Even if someone time travels, they may not remember or capture it: Study Interesting Engineering
How old are you really? Your blood can reveal your biological age — and risk of health problems Study Finds
SCIENTISTS SUGGEST HARVESTING BLOOD FROM MARS COLONISTS TO CONSTRUCT FUTURE CITY Futurism
Early warning tool will help control huge locust swarms EurekAlert
Brace! Risks stack up for the global economy in 2025 Reuters
Climate/Environment
Why Seas Are Surging Washington Post
Ancient Resilience of Ferns Helps Ecosystems Recover After Disasters EcoWatch
Pandemics
Key warning signs about bird flu are all going in the wrong direction NBC News
Rapid spread of H5N1 bird flu through California dairy herds suggests unknown paths of transmission STAT
The Koreas
Division and purge: South Korea’s conservatives in deep trouble Asia Times
China?
Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign nets record number of ‘tigers’ in 2024 Channel News Asia
Chinese Premier Li Qiang makes new overtures to foreign firms, pledging more access and services South China Morning Post
How far can toxic workplaces go? Employees forced to lie on floor and eat ‘Death Chilies’ The Economic Times
Old Blighty
Soldiers quit the Armed Forces in their droves despite Labour pay rise LBC
Amazon-hosted AI tool for UK military recruitment ‘carries risk of data breach’ The Guardian
European Disunion
ANAF Uncovers PNL’s TikTok Campaign Promoting Călin Georgescu Romania Journal
#Romania: New findings from Romania’s ANAF, the body that oversees financial integrity, show that the pro-EU National Liberal Party (PNL) financed the TikTok campaign that ended up amplifying public visibility of Georgescu in the presidential election. Some important findings: ⤵️ https://t.co/hKIqZ2p5bu
— Dionis Cenușa (@DionisCenusa) December 22, 2024
Syraqistan
Did Yemen’s Ansurullah Shoot Down a U.S. Navy F-18F Fighter? Assessing Conflicting Claims Military Watch
The US regime won’t tell American citizens that it has declared war on Yemen. That’s because its motives are so sordid, and so divorced from any concept of national security, it could not explain why it is there. It cannot allow Americans to know that their military is engaged in…
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) December 22, 2024
***
Over 80% of Yemenis rely on foreign aid for their basic needs, 90% of which is imported. To defeat the Houthis, you don’t need to drop a single bomb. Just stop sending them free food.
— Uri Kurlianchik (@VerminusM) December 22, 2024
Mossad chief urges direct strike on Iran in response to Houthi attacks – report Jerusalem Post
Iran’s Supreme Leader rejects claims of regional proxy forces Bne Intellinews
Iran’s energy crisis hits ‘dire’ point as industries are forced to shut down New York Times
New report reveals multiple oil shipments from Turkey to Israel despite embargo Turkish Minute
New Not-So-Cold War
Dmitry Trenin: What Ukraine should look like after Russia’s victory RT
Zelensky Must Answer for Ukrainian Genocide Magyar Nemzet. The deck: “There is genocide in Ukraine, and it is now official, since even the ceasefire agreement was rejected by the Soviet penis acrobat.”
***
Russian military: Moving from Syria to Libya? Deutsche Welle
Italy bristles at prospect of Russia moving ships from Syria to Libya Defense News
Earth’s magnetic North Pole is heading to Russia, what it will do to your GPS? Interesting Engineering
Biden Administration
Biden Ends Term With Parade of Lies About Our Wars Ken Klippenstein
Trump Transition
Trump suggests he wants to buy Greenland Axios
Trumperialism Un-Diplomatic
President of Panama fires back at Trump: Canal ‘belongs to Panama’ The Hill
Trump Companies Accused of Tax Evasion in Panama ProPublica. From 2019.
***
Trump muses about keeping TikTok “around for a little while” Axios
House Democrats say GOP caved to Musk in funding bill, protecting his China interests CNBC
***
War on drugs meets war on terror…
US fought both – and both grew. https://t.co/O5XSMwGDLb— — GEROMAN — time will tell – 👀 — (@GeromanAT) December 22, 2024
Trump Announces Colby, Duffey and Feinberg for Defense The American Conservative
Billionaire tied to shady military ops could be no. 2 Pentagon pick Responsible Statecraft. On Feinberg.
Antitrust
Monopoly Round-Up: New Deal or Crime Spree? BIG by Matt Stoller
Palantir and Anduril join forces with tech groups to bid for Pentagon contracts Financial Times
Meet the US military-industrial complex on steroids:
Silicon Valley oligarchs are forming a cartel to get huge Pentagon contracts.
Cartel members will include:
-Elon Musk’s SpaceX
-OpenAI (49% owned by Microsoft)
-Palantir (founded by far-right billionaire oligarch Peter Thiel)… https://t.co/ik1WDCw7er— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) December 23, 2024
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Forget Chrome—Google Starts Tracking All Your Devices In 8 Weeks Forbes
Apple is reportedly working on a smart doorbell system that could unlock your door with Face ID Engadget
Police State Watch
🚨 Asked if Luigi Mangione is a terrorist, Biden’s Homeland Secretary Mayorkas replies: “ The rhetoric on social media following is extraordinarily alarming.
“It speaks of what is really bubbling here in this country and unfortunately we see that manifested in violence. The… pic.twitter.com/D3CRwE4hCn
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) December 22, 2024
Healthcare?
The Fallacy of Modern Psychiatry: Treating Symptoms, Ignoring Causes Mad In America
Guillotine Watch
‘SNL’ blasted over ‘shameful’ moment audience cheers for accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione New York Post. Commentary:
The SNL crowd cheers for Luigi Mangione last night making the host so uncomfortable he said “you’re cheering for justice right?” What he doesn’t understand is this is justice in a decaying capitalist empire. pic.twitter.com/WrUkznOSdX
— Power to the People ☭🕊 (@ProudSocialist) December 22, 2024
Luigi Mangione’s Commonplace, Deplorable Politics The Atlantic. Commentary:
Mind you, The Atlantic ran this over summer: https://t.co/77qoblthkC pic.twitter.com/3AYklrWElt
— Czarina (@fishontherun2) December 21, 2024
Class Warfare
The Cost of Anticompetitive Pricing Algorithms in Rental Housing White House Council of Economic Advisers
The New Property Feudalism Tribune
Living happily ever after? The hidden health risks of Disney princesses The BMJ
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Comments are closed.
“Soldiers quit the Armed Forces in their droves despite Labour pay rise”
Could it be that a lot of these British soldiers are quitting because they realize that Starmer is fully capable of sending them to a big, open space full of frost and snow where lots of guys named Ivan are shooting at them?
I note that the British Army numbers about 70,000 or so right now which is pathetic. At the same time, the UK Salvation Army has 1.65 million members.
The pay raise probably doesn’t offset the cost of living in the UK by much.
Doesn’t help when those “squaddies” know that they may have only five days of ammo to shoot and that it is. Colonel Smithers mentions that the UK has only about 40 tanks to send which would last about what, a week on the eastern front? Would Starmer even care?
Is that “40 tanks in mission capable status” while several are “mid repair/upgrade” and the total tank “inventory” is much higher?
My understanding is that the “inventory” is closer to 200 and if it was urgent the “repairs/upgrades” could be expedited to put more into “mission capable status”.
Without getting too into the weeds, readiness is normally based on Mission capable which allows some of the inventory to be in repair/upgrade its not based on the total inventory because all equipment needs to be in a repair/upgrade cycle.
So they have enough to last a month?
That is such a big difference…
If your losing tanks at a pace that makes 200 last a month, a.) your using them terribly and b.) put someone else in charge of your armored regiment.
Like someone from NATO? Someone with experience with the 2023 ‘Bradley Square’ engagement?
Thank you.
Mission capable now, after cannibalisation.
Thank you for shout out, Rev. About 40 – 60 main battle and light tanks, which equates to an armoured regiment.
I cannot think of any single group of society in Britain, other than the proverbial 1%, that Starmer has not offended, insulted, and alienated since coming to power in July. Why would the armed forces be any different?
That is why he needs holidays. Hard job that.
That is indeed the downside of the identity politics – so many more groups nowadays to offend and insult.
Do you think he will take his much earned vacation in the UK (in order to set an example and provide a local economy boost) or will he jet off to someplace warmer and a bit more exotic?
As he puts zionist interests above all else, he will probably head to Eilat for some scuba diving. The port appears to be pretty empty now, thanks to the Yemeni blockade, so he can at least boost that local economy.
I wonder how many of them are quitting, and how many have been retired by the Russians in Ukraine.
Could Starmer not merge the two organizations to the benefit of both? 70,000 more people standing on sidewalks soliciting spare change will definitely provide funds for more weapons and pay raises. Training 1.65 million new recruits how to repair broken down equipment will provide a new generation of machinists and fitters for a country that has lost its industrial base.
It could be the start of a whole new world.
There is no way the Salvation Army has 1.65m members in the UK. There probably aren’t 1.65m Christians of any denomination!
What is there about life in the bottom three quartiles of the UK which would inspire anyone to lay down their life defending it?
> Ancient Resilience of Ferns Helps Ecosystems Recover After Disasters EcoWatch
>> Ferns were able to completely transform Earth’s biosphere following the devastation of the K-Pg [Cretaceous–Paleogene] extinction event.
We walked the hill yesterday, with the leaves down we can see the twisted wreckage of trees that The Storm took down with hurricane force winds. The ground was moist and soft, and the ferns the only green. Such gentle creatures.
@8teAPi OpenAI’s o3 model for laypeople
What it is and why it’s important
What
> o3 is an AI language model, that under the right set of circumstances, can solve PhD level problems
Its Smart
> it’s a big deal because it’s effectively solved
a) ARC-AGI which is a picture puzzle IQ test similar to Raven’s matrices which is what Mensa uses
b) solved 25% of FrontierMath which are difficult grad student level math questions
There is no wall
> it’s also a really big deal because OpenAI only introduced its last o1 model 3 months ago. This means they reduced the cycle time to 3 months from 18 months
> Intel used to have a tick (chip die shrink) tock (architecture change) cycle during the height of Moore’s law.
OpenAI now effectively has a tick (new Nvidia chip training data center) 4 tocks (new chains of thought) cycle.
> This means potentially 5 (!) step ups in capability next year.
The machine that builds the machines
> OpenAI is also using its current generation of models to build its next generation
> The OpenAI staff themselves are somewhat bewildered by how well things are working
Fast, cheap models every tock
> OpenAI also introduced an o3-mini model which is small and fast and capable.
> Notably it was as capable as the much slower o1 full model.
> This means that every 3 months you can look forward to a cheap fast model as good as the smartest state of the art super genius model 3 months before that.
Reliability
> one big barrier to AI deployment has been hallucination and reliability.
> The o1 model had early indications of much higher reliability (in one test refusing to be tricked into giving up passwords 100% of the time to users).
> We don’t have a sense of how well the o3 models perform yet… but if this has been solved you will start seeing these models in service work next year…
By end 2025 (speculation)
> superhuman mathematician and programmer available at moderate prices
> reliable assistant for hotel booking, calendar management, passwords, general computer use
What will a superhuman mathematician/programmer do?
> Everywhere you use an algo, it will get better
> jump from 5G to 10G in cell phones
> credit default costs across economy will drop, leading to credit becoming much much cheaper. 0% interest rates for some, no credit for others
> search costs across economy drop: hotels, airlines, dating…
> quantitative trading will better allocate capital, more good ideas financed, fewer bad ideas funded
Color me skeptical.
“0% interest rates for some, no credit for others”
Like that is something new and innovative? The only think new in this hypothetical fresh hell is if there is actually no more in-between 0% interest rate credit recipients and those with no credit.
And it’s kind of funny because so much about “AI growth” is dependent on a broken economic system that can’t handle the slightest rise interest rates. It’s a “growth” that has much more to do with financial engineering than any other kind.
Loved the Pushmi-Pullyu move by Jay the other day, he lowers the interest rate, and the mortgage rate goes up, further stymieing the moribund market in housing, where buyers can’t afford the mortgage, and sellers can’t afford to cut the price.
…and seller’s can’t afford the Property Taxes…
. . . and, for those of us who live in areas prone to the effects of climate change, the homeowner’s insurance premiums . . .
How stupid do they think we are? This right here is a good tell. Since when has ‘credit default costs drop’ been passed on to us plebs, vs just dropping right down to the profit line?
They can’t even speculate on a task that a human can’t do better, because all they can think about is replacing wages.
Right, such BS. The author sets sail into the sunset of intelligently spreading risk out so thin that it virtually disappears, ignoring the fact that much of the derivatives-based credit system that has developed resists direct measurement. Guessing in, guessing out gets to masquerade as a simple matter of probability.
Looked up Prakash Narayanan (@8teAPi). Looks to me like he’s talking his book.
Meanwhile…
> Everywhere you use an algo, it will get better
For whom?
> quantitative trading will better allocate capital, more good ideas financed, fewer bad ideas funded
Who (or what) defines “good idea” vs. “bad idea”?
There’s an AI
suckerinvestor born every moment!https://www.wheresyoured.at/godot-isnt-making-it/
Fuck AI.
Long Live the American Mind!
AI is based on the American Mind. That’s why it’s crap.
I’ve got along fine with aI. That’s analog intelligence.
Seconded. Sure seems like the real purpose of AI is to slough responsibility for any number of social ills off of corporate decision makers and on to “AI” (It wasn’t me, it was HAL9000, I swear!), with a small side benefit thrown to the plebs allowing them to write or research without getting caught for plagiarism. If the elites are cheating all the time, why not let the little people do it too so they feel like they’re part of the game?
Luigi the Claims Adjuster just showed how likely that is to work.
Interesting. Would be good to know if the “graduate level” math problems are symbolic in nature, as opposed to computational. ChatGPT and others still can’t do basic math because of the way they cut up numbers. Symbolic math should be easier for LLM to handle. As it is now, the stuff being offered isn’t accurate when you have large numbers or too many significant digits, and can’t do probability either.
One big barrier to AI is resources.
Where’s the electricity coming from?
Where’s the coolant coming from, and the heat going?
How are the above issues sustainable, both long term and in terms of O&M?
As a resource and infrastructure person, I know these these questions must be addressed before any of your talking points happen, and these are years away. Power plants, for example, don’t grow from seed to harvest in 60 days.
Not AI, but I read this last night in the dead tree edition of Harper’s (Harper’s Index, January 2025):
Estimated amount of energy, in kilowatt-hours, that was used to discover a new prime number last year : 3,100,000
Estimated number of U.S. households this amount of energy could power for a year : 287,000
From the listed source:
This prime ends the 28-year reign of ordinary personal computers finding these huge prime numbers. In 2017, Mihai Preda saw the ever increasing power of GPUs in PCs and wrote the GpuOwl program to test Mersenne numbers for primality, making his software available to all GIMPS users.
Luke Durant, a 36 year-old researcher and former NVIDIA employee, also understands the power of the GPUs he helped design. Luke decided that finding a new Mersenne prime would be a great demonstration that GPUs can be used for more than AI. GPUs are well suited to fundamental math and science research as well.
Luke began contributing to GIMPS in October 2023, and believed the explosive growth of GPU availability in the cloud presented a unique opportunity for the software developed by Mihai. Luke developed infrastructure to run and maintain a suite of GIMPS software across many GPU servers. At time of discovery, Luke’s “cloud supercomputer” was comprised of thousands of server GPUs, spanning 24 datacenter regions over 17 countries.
After nearly a year of testing, Luke finally struck paydirt. On October 11, an NVIDIA A100 GPU in Dublin, Ireland, reported that M136279841 is probably prime. On October 12, an NVIDIA H100 in San Antonio, Texas, USA, confirmed primality with a Lucas-Lehmer test.
Talk about messed-up societal priorities..
If AI is so great, why doesn’t US have hypersonic missiles yet?
They are playing the long game and waiting for Google to get the quantum computer thingy going. Once that kicks in, they will have all the prime numbers and even some imaginary ones too. But who could tell once you get that far out? There will be no need for hypersonic missiles at that point. Google will have quantum missiles (but they will cost a lot). Watch your wallet.
When an AI advocate says something like “algorithms make things better”, they’re speaking to an audience that doesn’t know what an algorithm even is. They’re speaking as Zuckerberg might speak to Senator at a House Oversight Committee.
Algorithms aren’t AI. There is no “for laypeople” when laypeople cannot tell the difference between a calculator, say, or ordinary algorithms, and language models or deep learning, and every sort of software there is becomes for them “AI” and every sort of automatic process gets called “AI”.
You are right. I have read in a book on computer history that algorithms are things / tasks done in a certain order. Is that right ?
With UBER it became a “magic” word with its drivers manipulated by their black box algorithms. I have done the job for a couple of months and it felt really really weird !
So please care to explain ton us “laypeople” the difference between the “ordinary” algorithm and those AI ones ?
Thanks in advance
………………………………..
Ivan Illich said that one should mesure the value of a new technology by how much freedom it brings to people. (Among other interesting things)
So for years, we let it go in inverse direction!
We should push governements to enforce Free Software Principles (but then they could not covertly spy on people). And add new ones. Maybe even ban AI technology to protect the environment ? Who needs it ? Who really needs a 10g on their phones? To play games ? Streaming ?
A PBJ sandwich is an algorithm. It’s a series of repeatable steps, a recipe if you will which, given some inputs and given some processes, reproduces a sandwich each time. So when someone says “adding an algorithm makes things better”, they’re only saying “following recipes makes things better”. When you or I leave a comment, there’s an algorithm, a repeatable and repeated process, in a script, which takes the data submitted with the form and follows steps to add it to the NC database. The difference between this and AI is AI “discovers” by dredging the world for recipes, common repeated patterns and relationships between discrete things and adds to its own database. It’s still quite dumb, though. It’s not what I would consider artificial intelligence, it is itself an algorithm to find relationships between data (recipes).
The Amish measure the value of technology by whether it makes a person slothful and lazy, whether it disrupts family and community dynamics via individualism, and whether it separates a person from being in touch with the world. I think that’s a better measure than Ivan Illich’s freedom.
Thank you for taking time to answer.
The Amish mesure of value of technology would surely rule out a lot !
I was looking at the surveillance use side of this technology.
Did Illich mean freedom as in more independence? I will have to look it up.
Currently reading AI Snake Oil by a couple of Yale IT dudes.
I think one needs to go past the breathless tech promises. And I don’t know whether we are ticking or tocking right now, but the real world will continue to exist with all of its laws and limits. AI is good at some things and constrained by real world things in others.
On the old Gartner curve, we are still in the hype section of the curve it seems. As someone who spent decades in IT I have seen this curve play out so many times …………
I suppose the important questions are:
Will AI be more efficient at killing the people in countries that refuse to give the western oligarchs their oil and minerals?
Will AI be better at getting rid of the drain on company profits caused by human wetware?
Will improved AI be sufficient to ensure that no incorrect thought is promulgated by/to the unwashed masses that might make them question their betters or want things above their station?
Will improved AI ensure that no unnecessary money is spent education, hospitals, homes for the undeserving?
If they can get it right….(bright example is Windows operating system)
I dunno. In my life I have no problems for which I need a super-genius to help.
Increase the image of the “cute” fox and look into its eyes to see its true character.
Now carefully observe Mayorkas’s eyes in the Klippenstein tweet video (since we’re looking at eyes). Dude is spinning narrative whole cloth. Those are lyin’ eyes, plain as day.
The carrots are the bait to attract unsuspecting rabbits while the fox waits in the darkness of the hollow tree trunk.
Looking at that image, I was imagining it from the viewpoint of that fox on a rainy day when it would retreat further into that pipe and watch & listen to the rain falling outside.
Of course you mean the faux ‘tree trunk’ ;)
Three questions arising from the WSJ’s investigation which reveals that Biden was mentally incompetent before he even became President.
First, how does this affect the legality of the pardons that the administration has been handing out like a paedophile offering sweets to kiddies at the school gates?
Second, how does this affect the legality of the US vetoes in the UN or the weapons he sent to Israel and Ukraine, or the undeclared war in Yemen, etc, etc?
Third, what about the legality of the fact that the problem was concealed so that unelected officials were able to use and abuse executive power?
To me, as a Brit, each of the three points smack of treason which demand a exemplary punishnents for ALL those involved, and the unorthodox granting of pardons should result in every one of the being rescinded.
I find it impossible to comprehend the extent ofthe damage done to the USand its Allies by the wars provoked. aided, abetted and financed during the bitter years of the fake “Biden” administraton.
The old penalty for High Treason, which, as you point out, this silent coup qualifies as, was to be half hanged, drawn, and quartered. Make the punishments Pay per View on a .gov site, say the House streaming show, at a cheap rate and you could retire a big chunk of the National debt.
As an American, what these people have done over the last 4 years is disgusting. Probably illegal, but I don’t know as I’m not a lawyer. Even more disgusting is nothing will happen. We are not a serious country. Laws for these people are only suggestions. Biden will leave office and we will be told what a great man he was and how much he cared for we the people – as he walked all over the laws and the Constitution.
The United States is a corrupt joke of a country ran by corrupt people who only care about money, power, and how to keep it. Laws are only for us serfs when they decide to use them.
This administration has continued sending arms to Israel come hell or high water and violated the law in doing so. Why? Reasons, of course. No explanatikon required.
Yea, last four years. Before that everything was fine and dandy.
In a year or two, biden will not remember that he was president of the US. Sweet. And he will be able to swear that he doesn’t remember doing any of these nasty stuff he is acused of.
I’m uncertain that a competent Biden would have behaved any better.
He, and Jill, surrounded themselves with people and policies built up over many years.
My earliest memory of Biden is the Judiciary committee hearings about confirming Clarence Thomas.
While later voting against Thomas, Biden helped get him confirmed by not letting some Anita Hill supporting testimony to proceed.
A competent “good” Biden may never have “served” the public and he selected similar people for his staffers.
Having Kamala Harris as his backup was not at all a good sign.
But he’ll get the flags at half staff and state funeral when he passes.
The Democratic Party deserves much of the blame for promoting him to this office and for not constraining his actions.
Maybe the Democratic Party truly liked the results.
Link?
But yeah, nothing will fundamentally change, as the man himself said. Expect plenty more aghastatude about whatever Trump and his crew do out in the open while the bigger crimes happen in the dark.
WSJ article is probably worth the admission. Nine Cabinet meetings in four years was a major accomplishment for Sleepy Joe. We may get a link in the Water Cooler and Alex at the Duran covered this recently as well
It was in the 12/20 watercooler. Link to archive here
See Kay Granger – dementia hospital for the last six months.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/retiring-gop-congresswomans-decline-has-been-very-rapid-son-says
Treason is defined much more narrowly in the US Constitution. So if this all happened, it wouldn’t be Treason under the US Constitution.
But I’m sure it would be something.
I wonder whether it could be creatively considered to be some kind of sedition.
“Earth’s magnetic North Pole is heading to Russia, what it will do to your GPS?”
Make all your readings appear in Cyrillic? Switch you from GPS to the Russian GLONASS system?
Likely not, but it’ll screw up military GPS and the US could attack France or Italy. And once you sense Pareee it’s hard to get them to go back to the farm.
Direct you towards the nearest Orthodox Christian Church?
It doesn’t seem anybody need worry. According to the article it states, ‘In case you’re worried about whether the GPS on your smartphone will remain accurate after the WMM 2025 update, don’t worry. The map and other GPS-driven apps in your smartphone will receive the required update from the respective service providers.”
Moreover, it makes reference to the NOAA notes which states, “This year, two versions of the model are being released. In addition to WMM2025, the release includes the first-ever World Magnetic Model High Resolution (WMMHR2025)…” Things will be normal for the military, aviation, shipping, etc.
GPS doesn’t use the magnetic field of the earth for anything.
It uses ground based stations which it then calibrates via accurate clocks onboard the spacecraft to provide location.
The magnetic pole is always moving. If you want to use a compass then you need the updated magnetic North Pole location. Most smart phones have a choice of true Or magnetic direction.
That is what is being updated.
Not gps.
This from earth.com: “Satellites rely on precise geomagnetic data to maintain their correct orbits and ensure proper functioning. Any discrepancies in the magnetic field models can lead to errors in satellite positioning, which can affect communication, weather forecasting, and GPS services.”
Here is a simple explanation of how gps works. From nasa
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/gps/en/
Ground stations which communicate with the satellites to give them their location which also has a lot to do with extremely accurate clocks.
But nothing to do with the earths magnetic field.
Other types of satellites might.
All liberal democracies will cancel this new authoritarian magnetic north pole and use the soon to be established Freedom Pole instead. A NATO subcommittee has been preparing this MIL-STD-461WTF for several years now: each Western Democracy will host the Freedom Pole in turn for a period of 365 days.
Sheesh, guys! We got to draw a red line in the snow here, and make it clear to the North Pole just what will be its fate if it continues its unwise moves to aligning with Russia.
Meanwhile, the US will be imposing sanctions on Santa’s reindeer, cutting off their access to imported lichens.
Ha. If they tried that I think there’d be a parents and childrens riot at Macys. Don’t mess with Kris Kringle. / ;)
utube, ~1 minute. Miracle on 34th St.
Miracle on 34th street Dutch girl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibDD8Y3IJrg
Earth’s magnetic north is always moving. That’s why hikers who use an analog compass for hiking, you know –old school compass — always check the current magnetic declination in the area they’ll hike in before setting off with compass and USGS topographic maps. Printed and downloadable topographic maps have the magnetic declination printed on them, but depending on when the map was last updated the declination printed could be out of date. Also, magnetic declination becomes unreliable near the two poles. When did every change in the material world suddenly become a Russian plot? sheesh. / ;)
https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/declination.shtml
Is there a suggestion in the article that the coders of digital map apps haven’t got a clue about magnetic declination and course correction? Well, that’s a reassuring idea. / ;)
The peak Black Kaweah in my backyard has a local magnetic disturbance that has caused compasses in the vicinity to vary by up to eight degrees.
Whoa! That’s some localized declination!
Es Vedra, a little island peak in a bay of SW Ibiza, is the second or third most magnetic place in the world. It is also a damn fine view over the lunch on the terrace. :-)
Maybe this idea is an update of the old ‘computer calendars will stop working at the year 2000 date rollover’. The old Year 2000, the Y2K computer code bug hysteria. / heh
My company spent thousands readying my desktop for Y2K. It would have been less expensive to just replace it…which they did like 3 months later.
Yep. And that’s why the Nasdaq stock exchange rose to the moon for 5 years before the year 2000 and dropped like a rock in late 1999. The spending to upgrade or replace old machines was done by Nov. 1999. It took 17 years to re-reach that 1999 high. All that pre-spending to update systems, done earlier than most managements had planned for in the normal course of budgeting, to deal with the year 2000 rollover fell off dramatically just before the year 2000 rollover. / ;)
https://www.macrotrends.net/1320/nasdaq-historical-chart
> Alignment faking in large language models
>> We present a demonstration of a large language model engaging in alignment faking: selectively complying with its training objective in training to prevent modification of its behavior out of training.
[arxiv.org/abs/2412.14093]
On “The Fallacy of Modern Psychiatry: Treating Symptoms, Ignoring Causes”
I brought up here in the past that my brother has Schizophrenia. We grew up in a stable house, he never did drugs of any kind, and no trauma in his life. He seems to have good and bad times, which leads him to think there is something environmental that is making him feel worse.
With this in mind we are trying to find a doctor that can try to put him on a medical keto diet instead of the psychoanalytic that are doing him some physical harm.
We have been following Lauren West for years and her story seems legitimate and encouraging. She just yesterday put out this long documentary about being cured by medical keto.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pIs30jDxeo
Some of the work my other brother has showed me is that mental illness is a metabolic disease, and that people with mental illness should be eating a diet that matches their genetics.
I know my brother will always be different, but we know he can be different but not have to suffer the extremes of his illness.
This application of Keto is news to me. Thank you for this. I encountered a similar finding here:
https://ascopost.com/issues/december-10-2017/old-and-new-perspectives-on-the-theory-of-cancer/
An excellent book on the history of concepts and cures. The paucity of research on diet is criminal.
kind thoughts and good energy your brother’s way.
I do not dismiss the possibility of keto being helpful for schizophrenia. The gut and metabolism surely have a role in mental health. However IIRC Lauren West has been hospitalized a dozen times and has been on and off medication. I have to take her YouTube with a lot of salt.
Unfortunately a good psychiatrist and therapy (eg, DBT) seems like the best option. Hospitalizations are terrible, traumatic events that result in PTSD. Antipsychotics can be very nasty but the right one or two can work wonders. Our son’s journey is 15 years now. High test cannabis in HS and first year preciptated his breaks. While he completed a BSc with honors in molecular biology and genetics in 5 years the disease has been disabling and employers really don’t provide accommodations. Society’s stigmatization, lack of care, poor housing and employment make it much worse than it needs to be.
Without a huge cultural change which isn’t happening anybtime soon, treating symptoms is all we have.
> However IIRC Lauren West has been hospitalized a dozen times and has been on and off medication. I have to take her YouTube with a lot of salt.
This is pretty stigmatizing. Last time she went off her medication she just stopped cold turkey, and this time she is doing with another medical intervention , which is medical keto. The fact is that they treat schizophrenia with some of the same drugs they use for seizures and seizures are also eliminated by keto.
Are you saying they will never find a cure for Schizophrenia? Would you not want to investigate this more for your own son? And she is not the only one doing this with success as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuMO7BjvdlM
And
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2024.1444483/full
We’ll take Lauren’s YouTube advice after several years without hospitalization as opposed to a couple months. It ain’t stigmatization, only healthy skepticism. We have had many instances of very bad advice from medical or alternative medical sources that caused harm (cf Peter Breggin, etc). I also think Whittaker’s Mad in America can be very unhelpful (I discarded my autographed copy).
Schizophrenia is a spectrum of disorders. I do not feel there anything close to understanding this illness. Again, we do not dismiss keto, but there needs much more research over time.
I’ve noted the NY Post has taken upon itself an attempt to shame SNL over their “coverage” of Luigi, starting when Chris Rock hosted a week ago. Good luck with that. Note to the Post’s editors; we only read you for the troll-goodness of your headlines, not for content.
That the author went so far as to describe that the cheering came “..from what sounded like mostly women”, that is just ugly writing.
Why do supposed leading newspapers even mention SNL, week after week? Why don’t they discuss other comedy shows? Are comedy shows news? Remember when the term “infotainment” was used? It’s so obvious now that no one seems to notice, though fools care.
A weekly feature of the Boston Globe.
And The Grauniad (US version at least)
LOL. Yes, the Post’s “populism” definitely has its limits. It seems fans of the “privileged Ivy League graduate” Mangione are just “woke” members of the “deranged, anti-capitalist left.” Wake up all you MAGA fans! He’s not a true hero; he’s not one of us!
So the Post shares the views of the NY Times and the Atlantic on this issue. Another example where our fake “left-right,” “conservative-liberal,” “Democrat-Republican” divide is exposed for the oligarch kayfabe that it is.
The NY Post never saw semantics that weren’t anti-Semitic, a knee-jerk response.
For the longest time the Las Vegas Review-Journal had a splashy header atop each days news delivered online…
ISRAEL AT WAR
…but it went away a few weeks ago
Time to put the stymie on all the Robin Hood talk. The Sheriff of Nottingham is a great guy.
Jessie Jackson used to talk about “reverse Robin Hood” but they quickly pushed him to the side in favor of the poltically hapless Dukakis. In ’92 the more poltically savvy Clinton rode to the rescue while still working for the Sheriff. A pattern may have been formed.
The prob for the news business is that their incessant good guy/bad guy narrative frame is hard to maintain when the good guys are so obviously acting like villains as in the insurance biz or Gaza.
I just had a longish post concerning this get eaten by Ye Internet Dragons. I haven’t had that happen in a while. So, extra “Internet Gatekeepers” on patrol for the Holiday Season? (Not talking about the NC cadres here, but the Internet in general.)
Dons tinfoil hatt to wonder if the “spaces in between” have been dragooned into becoming secondary filters.
There is a post up yesterday describing the moderation holiday. Fewer gatekeepers rather than more leads to delay.
Thanks albrt, but this seems to be a systemic problem. The NC moderators are not involved. The comment, and others before, simply disappeared immediately after I clicked “Comment.” No moderation, no “wait a minute,” no notice at all. That’s why I quip about “Ye Internet Dragons.” Mythical creatures who feed on comments and leave no trail of clues after elimination. It really is a mystery.
Stay sa….
The Post is still owned by Murdoch is it not? Those upset at the paper must be worried about the safety of their dubious patron.
Biden humanitarianly commutes sentences dozens of murderers, still can’t see the deaths of one million Ukrainians or the hundreds of thousands of genocided Palestinians.
You can’t buy your way into heaven Joe, you’re bound for the other place no matter how many popes you buy off.
Would Satan really want him? I wonder if Biden is a challenger to the devil’s throne.
The Infernal Lord will welcome “Creepy Joe” with open arms. Confusion is one of the Devil’s best tools. Besides, if “Creepy Joe” does manage to start a Nuclear War, then the Infernal Region will have to hire tons of temporary workers to handle the tsunami of sudden “Asylum Seekers.”
Wait a second, wouldn’t Beau be beyond the pearly gates, and judging by how many times Joe has mentioned him in the decade since his passing, wouldn’t being in Hell hinder them rekindling old times when he was merely a Senator on the take?
Poor Beau. The Infernal Region is the perfect place to “rekindle” anything and everything.
It’s a shame that the Biden Circle is trying to “kindle” the Earth via thermonuclear war.
Maybe The Buddha was right. All is “Burning, burning, burning.”
When the order goes out from the White House to burn it all down, I hope that there will be a modern day von Choltitz to refuse the order.
von Choltitz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_von_Choltitz
Where’s Luigi’s “blanket pardon”?
The New York City Department of Correction regrets to announce the death of Luigi Mangione next Tuesday about four in the morning of unknown causes. The cameras on that wing will also suffer from an unexplained outage.
You must have read that time travel article more closely than I, lol.
Did I mention the drugged, errrrr, sleeping guards at all?
There certainly seems to be a run on the mountebank…
JB cannot buy his way into a wet paper bag at this point. This reeks of Dr. Biden & Co. protecting the Biden legacy…
Bunch of charlatans and shysters.
“Even if someone time travels, they may not remember or capture it: Study”
‘For instance, one major consequence of traveling in time might be that “Any memory that is collected along the closed timelike curve will be erased before the end of the loop,” Gassavino said.’
I don’t believe this idea for a moment. Consider. A spaceship accelerates towards the speed of light and one consequence is that time slows down relative to Earth. According to the Twin Paradox-
‘In physics, the twin paradox is a thought experiment in special relativity involving twins, one of whom takes a space voyage at relativistic speeds and returns home to find that the twin who remained on Earth has aged more.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox
They actually did this with two brothers to prove it. Point is, there is nowhere in this theory that states that when one twin returns, they they sync up in their ages again so why would a time traveler sync up with memories that they themselves have not experienced and their memories get wiped? In any case, how do we know what form time travel will take?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpzYYOSwqtw (4:21 mins)
My occupation included gobs of time traveling, I might be in the Roman Empire in the morning, and the French Revolution in the afternoon…
It wasn’t yours truly that was doing time travel, but the aged round metal discs I was buying and selling, and there was a proverbial ton of coins minted since the Lydians back in the day.
Speculating on a speculative speculation
Thank you, Czarina. Full disclosure: We aren’t related, in spite of our empirically imperial genes.
I recall that article from the morally befuddled Atlantic magazine that Czarina excerpts. Yep, the argument that it is “possible” to kill children in war legally. Heck, then let’s do so!
The interesting thing going on here is that all of a sudden we have the Superiors telling us who it is okay to murder. Palestinians, yep. Americans paying ridiculous health-insurance premiums and being overcharged for their prescriptions, you betcha. An entire generation of Ukrainian men, hey, less “toxic masculinity.”
Nice people like editors for riviste smerdate like Atlantic. Perish the thought.
In the U S of A, suddenly, the Superiors are baring their fangs. It’s the plantation-overseer mentality, over and over and over again.
Meanwhile, in news that isn’t news, the NY Post, lawn-ornament of the Superiors, contemplating that “Shameful Moment,” clarifies its editorial stance: “The new charges mean the privileged Ivy League graduate — who has been adopted as something of a bizarro folk hero by the deranged, anti-capitalist left — could be eligible for the death penalty if convicted.”
Pretty soon, the Atlantic and the NY Post editors (if they are indeed editors and not just excrescences of the marketing departments) will be writing about the good, ole, orderly days of Francisco Franco, when the most deranged thing allowed was joining Opus Dei. Amen.
State sponsored murder!
Nothing the IDF is attempting to achieve meets a single point of Just War doctrine.
Same for US’ adventures of “interests” and “security”
If it were okay to kill human shields all the US artillery soldiers who fired at the refugee column at No Gun Ri in Korea would be famous!
“Think of the CEOs!”, lol, I can hear them singing, never mind, that’s just the fridge needing to be replaced.
the plantation-overseer mentality. [might be “function” instead of mentality?]
That was a good one, your Majesty. Merits development.
Scarily, DJG, I was thinking earlier this morning, while straining a large soup pot of beef broth (shin and neck bones, plus veg and herbs) that had simmered on the stove all night, that we in the US are about to drop all pretense that morality, or legality, matters.
The sins of our betters are laid out before us, day after day, on twitter, on sub stack, on Judge Napolitano and Chris Hedges and Glen Greenwald and Michael Hudson, and NC and many many others. Morality and legality are just so …. fluid. It’s a continuum. A point of view. The emperors, and empresses, have no clothes. So why should us peons feel bound by morality and law? Well, other than the high probability that we will be crushed ……
Not a good place for the people of a nation to be in, in this time of interregnum.
I’m not sure what the Atlantic article thought it was trying to say but the actual situation is simple enough.
In war, people are divided into combatants (who are legitimate targets) and non-combatants, who are not. Combatants are members of the regular armed forces of a country or, at a pinch, organised groups with uniforms or distinctive markings carrying weapons. However, non-combatants lose that status and that protection if they take an active part in military operations. That includes women and children, for example 12-year olds carrying AK47s in West Africa, and the KLA’s use of women and children to carry ammunition during the fighting in Kosovo.
IHL has always recognised that no war can be fought without risks to non-combatants, but commanders are required to keep that risk to reasonable minimum (as the Russians seem to be doing in Ukraine for example.) Failure to do this can be a crime, as can the use of non-combatants as human shields, and conversely treating them as a target.
By the way, a Just War (ius ad belllum) simply means that the country concerned believes and thinks it can prove that the cause of the war is just. It pretty much went out of fashion after 1945 when aggressive wars were frowned upon. What I described above is ius in bello which is the behaviour, and criminal responsibility, of individuals and so quite different.
IMO it’s even simpler. The Atlantic was using extreme hypothetical situation to arrive at some conclusion and then try to apply that conclusion to wholly different situation. So yeah, it is possible to legally kill children in the same way it’s possible to legally eradicate whole nation, if all people, including children, women and old, of said nation are innately aggressive and will throw themselves at you no matter what until you physically eliminate them.
Except such nation is as real as the children who are constantly surrounding Hamas combatants so unfortunately the bullets and bombs can go only through their bodies.
Zelensky Must Answer for Ukrainian Genocide – Magyar Nemzet.
Penis acrobat is not a common insult in Hungarian, it is a reference to a comedy sketch Z took part in in 2016 that the article includes as a video.
Magyar Nemzet is, afaik, state media. So I guess this is the PM’s response to the Z’s response to the xmas truce proposal. Accusing Z of genocide seems an escalation of rhetoric to me.
“Deplorables”. Will they never learn?
I was thinking myself, that’s real commitment to the bit right there, isn’t it?
“Strained’ Keir Starmer badly needs holiday, his friends say as they reveal PM is suffering from the ‘relentless strain’ of the job”
Seriously? The guy has only been in the job about 171 days. If he can’t do the job, then maybe he shouldn’t be doing it. He’s outlasted Liz Truss as PM – but so did a lettuce. On a list of UK Prime Ministers by length of tenure, he is down near the bottom at number 55-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_length_of_tenure
We all need a holiday from this relentless timeline. I’ll give him a pass on this one.
Regardless of particular branding, Starmer is the 3rd generation of neoliberals. They are simply degenerating as time progresses. Starmer drove out people who care about government, only has centrists available, and was much like Biden fairly dull.
Obama was some time ago, but Obama and his cultists were fond of saying being president is hard as if that was a novel idea. Poor Keith needing a holiday is the natural progression.
He looks like he has a 50-foot long, 2 foot diameter, stainless steel US flagpole sledgehammered into his nether regions at all times. Maybe if he just removed that, he’d feel better.
Luigi Mangione’s Commonplace, Deplorable Politics – The Atlantic.
Editors at the The Atlantic have forgotten the special resonance this word acquired in 2016. But instead of denouncing Trump voters as deplorable, it’s denouncing a much broader class of people as deplorable. If it weren’t for the inescapable taint of HRC, The Deplorables could be a good name for a political movement as it evokes the class power and elite distance of those who consider us deplorable, who automatically recoil from populism.
Hey, how about Les Misérables. Oh wait, that’s been taken
Well, the Miz anthem is still useful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q82twrdr0U&t=1s
I was thinking the same thing. With enough time passed, someone will write a Broadway musical about The Deplorables and they will be cheered on by theater-goers and show tune lovers and NY Times reviewers everywhere. The play will end by the masses rejecting their false orange-haired leader when they come to realize the True meaning of Democracy. Tony awards all around.
great comment! my kid is a bartender in the theater district here, wears an A HAM hat per workplace demand. the kid understands the politics but enjoys the tips.
Do you think the Know Nothing party could be reborn as Les Deplorables?
What a fab idea. I haven’t donated since Bernie ran, but I’d donate to deplorables, no matter Hillary not so brilliantly coined it… I don’t see that as a negative, think of every single thing she stands for and the typ neolib grifter that she is.
Plus, the link below to Les miz, ‘… a world you want to see…’ could be sung at rallies. What deplorable wouldn’t be moved by that?
Each endowment will likely amount to between $11,000 and $24,000, depending on how soon the beneficiary accesses the funds once eligible at the age of 18, according to the state.
Everyone Needs A Trust Fund Noema
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My parents had a few Nickels to rub up against one another, and starting in my mid 20’s, every year all the children (and later-the spouses & grandchildren) would receive the maximum tax free gift from them, which used to be $10k and I think is now up to $18k.
It wasn’t enough money to live a highfalutin lifestyle, but it certainly was appreciated and helped out tremendously.
For them it was a no brainier, if the government is gonna allow such a thing, why not dole out inheritances way ahead of time, which is what they did.
Our State Treasurer proposed a “baby bond.”
I suggested to him that it would be more effective and cheaper to have a monthly stipend for females from onset of menarche to age 20 or so and their parents, paid on condition of them not being pregnant. It would be funded by the savings in government spending on pregnant teens and their offspring to age five and beyond. The parents would lose their stipend if their child became pregnant, hence, motivated to pay attention to her sexual development. If the child became pregnant, she would lose the payment, but would be re-instated, as would the parents, if she miscarried or had an abortion.
I proposed the plan be called, the “virginity clause,” which would give editors a chance annually around this time of year to publish an editorial, “Yes, Santa, there is a virginity clause.”
…drawn on the Chaste Manhattan bank?
But Biden, Blinken, Musk, Sullivan, Trump and countless other sociopaths work and thrive in the US of A because there is no insanity clause.
Wells Virgo.
From Meryl Nass:
Current Bird Flu Primer
Meryl Nass
Dec 22, 2024
I already linked to this site a few days ago, but since it is virtually the only place you can get decent information on bird flu, I am posting it in its entirety.
AVMA is the American Veterinary Medical Association.
https://merylnass.substack.com/p/current-bird-flu-primer
“Trump suggests U.S. should take ownership of Greenland”
Trump was saying ‘For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the US feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity’ so hand it over Denmark – for the sake of freedom, freedom I say! Not much potential for a Greenland Liberation Front much less the Popular People’s Front of Greenland. The US got Alaska for $7.2 million but I do not think that there is any amount of money to buy Greenland. The place is rich in zinc, gold, lead, silver, copper, iron ore and uranium and the ocean shelf below its territorial waters is believed to have vast oil reservoirs. And that is a just a start for it’s mineral wealth. It has the potential to supply around 30% of Europe’s molybdenum use with very clean molybdenum as well as antimony, beryllium, chromium, cobalt, graphite, fluorspar, etc. It has access to the Arctic so how much is that worth. If a Trump America moved into Greenland, they would strip-mine it’s mineral wealth and sink oil platforms everywhere they could. And the 57,000 people there? I’m sure that their young people would have a great future servicing all the US bases to be built so the young men could get jobs as taxi drivers and the young women jobs as waitresses. If the future was any more bright for them, they would need sunglasses.
https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/exploring-greenlands-critical-mineral-potential/18566/
We bought the Danish West Indies for $25 million in 1917, so there is precedence.
Then there was the Louisiana Purchase for $15 million back in 1803. What a bargain. Of course that was a time when you still had smart Yankee traders.
On 10 November 1845, before the outbreak of hostilities, President James K. Polk sent his envoy, John Slidell, to Mexico. Slidell had instructions to offer Mexico around $5 million for the territory of Nuevo México and up to $40 million for Alta California. The Mexican government dismissed Slidell, refusing to even meet with him.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). It was signed on 2 February 1848 in the town of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
After the defeat of its army and the fall of the capital in September 1847, Mexico entered into peace negotiations with the U.S. envoy, Nicholas Trist. The resulting treaty required Mexico to cede 55 percent of its territory including the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, most of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, and a small portion of Wyoming. Mexico also relinquished all claims for Texas and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas.
In turn, the U.S. government paid Mexico $15 million “in consideration of the extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States” and agreed to pay debts owed to American citizens by the Mexican government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We tried to buy Alta California for up to $40 million in 1845, but then cut a deal for $15 million for what would be 7 states in 1848, an even better buy than the Louisiana Purchase, considering all the mineral wealth.
Interesting how 1848 was also a year of big changes in the USA, a little different from goings on in Europe.
Thank you, Gentlemen.
Fun fact: Minnie d’Erlanger, a descendant of Slidell, who moved to Paris after the civil war and died on the Isle of Wight, married the grandson of Winston Churchill, another Winston and Tory MP. She was one of many Slidell descendants who married into the French and British aristocracy in the 19th and 20th centuries.
How interesting, thanks for sharing Colonel~
A timely tidbit in regards to the USA buying the DWI in 1917 from Denmark…
Oh, so make it a re-swap. America gets Greenland and Denmark gets the West Indies back. Sounds fair enough.
under Mexico the religious extremism (of Spain) lessened so quality of life improved somewhat for natives. the Americans were the worst of all, starting with the Gold Rush. Only benefit of sorts was conferring citizenship upon the sparse amounts of Mexicans in the territory. It was basically false promises like the 14th amendment but as US citizens the new additions couldn’t legally be lynched or sex trafficked, Due to Spanish names from being denizens of the Missions we could move with an imagined bit of safety among the Mexicans. cultures merged to an extent.
Later Slidell was one of the Confederate envoys captured during the Trent Affair:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Affair
Well, if we can take “our oil” in Syria and take back “our canal” in Panama, why not go after “our molybdenum” in Greenland? They’re clearly not maximizing the potential of their real estate. A population of 57,000? Sounds like a “land without people” situation to me.
I like the way you think, pjay!
File under Syriaqistan:
At peak of war: 500 IDF officers to leave military
Army grapples with unprecedented departures as career personnel cite burnout and lack of recognition.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/12/19/at-peak-of-war-500-idf-officers-to-leave-military/
Netanyahu says who cares about a lack of recognition, just get them back fighting again.
You’d think that the last thing the perpetrators of a genocide want is recognition.
Netanyahu reckons that when you are committing the mass murder of Amalekites, it doesn’t count as genocide. In Israeli society, those officers would be heroes.
Few if any people ever remark that some, if not many of our American “heroes” are anything but. Many people think that if they wear a uniform, that means they are heroes.
Few things irk me more than the profound ignorance displayed by the words “thank you for your service”.
Lack of recognition. What does that mean? Not enough medals?
How about not enough pay?
Not enough random people on the streets asking for autographs and photos?
Maybe they are just eager to be out of the IDF, so they can go be world class boors when traveling overseas with other recently released IDF jackals of all tirades.
Lack of recognition? Maybe the lawyers are trying to interfere here, given that the actual recognition might be used as evidence of war crimes?
Russian military: Moving from Syria to Libya? – Deutsche Welle
My big picture, off-the-cuff takeaway is that too many countries (USA being a well-documented case) are finding the Middle East chaos workable for their needs. Maybe not ideal. Yet, they move right along from region to region until they think it’s less manageable than usual, then just skip over to the next chaotic region to navigate within.
The linked Haaretz article is pungent. Anyone who had friends or colleagues, etc., who are reflexively pro-Israel, should perhaps consider encouraging them to read it, given that the source is an Israeli newspaper, and the (damning) accounts are first-hand, from soldiers and officers, no less.
We have friends and colleagues who are reflexively pro-Israel and they’ll hear none of it. Israel uber alles is all they see and say. We’ve lost a few…… no biggie. Ha, in the 70s while hitch hiking around Europe, it was common for Americans to sew Canadian flags on their rucksacks to hide their “American-ness”. I can imagine people soon traveling around with a sewn on Israeli flag and a big red null sign drawn over it. Shame, shame on Israel and its supporters!
Makes the German public’s support of their country’s actions in the late 30s and early 40s a lot more understandable now, doesn’t it? They were “supporting the troops” and were proud of all the territory that they had seized.
From TRT World (Turkish Public Broadcasting Service)
Palestine Talks | In conversation with Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro on the origins of Zionism
Shapiro is a Haredi (I believe) anti-Zionist Rabbi in Israel. It is a very interesting talk. The Zionists have nurtured a very cruel society and clearly are not adherents of Judaism, by the good Rabbi’s metrics.
Thank you for the link, Alice X.
Another horrific Haaretz article I read today
‘When You Leave Israel and Enter Gaza, You Are God’: Inside the Minds of IDF Soldiers Who Commit War Crimes
https://archive.ph/O8rGB
Thank you!
RE: “The SNL crowd cheers for Luigi Mangione last night …” tweet
On last Friday’s (I think) America This Week with Kirn and Taibbi, Walter Kirn “guaranteed” that Mangione would not be convicted of this murder. (OJ anyone?)
Kirn’s been making some wild “predictions” lately, like the NJ drone “mystery” is a psyop intended to scare people away from Trump’s inauguration. Dunno. But Kirn tends to view things through the lens of a screenwriter/novelist, which he is.
In the case of Mangione, he tends to view the furor over the murder of a “health” insurance executive as an attempt to steer people away from criticism of the piss poor, grossly ineffective american “healthcare” system, with its relentless emphasis on high-cost drugs and surgeries and beggaring of primary care, toward ire at the insurance “industry.” He sees it as a way to undercut RFKJ’s “healthcare” reform mission.
Once again, dunno. But his take is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.
It’s not difficult to agree with the hypothesis of diverting attraction away from the evils of our healthcare, and the entire FIRE section. Ex “alt media”, it’s crickets on this subject. Apologies to the media moguls, this djinn is out of he bottle, and no amount of spin is going to change the revelation that the misery meted out by these sectors is an experience common to all of us.
I’m remembering a scene from the movie “Bandits” when Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis rob the electric company, to the applause of the customers in line waiting to (cash) pay their bills.
>”I’m remembering a scene from the movie “Bandits” when Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis rob the electric company, to the applause of the customers in line waiting to (cash) pay their bills.”
Odd feeling you couldn´t do this in oh-so liberal Hollywood today. Except may be as comedy which nobody would take seriously though.
That tweet didn’t understand the clip it was critiquing. Is the tweeter not American? I’ve seen this a lot with critiques of American sarcasm.
The whole joke was that Luigi is popular. The point of the remark about Bumble (dating app) was that he is making people…ahem…thirsty, though this is SNL so the “joke” is kind of nonsensical and not really funny. The host’s reaction was obviously staged, the kind of nudge nudge wink wink thing we’re all used to.
The point is, even the elites are disgusted by UnitedHealthcare, that’s how bad that particular corner of the economy has gotten.
Agreed with your observation that the author of the tweet missed the joke.
I have to push back on the crowd being “elite”. Regarding tickets to attend the show, according to a reviewer on trip adviser, and as I remember it from my tenure in the city, there are three ways to get in.
1. Know someone who works for the show.
2. Win the SNL lottery (high odds and entries can only be submitted in August).
3. The standby line.
I don’t know if I buy the redirection theory. I don’t think our oligarchy was prepared for the rift in the matrix that Mangione’s actions caused. They are just scrambling to reestablish the status quo. It isn’t just the actions of insurance companies that unites the divided population of the US. It is all aspects of the industry surrounding healthcare.
But Kirn and I agree that Mangione will not be convicted. I may not be sure that he will get to trial, but even in Wall Street dominated NYC they cannot seat a jury panel that will convict him. Hung jury or acquittal is it, and my back of the envelope odds lean to acquittal. Our system has been almost universal in mistreating and abusing the populace, and insurance also abuses the providers. And it crosses the classes.
This scene from the 1997 movie As Good as it Gets had audiences clapping and cheering at the outburst against HMOs. Today, almost 30 years later, things have gotten worse for most people, imo. utube, ~4+ minutes.
The Doctor’s Visit | As Good As It Gets | CineStream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2WNAQe2Wf0
And HMOs may have come off as second rate compared to traditional coverage then, but now probably look great as the whole system has become an expensive roulette game, you need to give insurance companies money to play, but have an ever decreasing chance that your bill will be paid.
One of the big aspects of ACA that may be part of that is the tax against so called platinum plans that businesses offer. First businesses not want to pay the outrageous premiums, but this gave businesses the added incentive of making more comprehensive coverage doubly expensive for them. Similar to no child left behind the metrics of the tax that at the start targeted really good union plans, over time would and did hit the merely adequate. Really good employer provided coverage is almost nonexistent outside of the C suite. There are high deductibles and increasing copays, and most coverage is going to be subject to the same denial rate that Joe Schmo’s is.
Everything is worse now by design. And few Americans are exempt from the horrific nature of the system. You get sick, you jump through hoops and fight to get the coverage you paid for.
‘Dionis Cenușa
@DionisCenusa
#Romania: Liberal candidate Elena Lasconi is using the image of the Moldovan and Georgian presidents to boost her chances against her rival Georgescu, who is described as a Russian asset (“United against Putin”).’
What that image needed was those three women to wear t-shirts saying ‘The Future Is Female’ but it is not that way at all. Salome Zourabichvili on the left is French spook adjacent while Lasconi and Sandu are WEF all the way. But this image is not that good a look for Lasconi. Zourabichvili got the boot as President but is refusing to leave and may even try to call her own election. She is like the guest that refuses to leave.
Sandu is going nuts right now. The Ukraine is giving the chop to all gas west which means Moldova as well. Sandu is blaming the Russians so she wants to invade Transnistria and seize the Cuciurgan power plant which supplies around 75% of Moldova’s electricity. But what if those Russian peacekeepers start shooting back and have help from Mr. Kinzhal?
The funny thing? Remember how Hillary was boosting Trump back in 2016 as she considered him an easy candidate to beat? Turns out that after an investigation by the Romanian tax authorities, it was not the Russians that was supporting that guy Georgescu but the main party as boosting him supported their agenda of who they wanted to beat. Just like with Hillary and Trump back in 2016.
Heh. You win the interwebs today.
To quote a NY Post headline; “ Three Bimbos of the Apocalypse”. Reddit link, shows the full article.
The interesting thing about that thread for me was that the author is clearly not pro-Georgescu, but objects to stupid, corrupt and/or unconstitutional tactics being used to defeat her, which he thinks will backfire and give her even more legitimacy:
Conflation of those two positions is often part of the problem. It certainly was in the US, where being anti-Russiagate was regularly perceived as being pro-Trump.
Re “The New Property Feudalism” I ask yet again — how is it that we find ourselves with capital allocation and inter-generational wealth transfer circumstances which wouldn’t be out of place in a Jane Austen novel?
Forbes/Google article
“For users, though, the choices should be clear and transparent at all times. You should know when and how you are being tracked, and you should have an easy-button to say thanks, but no thanks.”
So if such a button existed who wouldn’t push it? Or believe it really works.
Perhaps the current user bargain is preferable: Google pretends to show us ads and we pretend to watch them. Of course there are lots of people who do watch the ads and even enjoy them just as there used to be, still are, people who stay glued to QVC on their televisions all day.
Apparently there is big money to be made off of this particular segment or TV stations not to mention Google would quickly go broke. But here’s suggesting it’s not our privacy but our ever under assault eyeballs that are the real victims of American culture. Some of us believe that if you want to control this you have to find where the other button, the off button, is. I don’t watch much commercial television any more and as for Google Chrome, never use it.
If those new user tracking techniques by Google take off, we can also surmise that fingerprinting protections will join ad-blockers in order to defeat them. There are already a number of fingerprint blockers for the firefox browser. I do not know how effective they are, but with Google stepping up the challenge, they will be under pressure to improve quite a lot.
I used the “raw” Edge browser recently, and I was stunned at how unbearable the browsing, youtube, etc, experience has become without an ad-blocker.
I hate edge, but it seems you can’t get rid of it. Awful piece of software IMO.
TPTB must know how irritated we are with all the distractions since Safari and Firefox include a “reader mode” for websites that allow it. And in Firefox there’s a kind of homebrew reader mode in desktop versions by tapping ALT and then View in the menu bar and turning off CSS. But these modes block Javascript and therefore the ability to, say, make these comments.
For Google though the notion of ever being offline is anathema and my Chromebook will force you to go onto the web about once a week if you want to use their Linux option (the way of getting Firefox). And that goes for all Google products as far as I can tell. They are the ultimate spybot and, let’s hope, not too evil.
A mildly interesting piece. I don’t have blood sample documentation but I’ve been going around for quite awhile still feeling like I was 25 (I’m 75). But then my hip went out (to lunch) and oh brother, I felt like I was 95. I’m back, but now it’s more like 55, maybe I’ll improve.
Meanwhile people I’ve known younger than myself have gone. C’est la vie.
Now that’s time traveling!
As they say, Alice, growing old is inevitable, but growing up is optional. (Not intended as snarky criticism, btw)
The committee said it also received testimony that at a 2017 party, Gaetz twice had sex with “Victim A,” who was 17 years old at the time and had just completed her junior year in high school.
“Victim A recalled receiving $400 in cash from Representative Gaetz that evening, which she understood to be payment for sex,” the committee wrote. “Victim A said that she did not inform Representative Gaetz that she was under 18 at the time, nor did he ask her age.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is statutory rape with an afterthought of turning it into a trick, enough to disqualify you for being Attorney General?
So, for those interested in “the rest of the story” (credit, the late Paul Harvey), here’s Jimmy Dore telling it, as discovered by “Mel, @Villagecrazylady” and recounted on X.
It’s bizarre and totally believable in today’s decrepit, pathetically debauched america.
Well worth your time, if only for the you’ve-got-to-be-effin’-kiddin’-me factor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL1qZGXci18
Lol, From an ethical standpoint, Gaetz appears to be perfectly qualified for a cabinet position. What’s all the fuss about?
heh heh heh heh we are so freaking close to something new yet undefined. And. yes I laugh when I’m nervous.
Just watched it. Thank you.
yes, thank you
this is seriously absurd
and more absurd those people getting paid to report this kind of thing won’t do it
and what remains is a fake rape story instead
and the FBI and CIA going doing their shitty business
and then THOSE lies get amplified all over
p.s. not involving fake IDs but with the intent of gathering compromat: see e.g. the French 1950s sex scandal “balletts roses” involving some of the highest French politicians
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballets_roses
Starmer strained…
Larry the cat looks on with unrestrained feline derision.
I had several delightful hours with my Daughter yesterday, she is renting a nicely updated 60’s 3/2 tract home with two other College graduates for $4,400 per Month, $1,000 a Month less than it would have cost 2 years ago.
A home across the street with the same floor plan that has not been updated sold a Month ago for $2,300,000 cash.
I looked at the pics and it needs not less than $200K to bring it up to snuff, redo 2 bathrooms and a kitchen, paint, carpet, refinish hardwood floors.
Since this is not an area where you can skip getting permits the new assessed value will be $2.5MM.
Even if there are no school bonds or sewer bonds the minimum property tax will be 1.25% per year, or $37,500.
Back in the days when Gross Rental Multipliers gave an approximation of value a home in this area, in first rate condition, would sell for @ 110X Monthly rent.
It’s going to be an interesting next few years, for the survivors.
Mayorkas’s interview: “The domestic violent extremism that exists, the threat of it in the United States is one of the great threat streams that we must counter.”
So, are the CEOs being rounded up now to protect us?
Has Kamala Harris taken a job writing his stuff?
On UFOs
LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS
Weird Things in the Sky
Edmund Gordon
review of:
After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon
by Greg Eghigian.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n24/edmund-gordon/weird-things-in-the-sky
It’s a long summary of the history of the discussion since 1945 mainly. (I am not an UFO-believer so I am not disappointed by the author’s irony on the subject.)
Last paragraph:
“If there is a case for taking such incidents seriously, then it hasn’t been materially helped by David Grusch, a former US Air Force intelligence officer, who last year went public with claims that the federal government had for decades been running a top-secret UFO retrieval programme and was in possession of not only numerous alien spacecraft but also the corpses of their pilots. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee arranged a hearing, at which Grusch repeated many of his allegations, but failed (at least in the open sessions) to provide any supporting evidence. That didn’t faze some members of the committee. The Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett, who co-chaired the hearing, told reporters that the government was clearly engaged in a massive cover-up, and that the ‘technology’ seen in the declassified Pentagon videos ‘defies all of our laws of physics’. He demonstrated his grasp of those laws when he explained why he thought Grusch’s claims about alien bodies being recovered from UFOs were credible: ‘I don’t want to oversimplify things, but how are you going to fly one? You got to have somebody in it. That seems to be pretty simple.’ It’s a strange cast of mind that credits aliens with the power of intergalactic travel but not the wherewithal to manufacture drones. “
Re: The Fallacy of Modern Psychiatry: Treating Symptoms, Ignoring Causes
I definitely think a lot of mental health problems are caused by the environment.
Focault explained this brilliantly in Madness and Civilization. People will be labelled as ‘crazy’ to discredit their autonomy and make it so you can disregard their opinions and do whatever to them. The mental health system is just as carceral as the prison system unless you have the money and resources to get into actually good programs. Anyway. Going ‘people are homeless because they are mentally ill therefore it is safer to have them in prison’ is a great way to build up the prison labor force. But it’s more like, you take stable housing away from someone, make it hard to access resources, expose them to the struggles of living on the street, of course that person becomes mentally ill. And if you take away all choices, the only choice you have left is who you’re going to swing your fists at.
It’s the same with things like depression and anxiety and even ADHD among modern youth. How much of that is created by environments hostile to human connection that force you to sit inside and stare at a screen all day? Or even if they aren’t forcing you, they just make it so difficult to do otherwise that you never end up doing it in the first place.
“Erich Fromm” was writing about modern psychiatry-psychology ignoring causes and treating symptoms from the 1940s on. Fromm was frequently mentioned in social psychology lectures by a prominent professor-therapist, but I only read outlines of the writings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Fromm
It’s been a while now but a sibling showed signs of mental illness as early as two, and my takeaway over time was that psychiatry was about as useful as astrology (no offense to anyone who likes astrology).
My guess is there might be environmental triggers in such people, that is, exposure to certain chemicals during pregnancy. Maybe.
>”as useful as astrology”
That’s not correct.
One also ought to distinguish between psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis etc.
Each of those has its justifications in a scientific sense. i.e. they actually work or worked under certain conditions for certain patients.
Astrology has nothing to do with that. It is entirely subjective. You can choose to believe in it. With the former it’s an objectifiable way to help people.
And I am saying this as someone highly critical of psychoanalysis or therapy in general where it´s often simply the economic facts that crush people. And those you can´t talk away. They teach you to live with it. Well thank you. I´d rather unionize and do violant resistance if necessary. But that´s a different angle.
RE: Did Yemen’s Ansurullah Shoot Down a U.S. Navy F-18F Fighter? Assessing Conflicting Claims
Whether Ansurallah scored a direct hit, or their attack caused an inept USian military to shoot down its own plane, I think they can count it as a “win”.
Really not sure what world these clowns live in where “we shot ourselves down” makes for a better excuse.
Well, if you paint your opponents as primitives from mud huts, it could be bad for business if it ever got out that the machines you are selling for tens of millions can be shot down with wooden arrows.
If you read the story carefully, and assume the translation from the original is accurate, then their operation “was carried out using eight cruise missiles and 17 drones, resulting in the downing of an F-18 fighter jet while the destroyers attempted to intercept the Yemeni drones and missiles.” This doesn’t actually claim that they shot the jet down: indeed, it rather implies the opposite, and anyway it’s hard to see how drones and cruise missiles could shoot down an F-18. It’s much easier to imagine how a Carrier mixed up targets.
So, apparently it wasn’t a multi-thousand dollar missle or drone that brought the Fighter down but its own multi-billion dollar air defense systems. But not to worry, AI is gonna make it better.
Only today I found out that Russia-hater Paula Dobriansky’s father – Dobriansky herself being of Atlantic Council fame and signing the original New American Century memo among other things – Lev E. Dobriansky, was a high member of UKR fascist-promoting CIA affiliate “World Anti-Communist League”, close to Reagan’s crazy lot getting the money and infrastructure for 1984 re-election – and working hard to bring down USSR.
(Do I remember correctly B. Clinton needed Polish votes and therefore promised them NATO? – must be a lot of Polish RU-hating nut jobs living in the US.)
I bumped into Mrs. Dobriansky in this debate with Mearsheimer at the Council on Foreign Relations which I posted here back in the summer:
“Should Congress Stop Funding the War in Ukraine?”
https://opentodebate.org/debate/should-congress-stop-funding-the-war-in-ukraine/
Is Anna-Lena Baerbock not ashamed coalescing with such people, with her past? Good god…
During the Clinton Presidency, early in 1999, Poland was asked to join NATO and immediately agreed. Then, a few years later, Bush asked that Poland receive American missiles. Obama then pushed further on to Poland as a host for American missiles.
(I will look at the dates when I have a few moments, but the expansion of NATO was being pushed from the Clinton years on.)
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/13/world/expanding-alliance-the-overview-poland-hungary-and-the-czechs-join-nato.html
March 13, 1999
EXPANDING ALLIANCE: THE OVERVIEW; Poland, Hungary and the Czechs Join NATO
By Jane Perlez
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization today embraced three former rivals — the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland — formally ending the Soviet domination that began after World War II and opening a new path for the military alliance.
In a ceremony at the Truman Presidential Library tinged with the personal and the emotional, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright watched the three foreign ministers sign the documents of accession, signed them herself, then held them aloft like victory trophies…
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/world/europe/21biden.html?ref=world
October 21, 2009
Poland to Accept Missile Defense Offer
By JUDY DEMPSEY
BERLIN — Poland, smarting after President Barack Obama announced last month that he would scrap Bush-era plans to deploy an antiballistic missile system in Eastern Europe, will accept an offer to host parts of a new, more mobile missile defense system, Polish officials said Tuesday…
Nice links.
Thanks!
I had already forgotten: whilst preparing the bombers against Serbia she took care of those signatures.
Couldn´t get enough could she…
interesting ultimate paragraphs re: NYT 2009
“Mr. Biden is to hold talks with Romanian leaders on Thursday and Czech leaders on Friday. He plans to deliver a speech in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, that will set out the administration’s policies toward Eastern Europe, said Antony J. Blinken, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser.
Moscow has been a staunch opponent of the shield, asserting that the antiballistic missiles were directed against Russia, a claim that the United States has strongly denied. The Bush and Obama administrations have said that any defense shield was meant to protect Europe against a possible attack from Iran; for Poland and the Czech Republic, it was about increasing security vis-à-vis Russia.”
So what will it be – Iran or Russia?
To argue it is not against Russia, but for protection of Poland and Czechs against Russia – that´s a zero sum argument. The lofty disguise and lack of logic behind this is so obvious it´s already an insult to print it. Like giving someone the “finger” and claim it an accident. “Oops, I did it again.”
p.s. of course none of this is new. But it´s astonishing to read about it every time anew and how completely void of any respect these people were. Uncultured like “wow”.
“But it´s astonishing to read about it every time anew and how completely void of any respect these people were…”
An important insight. The lack of respect is startling when pointed out.
The story in simple terms:
Have you ever read a review that felt too good to be true? Turns out, it probably was and now AI is cranking up the problem.
Tools like ChatGPT make writing fake reviews faster and easier. Scammers are using them to flood sites like Amazon, Yelp, and even app stores.
Fake reviews aren’t just annoying they’re everywhere. A recent study found nearly 14% of reviews in sectors like home and medical services were likely fake, with millions generated by AI.
Some scammers even write glowing reviews to earn “Elite” badges on Yelp, giving their profiles a fake sense of trustworthiness.
Companies like Amazon and Yelp say they’re fighting back, but watchdogs argue it’s not enough.
What we think: As AI tools grow, spotting fake reviews will get trickier. Watch out for overly detailed or repetitive reviews they might just be bots talking. from ProHumanAI
I think this will reinforce the benefit of resources like Consumer Reports. Or for services, old fashioned word of mouth.
precisely why I bought World Book encyclopedia 2023, maybe the last year of uncorrupted info, or at least the shared reality we all rely on.
About that article . . . Zelensky Must Answer for Ukrainian Genocide . . . and its author Tóth Tamás Antal . . .
does Mr. Antal consider the possibility that Zelensky dare not step aside because the Ukranazis will assassinate him and possibly his entire family if he even dares to try?
The Ukranormals-in-general will have to figure out how to rise up and exterminate their country’s Ukranazi population. There is not a thing that Zelensky can do about any of this.
On Key warning signs about bird flu are all going in the wrong direction
Fun. People won’t get it. People aren’t going to get any new modified RNA thing. Liberal Democrats, but plenty of other people will not.
This isn’t gonna end well if we get HtH transmission, and it is airborne.
US – Our list: Humans with full or partial test positive #H5N1 results list (CDC + states + seropositive + assay positive) = 83 in 12 states. 5 of the 12 states are new in Dec. ’24. CDC = 71 (confirmed + probable)..flutrackers.com