive program has faced opposition from critics who argue that subsidizing entertainment comes at the expense of other worthy causes, such as education and healthcare.”
Just spitballin’ but a lot of courses in higher education in Cali are about attracting people interested in entertainment.
As for healthcare…I bet the dentists approve.
“Take Me Out to the Mallpark” — The Baffler
A fun read about stadium construction in the USA. One point the author doesn’t mention: those superstadiums (often equipped with astroturf) that sprang up in the 60s and 70s produced an excellent variety of baseball. Maybe it’s just my nostalgic childhood memories, but I think the baseball that was played in the late 1970s was truly fun to watch. Those giant ballparks placed a premium on speed and athleticism. I would even call it Peak Baseball, especially as it took place before player salaries (and ticket prices) got totally out of control. Baseball nowadays seems to have degraded into a game of “big strong man on mound throw ball past big strong man with big stick, unless big strong man with big stick hit ball long way over fence bye bye ball”. In a word: boring.
Give women’s softball a look. The little league, college… the girls have talent, play small, tactical ball with prowess. Very exciting
Come to think of it, probably can be said for all team sports… the women’s game seems ‘purer’.
“Private Equity Is Gunning for Wisconsin’s County-Owned Nursing Homes”
Thanks so much for this article – straight to my bookmarks with it!
This is exactly the kind of situation that gives me hope that a “B Economy” of sorts, which puts the public good ahead of private profit, is something that is yearned for, and would be appreciated in the places oft ignored or looked down upon.
More wood for the PhD prospectus fire!