1,329 tiny snails released on remote island BBC
The 7 Coolest Mathematical Discoveries of 2024 Scientific American
America’s Problematic Policies (video) Ambassador Chas Freeman, Dialogue Works, YouTube
Russia’s DECISIVE Offensive Has Been Launched! ESCALATING Confrontation (video) Scott Ritter, Gilysarts Artesanatos, YouTube
US Admits ATACMS Failure, Blames Ukraine, Stockpile Depleted; Russia Storms Kurakhovo Plant (video) Alexander Mercouris, YouTube
Climate
Did a wet climate give rise to China’s first empires over 2,000 years ago? South China Morning Post
The Japanese ‘micro-forest’ method is transforming cities EuroNews
Syndemics
CDC: Revised Interim Recommendations for Prevention, Monitoring, and Public Health Investigations of HPAI H5 Avian Flu Diary
Norovirus cases surge in US Anadolu Agency
As David Tennant’s Macbeth gets cancelled, more questions are raised around Covid protections The Canary
Hospitals in South Wales introduce mask-wearing rules amid fears of rising flu cases Sky News
Africa
In Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, China is proving it is master of the sea South China Morning Post
The New Great Game
Kavelashvili sworn in as Georgia’s president as predecessor vows to fight on France24
Syraqistan
Israel detains director of key north Gaza hospital as WHO condemns raids Al Jazeera. Commentary:
Last photograph of Dr Hussam Abu Safiyeh as he walked towards the Israeli tank . pic.twitter.com/n34y7ReAc9
— Ghassan Abu Sitta (@GhassanAbuSitt1) December 28, 2024
(Safiyeh was arrested, not killed, at least not yet.)
* * * The BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza Dropsite News
Enabling genocide? Al Jazeera
Armed for survival: How Oct 7 Hamas massacre transformed gun culture in Israel FOX
* * * Afghan Taliban hit ‘several points’ in Pakistan in retaliation for attacks Al Jazeera
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukrainian military faces manpower shortage amid increasing desertions France24
* * * Ukraine Slows Firing of Missiles Into Russia as Trump Prepares to Take Office NYT
The Perils Of Escalation With Russia Are Still Very Real The National Interest
Russia warns the United States against possible nuclear testing under Trump Reuters
* * * Zelenskyy accuses Slovakia of opening ‘second energy front’ against Ukraine Al Jazeera
Russia ‘limits to zero’ gas supplies to Moldova starting Wednesday Anadolu Agency
* * * Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Russian and international news media, Moscow, December 26, 2024 (transcript) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
Global Elections
2024 Was a Year of Angry Elections Foreign Policy
South of the Border
Bolivia’s former leader Evo Morales seeks a political comeback from his stronghold in the tropics AP
Trump Transition
Elon melts down:
The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B.
Take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 28, 2024
Commentary:
More on H1-B:
I've addressed this 18 y ago in The Black Swan: America's edge is in risk taking, not education. Any idiot can have education; you need to learn to fail.
The American system has been based on trial and error. Which is why foreigners succeed here not at home. pic.twitter.com/d8ZVQQ7FEG— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) December 29, 2024
Tesla Emerges Among Top Employers Of H-1B Visa Holders Forbes
* * * Trump sides with Musk in H-1B fight Axios
Trump supports immigration visas backed by Musk: ‘I have many H-1B visas on my properties’ NY Post
Trump’s green card proposal for college grads sparks controversy Anadolu Agency
* * * Tech and outsourcing companies continue to exploit the H-1B visa program at a time of mass layoffs Economic Polich Institute. From 2023, still germane.
India intensifies lobbying against H-1B curbs, in touch with US govt ‘at every level’ India Today
* * *
2024 Post Mortem
Joe Biden’s lonely battle to sell his vision of American democracy WaPo
Feds finally release photos showing then-VP Biden meeting son Hunter’s China biz partners — days before he leaves office New York Post
Boeing
‘It’s still in shambles’: Can Boeing come back from crisis? BBC
179 passengers ‘presumed’ dead in South Korea plane crash Anadolu Agency
Plane catches fire while skidding down runway during rough landing in Canada Daily Mail
Healthcare
Officials investigating link between Ozempic and eye-rotting disease that makes people blind Daily Mail
Housing
US homelessness up 18% as affordable housing remains out of reach for many people AP
Technology
Why not here?
A company in eastern China’s Jiangsu designed wearable airbag jackets to protect the elderly from tumbles.
The protective system can react within 0.18 seconds with a chip that monitors changes in posture in real time and senses a potential impact. pic.twitter.com/99ceuWgeEx
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 3, 2024
Class Warfare
Resisting retirement? Why some people want to keep working EuroNews
The Unbearable Slowness of Being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s? (PDF) (preprint) arXiv.org. “This article is about the neural conundrum behind the slowness of human behavior. The information throughput of a human being is about 10 bits/s. In comparison, our sensory systems gather data at ∼ 109 bits/s. The stark contrast between these numbers remains unexplained and touches on fundamental aspects of brain function: What neural substrate sets this speed limit on the pace of our existence?”
Day One 3 Quarks
Antidote du Jour (Arturo de Frias Marques):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
File under class warfare. From the Due Dissidence guys, utube, ~13+ minutes.
Report: Alabama PROFITING From PRISON LABOR at McDonald’s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEldGhgZ_qU
Slavery by another name. . . .
That’s the definition of “freedom” to McDonald’s and other corporations.
I’mI’ve long been of the opinion that if the citizenry is going to imbue the government with the authority to use violence and incarcerate citizens, that government should not promptly hand off the responsibilities appurtenant thereto to private parties. To the extent that prisoners are to work, they should work exclusively to government (i.e. collective) ends. I’m actually okay with prisoners printing license plates and road signs, or helping to maintain local parks. I guess you could say I see it as appropriate value returned to the society they transgressed leading to their incarceration.
Things like prisoners working to subsidize the business model of private parties are an abomination
“Feds finally release photos showing then-VP Biden meeting son Hunter’s China biz partners — days before he leaves office”
I remember when this trip took place over a decade ago for a very good reason which this article briefly mentioned. When old Joe flew into China aboard Air Force Two, he had his son Hunter with him. And that meant that when Hunter was making business deals with the Chinese, that he was not acting as just some businessman that had just gone through customs but as the family representative of the Vice-President of the US with the unspoken backing of the US government. Any Mafia Don would have understood those unspoken signals.
It might be fun to see how the PMC class defends that photo given Biden and the democrats never do anything wrong, and Joe never lies, and Hunter wasn’t president or however they decide to spin it . Or they can use the old worn out but common Trump card – BUT TRUMP.
They flip out daily by every little thing Trump may say, or the GOP, while the dems hid Biden for 4 years (see WSJ article posted here) and not a peep. His condition wasn’t a lie, Joe was sharp as a tack. The media is FOS and making things up. Oh, yes, of course. Silly me. And the list goes on…
They live in their very own made up reality and the rest of us are just idiots.
> It might be fun to see how the PMC class defends that photo …
They can’t… and they don’t have to … because another defining characteristic of the PMC is their absolute goldfish-brained-cognitive-dissonace.
If you bring this up to your MSNBC-addicted relative, their response is likely to be “But … but … Jr., Jared and Ivanka!!!”
The one that still gets me is how many of them still use the Russia is behind everything excuse. I picture them sitting in a chair while the shrink asks them if Putin is in the room with them right now. Yet, they can never explain how exactly Putin is controlling everyone. But they don’t need proof – this is the way it is because they say so and proof isn’t needed.
I even had one tell me the democrats had a primary to elect Harris. Oh, brother… Many were saying how Musk got Trump elected. I told them the democrats got Trump elected. They lost to a reality show circus clown – twice, and they should look in the mirror instead of blaming everything and everyone else. I was told that both losses were to a women, and a women of color – so that tells you all you need to know about the electorate.
Of course! Dummy me. So it’s because we men won’t vote for a woman. Maybe they should pick better women. Na, if they were a blue D they are great. That’s all it takes.
Cognitive Dissonance. ‘Russia russia russia’ is a coping mechanism papering over the political dissonance between what Dem party says and what the Dem party does. (The GOP has their own coping mechanism for papering over their cognitive dissonances. See MAGA voters vs Musk-Vivek’s more H-IB visa workers plan.) / ;)
I’m writing a book: My Life As A Putin Stooge. I will accept chapters from contributors. They must be both truthy and funny.
Eagerly anticipating the chapter on gardening tips for your Dacha.
What’s funny is how Putin used to be a “good guy”, and how little it took for us to turn on him. He helped us with the Afghanistan invasion, so he was our buddy! But then he expressed doubts about the invasion of Iraq (a country that had nothing to do with 9/11) and even worse he went after Yukos, and by the end of 2003 he was a “bad guy” like all those previous bad Russians. You can’t deviate from the line that the US is always right in its murdering, looting and pillaging or you’re a strong candidate for being The Next Hitler. He dd have to wait till the media got tired of Muqtada al-Sadr peering out ominously from magazine covers, but he’s been TNH #1 since around 2007.
Biden was so insistent on the Russians overthrowing Putin, but I bet, if that had happened, it would not have been long before his successor, whoever that was, got pegged as TNH. The US establishment and reality have become completely divorced from one another.
> What’s funny is how Putin used to be a “good guy”
One of the greatest ironies in US-Russia “relations” is the fact that the US engineered a win for Yeltsin (via Jacobin) in 1996 (the real election interference! via time.com), and Yeltsin gave the world Putin!
Putin’s villain arc was created and fortified by US intervention. Now it approaches its zenith with the proxy war, for the loss of which, excuses are already being concocted.
:: chef’s kiss::
Yeltsin gave the world Putin, just like Biden gave the world Kamala. They were both pressured to step down by someone.
Ha! True. :)
Putin, however, managed to consolidate power, while Kamala could not (cue wailing and gnashing of teeth in certain liberal circles)..
That’s life at the top. Remember Ivanka and her patents in China. Oh, and then there’s Jared getting a cool couple of billions from the Saudis. Life at the top uniparty style.
“Remember Ivanka and her patents in China…”
A business tied to the Trump family had several “trademarks” affirmed in China in 2018. The applications were evidently made in 2016, and granted early in 2018:
https://apnews.com/article/0a3283036d2f4e699da4aa3c6dd01727
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joe Biden’s lonely battle to sell his vision of American democracy WaPo
Lonely …it did seem like a lot of pundits in print and online were over eager to highlight the wonderful economy and the wonderful boom in large thanks to Bidenomics. You had your Krugman, a Noah Smith, the writer for New Republic….all manner of people who write for a living. Not sarcasm if the authors of such dreck were indeed too often, in their words prone to an overbearing tone of ” the Biden era was a time of plenty and a cornucopia of things plentiful, good and affordable…”
Joe Biden as a reprise of the Forrest Gump….fiction and or myth so unreal it can hardly be accepted as truth, given our hindsight nature of making observations …
Why do I fear we’re seeing the beginning of painting Joe as some tragic figure failed by the time he lived in rather than the nasty piece of work he actually was?
Classic elite thinking. A member of The Elite cannot fail, only be failed.
It avoids all ‘personal’ responsibility.
Because nobody is talking about Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 or who was the author of the Patriot Act. Down the memory hole. I don’t see anybody complaining that he still owes them $600, either.
Lonely Joe, always a day late and a dollar short.
Also: genocide.
Joenocide?
Also: Clarence Thomas.
That’s f**king nuts. This guy murdered 800k Americans, decimated public health, got the US in a hot proxy war with Russia, and presided over the largest increase in childhood poverty in history.
Good times, for all.
To say nothing of the fact that Biden wasn’t even president for an unknown number of days during his term.
Without a doubt, out of the most pathetic presidencies in recent history. Talk about an abject failure to rise to the occasion. These clowns couldn’t even nuke Trump from orbit with lawfare.
Blah blah blah.
Imagine if there had been an open primary, instead of cooking it so no one could credibly run.
Incompetent politically, as well as mentally.
You gotta be high as f**k. The Pandemic is ongoing. Public health is in shambles. And we’re risking nuclear war. Over a place most Americans probably can’t find on a map even today.
I appreciate how you presented the argument above with stating simple, observable facts and the truth of our situation. Record job growth….might be the one and lonely feather in their proverbial cap. I’ll include another one below.
Anyone old enough to remember the pace of inflation from the middle 70s into the early 80s was reminded of the pernicious nature of inflation. During 2022 the Biden administration touched on a 40 year standing high mark of inflation…. rightly or wrongly it is the outgoing administration that owns that inflation banner of “mediocrity” success as it were. Point those blame cannons at the next administration if or when we’re still grappling with inflation that just will not go quietly.
It’s hardly a wonderful unchecked pattern of success.
He’s probably lonely because of all those news conferences and other meetings with the public that he avoided as frantically as he could for four years. When you hide in your bunker alone, you tend to get…lonely.
A shared cell in a crowded prison might be just the cure he needs for that loneliness now. Maybe Trump can arrange that? Naw, I’m still waiting for Donald to follow through with his “lock her up” promise for Crooked Hillary.
Re: Trump’s green card proposal for college grads sparks controversy
giving green cards to all college grads: bad idea because degree mills. a lot of people come to the us for a 2-year masters in cs or whatever. do not give anyone who can pay for a 2-year masters a green card. that is so many people. if you want to give green cards out to combat brain drain, give it to phd holders at most.
it is interesting that trump sided with musk on the H1-B issue. trump says a lot of things ofc. but this really shows the grip musk and the tech bros have on him. makes me wonder what pro tech business policies will be enacted.
As a guess, I would say that a lot of rich families overseas will see this new measure as a way of getting their foot in the door of the US. Thus I would expect a massive increase of the number of overseas kids enrolling in all those colleges, including junior colleges as well, and those universities & colleges will see that it will be more profitable to enroll those rich kids from overseas than local kids. The rich kids in the US will not really have to worry as a lot of them have places set aside for them already but for everybody else, well, those student placements have just been outsourced.
well at the Univ of Mich they been building more and more dorms and private high rises going up with expensive apartments – all ready for that influx – IMHO it has seriously degraded the character of Ann Arbor and also through eminent domain and stealthy real estate deals, have managed to remove a lot of tax paying land from the tax rolls since the university doesn’t pay property taxes –
Like what has been happening in Berkeley with the University.
And they say they will be adding 10,000 more students. It pushes out local people, as housing is also bought up by rich families to house their kid.
Univ of CA is a huge parasite on our city. They then “donate” to our
city officials campaigns.
U of Az was doing it earlier than most: they were doing it well over a decade ago (I was still in academia then). The admin justified this by arguing that they need to draw in students who pay resl money (ie not in-state students) but since we couldn’t compete in most fields in terms of academics, we need to offer the students “quality of experience” or some such. Never did I feel more disgust at academia, but the rot has been spreading fast.
although only speculation, have wondered what would happen if i followed the campaign money of council members – also, this slide has occurred with the last few mayors that come out of the local real estate industry – as Carlin noted 20 years ago, the fix is in – a close friend visiting her daughter was amazed at the amount of homeless folks in Oakland/Berkeley – told her only going to get worse, sent her the link describing the 18% increase this last year – another local friend was amazed that an 800sq ft home was going for almost $500K here, and told him not surprising at all with venture purchases of homes in a constricted market making the price out of reach of even the folks that work here that are not doctors –
Yes sir, homelessness out of control in East Bay, Oakland/Berkeley/Richmond in particular. Homeless encampments driven away from Oak Bkly and SF city halls recently. I can see both sides but vids of OPD literally putting up flyers of impending sweeps as they were occurring was a bad look.
Not the city hall sweep, wood street in the east.
Doesn’t have much to do with tech bros IMO. It’s just a class and business interests issue as usual.
If you’re a billionaire (or just a capitalist in general), you benefit from increasing the supply of labour because it helps you keep the costs down and keeps labour from thinking of stupid things (like unions, working conditions and so on).
If you’re a worker, you don’t benefit from having your labour becoming a commodity that can be easily replaced if you’re not doing what you’re told.
What is going to happen with the green card proposal is going to be what happened in Canada, where diploma mills and “schools” in small town strip malls started popping up to feed the demand for green cards. In India there is an entire “industry”, if you want to call it that, of essentially scammers that work with ‘private colleges’ in Canada and sign mostly unsuspecting people up for schooling here (with a nice commission for themselves naturally).
International students enticed to Canada on dubious promises of jobs and immigration
There were a lot of heartbreaking tales like hers. I’m not sure how much it’s improved since 2022, but I’m sure you can expect the same thing to happen in the US, except on an immensely larger scale. I’m also sure that’s what the globalist cosmopolitan oligarchs are hoping for.
She hadn’t heard of it? Neither have I and apparently it is in my province.
It’s website claims some kind of affiliation with St Lawrence College, a perfectly respectable community college so it may not be totally dodgy, assuming St Lawrence knows they are affiliated.
Give us your rich, your educated…
Gotta be rich to afford housing, educated to take all those tech jobs…
The outsourcing to China backfired on them (ex: now all the talk about war with China), this will too.
“The outsourcing to China backfired on them…”
Sorry, I do not understand this assertion. What outsourcing backfired on whom, and when?
Now all some in the govt (and their big donors) do is crazy warmongering talk about China.
Before it was all good.
Sounds like a backfire to me.
Thank you for explaining but there was no sense that technology was being transferred in, say, 2000. Americans were buying socks and light bulbs, and the Chinese were buying washing machines and dryers. When the Chinese began to develop a global positioning system, America cut them off completely from NASA.
Re H-1B:
We talk about how it is mostly about labor arbitrage, but there is another, related component I haven’t seen being talked about: it’s also educational system arbitrage. Qualified and skilled American labor in not more expensive only because of its citizenship status, awareness of rights and willingness to fight for them. It’s also more expensive because it has to pay off student loans accrued while obtaining these skills and qualifications. Foreign labor doesn’t have to take out student loans at home, generally speaking, so that’s one advantage, paid for by another government and enabled by globalization being driven by the needs of corporations rather than by the needs of societies. Looked at it this way, the process is extractive, not productive.
That’s why Ramaswamy is a hypocrite, too, with his dream to abolish the Department of Education. High student debt load is part and parcel of disinvestment processes and he wants to see more of that, while whining about what a failure it is and how there aren’t enough skilled Americans. Yet, up until the 80s, most people could afford to go to college without accruing much debt, if any. That’s certainly how many tech giants were built and staffed, that’s how NASA could boast about employing “the best and the brightest,” too.
That’s also another way to confront the tech bro dystopians as well: you can’t ask Americans to be both qualified and wage-competitive with people, who don’t have to take on a six-figure debt to obtain skills. But are there people on the “left” and in MAGA who are willing to take up that fight? I guess we will find out soon.
OIFVet: A commenter mentioned yesterday that many U.S. students go into finance because they have to have a higher-paying job to pay off debt. So there are fewer engineers — and teachers, I suspect.
I think that you have dealt with the issue directly: U.S. students are faced with distorted choices of careers because they are forced — by the educational institutions themselves — to take on debt. There are now a few colleges and universities that have eliminated tuition, and they act as if this is somehow exceptional. By world standards, it isn’t.
I’d add another complicating factor, now being highlighted by Saint Luigi the Adjuster: The U.S. system of medical care and health insurance is being used by employers to lock people into jobs. Why isn’t there a lobby by large employers to get single-payer health insurance, so that they can trim their “human resources” departments? Simple answer: because the already rather skeezy turnover figures in the U S of A would get even worse.
But I don’t expect either of the clown princes, Vivek the First and Elon the First, to talk abut economic factors when they can blame Jimmy for being a couch potato and watching too many re-runs of the Mary Tyler Moore show.
My comment was provoked by a Bulgarian tech bro, whose reaction to me pointing out the student debt load of Americans and the necessarily higher wages was “Well, why should I pay some American more when I can pay some Bulgarian less?” Being Bulgarian-American, it doesn’t sit well with me that such people want to freeride on the physical and legal security provided by the US. It also doesn’t sit well that Trump is being maximalist – he wants to force Europe to pay more for security and energy, while continuing to extract value from affordable European education. Something has to give and to me at least that something has to be rethinking both the educational and health care systems in the US. The only way I see that happening is if the clowns on strings in Brussels decide that Europe needs to become autonomous from the US and curbs on the power of corporations are placed, subordinating them to the social interest. In the end that’s probably best for both Europe and the US.
OIFVet: Yep. I’m certainly not ready to vote for the Italexit Party, which exists, but I also have read plenty about the horrible effects of EU economic policy on Italy in the last 30 years. Italian wages have been stagnant for 30 years.
So the question becomes: How does a founder of the EU like Italy get back a measure of sovereignty (let alone a newer and smaller member like Bulgaria)? This is the same Italy that gets passed over in meetings between the German chancellor and the French president.
In short, the U S of A and elites have to comprehend that the U.S. economy is dumping its mess on the world in the form of deindustrializing, financializing, and “lowering labor costs.” You make a diagnosis. It’s going to take some time for it to sink in among those in D.C., Hollywood, and Wall Street, eh. Meanwhile, Trump wants the EU to buy more U.S. liquefied natural gas.
Having America’s top talent go to Wall St has been going on for quite a while. This article is from 2013:
Quants: The Rocket Scientists Of Wall Street https://www.forbes.com/sites/investopedia/2013/06/07/quants-the-rocket-scientists-of-wall-street/
You might have been able to find engineering positions paying that much in 2013 in the hottest parts of Silly Con Valley, but aerospace and other manufacturing scientist/engineering jobs did not offer anything even approaching that except for the most senior positions. Plus, while this was happening, the traditional R&D jobs that had existed for decades at the larger manufacturing corporations were being wiped out. It would not be unfair to say that when America under Obama “financialized” it’s economy, it gave away it’s position as the tech leader. This is not to say that China did not work extremely hard to gain such a position, it’s just that America no longer valued it, and was not going to pay people to continue to do the hard work required to maintain a tech edge. There was much easier money to be made on Wall St with high speed trading and increasingly complex trading models.
Vivek himself followed such a career path. He graduated with an Ivy League science degree, but interned at a hedge fund and a Wall St bank, and made his money in Wall St finance.
So he may say American engineers are lazy because of “culture”, but he did the same thing – follow the money.
Quants going to Wall Street started in the 1980s.
When it comes to the once-upon-a-time state-tax funded State Universities, it was the Great Tax Revolters, inspired by Jarvis and Gann of California, who elected the sorts of State Legislatures which decided to boycott supporting their State Universities in order to deliver Jarvisoid Gannian tax cuts to their State constituents.
So it was the tax-revolting publics of many states which forced their state governments to defund their state universisities which in turn forced these state universities to force their students to take on debt.
If you want to stop the state universities from forcing their students from taking on debt, you have to begin by turning their anti-tax state populations into pro-tax state populations. Without state populations being willing to pay high enough taxes to restore state funding for state universities, no student debt-take-on reduction can begin.
Vivek and Elon are proving the maxim, believe they are assholes when they show without any doubt they are indeed, wealthy and “better than thou” assholes. Musk especially reeks of it, I’m sure “nothing to nil” of his fortune and wealth can be traced to say, federal government credits and indirect assistance by the likes of Joe and Jane Smith…( sarc )
Let’s call up a few hundred thousand US citizens and former IT employees, well qualified for their work and profession and gauge how things went for oh these past 30 years give or take…
The worst thing about Musk is how he never talks about the workers at the companies he’s involved with, except to discuss how their wages should be lowered. You’d think he built every single Tesla personally to hear him tell it.
If ‘pride goeth before a fall’ is true, and it often is, Musk is due to plummet into the Brand Canyon with his overinflated ego.
For advantage, he’s positioning himself even closer to the financial spigot. If tough times are coming, he’s basically saying, “That’s for thee and not for me.”
Humpty-Dumpty didn’t fall on his own. He was pushed.
The only way President Musk will have a downfall is if he is aggressively downfalled by others.
Maybe after President Musk is successfully downfalled, then he will stop eating the pets.
“Contrary to the bravado on display, crisis escalation is non-linear and inherently unpredictable.”
That sentence is from: The Perils Of Escalation With Russia Are Still Very Real – The National Interest in the links today.
Just crossed my mind that the Billionaire’s Whiners Club should take heed with their approach to domestic matters.
People on X have been posting results from searches of the H1B database showing how broadly these visas are used. Also individual stories of layoffs people have seen or experienced that were followed immediately by H1B hires. Bannon is making noise about this too.
It occurs to me that the H1B issue involves people referred to here as members of the PMC. If Trump can improve the lives of working class Americans, does he (or Vance in 4 years) need the PMC? Aren’t they mainly Team Blue? Is there a winning coalition of Tech/VC oligarchs and the working class?
There was a winning coalition between VCs/Tech oligarchs and working people. We are already seeing that the latter are only used for votes by the former. Much like they were used for votes by the Dems. I suppose the conclusion is, that eventually the working class will wise up that being allied with the contemporary elites is a road to further loss of economic and social security.
I agree, that is probably going to be the eventual conclusion amongst millions and millions of ragingly angry Americans, that ‘voting won’t fix this’. Doesn’t sound like a recipe for success, that.
At this rate, Trump is going to end his term completely despised by everyone, but especially his MAGA base, once the full extent of his betrayal is laid bare by four years of seeing it happen in real time.
>At this rate, Trump is going to end his term completely despised by everyone, but especially his MAGA base, once the full extent of his betrayal is laid bare by four years of seeing it happen in real time.
The average Democrat voter has been betrayed by it’s “leaders” for decades now and little has changed for them, I do have to wonder if it will not be the same for the average MAGA voter. The only class that benefits in the long run are the elites.
I do tend to agree that the average citizen is at some point going to realize “voting” isn’t going to fix this.
Both political parties have increasingly shallow roots, being dependent on wealthy donors and a fanatical, brainwashed, shrinking base. It is likely that one or both of them will effectively collapse in the next five years with the Democrats likely being the first although if the MAGA base is betrayed hard enough…
You are right of course, but I think the ‘betrayal card’ can only be played so many times before everyone stops buying the BS. I think also that the Dems are better at PR than Republicans, and certainly better at PR than the Tech-Bro CEOs and adjacents – there was no slow massaging here, just straight up “you voters are lazy retards! We’re gonna do as we like and you’re gonna suck it up”.
We will see.
Political representatives have to consider elections.
These unelected buffoons made sure they attached themselves to a President that wouldn’t be running for re-election.
Indeed. We will see.
within the PMC there’s a split between tech bros and admin people. engineers and venture capitalists tend to be more red than journalists and diversity coordinators. (albeit, this is a fairly recent shift. trump has won over a lot of tech bros i know by allying with musk.) and it kinda makes sense. engineers and lowkey venture capitalists tend to have more ties to the material world. they also tend to be more male.
It is amazing how broad and inconsistent The PMC is characterized. There is no agreed definition. Many think it is a Democrat affliction or politicians which is laughable. Professional Managerial Class first congers up business managers MBA’s, middle management not entrepreneurs. But let’s say it refers to business leaders, CEO’s and monied investors. In my limited experience that nitch is overwhelmingly Republican where the consensus is for deregulation, low taxes and unfettered profit making.
How about the political sphere? Politicians maybe are in the elite but they are bought by the managers not directing them. Politicians are certainly lackeys not the PMC. So who are these PMC? Is it a small number of very influential people or a huge monolith of mostly blinkered democratic voters with TDS.
So matt seems to define the PMC as middle management. Aurelien on the other hand seems to think they are at least cabinet level string pullers and IM doc thinks they are 98% of Democrats. I am naming names here because putting PMC into a search engine yields not a clue but Naked Cap comments seem afflicted by the term. Is anyone else here puzzled by the omnibus use of an undefined acronym? I propose, instead of PMC we simply use “those fu*kers” TF’s.
Is anyone else here puzzled by the omnibus use of an undefined acronym?
The PMC are defined as the Ten Percent, who preside atop the staffing totem pole and/or sell their professional services (e.g. lawyers/doctors), and execute the will of the .01 Percent.
Originating source for the classification (that I know of) was Barbara Ehrenreich —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Ehrenreich
— in her books, but originally in a 1977 essay for Radical America.
Here’s an interview —
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/on-the-origins-of-the-professional-managerial-class-an-interview-with-barbara-ehrenreich/
Here’s Ehrenreich’s definition —
The Ehrenreichs characterized the PMC as distinct from both the old middle class (self-employed professionals, small tradespeople, independent farmers) and the working class ….
The PMC are “salaried mental workers who do not own the means of production and whose major function in the social division of labor may be described broadly as the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations.”
Thank you, It is too obscure to turn up in a google search but dating from 77 it must have lain asleep for some time. I will check out those links but it sounds pretty much like middle management working for the man to maintain the organizational structure.
OK, very good link. I am getting the idea but I will have to read the 2013 essay to maybe nail it down. The term was not pejorative at the time and was even indicative of a “service ethic”. Its use on these pages is more along the lines of arrogant a$$hole but the function of the PMC per Ehrenreich is much more complex to the point of contradictory. Certainly the PMC are derived from the middle class. They are not elite.
And I believe that Thomas Frank helped to popularize the term.
I wonder to what extent Frank confused a Clintonite-leaning faction of PMC people for the entire PMC.
Is a lawyer-or-doctor for Republicans any less PMC than a lawyer or doctor for Democrats? But Frank wrote as if the Clintonite faction within the PMC class was the whole class.
The PMC was discussed here in a review of Catherine Liu’s short but essential book Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class. The post has links to the original essays by John and Barbara Ehrenreich in Radical America.
The easy solution is to find public lists of H1B Visa recipients and make them suffer. Harass them and their property. Make sure you let them know that they are not welcome. The powers that be are not going to protect them. They are the cannon fodder of labor and should be treated as such.
Do you really think the days of old labor unions sat back when the Steel Mills brought in Mexican Labor to break strikes? No, they did what they had to do to make them suffer and damn well let them know that they weren’t welcome.
And that goes double for anyone hiring, or promoting the hiring of, H1B Visa recipients.
And that will invite accusations of racism and unite both left and right PMC against the masses. But, perhaps, that’s not a bad thing.
This is political kryptonite in the American STEM sphere and Musk has done considerable political damage to both the Trump admin and Silicon Valley with this episode. This has scraped a raw nerve with US tech workers, and old nerve. I recall reading quite bitter posts over 20 years ago from tech workers very sore over being displaced by cheaper foreign imports. Matters have only soured since. A very great part of the heat on this came from and was in response to a very large corps of very angry tech nerds online who Musk was openly spitting on since this started.
Musk and Ramswamey unleashing vitriolic tirades about lazy and entitled American workers, too good to work their 80 hours weeks with no jobs, has not done themselves or Silicon valley any favors. A few SV bigshots were egging them on in day one, but seem to have slinked away as the tirades went on and the H1B job listing started being leaked. I doubt that Trump is prepared to back this even in a second term and I see their tenures as over already once he realizes the mess they’ve created. This is a very big mess. I would go so far as to say that this is a major radicalizing event. Mark Anthony’s speech stuff, only with the crowd backing Brutus.
Halley weighing in so soon is evidence that D.C. has scented Musk’s blood in the water. I doubt they even understand the core issue or internet dynamics, but a shark knows blood before it knows its prey. Musk will not survive this.
You make a very good point RE: Nikki Haley, who came out against Musk/Vivek/H1Bs. I thought that was VERY interesting as well – the smart pols know the rage is there and that they can channel it for political power.
We haven’t seen the last of this, at all.
Others have mentioned it but H1B visa cover a pretty wide range of jobs and not all of them require pinnacle of technical skill. The wide range is probably the origin of the ill will around the visa, and if we were going to have a “sensible conversation” about them it would have to center on this particular aspect.
Frankly the massive inflow of H1B workers into STEM wasn’t a secret in the mid 2000s. Plenty of college students saw the writing on the wall for internships and future employment leading some to switch majors or work for the government instead of a tech company. (Funny thing about working for Uncle Sam, he doesn’t come after you for what you build/create outside of your working hours but companies sure do. So if you wanted to build or code in your spare time working for Uncle Sam for a few years wasn’t a bad deal.)
The trouble with your idea is that working for Uncle Sam does not necessarily mean you are employed by Uncle Sam. I worked for Uncle Sam but I was employed by contracting and consulting firms. As long as I kept my security clearance active and worked on government projects, which almost always required a security clearance — even when the need for secrecy was a little stretched, I could avoid being replaced by an H1B visa employee. The work was generally dull, and unrewarding, but it paid the rent and bought groceries. Most of the government employees I recall were in management or tracked to join management. Few bonafide workers of the line were government employees. Outside the government, most u.s. firms were forcing their employees to train the foreign replacements who would take their jobs across the ocean. That was years ago. I have been retired for almost two decades now, so I have no idea of the situation for u.s. born engineers today. I doubt things have improved. As a contract engineer working for the government, the company that arranged for my contract employment claimed rights to all, literally ALL, inventions and other intellectual property I might create. The last firm I worked for, employed me for six months and then gave me the opportunity to sign a legal document of many pages conveying in great detail the rights to all intellectual property I might create while in their employee and to intellectual property I might create for up to six months after I left the firm — OR tender my resignation. There were other agreements I had to sign under similar compulsion that protected proprietary information I learned while a member of the firm, written in such language as would greatly complicate moving to employment with another firm serving the same client region. As for being a member of the PMC … I was paid a little better than a retail clerk, waiter, or receptionist.
Good points, I should have said that I meant full civilian employee (GS pay) when I said working for Umcle Sam.
There was nothing wrong with the US k-12 education system until passage of the No Child Left Behind Act which worked to siphon money out of public education and into the pockets of “education” grifters, like the Gates Foundation/Pearson and MS creation and flogging of the Core Curriculum, the Bush family getting in on the grift with Neil Bush’s Ignite! program, the push to privatize public education under O’s Edu Secretary Arne Duncan.
Somehow the US managed great engineering and other achievements before No Child Left Behind (to be grifted off of) and the computer-centric Core Curriculum were strong-armed into public schools k-12.
they switched to common core when i was in like the 3rd grade. i did not think it was cool. suddenly we all had to watch these terrible videos. i much preferred when we got physical items like blocks to model addition and multiplication instead of random images projected onto the wall.
i wouls respectfully disagree.
No Child Ledt Behind steered us away from driving off a cliff, and instead made us hit a wall.
The US edu system is broken beyond reform. If you have a kid(s), you gotta be proactive for them and essentially also be part-time tutor, and career counselor
ymmv
The public schools of today dip deep into the well of boredom for their offerings and their product reflects the profound quality of that boredom — enough to last a lifetime.
I entered college a year, perhaps two, past the last cadre of aerospace engineers, materials scientists, chemists, physicists, and other specialists trained to enable Humankind to leave footprints and a small metal, now sun-bleached and blankly colorless, flag on the Moon. The flames of mission and greater purpose still drifted their weakening smoke into the otherwise gymlike smell within the air of the dorms. My professors mourned the enthusiasm that left with the end of the space race and a return to normalcy and later “Morning in a America”. My class at college was keen to avoid getting drafted and hungered to find some specialization where they might earn a livable wage at a ‘somewhat’ permanent job.
The libraries were well-stocked with technical books covering a wide range of specialties. My professors kept a small flame of enthusiasm alive hoping it might find tender in one of us, but all sense of mission, or greater purpose had been lost, perhaps never to be reborn. I worried about where I might find a job after school, being all too aware of how little of immediate practical value I knew coming out of school. I was fortunate that my time was a time before the transmutation of college students into specially handicapped, government-backed financial assets. Public education in the u.s. has been — to use Doctorow’s apt coinage — increasingly “enshitified” since my time. I hesitate to place a mark on a calendar of the years past to argue that after that point the enshitification had reached a state of “broken beyond reform”. I believe I could argue that a great wave of mission and purpose had passed and left despair and desperation behind in its ebb. I would mark the time of this event to the moment the first footsteps appeared on the moon immediately followed by congratulations and pink slips for too many who made the event possible.
Ozempic and NAION (the second most common cause of deterioration of the optic nerve after glaucoma — so not exactly an exotic disease). The underlying study is here:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/fullarticle/2820255
I am not a medical doctor, but I have worked with statistics enough to point out that the statistics indicate something significant, which the article in the Mail seems to want to gloss over.
See results in the JAMA article.
A threesome of weird things I don’t get:
–Some 500 subjects were not included in the final stats because they are under the age of 12. 12?
–At the end of the article in JAMA, the scientists point out that some of the problem in gathering data is that diagnostic coding is often flawed. IM Doc has indicated such. Now we see that the categories of diagnostic coding hamper research. Hmmm. As the researchers put it, delicately, “Manual review is not practical for extremely large databases, and the lack of a specific ICD-10 code for NAION (as identified by Hamedani et al31) would be a severe hindrance for any large study.” Oh.
–Median age: It appears that the group with type 2 diabetes is older (57 or so, median age). The overweight / obese group is younger, median age about 47. The effect is stronger on the older and diabetic. But if Ozempic is designed for diabetics, isn’t this an even bigger problem?
This is the typical problem with miracle drugs: Their application is in fact narrower than what is being allowed. So we see fads that kill people.
“I am not a medical doctor, but I have worked with statistics enough to point out that the statistics indicate something significant, which the article in the Mail seems to want to gloss over.”
Did the Mail get a memo from Big Pharma: Tell them, “Move along. Nothing to see here.”
;)
We have problems.
In one patient on GLP-1, I have indeed seen a case of NAION – that individual is now completely blind in that eye, and this is permanent. In another 2 cases in the very young – 1 20 something gay man going to Ibiza and wanting to look picture perfect in his Speedos – and the other a 32 year old woman who needed to tuck it in for a wedding and lose 10 lbs ( PLEASE NOTE – I AM NOT THE MD WHO GAVE THEM THESE DRUGS – BOTH WOULD HAVE BEEN DENIED BY ME IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE) – they both had retinal detachments. Please note, neither are the demographic group in any way shape or form to have detachments. Very concerning. And there is now some scattered reporting of detachments in the literature. Furthermore, I have now had 3 patients who had fairly significant anesthesia complications of aspiration, even with full precautions taken. 1 dead, 2 in the ICU for days/weeks. Again – I am not sure what the risk/benefit ratio is – it is very difficult to quantify health effects for weight loss. But, suffice it so say, bad bad things are happening to many people. Furthermore, these drugs tend to make people waste muscle – and often in very bad places. I am now seeing many patients with rather ghoulish looking facial muscle issues, and this appears to be permanent. Also, there are now reports in the literature about this muscle wasting happening in the heart. It also appears, especially in men, to be affecting the large core girdle muscles, leaving them with an Icabod Crane type look.
Needless to say, I am not a fan.
In brief – I am getting very concerned about this situation. Yes – my profession is beginning to place all kinds of kids on these drugs. There are lots of obese kids – just go to any Wal-Mart in the USA, but as is usual we are failing to address the underlying issues and trying to fix things with meds. And we have no idea what the long term problems are going to be for these kids. Furthermore – you have highlighted a valid point in your second comment about the “EHR” searches doing all the leg work. I have pointed this out in COVID repeatedly – that there are significant issues when we do not have abstractors doing the leg work – but here we are. I actually just went and looked at my patient. The code placed by the opthalmologist was actually H35.013 – “changes in vascular retinal appearance”. The code for NAION – is H47.013. In other words, this complication would have been completely missed by a superficial EHR search of the database. This diagnosis approach is a very very common issue with EHR – the opthalmologist placed the first code in the chart – it is a very non-specific descriptor of what he was seeing before he had nailed down the diagnosis. It is more often than not that the specialists never go back and make these codes more specific once the evaluation is done and all is known. I find these types of issues all the time in charts, and even I may be doing good to correct them a tenth of the time. I just simply do not have the time to do so unless it is of the most critical importance. But what then happens is later when the search parameters are entered with these specific ICD codes – the others are not caught. This happens with research, this happens with CDC level health population screening, and this happens with hospital compensation. It is a disastrous problem that is truly out of control – and it appears that no one really cares.
This is so common in research right now – and Pharma loves this – it makes problematic side effects look much less common than they are. It is also much cheaper to push a few buttons on a computer server somewhere than it is to hire an army of abstractors. But here we are, Lord have mercy.
I imagine the giant personal injury law firms will get on it soon enough if there’s $$ to be made.
Great Reportback, Doc!
Happy New Years!
Here is a bunch of images of ” ozempic face”.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrFQ_255XJn60kUL89XNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=ozempic+face+image&fr=sfp
As a mere layman, I can only say . . . it doesn’t look as bad as “faces of meth”, but it doesn’t look good.
US Admits ATACMS Failure, Blames Ukraine, Stockpile Depleted; Russia Storms Kurakhovo Plant (video) Alexander Mercouris, YouTube
~~~~~~~~~~
It’s time to supply the Ukrainians with ACRONYM (Acronym Controlled Remote Observation Named Yankee Missiles)
“T” in ATACMS is “tactical” not “terror”.
Used same as Hitler used V-1.
US is engaging in same operations as Bomber Harris’ night bombing campaign on German cities. Terrorize the public….
Harris (LeMay in Pacific theater) was not hanged bc his side won.
>Trump supports immigration visas backed by Musk: ‘I have many H-1B visas on my properties’
Watching the complete meltdown of Post readers is fun.
Some MAGA folks realizing Trump is maybe not so much about helping them. I’m wondering if we will see more of this…perhaps on Ukraine? OIFVet noting above that American workers are saddled with gigantic education debt puts them at a disadvantage vs H-1B (mostly) education debt free foreign workers. Perhaps Rev Kev’s slogan “Make India Great Again” will gain traction in the MAGA community. It could humiliate Trump.
Indians are on average $30k in debt when they graduate from university. That’s about the average annual salary in India. While nowhere near the US levels, most of foreigners are not debt free.
Hence my use of….”(mostly)”
o oh you better rethink that one i am a jack pine from
the up of michigan and i nope you misspoke
My favorite Donny story is how he hired Polish workers on a secondary contract to demolish the old Bonwit Teller Building where Trump Tower stands today. The place was full of HAZMAT, but Donny don’t need no stinkin’ permit! Just makin’ America great again.
Must you do the “Donny” thing? It is so juvenile, it detracts from your narrative.
Did he actually pay them?
“Zelenskyy accuses Slovakia of opening ‘second energy front’ against Ukraine”
Zelensky must be losing the plot. In spite of making a boatload of cash annually for Russian gas to transit the Ukraine to EU states, he decides to give it the chop no matter how badly it effects some of those EU states. The ones that have been supporting him by sending him money, weapons and even electricity. Slovakia says to hell with you, you can forget all that electricity that we have been sending you. So now Zelensky is saying that Slovakia is obeying Putin’s orders and wants the EU to order them to keep on sending the Ukraine that electricity. I do wonder if cutting the gas was really Zelensky’s idea or one that he had to agree to in order to get the latest batch of billions from the US. Those EU states are now going to have to scramble to replace all that gas and one country that they are going to have to go to is – wait for it – the US. Thanks Joe for now trying to wreck all the remaining EU countries that still had working economies.
The weird thing here is that if and when Ukraine closes the pipelines, Russia has no reason not to hit them. And as things are, the US LNG can only get to Ukraine trough so called Vertical Gas Corridor from Greece.
So, Ukraine (and it “allies”) need the pipelines intact much more than Russia needs the rubles from Slovenia.
I would have thought that next month, that pipeline would be blown up and Zelensky who would blame the Russians for doing so. In truth I do not think that the Russians would bother bombing it as having an empty pipeline doing no good at all is it’s own statement. A sort of gassius interruptus.
Ah, but it won’t be empty, it is still used to import US gas to Ukraine through LNG terminals in Greece. So, it’s a significant part of Ukrainian energy security, but after 1st January Russia is not contractually obliged to give a [family blog].
On the Military Summary channel yesterday Dima was saying that this was tub thumping by Zelensky preparatory to the renegotiation of expiring Russian gas contracts and who controls the pumping station in Kursk. He is trying to put pressure on Russia but has no leverage, and Slovakia is not helping in that.
It is all about the free gas.
a pumping/metering station that happens to be in Ukrainian-occupied Russia — I wonder if that factors?
I’m convinced that’s an important part of why they are trying sio desperately to hold on to it…
One of the original objections by Ukraine to the Nordstream pipelines was that it would deprive Ukraine of transit fees (not to mention syphoning off gas without paying for it). Suddenly, those fees are seemingly unimportant, maybe because so many pockets in Kiev have been lined with millions of dollars thanks to Biden’s largesse (not forgetting the 10% cashback for the big guy). And the issue for those recipients is how to get themselves and their loot out of the country when the inevitable collapse arrives.
Re: The Unbearable Slowness of Being
‘Meanwhile, if we stay awake during the [100 Mb/sec Netflix] show, our brain will never extract more than 10 bits/sec of that giant bitstream.’ [Paraphrased b/c copy-blocked.]
Nonsense. Show me almost any meaningfull still from that stream and I/we can recall the scene and considerable detail concerning its meaning.
Thought occurs in parallel; language and similar behavior is serial. The interesting scientific question, long solved, was how the massively parallel brain converts parallel thought into serial behavior.
As pointed out in Reddit (?), the writers are confusing information measured as “bits” and information measured as “shannons”. Which is very bad form since they obviously are aware of the difference.
I tend to get a headache when I delve too deep into the information theory, but to my understanding the short explanation is that (according to the study) people can process about ten concepts (or words/meanings with a corresponding context) per second. So much, much more “information” than one ascii character.
One supposes that Reddit’s ‘shannons’ are non-redundant dots/dashes in a Morse code-like signal whereas the authors’ ‘bits’ are pixels-on-a-screen, transmitted serially. Neither accurately or usefully describes the resonance or storage of neurotransmitter signals in a massively-parallel brain, for example with respect to long-term potentiation at NMDA receptor sites.
Grossberg’s 1972 papers first explained the relevant dynamics, with their first mature expression in his 1980 Psych Review article, “How does the brain build a cognitive code?”, ignored at the time and still ignored because Nvidia parallelization and generative AI still look crude in comparison.
100+
Walking is about the slowest thing we do, and you could crawl on all fours instead if you really wanted to slow things down even more, but it’d be so unseemly.
Except maybe on New Year’s Eve.
“…After considerable filtering and reduction, these signals must compete for some central neural resource, where goals, emotions, memory, and sensory data are combined into low-dimensional decisions. This central neural resource can only execute its functions in series, which constrains…”
That sounds like they have confirmed that scientsts have figured out what all parts of the brain are doing at all times. Hmmmm….
And as much as the authors try to consider how the brain works with the body, it reads to me like a preoccupation with removing the head from the body and seeing if emotion could be cut out.
I didn’t see much about how the body ( the holistic being) conserves and regulates energy.
Isn’t that one the problems with the fast processors? Burning energy too fast?
But overall, their adopted hierarchy for brain functions leaves alot to be desired…literally and figuratively. And people take time with thought and actions because the meaning of things for them can change over time as can the body. There is no standardized way of being.
Now…I think I’ll cry for fun. (Take that, Hal!)
The Unbearable Slowness of Being. By Zheng and Meister.
These two peeps truly have to get out more often. There is something curiously, thoroughly unsatisfying about the question they pose, the supporting data, and their (fortunately) not-all-that-firm conclusions.
The question boils down to: Our senses bring in observations and data at a remarkable speed. Okay. The brain seems to filter and slow down use of all of that big buzzing confusion. Okay.
So? They imply that the senses are over-engineered. Of course, they are. Look at the octopus, with a brain and nervous system extending though the whole body. Think about the canids and the famous wolf, fox, and doggy nose — of extraordinarily high quality and ability. The remarkable navigational ability of birds along with their wonderful spatial perception. And so on.
The authors don’t seem to get that the senses are also providing information that the body and brain are using to maintain the body. Think of proprioception and circadian rhythms. There is a yearly hormonal cycle, and men tend to cycle up in the fall of the year. There is the sleep cycle and dreams (and many, many creatures dream).
The authors are worried about overt functioning: Why can’t we play games faster?
The body and brain, as indicated in the book often mentioned here, The Master and His Emissary, have other things going on: The two hemispheres of the brain are exchanging information. Each of our eyes perceives the world slightly differently. The English language is very poor in describing fragrances and scents — yet human beings also register odors (just not as well as a wolf). We unconsciously alternate nostrils in breathing. And then there is music, which remans partially unexplained.
In short: We are back to On the Nature of the Universe, by Lucretius. The atomic world is overwhelming, overwhelming in its beauty, and measurements in bits per second aren’t adequate for understanding what “all sentient beings” (as the Buddhists say) are engaged in.
PS: I was reminded of the story of Semele, mother of Dionysos, who was tricked into asking her divine boyfriend, Zeus, into revealing himself in all of his godly glory. It was a solemn promise, so he was forced to do so. His divinity incinerated her. The unborn Dionysos had to be carried to term in Zeus’ thigh.
PPS: The brain may make sure to slow down observations so that we are not constantly overwhelmed by the things outside us and incinerated by reality.
Dang DJG. Comment of the year. Hear hear!
Lol, the evolutionary result of our propensity for the “quick take” (shuffles off…)
Somehow the quick take still wouldn’t be satisfying to the authors concerned with mechanical speed.
That article reads like a sales pitch for Neuralink. Oooh, the new, improved, semi-robotic workers of the future! (I’ll pass.) / ;)
Maybe. It’s telling somebody what they want to hear.
“The English language is very poor in describing fragrances and scents”
Is that a challenge to any poets hanging around?
Not so much of a challenge to farmers (per my childhood memories of farm life).
“The Varieties of Olfactory Experience” awaiting an author…
” …. and incinerated by reality.”
So, that’s what has been happening to me! Thanks for diagnosing, DJG.
I suspect that focus plays a part in the workings of consciousness, excluding, or more properly subjugating, what we’re not concentrating on at the moment.
In more receptive states, I suspect that my brain isn’t very good at slowing down perceptions, leaving me frequently, if not incinerated, flooded with reality and quite inarticulate.
Incineration — a great term for something else. The Sufis have a word for it, fana, sometimes translated as obliteration, or (utter) bewilderment. The state in which perception of other orders of reality begins.
Indeed. I recall my acid trips, in the dim distant past.
I tried a bit of LSD with a friend. We went to a party and had a drinking contest with a college football linebacker. Laughing the whole time, we literally drank him under the table. Then we continued tripping in waves.
Next morning, I hop on a campus trolley to go to class. I hold on for dear life because it suddenly hits me that I’m drunk as a skunk.
I’ve been incinerating for quite a while now!
Helpful to know why I’m always about to burst into some righteous flames 🔥 of phonetic fury!
What Stephen V says!
TMI, but if anyone wants to read the project description of the NIH grant supporting this work, click here.
Based on my very limited knowledge of visual and neural processing, a few salient extracts (emphasis added):
Specifically we will focus on innate behaviors of the laboratory mouse, such as the escape from a threat, the pursuit of small prey, and visual navigation.
The superior colliculus (SC) is the evolutionarily more ancient pathway, shared with non-mammalian vertebrates. It receives direct sensory input from the retina, and its output neurons produce motor signals that can steer the animal’s movements. In general terms, the superior colliculus is thought to identify the most salient points in the scene for the purpose of overt orienting actions.
Or, to simplify in my simple-minded view: For the mouse in the field, response to the hawk seen in the sky basically requires no thought at all. No learning. No deliberate action. Only what may be called pure instinct that tells the mouse to move! Learning to not play around in open ground would follow and probably carry over to nocturnal behavior that leaves the owl to go hungrier. For the inbred mouse in the cage, who knows? But I am sure this has been considered.
As our Reality Czar points out, higher order human behavior so well described by Iain McGhichrist in The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things is not a function of the superior colliculus, but of the entire brain, left and right. But humans also respond to threats before they are actually “perceived,” as anyone who has almost stepped on a snake will agree. Evolution is a great thing…
Still, every little bit of knowledge helps! And Markus Meister has been prolific. Plus, the preprint has been published in Neuron (top of the list at the link), which is a leading legacy journal – definitely not unimportant. I have not compared the preprint with the published paper.
“Kavelashvili sworn in as Georgia’s president as predecessor vows to fight on”
Damn, man. Salomé Zourabichvili really is getting to be the Juan Guaidó of eastern Europe. The main difference is that Juan Greedo had the countries of the Collective west along with a few others recognizing him as “President” but none of that has happened for Salomé Zourabichvili though. Juan Greedo eventually escaped to Florida and was hired as a visiting professor by the Florida International University. Salomé Zourabichvili, on the other hand, will end up going back to her real country of France where I assume she will be given a teaching job like Greedo or Nuland or maybe even a posting in a French think tank. People like that are always taken care of and never have to go out and get real jobs.
Presumably after she is detained and tried for inciting insurrection.
https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/p/truckers-tikka-masala
semi interesting article semi related to the article about India yesterday?
Thank you, Leaf. That article is fascinating, informative, and appalling.
Thanks for the link.
I first became aware of this when a few years back I saw a sticker supporting Punjabi farmers protests on the back of a truck on the I10 in the Mojave desert. I wondered why a truck driver would even know about farmers protests in India…then it dawned on me. It also explained why I’d seen roadside signs for a dhaba, spelt dhaba at that ! ( Punjabi road side cafe serving rustic food. Delicious, if like me you like that sort of thing)
I meant dhaba written in Gurmukhi as ਢਾਬਾ
re: Ukraine war – Doctorow
Further thoughts on Trenin and how the war ends
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/12/29/further-thougts-on-trenin-and-how-the-war-ends/
“In closing, I point out that essentially what Trenin is recommending is a division of the Ukrainian nation into two political camps roughly along lines that go back further in time than WWII. Before WWI, the Lvov region, Volhynia and Galicia were all part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and everything to the east was part of the Russian empire. The Austrians encouraged use of the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian ambitions as a battering ram against the part of Ukraine east of the Dnieper that was the Russian Empire, where the Ukrainian national feelings were tamped down by the ruling dynasty. That was not a solution that survived 1914 and it is not a solution for today. Not local but Europe-wide solutions are needed.”
p.s. when I spoke to German scientists 2 years ago who had been involved in advising government staff in the past on disarmament talks they were abhorred over then Trenin’s statements. This was well before Oreshnik or Kinzhals destroying NATO bunkers, although their moral assessment of Trenin wouldn’t be changed over any of such events.
This is to say: in Germany there is no genuine understanding of the military, diplomatic interdependencies and hard truths in regards of geopolitics and what this is about for RU. And how serious they are here and now.
Instead of understanding why a Trenin might have argued in favour of a robust use of nuclear deterrence they still still still believe and will always do that some parts of the US establishment are somehow well-meaning. You can point out a ton of evidence at the fact that the US is intent on destroying RU as a sovereign nationstate -they.will.not.believe.it.
And these are among the nicest and most understanding people you will find. Sadly.
So, this is broken for a hundred years. And over that period of time wearing out the West economically is the only survivable scenario.
To quote a movie “Is there any version where we don’t get killed?”
“‘It’s still in shambles’: Can Boeing come back from crisis?”
Supposing that the engineers replace the bean-counters in the management positions at Boeing, would they really be able to change course? What I mean is that Wall Street and the institutional investors would probably revolt over this and seek to have Boeing to go back to the way they were before. Yes, that would mean that Boeing would crash and burn but I doubt that those investors would care about that but would continue to care more about mass firings as a cost-cutting method and stock buybacks. They would probably sue Boeing to stop them on the grounds that they are not paying attention to shareholder value by changing course.
I don’t know. The investors love a good turnaround story, great American fallen angel gets a new lease on life when a strong skilled leader steps in. They will sit tight for a while if they think there’s going to be a payoff.
Unfortunately Howard Hughes is not available at the present time, and I suspect the engineering/management leadership bench has atrophied over the past decades.
Re: Elon melting down: The discourse is so uncouth I don’t where to begin. I am glad it is being aired, but good grief. Also the local news(research triangle nc) had a slick purveyor of why H1B’s were essential to the fabric of the area, with no rebuttal. Controlling the narrative by all means.
Between him and Thiel it’s no wonder the world is such a mess.
3D.
The Executive Branch is now officially The Billionaire Whiners Club. Maybe their fintech buddies can “innovate” an exclusive credit card for them.
It’s instructive to see how much it is being pushed by the oligarch class. This is a hill they are willing to die on, Musk’s sperg out against the MAGA base showed that pretty clearly I think. I don’t think it’s just the tech-bros either that want it (they are just the most oblivious and full of themselves), it’s a broad based opinion amongst the globalist ‘elite’.
This globalist elite is running out of ways to squeeze out what’s left of the American economy and American workers after decades of deindustrialization. And now they want to really ramp up H1B and other worker replacement scams because they think it is their glorious cheat code to make Americans accept even further declining wages and even worse living standards.
Thanks for the BBC story. If all the included claims are accurate then it’s outrageous that citizens in a country where Muslims play a much more prominent role than here are forced to pay for such biased coverage. American news on Israel is also quite skewed of course. But at least we have the option of not watching it or financially supporting it (except through those broadcast licenses of course).
We do get some exposure to the BBC here via cable and news half hours on PBS. Some years ago I would watch the latter but in more recent times it became obvious that the BBC America had nothing interesting to say about the US and merely aped the whatever party line was current in our own MSM. In other words all their claimed “rules and standards” boiled down to a very bureaucratic desire to keep a low profile and not offend TPTB in either country.
And those powers that be have become shameful partners in genocide. As with our own quasi state big media the only question comes down to “Pravda or Izvestia?”
I suspect it’s not just the “billionaires/global elite”. We hired a local “handyman” to screen-in our small porch here in Outer Pentagonia. But the guy who showed up to do the work was a Salvadoran whom the “handyman” had hired through the good graces of his born-again church. Although I can’t verify the worker was on an H-1B, it was clear from our conversation that the church played a key “entrepreneurial” role.
I can. zero chances of H1B. not likely to have a Green Card either. El Salvador has around 50 H1B’s a year. wasn’t gonna be for a handyman. Not trying to be rude, lot of misconceptions around this topic. a friend from Mexico was here 15 years til his application was granted. kept a low profile and got lucky. his story typical.
Duh. I once knew that. The larger point is that, billionaires or not, Calvinists can be as moved to give sanctuary as Catholics.
It’s refreshing to see!
re: Georgia
From German daily JUNGE WELT
on location report
Ukrainization of Georgia
Western regime change cartels are steering the South Caucasus republic into chaos and to the brink of civil war
By Susann Witt-Stahl, Tbilisi
Sacks of brand new helmets are constantly being delivered to the parliament building in Tbilisi and distributed at the daily pro-EU demonstrations. Until the state authorities temporarily suppressed the militant protests by arresting people and banning the sale of fireworks, gas masks and other equipment useful for street battles were also available – all for free. No wonder: the pro-EU activists have powerful allies with almost inexhaustible sources of money. “We get everything we need from the US embassy,” reports one demonstrator, raving about their “democracy” and “protest training,” as well as the support from the social democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) and other German non-governmental organizations.
Georgia is an El Dorado for Western NGOs. The law on the transparency of foreign influence, which came into force in June 2024, will not change this (of the more than 30,000 NGOs operating in the country – of which only around 4,100 are said to be active – only 469 had complied with the reporting obligation by the deadline). Aggressive interventionist think tanks such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), founded in 1983 under the Reagan administration and whose board recently appointed regime change champion Victoria Nuland , can do as they please. The NED – whose project partners in Georgia also include the FES – is co-financing NGOs that are instrumental in orchestrating the protests against the temporary suspension of talks on EU accession and for new elections. For example, Transparency International Georgia, Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, which is also supported by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the European Endowment for Democracy (the British and EU counterparts to the NED) as well as the German Embassy, as well as the Shame Movement.
The latter started arson in 2023 with a banner designed in the national colors of Ukraine, showing a Molotov cocktail above the slogan “I threw it!” – “on behalf of” the youth of Georgia, “who are fed up with the authoritarian and anti-Western policies of the criminal and illegitimate Georgian Dream regime,” the Shame Movement explained. Videos shared on social media and consistently suppressed by the Western press document that quite a few street activists have responded to such calls for violence. Detailed instructions for uprisings are provided by the Belgrade-based Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), which specializes in organizing color revolutions. CANVAS, which was involved in the “Euromaidan” in Ukraine but also operates in Cuba, Venezuela and many other countries that are on the menu of US imperialism, is training street activists in Georgia – since 2021 on behalf of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Anti-Communist Putty
The ideological foundations are created by the fabrication of “freedom and democracy” myths, phobias and hatred towards (system) competitors in the West. Historical revisionism and the export of anti-communism are important pillars. German institutions have taken on a leading role in this. In 2010, the think tank Sovlab was established on the initiative of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which has close ties to the Greens. It is also supported by the NED, the US Embassy, but also by the “Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship”, the German Adult Education Association and the Goethe Institute. Sovlab, which produces books and films and organizes conferences and exhibitions, primarily wants to bring about a “rethinking” of the Soviet past – often in cooperation with Georgian universities and the CIA news channel Radio Liberty as well as the Ukrainian government.
The sectarian emphasis on the belief in the blessings of the USA, EU and NATO that can be heard at the pro-Western rallies and the hysterical idiosyncrasy against anyone suspected of socialist positions or who even shows the beginnings of dissenting opinions indicate that the indoctrination of the NGOs’ extensive “educational programs” is working – at least among academics and self-employed people in the tourism, catering, media, art and culture sectors who hope to be able to benefit more from neoliberal globalization through Georgia’s accession to the EU.
pressure to conform
The revolt of an ideologically blinded middle class, directed from above and from outside, is producing grotesque results: the hundreds of protest marches against the Georgian Dream government controlled by the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili have been called for by, among others, “participants in US exchange programs,” “graduates of British universities,” “designers, marketing and PR people,” “children of priests and other clerics,” “yoga lovers,” friends of animals, Italy and basketball, even fans of “Harry Potter.” Where the working class is practically completely absent, micro-communities, sectarian identity politics and the fantasy cosmos of the culture industry have to fill the gap.
In the area of science and research, the pressure to conform is particularly high – especially because there is a lot of funding from the EU’s Erasmus program. Recently, lecturers and students from various universities burned self-made “Russian diplomas” of Georgian Dream MPs in front of the Ministry of Education (very few of them have such an academic degree, most were educated in the West). Students who refuse to join in the anti-Russian frenzy have a hard time: “I was attacked by my professor because I took part in the Eurasian Linguists’ Congress in Moscow,” Elizabeth Jorjadze*, who completed her studies in Georgian philosophy at the state Ilia University in Tbilisi this year, told jW . Ilia University urged the organizers of the conference to remove all information that linked Jorjadze to the university. It was founded under President Mikheil Saakashvili – he had whipped the country onto a Western course with proto-fascist policies in the 2000s – and works with Sovlab, even against the government.
“The Georgian Dream has been pursuing a policy of normalization with Russia for twelve years, particularly in terms of economic relations,” Sonja Schiffers, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation for the South Caucasus, recently made it clear in an interview with Deutsche Welle what the West is no longer prepared to tolerate. The Socialist Platform of Georgia, the voice of the country’s severely weakened Marxist opposition, assumes that the Western regime change armada will not hesitate to “start a civil war.” It warns of the transition from a “limited democracy” to a “fascist dictatorship” in the event of a coup and appeals to the population: “Do not allow the Ukrainization of Georgia!”
*The name has been changed by the editors.
[ In the area of science and research, the pressure to conform is particularly high – especially because there is a lot of funding from the EU’s Erasmus program. Recently, lecturers and students from various universities burned self-made “Russian diplomas” of Georgian Dream MPs in front of the Ministry of Education (very few of them have such an academic degree, most were educated in the West). Students who refuse to join in the anti-Russian frenzy have a hard time: “I was attacked by my professor because I took part in the Eurasian Linguists’ Congress in Moscow,” Elizabeth Jorjadze, who completed her studies in Georgian philosophy at the state Ilia University in Tbilisi this year, told jW . Ilia University urged the organizers of the conference to remove all information that linked Jorjadze to the university. It was founded under President Mikheil Saakashvili – he had whipped the country onto a Western course with proto-fascist policies in the 2000s… ]
Really important passage; explaining the 2008 sneak-attack on Russian peacekeepers in Ossetia by Georgian troops under President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Thanks for pointing out the 2008 connection in this. I am aware of it in general terms. But being soon 20 years ago I sometimes underestimate the significance of 2008.
The Scott Ritter video ‘Russia’s DECISIVE Offensive’ you-tubed by ‘Gilysarts Artesanatos’ is directly stolen from Nima, with a flashy background added in.
Ritter is all over the place lately – physically and mentally.
Scraping gone mainstream as it were.
It is so bad now that Judge Napolitano’s program is inserting logo overlays in spots during the most “stealable” segments.
If there is money to be made, the “Rules of Civility” will be replaced with some sort of “Diffusionist” strategy or other.
Stay safe (TM.)
Some of the content creators might want to take the DJ Khaled approach to their videos.
You can’t listen to any of his hip-hop pop productions without his name being shouted in the background throughout the song.
Original Nima link here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMknNTxP56A
Unfortunately the scraped one has almost as many views as the original.
The Rip-Off Economy. And they call it “dynamic”.
Yes. Nima’s Youtube channel of “Dialogue Works” is a good one to check out every day. He pays his interviewees. Artesanatos is stealing Nima’s work, and not paying for the work he is showing. Please don’t use his work, and spread his theft.
By the way, I clicked on the “Subscribe to Comment” and a file named “feed” was downloaded to my computer. It won’t run in any app I have. How do I successfully Subscribe to Comment?
US homelessness up 18% as affordable housing remains out of reach for many people – AP
Then I saw this, originally from LA news the other day:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/urban-infrastructure/housing-and-urban-development/despite-18-jump-in-homelessness-nationwide-los-angeles-numbers-see-notable-decrease/ar-AA1wBpQa/
Despite 18% jump in homelessness nationwide, Los Angeles’ numbers see notable decrease
——
“HUD’s 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report analyzes the number of people living in shelters, temporary housing or unsheltered settings. The report found that more than 770,000 people nationwide were experiencing homelessness on one night in Jan. 2024, which is an 18% jump from the year prior.
The report attributes the increase to migration, displacement from natural disasters and the rising cost of housing across the country. ”
Migration from high cost of living areas to other areas by the non-homeless probably has had a bigger effect on the nationwide housing bubble prices. Cities and towns are more interested in catering to people with money than creating more affordable housing.
“Re: Elon melting down”:
At which point Elon Musk showed that he has become a danger to the country. My sense was that Jack Ma showed this in China in trying to extend Alibaba to banking though the Chinese Treasury disapproved. The point is Musk is not the government, nor was Ma.
Ma was essentially told, “This isn’t the People’s Republic of Ma.” Elon needs to be told, “This isn’t the United States of Musk.”
RE: As David Tennant’s Macbeth gets cancelled, more questions are raised around Covid protections The Canary
“Covid isn’t over – as Macbeth inadvertently shows”
Nowhere in the world are SARS-CoV-2 wastewater number ringing alarm bells. We are having the best holiday season since the start of the pandemic. The problem with the holiday season is that people travel. Variants of SARS-CoV-2 are being transported to different regions.
Even if the prevalence of COVID-19 is relatively low, there is still plenty of SARS-CoV-2 from other places to get me sick. I’m going to avoid leaving the house for a couple of weeks. SARS-CoV-2 has had me feeling awful this holiday season.
I think Musk is generally underestimated. He and other tech billionaires are the public face of a new movement. Call it the high-tech or the Silicon Valley movement or whatever else, still it is a powerful movement and we should be alarmed.
They agree there are significant problems, often the same problems more progressives types point to, but the difference is they shun politics. Must et al., believe all problems have a technical solution. Paris Marx at Jacobin labeled this “Cyberlibertarianism.”
Of course, they don’t want to pay for any of this, they want the government to give them all the money and leave them alone, unregulated and unaccountable to anybody, to solve the big problems.
No need for int’l conferences, political agreements, cooperation, or transparency; just trust them.
Meanwhile, they are willing to take over the government and force the transition to a new era of Cyberlibertarian non-democracy.
Yes. Many are familiar with their movement for the emotionally challenged.
Some call it “transhumanism”. Some call it “Techno-feudalism”…etc.
“Must et al., believe all problems have a technical solution.”
And I recall some Adam Curtis docs (as one example) that about the Soviet Union and a similar drive for the technical solutions and computer driven society. But this crew thinks the problem with what happened to the Soviet Union was because it was the government and not the private sector behind the idea. They don’t see the problem being the idea itself.
Musk believes in getting govt contracts, lots and lots of govt contracts. Pretty sure he won’t be recommending budget cuts that enrich his companies. / ;)
With the private sector is in charge of implementation, they think that’s going to make a difference with the idea.
And it does in the sense that a subsidy is better than a loan. Especially if interest rates go up.
From Jeremy Grimm post earlier in comments:
“As a contract engineer working for the government, the company that arranged for my contract employment claimed rights to all, literally ALL, inventions and other intellectual property I might create.”
Which brings up the issue…publicly funded, privately owned.
This is pretty typical of corporations – I have two friends whose fathers worked for Boeing and Electro-Voice respectively. In both cases the companies took inventions from them as their own, it was part of the contracts with their employers.
Yes. One of the terms used – ‘public private “partnerships”.
And it’s used without irony.
This is absolutely standard.
If you are an employee, you should assume any intellectual property you create is owned by the company. By default it is only copyrightable works but for a very long time, most corps of any size have added clauses to their acceptance letters or other docs commemorating hiring to include other inventions you came up with on their dime.
It’s called the “works for hire” doctrine.
https://www.outsidegc.com/blog/common-misconceptions-about-the-work-for-hire-doctrine
In all of my consulting agreements, I put in very bland language that made clear I owned all my IP (“You have the right to use the work product under this Engagement once the related invoices have been paid in full”). “Right to use” = they are a licensee, not an owner, of the IP.
Musk isn’t underestimated because there hasn’t been any real campaign finance reform (among other societal changes).
And, yes, the big appeal of “AI” to the corporate overlords is the unaccountability factor.
“Must et al., believe all problems have a technical solution.”
Disagree. Musk doesn’t care if there is an actual technical solution. He just wants people to think he has one.
Look no further than FSD, which is a complete scam but he continues selling at outrageous amounts and fools keep buying.
Musk is the epitome of a modern day con-man, who is now empowered via Trump.
“Musk doesn’t care if there is an actual technical solution. He just wants people to think he has one.”
Indeed. There is that to keep in mind.
Above I noted that Musk is positioning himself even closer to the financial spigot.
many of them involved locally (Bay areawide) providing large amounts of cash to support gentrification and remove DA’s who prosecute police crimes, replacing them with (at least in SF) Democrat poster candidates. the two Oakland faces (Grisham and Chan) give cover to the financiers behind the recalls. Pamela lost big-time despite strong grassroots support.
Airbag vests could be a great invention…
If you are rich enough to pay $1,500 for it.
I wonder if the vests dislocate your shoulder joints when they go off? Do you suppose there is increased arm breakage because your arms stick straight out when you topple over?
They don’t show the users putting the vests on themselves. Do they require an assistant? I’m not sure these would have protected former Speaker Pelosi.
The Yahoo! piece on HR Evilness is too close to home to be really funny. It’s a “you laugh so as not to cry” situation. I’ve been there myself.
I’ve told it before, but here goes. I was working for a smallish commercial plumbing company on a hospital expansion project. I was given a section of the job to cost out, as in come up with a budget based off of time and materials projections. I did it and added Ten Percent for screwups and delays, etc.
The Job Manager, (a member of the owning family,) calls me in and raked me over the coals about the estimate. So far, so good. Many managers will perform “Destructive Testing” on cost estimates. He asks me point blank about my 10% buffer. I reply that I have seen similar margins appear on most jobs I’ve been on. His reply is that the people working for that company do not make mistakes. It is forbidden. I am quite taken aback to hear this.
I realized there and then that my tenure with this company would not be long. I was correct in that.
At the bottom of the piece is an appeal for comments by readers relating personal experiences of a similar nature. It is asserted that: “…you can vent via this anonymous Google form! ..” What a silly assertion. Anyone who has any experience of Corporate Skullduggery knows that there are no secure spaces on the Internet. The moment any information enters the cyber-realm, it becomes public knowledge.
As the old saying goes: “The only way to keep a secret is to tell it to no one.”
Stay safe!(TM.)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1CvwC
January 15, 2018
Foreign born employment level, 2007-2024
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1CviA
January 15, 2018
Foreign born employment level, 2007-2024
(Indexed to 2007)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/business/tsmc-phoenix-taiwan.html
December 29, 2024
Arizona’s Tiny Taipei: How a Taiwanese Chip Factory Seeded a Community
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, a global tech giant, brought thousands of workers from Asia to the Phoenix suburbs for jobs at a plant that the Biden administration helped fund.
By John Liu and Jack Healy
After Helen Wang finishes work at the new microchip plant looming over the Arizona desert, she drives home to start her side hustle: cooking pots of spicy beef soup and pork noodles for Taiwanese colleagues who are hungry for a taste of home.
There were almost no Asian groceries or Taiwanese restaurants nearby when the first workers began landing on the northern edge of Phoenix two years ago to work at a chip factory operated by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
Since then, the workers and their families have turned a mostly white corner of strip-mall suburbia into a Tiny Taipei.
Taiwanese businesses are popping up near taquerias and nail salons. Taiwanese cooks have joined Ms. Wang in ferrying meals to the chip factory’s parking lot. Supermarkets have started stocking Taiwanese sauces and noodles. The sound of Mandarin floats through day care centers and schools, where 282 Taiwanese students are enrolled this year.
The spaceshiplike factory drawing thousands of workers and their families to the area is a crucial part of President Biden’s effort to bolster advanced chip production in the United States. The company, known as TSMC, has committed $65 billion to the project and is set to receive $6.6 billion in grants through the CHIPS and Science Act…
RE: Microforests
These types of articles appear every other year or so. Microforests are small plantings, not forests. An area of 9 square meters (100′ square) does not/will not support a forest. It takes ~ 1200 cubic fee of soil to provide enough soil/nutrients for a tree to develop an 8″ diameter trunk at breast height (DBH). (That is a plot 20’x20’x3′ deep soil.) Most 10 year old urban street tree plantings have observable root-to-leaf crown distress, because of a soil/water/nutrient imbalance (restriction).
Most of us want some greenery in our cities. Anything but more concrete. Unfortunately, most urban kids want to swing, pull, or scrape at that greenery. The urban environment is not a natural forest setting. Don’t expect the forest to appear there. The microforest either.
Add: That should be 10′ square—or 100 square feet total.
Good points. Interesting to notice also that the “Japanese” micro-forest idea has *cough* taken root in many cities… though not much in Japan.
What America has experienced since 2007, is an increase in foreign born employment of 37.9% or more than 8 million workers from 22.4 to 30.8 million.
Regarding the article “The Unbearable Slowness of Being:”. This is a great example of someone dreaming up a doctoral study in order to graduate and move into some wast of time bureaucracy. The’s a concept called “wisdom” that so many scientist (especially) lack and never achieve. It is obvious that brains (especially the younger ones) accept information at X speed. However what comes in takes time to evaluate. This is why a brain at 60 years old does not worry about a pimple on their forehead whereas a teen (with faster processing speed) is immersed in its existence. Another example of why AI will be a failure – processing too fast, making a decision and then going all in. Sounds like the teen brain, but even faster. Rabbit and Turtle someone?
“Rabbit and Turtle someone?”
Indeed. The human body prepares for a marathon and not a sprint.
Behind the Dismantling of Hezbollah: Decades of Israeli Intelligence (NY Times via archive.ph)
I have to get to work in a hot minute. Without taking the time to read it, I will bet that the article about Micro Forests in Europe will be about the Akira Miyawaki method of establishing microforests.
Musk:
“I’ve addressed this 18 y ago in The Black Swan: America’s edge is in risk taking, not education. Any idiot can have education; you need to learn to fail.”
Spoken like someone who believes the consequences of failure are the same for everyone.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb:
“I’ve addressed this 18 y ago in ‘The Black Swan’ … “
Thx. It was right next to a Musk tweet and they must have fused together in my thoughts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/books/chapters/0422-1st-tale.html
April 22, 2007
The Black Swan
The Impact of the Highly Improbable
By NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB
Before the discovery of Australia, people in the old world were convinced that all swans were white, an unassailable belief as it seemed completely confirmed by empirical evidence. The sighting of the first black swan might have been an interesting surprise for a few ornithologists (and others extremely concerned with the coloring of birds), but that is not where the significance of the story lies. It illustrates a severe limitation to our learning from observations or experience and the fragility of our knowledge. One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans. All you need is one single (and, I am told, quite ugly) black bird.
I push one step beyond this philosophical-logical question into an empirical reality, and one that has obsessed me since childhood. What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes.
First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable…
So he needs to re-read his own writing.
Re: 179 passengers ‘presumed’ dead in South Korea plane crash
Juan Brown (blancolirio) provides a first look at the Jeju Air crash:
JEJU Air 737-800 Crash Muan, South Korea 29 Dec 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzmptA6s-1g
Jimmy Carter has died, age 100.
NYT, my subscription is paused so I won’t link.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/opinion/editorials/jimmy-carter-death-editorial.html
December 29, 2024
America Needs More Jimmy Carters
Our best former president.
The Carter doctrine is responsible for everything wrong in west Asia through North Africa starting with his Afghanistan intervention in 1979. No retreat from east of Suez for Carter.
I could care less about his post-presidency activity. His interventionist actions rank up there with Truman and Johnson, spawning huge death and destruction.
Plus, he was adamantly against Universal Health Care for Everyone and his HEW Secretary actually debated Ted Kennedy (taking the against stand) on the issue at the Democratic Midterm convention in 1978. It was an outrageous position. And we still suffer from it.
He also inaugurated the neoliberal deformation against the New Deal. He didn’t get very much of it done, but he got a little of it begun. And he teed it up very well for Reagan to drive it all the way onto the green.
He also made the antiRussianitic racist antiRussianite Zbigneeyuu Berzinsky his National Security Adviser with a lot of highly consequential downstream damage.
So it is true that his ex-presidency is one of the best ex-presidencies we have ever seen. Perhaps he understood what he had set in motion while he was President and he dedicated the rest of his life to doing what personal penance he could.
Someone explain to me why on Earth JACOBIN has 6 (!) articles out on Carter now:
https://jacobin.com/
Well, the other side of your point might/could/should be made: the POTUS is not in charge of foreign policy. This goes back to well before Carter. The examples rage in my mind.
Thinking back to at least James K. Polk but even well before.
Boeing’s holiday season continues:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/passenger-airline-makes-emergency-landing-in-norway/ar-AA1wFr28/
– A KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 737-800 skidded off the runway
– KLM issued a statement confirming the incident, explaining that the hydraulic failure caused the emergency diversion. Upon landing, the pilots lost control of the aircraft, leading it to slide off the runway.
Same thing just happened in S. Korea.
There is video of it landing and crashing and catching fire.
Landing gear would not come down. 179 dead.
I ordered the book from the publisher early this month, waiting for the print run, OR Books
From the email just now, an order now still can count towards the NYT list:
Refaat Alareer’s “If I Must Die” is officially a national bestseller
RYAN GRIM
DEC 29
For those who still bother to follow news from Syria, it seems that today Ahmed al-Sharaa, a.k.a. Abu Mohammad al-Julani said that Syria and Russia are linked by strategic interests and the authorities in Syria do not want Russia to leave if it would harm the relations between the two countries.
Also today Farhad Abdi Shaheen, a.k.a. Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (a.k.a. Kurds) is asking Moscow to mediate and help in reconciliation with Turkey.
It’s almost as if people are figuring out there’s an impartial superpower present, only interested in retaining it’s bases in a functional, sovereign country and which has working relations with all parties.
It sounds like Mr. al-Sharaa wants to set up a clean slate for gaining a total Time Out for Syria so it can spend the next few years or decades reconstructing itself.
Outside powers, specifically the DC FedRegime and His Most Sublime Highnessness, the Grand Sultan Erdogan will try their best to keep interfering to prevent Syria from re-constructing and re-cohering as a society. And Israel will take advantage of the weakness to try stealing what land it can on and a little beyond the Julan Heights area. But several decades from now, a reconstructed Syria may be able to reverse that as long as Syria can force the outer world to let Syria reconstruct itself first.
Maybe Mr. al-Sharaa should hold super ultra double-plus secret talks with the China Gov which might end up in Syria-China surprising the world with a massive Chinese development and security assistance move into Syria so fast, complete and comprehensive that the Sultan and the DC FedRegime can’t do anything about it.
Here is a set of very funny photos, titled ” The owner decided to install a camera at his cat’s feeder and this is what came out of it ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/cats/comments/1hp4ocn/the_owner_decided_to_install_a_camera_at_his_cats/
I was looking for Georgia on Wikispooks and saw them put up a new article on Avril Haines. Interesting.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Avril_Haines
“Avril Haines is a US Deep State insider. Medea Benjamin & Marcy Winograd described her as “the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing”[1], she is a believed[By whom?] to be a central actor in several major psychological operations.”
“She is a suspected central actor in the inner group that created the Russiagate psyop,[5] participated in the notorious 2019 Event 201 pandemic exercise[6] and was a very loyal team player to protect DCIA Gina Haspel and hide torture reports.”
With a father, Mr. Haines, who belonged to the good guys, as far as is suggested by this chapter:
“Family Background
Her father is Thomas Haines, an American author, biochemist and educator. He was a professor of Chemistry at City College of New York and of Biochemistry at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education and is currently a Visiting Professor in the Laboratory of Thomas Sakmar at Rockefeller University. Haines attended the City College of New York, graduating in 1957. During that time he worked as live-in baby sitter to then-blacklisted American songwriter Jay Gorney and thus came close to many other blacklisted professionals including actors Zero Mostel, Paul Robeson, Lionel Stander, philosopher Barrows Dunham and Bella Abzug, then a young lawyer defending blacklisted artists and intellectuals at HUAC hearings.”
What is wrong with the kids? Do liberal university educated parents produce monsters? Or are their children simply so stupid that they do not really grasp the meaning of what they study at university?
I am aware it’s none of the above. Which really worries me.
Here’s one from TechGig, titled : Developer fires entire team for AI, now ends up searching for engineers on LinkedIn
Here is the link.
https://content.techgig.com/technology/developer-fires-entire-team-for-ai-now-ends-up-searching-for-engineers-on-linkedin/articleshow/116659064.cms
Well, what is there to say but . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx9kaa7IsBg
In the news on the same day. Both were known to become facts.
Top Russian diplomat says Moscow to abandon unilateral moratorium on missile deployment
Sergey Lavrov says US ‘arrogantly’ ignored warnings from Russia and China, deployed intermediate- and short-range weapons in various regions
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/top-russian-diplomat-says-moscow-to-abandon-unilateral-moratorium-on-missile-deployment/3437516
European Gas Prices Soar as Putin Says a New Ukraine Transit Deal Is Unlikely
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/European-Gas-Prices-Soar-as-Putin-Says-a-New-Ukraine-Transit-Deal-Is-Unlikely.html