JPMorgan Says Quantum Experiment Generated Truly Random Numbers Financial Post
A single celled organism called paramecium bursaria. Inside the cell, you can see a bunch of green algae which live in symbiosis with the cell. In return for protection, the algae supply the cell with food.
Filmed with my iPhone mounted on my BA310E @moticeurope microscope pic.twitter.com/wnM1NRIS01
— My Microscopic World (@MyMicroscopic) March 22, 2020
Feral Pigeons and a Feisty Fox Take Top Honors in the 2025 British Wildlife Photography Awards Colossal
Blurry Patina: Grimy Reverence Or “Polished Turd” 3 Quarks Daily
COVID-19/Pandemics
Trump’s response to bird flu could be the defining test of his second term The Hill
Are We Ready for the Next One? Johns Hopkins Magazine
Man Comes Out of COVID-19 Isolation 5 Years After Pandemic Started, but Says He’s ‘Still Cautious’ People
Climate/Environment
SEC votes to stop defending climate disclosure rule The Hill
Arctic Blue Ocean Event 2025? Arctic News
Death toll rises to 28 in weeklong South Korea wildfires Al Jazeera
China?
China Aims To Operate World’s First Hybrid Fusion-Fission Nuclear Plant By 2030 NucNet
This is the side parking move by BYD, an electric vehicle manufacturer in China.
cc: innovologypic.twitter.com/9OkHGdZ0za
— Community Notes & Violations (@CNviolations) March 28, 2025
Comac C949: China unveils quiet supersonic jet with 50% longer range than Concorde SCMP
U.S. tech giants are betting big on humanoid robots — but China’s already ahead, analysts say CNBC
Taiwanese president’s security guards discovered to be Chinese spies The Telegraph
South of the Border
Kristi Noem took the $50K ‘exotic sports car’ of Rolex watches on her trip to a Salvadoran prison Business Insider
Stryker armored vehicles deploy to US-Mexico border under Trump administration FOX News
Caribbean leaders deny US claims that Cuban health workers are victims of ‘forced labor’ The Guardian
European Disunion
EU ‘without Ukraine’ — Hungary’s Orban posts list of demands to Brussels The Kyiv Independent
The European Union Is Damaged by Its Loudest Supporters Jacobin
The European Union’s farming dilemma: Sustainability, regulation, and survival AGDaily
Israel v. The Resistance
People in Gaza surviving on canned food as fresh produce rotting at border Al Jazeera
Gaza doesn’t have enough food for the children. It’s not famine. It’s forced starvation. Forced starvation is an act of genocide. pic.twitter.com/IrPGFQSoLJ
— Mohamad Safa (@mhdksafa) March 28, 2025
Israeli Mossad asks African countries to take Palestinians from Gaza Axios
US hits dozens of Houthi targets in Yemen Al Jazeera
John Mearsheimer on the leaked Signal chat and the casual way they discuss mass killing civilians in Yemen for Israel: “Mike Waltz is a neo-con, he’s basically owned by the Israel lobby. Of course he’s talking to Jeffrey Goldberg, the most prominent pro-Israel journalist. There’s… pic.twitter.com/7KFfJZM0xw
— ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) March 28, 2025
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine updates: Putin suggests UN administration of Ukraine DW
“Rosoboronexport” has for the first time released footage of the “Arena-M” active protection system intercepting a target attacking a tank from above. It looks like the system has been upgraded based on experience from the SMO, where tanks are not only targeted by artillery and… pic.twitter.com/ii2AenlKXf
— MD (@distant_earth83) March 29, 2025
Ukraine is actively training its children to become FPV drone pilots.
A wide network of free drone schools for children has appeared in all regions of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian media. pic.twitter.com/uqYHi0mQCJ
— Project TABS (@ProjectTabs) March 29, 2025
Ukrainians expect Russia to launch a fresh offensive to strengthen its negotiating position AP
Police State Watch
Tufts PhD student on visa arrested by immigration authorities ABC News
ICE detains University of Alabama doctoral student as government’s college crackdown continues NBC News
‘Detention Alley’: inside the Ice centres in the US south where foreign students and undocumented migrants languish The Guardian
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Listen! The freakout moment Tucker learned the NSA had hacked into his Signal account.
Efforts by Congress to pass privacy laws have faced the typical Washington gridlock.
Protect yourself from spying: secure online activities, use encrypted communication, and a VPN for… pic.twitter.com/BheZMr0usF
— Tosca Austen (@ToscaAusten) March 26, 2025
Apple drags UK government to court over ‘backdoor’ order The Register
Imperial Collapse Watch
Tracking fentanyl through wastewater FOX 21
Financial distress is now hitting the Middle Class.
A new study finds 2/3 of Middle Class Americans are struggling financially, with half living paycheck-to-paycheck.
46% are unable to cover a $500 emergency — one in five could only cover $100.
Of course, they’ve got plenty… pic.twitter.com/kfFqrr69yg
— Peter St Onge, Ph.D. (@profstonge) June 12, 2024
Trump 2.0
We don’t have to own Greenland to protect our interests. Denmark is part of NATO. We’re bound to defend each other, and we have every ability to defend our interests without an absurd and unlawful annexation. https://t.co/hfYov1pyIx
— David French (@DavidAFrench) March 28, 2025
Trump increasingly asks the Supreme Court to overrule judges blocking key parts of his agenda AP
Trump executive order targets DEI at parks, museums and more USA Today
DOGE
DOGE Plans to Rewrite Entire Social Security Codebase in Just ‘a Few Months’ Gizmodo
Indiana Republican faces fiery crowd after defending Musk, DOGE The Hill
DOGE cuts will ‘in all probability’ increase the U.S. deficit — by a lot: report The Independent
Democrat Death Watch
Nine reasons Democrats are doomed to stay in the political wilderness FOX News
JUST IN 🅱️
Democrats are reportedly pushing for a Sanders/AOC 2028 presidential ticket…
— American AF 🇺🇸 (@iAnonPatriot) March 21, 2025
Newsom on today’s ‘toxic’ Democratic Party: We tend to be ‘judgmental’ The Hill
Immigration
Lawyer for immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra suspects ICE is retaliating against her AP
Alarm as Florida Republicans move to fill deported workers’ jobs with children: ‘It’s insane, right?’ The Guardian
Trump’s immigration policies could wreak havoc on this rural town powered by mushroom farms NBC News
Our No Longer Free Press
Trump’s Attacks on Press Freedom Are Paving the Way for Authoritarianism Vanity Fair
Mr. Market Is Moody
Stock market today: Dow drops 700 points, S&P 500, Nasdaq sink as Wall Street reels from tariff, inflation fears Yahoo Finance
Will the Stock Market Crash if President Trump’s Tariffs Cause a Recession? History Gives a Clear Answer. Motley Fool
Major Tesla stock bull sounds alarm on major problem facing Elon Musk The Street
AI
Randomized Trial of a Generative AI Chatbot for Mental Health Treatment NEJM
Inside YouTube’s Weird World Of Fake Movie Trailers Deadline
OpenAI says ‘our GPUs are melting’ as it limits ChatGPT image generation requests The Verge
The Bezzle
Phishing Attacks – Anyone Can Get Pwned JD Supra
U.S. seized $8.2 million in crypto linked to ‘Romance Baiting’ scams Bleeping Computer
Guillotine Watch
Jay-z is the first person to own the $340,000 Bugatti Tourbillon watch, designed by Jacob&co. ⌚️ pic.twitter.com/YPlyO7t2Rh
— Complex Style (@ComplexStyle)
Bugatti just unveiled the Bugatti La Voiture Noire, and at $18m it’s the most expensive new car in the world pic.twitter.com/bUWt9WfkIm
— Business Insider (@BusinessInsider) March 7, 2019
Antidote du jour (via)
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
Genuine computer generated random numbers? Good and bad.
“Set seed” in my simulations for PhD enabled my work to be reproduced and checked. Quantum random numbers? Be careful what you wish for.
Fentanyl in wastewater. As long as they get a good baseline (people who have it as a patch for typically cancer pain relief) then fine. NB I did work to get the patches used more often in oncology in Canada in 1997. In interests of full disclosure.
My now-deceased wife used the Fentanyl patch while in hospice care. For some resson I decided to read the enclosed circular– all, I dunno, 14″x 20″ of it on two sides. I found something that made sense: if the patient is running a fever, there is danger of an overdose. None of the nurses I spoke with were aware of this problem.
So sorry about your wife. Whilst I “got” that so many pain specialists had left the UK NHS in favour of places like Canada, I still regret my part of “over-addressing the problem”.
I used fentanyl patches, Fluoribuprofen and Soma for a about a year to deal with the pain caused by my spinal injuries.
This was a step down from the stronger painkillers I needed the three previous years.
I also used Cannabis from the dispensary on Church St in SF, the first medical dispensary in California, member #104.
It all helped, but I still could not sleep with anything touching my right leg for almost 4 years due to an inflamed sciatic nerve.
> Democrats are reportedly pushing for a Sanders/AOC 2028 presidential ticket…
Bernie ‘Scabbard’ Sanders.
Question: what was AOC’s background before running?
Did you think ‘Bartender’?
Did you think ‘cum laude of the Pardee School’?
Which did you think first?
Well there was that dress she wore to some posh ball daubed with Tax the Rich on the back. But I am sure any competent dry cleaner would get that stain off in full, were she to ever run.
Bernie Sanders for President? Third time lucky? If somehow this happened, what about his age? For christsake, he was born months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour back in – ’41. He would be sworn in at the age of 87 and if he even managed to finish his first term, he would be 91. So if AOC was his Veep, this would be a backdoor way of getting AOC as President who never met a cause that she did not find worthy of selling out.
It’s not going to happen, it’s just a distraction to keep the left busy pouring time and money into some pie-in-the-sky hopey-changey fantasy for 2028. Could keep them from real activism for years while the oligarchs finish demolishing the republic.
I don’t think that it is going to happen either. But it seems that the Democrats have an awfully thin bench to choose from for 2028.
The Democrats are hoping for Trump to find a way to run again because his terms were not consecutive.
Hopefully Obama chooses someone other than Biden for VP this time.
Boy howdy, can’t wait for the return of the man who broke the color barrier like Jackie did!
His stats over an 8 year career in the bigs tell the tale:
.199 batting average
22 home runs, mostly when his team was comfortably ahead in the game
14 attempted steals-2 successful
Whoa!? If you’re referring to Jackie Robinson chk your stats. He batted .311.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/player/stats/_/id/26863/jackie-robinson
Halt goes there.
You appear to be the victim of a failed joke, if this condition persists please seek help.
I’m stealing that line!
Impossible. Constitution doesn’t allow it (assuming Trump doesn’t simply ignore it ).
It was just as thin in 2020 and they went with the demented old guy rather than the capable but not totally donor subservient old guy. (And yeah, Sanders would probably have gotten rolled if he got in, but at least he wasn’t clearly having cognitive difficulties).
The sad thing is that they have so embubbled themselves that they didn’t even realize they needed to start developing candidates after that, so that thin bench has the exact same names as it did then.
We’ve all seen this movie before, sadly …
The Plot Does Not Thicken …
• Bernie and AOC barnstorm for the next 3½ years
• Regardless of who is top-of-the-ticket, establishment Dems retreat to the dark, cigar-smoking room and plan to upend a Sanders/AOC nomination
• Clinton wing may choose to run Abuela again; Wizard of Kalorama™ will probably back Pritzker; Newsom has the bux, the looks, and the largest delegate haul state.
• Even if Sanders/AOC come out of the box hot, and win the first few primaries like Bernie did in 2020,
ObamaThe Wizard™ andHRCThe Witch™ will pull the strings to yank whomever needs be in order to clear the way for #TheChosenOne™• Cue Sanders/AOC primary dive
• Cue every #VBNMW slogan: “Most important election of your lives!”; “Vote like your life depends on it!”; “Democracy is on the ballot! Again!”
• Cue Sanders/AOC capitulation, and the electorate is told again to vote for a billionaire-backed candidate who supports: Ukraine war; Gaza genocide; balanced government budget; ballooning defense budget; working class belt-tightening
• Fin
#AmIRite?
‘…the Thriller in Vanilla!’
LOL
Is that what we’re calling Oor Gav’ now?!
Bingo. The dems would rather run Kamala or Hakeem Jefferies and lose…than AOC or Bernie and win. Too many broken rice bowls.
Alf was probably considered the likely GOP candidate for the 1940 race, after getting run over by FDR in 1936, so there is precedence for optimism in Kamala for a 2028 bid.
Hmm…. interesting thought: three years from now, how many of those rice bowls will be left intact?
Or it could be that AOC is going to cover herself in the mantle of Sanders, who will be too old come the next Primaries. Maybe he can be wheeled out to wave. Or harrumph at the appropriate times.
So having covered herself in the Sanders vibe AOC will then go about perverting anything he has ever said or done so that in the end it will look like the usual Dem stuff, with a few lies thrown in.
The neoSanders ticket will look a lot like the old Clinton ticket or any of the approved contenders.
And isnt Obama one of her mentors? More hope and change. Then eternal war and looting once elected.
yes, just sad to see him cheapened by her presence on stage with him. Yes, I wish he hadn’t forsaken movement for electoral politics after being back-stabbed by the Democrats in 2016 and 2020. But I still have enormous fondness and respect for him—for his consistency, his integrity—unlike how I feel about, say, Obama (shudder). And despite backing down when it maybe could have really counted, he still does good things more often than anybody else in DC (think introducing a bill last year to stop the flow of armaments to Israel). His current tour was a bright spot on my horizon until he started bringing her on.
Sanders does lots of talking, gesturing, and hand-wringing, but does not have a lot to show for all the flaling. Hearing what he has to say makes for feel-good moments.
Then, too, he is very happy about Lockheed Martin’s F-35 in VT! (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/10/bernie-sanders-faces-backlash-over-war-machine-he-brought-to-vermont.html)
AOC? A poseur!
Bernie is one guy in Congress; WTF do you expect? He only ran with the Dems bc the rethug MAGAtes were out of the question. And without caucusing w the Dems, he’d just be a solo outsider with no juice at all. And, finally, they shot him in the back in 2020. Take it easy on the poor guy.
He is out on the trail …. Anybody else in sight?
At this point, I’d much rather see them putting this very big energy into a third party. It might have a chance with this much time before the next election.
All they’re doing now is getting in front of a mob, calling it a parade, and bringing it right back to the people who continue to pay themselves billions of dollars to lose. Big money, energy and time suck.
Losers.
I’d put decent odds on Governor Newsom running or starting to float out those trial balloons for what or how a possible Presidential run might shape. If I understand correctly he is intertwined with alot of serious sources for funding like the Getty family fortune heirs, to name one. And now I have to admit that I do miss our dear Lambert and his handy diagrams…
Name recognition is building for him…for good or for ill. ” How can you interview that scum Bannon! ” I’m sure that goes over like a fart in church but Newsom does seem at a minimum, willing to host discussion talks with some people the Democrats find beyond any redemption or worth hearing. It can be a cynical move but he’s ahead of others in that vein, it seems.
To be honest, Newsom reminds me of what was once said of John Kerry – ‘He’s just a haircut in search of a brain.’
I lived in the Bay Area for several decades. I don’t know how much it matters these days, but Newsom has the potential to have substantial numbers of people emerge and tattle about, forex, how they saw him snorting cocaine at Jeremiah Tower’s Stars restaurant and various other SF hot spots of the 1990s-era.
He is such a skilled sycophant he would thrive in the Saudi royal court.
Left handed compliments will get you nowhere.
Sinister observation, but handy for determining where Newsoms “s— eating grin” came from.
“But Highness, I thought that you preferred Afghani dancing boys.”
“Worry not smooth lipped Gavin. You will do.”
Andrew Cuomo is tanned, fit and rested. He’s polling first in NYC. He’ll have 3 years as hissonner da mayor under his belt, making NYC great again. Nobody cares about his 15,000 nursing home deaths.
Bad dreams come true!
Or being the third man in the room and the only one of them who didn’t go to prison.
Guy on the street yesterday was busy telling me that the buses were running every four minutes, and it was thanks to Cuomo. Didn’t really have an answer for me when I asked how, as he holds no official office and has no means of enforcing such an edict. “He did it.” Oh, and Andy’s a victim. That might have been the craziest pro Cuomo discussion I have had or eavesdropped on, but he is the front runner everywhere I turn these days.
I was hoping that NYC residents were not delusional enough to elect him, but I am going to be sadly disappointed. That said, I don’t think either Cuomo or Newsom could get elected to dog catcher nationally. There is nothing about either of them that appeals outside of the blue bubbles they reside in.
No mayor of NYC has ever become prez. Some sort of curse.
re: that diagram. Here you go:
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2019/01/gavin-newsoms-keeping-it-all-in-the-family/
I miss plants, too. My intense interest.
Yeah ok.. and there is a tooth fairy and Easter bunny.
Again, more performative stuff from the DNC. How many divisions do Bernie and AOC have?
More like how many oligarch patrons do they have. I expect Mayo Pete or some other mouth-only smile empty suit to run and lose.
My dark horse pick would be JB Pritzker. Billionaire, photogenic and can-do the Everyman spiel. Midwest and rich? Sounds like a donors’ silver bullet.
Pritzker is bad for Illinois and will be bad for America.
Perfect for the Globalists.
And he’s being pretty low key, aside from statewide grandstanding against Trump every now and again. I think he’s waiting out the current dems scratching out each others’ eyes and will rise like a phoenix in a year or so.
I apologize for the flawed rhetorical structure of the question, a little salty for breakfast.
To clarify the AOC questions:
The earliest dated note I have is from Oct 2018:
: vulgartrader.com/post/178670458510/is-ocasio-cortez-an-intelligence-agent
I’m not sure when I was exposed to this, and my pre-2018 notes were corrupted in a cyberattack. It contains links to :
: Cortez is the recipient of degrees in Economics and International Relations from Boston University.
: As discussed in the DecipherYou series, degrees in International Relations are often a recruitment ground for intelligence agencies.
There are missing links for econ and international/foreign relations being very specific, and to the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. Here’s an explicit link:
bu.edu/pardeeschool/2024/08/30/pardee-alumna-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-delivers-speech-at-2024-democratic-national-convention/
> Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies saw one of its alumni take center stage at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who graduated from the Pardee School in 2011, delivered a speech that has been noted as a significant moment of the evening.
and a link to the history of the underlying program:
cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Twenty-Years-Officers-Residence.pdf
> Two especially hospitable academic settings—Boston University and Georgetown— made possible the first running of courses devoted strictly to intelligence.
Another early bird was Cory Morningstar linking AOC to corporate Green New Deal:
wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/02/13/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-new-green-deal-is-the-trojan-horse-for-the-financialization-of-nature/
Reviewing her history left an impression of the number of tire tracks she left on backs along the way. To finish:
Yves (Dec 2024): All of that kissing up to Pelosi for naught.
Even though this sounds a bit like a QAnon conspiracy theory, there is a lot of truth to what you say here. AOC was clearly selected and groomed by someone with power and imagination. She was of course “telegenic.” Her background, as you say, was rather expertly tailored by media savvy consultants. She came out of nowhere to gain national prominence quickly (like a couple of other Democratic Presidential candidates I recall). She was a “left” Democrat without really having to do anything substantive on that score in the House (while “kissing up to Pelosi”). Now she is being trotted around the country with Bernie to give her street cred by association with those Democrats who still believe.
Bernie will not run. He is too old, as he himself has pointed out. This is a sheep-herding mission. AOC is what the “progressive” wing of the Democratic party is now. She would have no chance in a national election. The Republicans have successfully painted her with the “woke” brush and I don’t think she could retain Bernie’s 2016 working/middle class base. But then who else do the Dems have?
I’m sorry, but this is yet another example of people wanting to think that the universe is under more control than it is. As Leit-Kynes realized when he was dying in Dune, its most enduring principles are accident and error.
AOC was NOT chosen, save by Justice Democrats (ie, a non-mainstream Bernie-aligned bunch after Bernie 1.0, before he had hired a lot of “professional ” staffers who diluted his 1.0 message when he ran again), which was a progressive PAC that did have a limited amount of success in getting some reps elected but folded based on the view it had failed to achieve its mission. She was NOT “supposed” to win her first Congressional bid. She took out the #4 Democrat in the House to general shock and consternation. She has been successfully housebroken by the party over time.
My impression is she won her district by knocking on doors and connecting with voters. She was not a product of the machine. That was before she was exposed to the levers of power.
AOC’s campaign was whipsmart. Trends are hard to pull due to redistricting, but Crowley was unopposed in the previous primary, and had an enormous money advantage including the third party run against her in the main.
ballotpedia.org/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez
At this point, vast ambition is as good an explanation as being a spook tool. Her credentials met Chomsky’s criteria (‘If you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.’)
What is notable is the erasure. Here’s Elizabeth Warren writing for AOC’s ‘Time 100 Most Influential People 2019’ entry:
> A year ago, she was taking orders across a bar. Today, millions are taking cues from her.
Invert the question. Pardee School cum laude and the best job she can get is bartending in the Bronx? Clever girl.
Yes, I find ambition, hard work, and knowing how to organize as being key. Had she been “groomed,” she would have done politics the conventional way and not won her seat.
Cum laude is not all that distinguished. But she did win a fancy science award and had an asteroid named after her as a result. So she was a star, literally, early.
WSWS performed a very thorough demystification of AOC’s progressive credentials.
It left me with the impression that she was a fairly opportunistic young millennial, with the neoliberal ethos common to her generation (which is also expected given her aspirations to PMC status), who went through a fairly arduous process of recruitment and training.
‘Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats received hundreds of submissions of prospective candidates from across the country to run in primary elections against incumbent Democrats. Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged that she underwent six months of “vetting” before being chosen as a candidate.’
Ok. So AOC didn’t just bartend. She also worked for some hispanic nonprofit, bernie’s 2016 campaign, and some other things. Which makes sense as a young grad in NYC – work 2 jobs, one for the career, one for money. But bartending is the most relatable so saying that is her main job is a clever move. That is like me saying I work as a line cook when really my main job is being a college student.
Secondly. A lot of people are suggesting AOC was corrupt before she came into office. To which i say nah. Being an elected official will change you as a person. I witnessed this happen to my mother. My mother circa 2016 would have been appalled at the 2024 version of her sending out negative campaign ads. She also developed more mainstream dem talking points. It was fun during the campaign because she has very catholic opinions on abortion but had to act like she was super pro abortion to get endorsements and donations. She would get back from campaign things and talk about how uncomfortable the lying made her but most of her team said she had to do it. The dem campaign advisor also made her include anti immigrant talking points to reach across rhe aisle which she also disliked.
Point is: blame being embroiled in the democratic party, not AOC being some cia insider mastermind.
AOC interned under Ted Kennedy. She would have learned from him to appear just a bit to the left of the Democratic party without challenging the people who pull the levers. Ted may have been more New Deal Democrat, but when it came to pushing the people in power he backed off.
Indeed, Teddy – author of trucking and airline deregulation in the 1970’s and co-sponsor of No Child Left Behind in 2001 – could be helpful at times, but on the deep, structural issues, he was faithful to his class.
As for Ocasio-Cortez, fwiw, a close acquaintance has good friends who live in the Parkchester development in the Bronx, AOC’s literal birthplace. For years, Parkchester residents have been dealing with issues of rising costs, deferred maintenance and physical decline. They have reached out to AOC’s office many times, and have consistently been blown off.
The woman is a talented, nimble politician, and was initially elected via bona fide grass roots effort, but is rapidly devolving into someone whose professional success seems to be based on the political neutralization of her base.
One doesn’t get committee assignments for free. Even if you can change the rules you ain’t gonna get far if you don’t know the game.
Antoinette Of Color has a cool head…
My best friend interned for Ted Kennedy. He met The Senator once. He never got a gram of any cred or even a job rec from the experience but enjoyed the work. It means relatively little, except that you might have gone to a good school in Massachusetts, got decent grades, and applied for the internship. I will vote for AOC if she runs. Shoot me if you want.
No. It’s your foot.
Trying to lure the left wing of the party back into the fold only to pull the football away again. The Democrats have been dead to me since 2016. Not much I can do here in MA but, vote 3rd party or Republican to show my displeasure.
The cynic in me thinks we should all just continue to vote Republican until there’s nothing left of the US. I doubt it will take long.
I am guessing that the elites/Pelosi/Obama/Schumer will go in the backroom, cancel primaries again or put their thumb on the scale and then we get Harris/Newsom for 2028 or Newsom/Buttigieg if they do not drag Harris out again.
I am not sure who the Trump-clone is going to be for the Republicans in 2028, but the Democrats are going to be scratching their heads as they desperately need Donald Trump as a scapegoat to buoy their otherwise dismal and lackluster platform and of course they will continue to run the tired old Russiagate nonsense for the umpteenth time for whomever the Republican pick is.
If the Democrats win, they will do nothing to reverse or probably expand the destructive policies of the Trump administration, and then if the Republicans win, the Democrats will support Republican policies 98% of the time while fundraising off of anti-Republican/McResistance virtue-signaling.
“Reportedly?” There’s no indication whatsoever that anything of the kind is happening.
And this particular account is clearly “reporting” this purely because these are two of the official demons of its readership. As is abundantly evident in the comments
Bernie’s been licking Democrat Presidential boots for so long it would be nice for him to be able to just sit at home and lick his own boots for once!
‘☀️👀
@zei_squirrel
John Mearsheimer on the leaked Signal chat and the casual way they discuss mass killing civilians in Yemen for Israel: “Mike Waltz is a neo-con, he’s basically owned by the Israel lobby. Of course he’s talking to Jeffrey Goldberg’
Maybe Waltz is envious and in awe of him because he abandoned America to live in Israel where he became an IDF prison guard. Of course Waltz would want Jeffrey Goldberg on his speed dial.
In that same Napolitano episode, Mearsheimer commented how incredible it is that no one is ever held accountable for anything anymore, that this has become way things work in America and that’s not a good sign.
I think this lack of accountability is the most important point John Mearsheimer makes, and it holds good throughout Europe and much of the Anglophone world. It seems to be the most obvious symptom of the totalitarian democracies which have slowly matured in the West throughout the post-war period’s managerial revolution, echoing James Burnham, bringing in it’s wake the entrenchment of the phenomenom of the stable deep state and the multinational and international institutions to which our political élites have chosen, on their citizens behalf, to entrust so many hitherto sovereign powers.
I have been watching this phenomenon that powerful people are no longer accountable for over two decades now, and agree that it is behind much of the degradation we see in “the West”. When TBTF became the cry of the elites during the GFC it was not a surprise to me that too big to fail also included the people running the failed institutions.
My daughter’s company recently got a new CEO, and she noted to me that one of her co-workers had pointed out that the new CEO was from the CEO class. Both of her parents had been CEOs (to completely different non-family owned corporations.) So when you think your CEO is acting like a feudal lord to the peasants don’t be surprised, it’s how they were raised. Meritocracy is dead.
Undead, I would say. We call it “merit” now; back then it was called “God’s grace”.
An excellent observation, indeed.
I’ve often wondered why the same people that get angry when someone in their social circle who has no control over their lives lies to them often don’t get angry or even make excuses for that person if a politician lies to them, or worse, hurts them.
Some explanations I have for it are that it’s a selective lack of self-respect, or some form of group/cult-like behavior. At any rate, this behavior is deeply disturbing to me. Personal integrity no longer seems to matter in politics.
– this is actually an extremely common thing in any society where a few people rule (impose law and choose how it’s enforced) and the rest just are expected to deal with it. This goes into vivid detail showing how people who are trapped in abusive relations for long enough can learn to ignore the abuse, or even excuse it. All of us in the US are trapped in abusive relationships with a ruling class that clearly behaves with extreme selfishness, and people cope in a huge variety of ways – hoping the next election will make a difference, getting angry at one party, just trying to survive, or get rich, etc. Really recognizing the rot at the heart of the system would require acknowledging that the US isn’t free and never has been, and most Americans haven’t been free for many generations, perhaps dozens.
I believe most political conversations are only as superficial as they are because people don’t know what real freedom is like – ie what it’s like to live in a culture that maintains a baseline of mutual respect internally, shares as a way of life, and takes humans’ and nonhumans’ needs into account. Most people accept things like corruption and racism as “how things are,” part of the human condition, so why get too upset, or really think too critically, esp if there’s little that can be done anyway? Plenty of nations without corruption and discrimination show that it’s possible to live without these troubles, and what a meaningful political change would look like.
Re; China?
I gotta add this because it’s huge:
CAAC allows two unmanned aircraft operators to start commercial flying business
Two Chinese companies have received the first-ever civil unmanned aircraft Operator Certificate (OC) issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the Global Times learned on Sunday.
It marks the first time that China’s civil aviation regulator issued the certificate for passenger-carrying civil unmanned aircraft, signaling the start of commercial operation in China’s low-altitude aviation sector and also a milestone in development of the low-altitude economy and urban air mobility, according to a report by the China Central Television (CCTV) on Sunday.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202503/1331146.shtml
“Low-altitude economy” reduces travel and transport to a fraction of the time of traditional ground-transport– but these are meant to be complementry, not competetive; an extention of pre-existing transportation and logistic networks.
As quickly as the Chinese move, I’d say within 10-years we’ll see drones fully integrated into Chinese cities as a mature technology.
It would seem to make sense to first deploy this technology for freight service, and only after establishing a solid safety record move on to passenger service.
Freight is happening now too– DHL in particular is very involved. We’re also beginning to see widespread use of drones in agriculture.
The company that makes these drones that are approved for passenger-carrying commercial operation, Ehang, is actually a software company that specializes in airspace management, but obviously these drones are what they will become known for.
If you look at the licensing/approval issued by the CAAC, you’ll see that this is just a baby-step towards the widespread application of drone-tech– a lot more flight-hours, study, and refinement of regulations will need to take place before you see these operating within urban areas, and they are currently restricted from doing so.
This is an opportunity for Mr Musk. The regulation of this new industry compels the distribution of new constellations of low orbit satellites for control and regulation. See the latest decree by Mr Putin to Roscosmos about the Russian plans. A few terrorist attacks by drone in other countries will soon push them in the Russian direction.
In a big city, there’ll be more people at risk under the vehicle than in the vehicle.
I do not know- but imagine, that there is very little private civilian aircraft and air traffic in China.
Unmanned, managed flight in China seems possible and plausible if my assumption holds true.
That poo won’t fly here in OOSA. Youotta see the number of private jets and helicopters bopping around SW Montana these days from Pied a Terre to Ranch. Enough to gag a maggot…
Nope, can’t and won’t fly here– first, because the USA doesn’t have the infrastructure to support autonomous air-taxis. And second, it’s a Chinese product: if you thought weather balloons and Tik-Tok could send our congress-critters into a massive freak-out…
[And you are correct about China’s airspace: it’s mostly a clean-slate]
Yeah, it’s huge for all the wrong reasons. Shows China is just as clueless as the US in chasing “the great future of AI driven labor”.
At a time when such technology should be severely constrained due to our worsening climate issues, governments and their oligaric puppet masters continue down this doomed path.
The only future AI has is too burn out our remaining resources and options faster than previously imagined.
I feel like I’ve read this post earlier.
Yes, I’ve posted on it before– yesterday it was a rumor, today it is news, and the Global Times updated it’s article a few hours ago (see below). These Global Times updates are interesting in themselves as it seems that they are adding information in response to common questions that readers may have after reading the original article.
I am absolutely fascinated by this tech, and by the impact that it will have on everyday life where it can be incorporated. It’s also a tangible and highly-visible marker– code, software, and medicines don’t photograph well– and provides a stark contrast between East and West, development of technology, it’s acceptance, etc.
From the GT update:
“It is expected that trial applications will be conducted in designated areas to accumulate experience. Gradually, large-scale commercialization will begin with improvements in relevant standards and rules, as well as the establishment of flight service facilities,” Luo noted. He estimated that it may take two to three years for big Chinese cities to fully embrace the low-altitude economy.
Earlier this month, Chinese authorities issued a special action plan to boost consumption. The guideline said that the government would speed up the supervision system for the low-altitude economy, and encourage the orderly development of low-altitude consumption, such as low-altitude tourism, air sports and consumer drones.
According to Wang, the autonomous passenger drones OC is also the world’s first, which could not only facilitate relevant Chinese companies’ technological upgrades – a process that is closely tied to mass application – but would also help them gain a first-mover advantage in snapping up global market share. Luo also noted that China will be able to export its low-altitude economy model to the Belt and Road partner countries.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202503/1331193.shtml
There was similar discussion earlier. I remember talk about safety of propeller blades, and drunk passengers, and whatnot.
I have been fascinated by science and technology troughout my entire life (and engineering career). “This tech” gets one big “meh” from me. It’s just a rehash, and yet another attempt at the old SF promise of flying cars (that people just can’t get over, for some reason). Low-altitude this, low-altitude that, are bunch of buzzwords that should trigger an acid reflux in anyone with feet firmly on the ground.
Adopting technology for the sake of adopting technology is not only wasteful, but can be counterproductive, and even dangerous. The other day there was an article about (dish)washing machine that does not work properly without Internet connection and a smartphone. High tech ineed, and it will have a lot of impact on everyday life where it is incorporated.
What I find tangible, and highly-visible, and functional, and impressive, is high speed rail network Chinese built (and invested mucho dinero into). These multicopters are just for toying around, which is fine, as long as people don’t get overly enthusiastic. Speaking about getting people overly enthusiastic on promises, it’s funny that Elon Musk is not all over this thing. He could make it work, and by “make it work” I mean make a lot of money. Here’s something that he could invent and sell at a premium. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK202vTB0_U
Drones will help China control the conquered US mainland after the next war, but hopefully they will also choose to build an extensive high speed rail network across the US to transport troops.
I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I really think you’re on to something… think about all of the benefits a Chinese invasion and conquest of the USA can bring!
What a list: good schools, elimination of poverty, cheap housing, responsive government… compared to what we have, Chinese-flavored communism might be a welcome change.
China doesn’t make the mistake of thinking in USian terms. There won’t be an invasion, way to expensive and would only cause a massive reaction. What for? They’ll just wait for everything to fall apart and pick up the pieces that are still worth fixing. It will be a long while still, hope there will still be anyone alive by then. (see the earlier link of blue ocean arctic up above)
I am surprised that at this moment in time with US enabling the genocide in Gaza, creating the conditions for the Ukraine/Russian war, bombing civilians in Yemen, Trump’s electoral and subsequent “regal” rule, tariffs and tariff wars, etc. etc.. and as a Canadian it must be acknowledge Canada’s role in much of what the US government is doing internationally, that little is being discussed along the lines of: “What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization — and therefore force — is already a sick civilization, a civilization that is morally diseased, that irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one repudiation to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.” Aimé Césaire.
We have lived in neo-colonial times since 1945 and the US and G7 are now being punished as feral animals turn on each other.
Ginger Goodwin
Yeah the utterly obliviousness to the implications of the infamous Signal chat plus the use of unmanned aircraft and how things will fall apart at the first crash suggests a sociopathic tendency to me.
This is gonna go south very quickly.
It’s very dangerous to become an enemy of a great power, especially if that great power is your neighbour.
This should be very obvious at this point.
…even if that great power is your government?!
Particularly when that great power is your government.
…a slippery sloppy slope
Meeting up with our Calgarian cousins from the Gulag Heckeypelago in LA next month, and their visits to SoCal over many decades have always been routine and cordial, so as not to cause anybody to think that they are actually part of the espionage unit-aka Alberta Chinooks?
I know nothing, nothing!
Aimé Césaire’s essential statement is that American and I would say Canadian society is morally corrupt. Referring to Hitler he is indicating that a real revolution has to take place for sanity to be restored internally and with regard to external relations between the US and the rest of the world. Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, etc. said the same thing. Times have changed since their insight and the world is at the abyss of something new, not fascism, but in the looking to Chile, Argentina, in the 60s and 70s are better indicators. What was good for them, will be good for us is on the horizon. It will be violent because those in power, politically, economically and culturally are not willing to give an inch. I fear for my children and grandchildren now. The present has never been so dark.
Ginger Goodwin
Indeed! You’ll know the revolution is on when Tomorrow doesn’t look like Today. (SSA benefits should appear in member accounts on April 9, 2025. If not, expect tomorrow to be different than today. Or Not.)
My last SSA deposit appeared 3/26. So far so good.
Direct link to Apple drags UK government to court over ‘backdoor’ order article at The Register.
Our local elections are on 1st May. Just saying,
Do any of the younger cohorts remember the meaning of May Day?
“DOGE Plans to Rewrite Entire Social Security Codebase in Just ‘a Few Months’: Report”
I’ve got an idea. How about that to prove it safe, that Musk and his boy blunders go into JPMorgan Chase and completely change their code base out in only a few months and show everybody that they can do the job. I’m sure that the people at JPMorgan Chase would have full confidence in them to do this. If the results were not going to be so tragic about what Musk wants to do here and lead to who know how many people dying, it would be like the plot of a comedy film. Say, does anybody remember the spectacular success that Obama had with launching his Obamacare website? It will be like that but on steroids-
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/days-before-launch-obamacare-website-failed-to-handle-even-500-users-idUSBRE9AL03L/
If this goes as bad as I think it will, I have a prediction. All that vandalism of Teslas and Tesla dealerships over the past few weeks? That will be absolutely nothing compared what will happen when Musk stuffs up. People may even burn down his factories this time.
Worse. Insurance companies will refuse coverage to buildings and people.
Then the banks will swoop in demanding their pound of flesh he promised as collateral.
I was thinking about your comment and I think that you note something important. With this news of Musk wanting to experiment with all those social security computers, I would guess that any insurance company that has Tesla cars on their books would be having urgent meetings about what might be coming down the road in terms of potential payouts. Could it be that like certain areas in California, that insurance companies might give up insuring Teslas?
Speaking as a former actuary, YEP!
On the other hand there are studies like this one described at Ars Technica: “After 50 million miles, Waymos crash a lot less than human drivers.”
Of no use to Tesla. Their FSD, a lie of the largest proportions, is among the worst autonomous driving packages in the industry. Which considering how bad the “best” ones are is saying something.
California. Sorry if this sounds racist, but I’ve driven A LOT in USA and standards are blatantly below countries like UK where you must pass your driving test in a manual (stick) otherwise you get only a limited licence that doesn’t allow you to drive stick.
Can we compare Waymo to UK?
Agreed. I watch a YouTube channel that routinely mocks US drivers pulled over for drunk/drink driving and similar stupidity. The guy who runs the channel is Danish, and is routinely amazed at how light the penalties are and the overall low requirements for obtaining a license.
Considering how often there is no public transportation available and how often the population is widely spread, it is an unspoken agreement that the tests and punishments are light.
I am lucky to have public transportation in my area especially since I cannot drive until I get my cataract surgery; I have been trying since August and it looks like I might finally get my surgery done and my new glasses in May. That is nine months of repeated phone calls, referrals, and pushing. When people say that things are slowing down in healthcare, they ain’t kidding.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area with its dense healthcare network and at least in some areas a halfway decent public transportation system. However, even in California, there are areas where there is little of both. Outside of the major metropolitan areas in the United States, I don’t want to think about it.
While yes, I don’t think moving vehicle crashes was what The Rev was implying insurers would get antsy about.
Yes. The concern is over vigilante torching.
(The administrators at my local community college are placing masking tape over their Tesla insiginia’s.)
Interesting, but that won’t do any good. If someone can’t tell a Tesla from any other car, they aren’t trying.
I thought juno mas was making a sly and very funny administrator joke…
I have seen a video of a Cybertruck with TOYOTA written on the back of it. :)
It’s not necessary to burn anything down. Just need a few thousand people to spend a few weeks around the perimeter keeping people and things from going in and out. Why risk all the toxic fumes? Turn it into a party with music and shared food etc.
My husband is in despair because he hasn’t learned yet what activism requires. As someone else put it “You lose you lose you lose you lose you keep losing then they give up”. Keep losing!
They won’t be able to do it in a few months. This is simply not a realistic timeline in this universe.
Banks and governments the world over still have COBOL mainframes despite multiple attempts to convert them to more modern languages. The challenges are very real. They won’t be able to replicate the transactional efficiency or speed of COBOL. They’ll run into the problem of interdependencies of legacy systems, you can’t convert one aspect without also fixing all at once. There are certain unique aspects about COBOL as a language which no modern programming language has, which is precisely the challenge, and it doesn’t use databases in the modern sense, uses a file based system. COBOL was created when there was no such thing as relational/transactional databases or even spreadsheets.
My prediction is two months will pass, then 6, then 12. Then they will either quietly bury it, or would make small progress in probably a year or two and call that an overhaul. After all, who would know the difference? If they haven’t made progress they won’t go live with it, won’t release. They’ll realize it’s too big a risk.
Sadly, because I do like the idea of revolt.
Oh, no, you REALLY do not get it. The point is for them to wreck the system so as to have no Social Security. The coding is just a pretext.
The French peasants burned land records in the Revolution. This is a similar but counterrevolutionary approach.
I do agree that with most of Doge’s effort is really to just wreck things but could this effort with SS just be attributed to stupidity on a galactic scale? I mean do they really want the wrath of most of the Nation’s populace raining down on them? It’s not like they can say “Oops, sorry about that”,in this instance when it goes bad. And it’ll be almost instantaneous when automatic deposits stop coming in.
I suppose I just can’t wrap my head around some things that are so ridiculous…
When you integrate the idea into your thinking that, to these people, Terran human life is less important than power and profit, it all becomes clear.
All of the dead people who formerly relied on the social safety nets are a feature of the process, not a bug in it.
just be attributed to stupidity on a galactic scale?
Porque no los dos?
I’m not so sure about the wrath. I think USians might be so shell-shocked and atomized already that even the demise/deliberate destruction of SS (of which I partake at age 74) may land like a nothingburger, save for expressions of aghastitude from some of the usual suspects. Having grifting privateers come to “save” us recipients of what remains of our well-earned gubmint retirement fund will be spun as one more miracle of the invisible hands that guide us all, and may be part of the script.
Just to underline this, by shutting a bunch of offices and making it harder to complain, they are banking that some chunk of people on the margin give up. They then pocket the difference as “savings”. Well trod path in the insurance industry.
The added bonus is proving that the gov can’t be trusted with social security over time, and instead, it should be issued through Twitter payments (or whatever).
Also, there’s not a clear path to solidarity, which means that if they continue to find ways isolate people and make them feel like the errors are partially their own fault, people don’t fight back as a block.
Thank you for continuing to boost this story, Yves. It’s as important as the Treasury payment systems beat, imo.
Sorry to disagree but the Nation’s populace will be able to get over it in a matter of weeks being that most of these people are retired or disabled people. Just look at the people right now, they’re looking at others to carry the load.
We’ve been trained to take s#*^ our entire lives, and now with the empire contracting, we’re being trained to eat it. And we will… and if there are complaints that become excessive, the Blackwater types will called in to discipline the rabble.
>the Blackwater types will called in to discipline the rabble.
It’s a mighty big country out there with a lot of space with a lot of people owning their own weapons. Maybe controlling people in densely populated areas like cities will work but good luck out in the hinterlands.
Ok, let’s stipulate for the sake of argument that Musk and Trump want to break SS. Even assuming malignant intent, I struggle to see how they would do it.
What you suggest is that this government system is vulnerable to this kind of purposeful meddling.
If government controls over key critical systems aren’t at least as stringent as, say, trading platforms, or a smalltimey bank, then the US is done for and not because of Trump or Musk.
However, the modern development process is such that no matter what you code, you use versioning systems and work in releases, and each version or subversion has commits, branches, tags. So if something breaks, you then revert to an earlier version of the codebase. Nothing Musk can do here can’t be reversed or undone.
There is also code review. And various levels of signoff. And various stages of testing. And, if you’re the US government, you also have the NSA performing audits and code review because this is National Security, after all, and these systems are protected and classified. You’re not introducing bad code without the NSA signing off on it, and if they sign off on it, well then….
My take is this is likely just Musk using FUD to successfully induce freakout mode in his detractors.
You are talking past the premise that Musk & Co are saboteurs.
If you assume that, let’s start with “Who needs the backup tapes?”
Protip: get a hard copy of your SSA benefit statement and out it in a safe place. It is advice I am giving to my clients.
That hardcopy was mailed to all SS recipients at the end of January 2025 so they could submit their 2024 annual income tax statement. Should be handy.
I just got my benefits statement sitting on my desk.
On wrecking Social Security, I understand the goal, as it has been a goal of Wall Street to take over the system for decades. However, over a fifth of Americans depend directly, if not exclusively, on it for survival with most of them either having paid into it decades or are so disabled it is almost impossible to claim them as moochers. This means a sudden collapse in the system would instantly crush most of the economy and it would be impossible to successfully blame the victims for their suffering.
One could argue that Americans are too atomized or hateful to fight back, but a fifth of the entire population would face homelessness and/or starvation in a single month across the entire country and all classes up to the upper middle class. It would be a different situation if the government was perceived to be making an honest mistake and was genuinely concerned and competent, or if the economy was fantastic, but since that is not true even in über Blue California, the Trump Administration is playing a game of sudden death. It is so far beyond incompetence, carelessness, a lack of intelligence or even ruthlessness as to genuine madness.
But I am not seeing any real connections to reality among our ruling elites.
Add to that fifth of the population who would be directly harmed by loss of Social Security benefits, the children, relatives and service organizations who would be called on to replace at least part of the lost benefits and you could have a very large part of the country angry enough to act.
Things You Should Never Do, Part I; Joel Sposky; April 2000
Oh wow, I used to follow Joel’s blog around the time of that post. I had forgotten about it, thank you!
What could possibly go wrong? Are they converting the test routines as well?
I did an IT job once for a TBTF bank that required a database column to be a few bytes wider for expanded text. The client required two months of testing to get it into production.
Sigh. AP continues to lie, or repeat UK propaganda.
There is virtually nothing left of the Kursk incursion … Watching Dima it’s down to a few fields and a hamlet.
Even Deep State maps show that ouster is nearly completed.
Yet AP claims only “80% retaken.” Why do they lie so much?
Maybe because they know that CNN, the BBC, DW, MSN, etc. will never contradict them.
Because there are no negative personal consequences to the people ordering or doing the lying. In fact, the opposite might be true.
Financial distress commentary, embed I now notice is somewhat dated but I suggest still overall accurate. Varied classes of many stripes and not just the lesser classes or the poors, still grappling with the inflation genie that won’t go back in the bottle.
Zeitgeist watch from yesterday, a very quick sojourn into the local Walmart. Only went into buy a few textile items for the bathroom, which I just observed were made in India. For a mid day on Saturday early spring it was busy but not overwhelming to be there or stand in line. Could be my imagination, it is end of the month and most supplement sources ( Social Security, Snap benefits I suppose) begin anew next week. I’d conclude the local Walmart or the local Costco nearest any of us is best situated on the supply chain to handle the very in flux tariffs situation…my humble thoughts on it.
Added, that a local breakfast chain continues to add a minor surcharge per egg on breakfast menu items…so that is not changing quickly either just yet.
‘David French
@DavidAFrench
We don’t have to own Greenland to protect our interests. Denmark is part of NATO. We’re bound to defend each other, and we have every ability to defend our interests without an absurd and unlawful annexation.’
JD Vance went on a rant while in Greenland saying that Denmark was not doing a good job of defending Greenland against the looming Chinese and Russian and Iranian invasion fleets about to land and that they were failing. Maybe Denmark should call Vance’s bluff. They should announce that they are pulling any men and officers serving with NATO and sending them to Greenland to defend that island on behalf of NATO. All officers & personnel will have till the end of the week to hand over their work and clear their desks and computer files. And that they will not up their NATO payments like Trump demanded as any extra money will be used for that force defending that island. Bonus points as a force like that might block any ideas about having the US seize that island’s civil administration. In any case, the US signed a treaty where they acknowledged that Greenland belongs to Denmark in exchange for the US buying the Dutch West Indies. Surely the US would never renege on a treaty, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_the_Danish_West_Indies
>>>Surely the US would never renege on a treaty, right?
As far as I know, the United States has reneged on almost every treaty it has ever signed.
“WHY WON’T IRAN TALK TO ME???”
— the exact same guy who pulled out of the nuke deal for no reason
re: Russian economy praised by FT
Doctorow latest:
Sometimes mainstream media tell the truth…
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/03/30/sometimes-mainstream-media-tell-the-truth/
“About nine months ago, I alerted readers of these pages to a feature length article in The Financial Times which described the generalized prosperity in Russia since the start of the Special Military Operation and transition to a war economy. That article quoted extensively from Rosstat and other Russian official sources. It highlighted the fact that truck drivers were now earning four times what they made before the war and how Russia’s lower classes did especially well under conditions of full employment that even penetrated to the one-factory towns that languished as from the Yeltsin years of the mid-1990s when that factory shut its doors. Considering that over-all the FT is notoriously anti-Putin, anti-Russian that one article was something to celebrate.
Now in today’s online edition of the FT we find another feature article entitled ‘Russia’s war economy fuels rustbelt revival” that is more focused geographically in long deprived regions and focused topically on the consumer sector of goods and services.
See https://www.ft.com/content/559ca59f-7fdc-4c47-8e87-edb562acdc7b ”
FT would be here:
https://archive.is/YtWw8
final paragraphs:
“The lead author of this article, Daria Mosolova, is a relatively recent hire. Her LinkedIn entry tells us that she got her bachelor’s degree in comparative literature (French) at University College London and then took an advanced degree in international relations at the London School of Economics. While at LCU, she was for one year editor in chief of Pi Media, which is their student journalism society.
Mosolova joined the FT in 2022 as a trainee and is in rotating 6-month assignments to various FT desks. She served one term in Brussels and now is based in London, assisting with Russia coverage in the area of economics and business. It will be interesting to see how long Mosolova remains at the FT. But she likely has a promising career ahead of her if the editors have tolerated her dollop of truth amidst their general Russia-bashing.”
Might the author or her parents be a Russian immigrants to the UK? Her surname certainly looks and sounds like they might have come from there.
Go East, young man. Been saying this for years to the kids I used to work with in house unaffordable Massachusetts. Most said nothing a few said Russia is a poor nation. My shift in view towards Russian prosperity was partly due to Doctorow’s accounts of shopping and Duches in Russia.
be careful this isn’t meant to show us the way. A War with Iran will be great for the Rust Belt!
As tmann says, might they be providing evidence that war is good for the business economy?
Advocating a govt job guarantee is a tenant of Kelton’s MMT. The ruble is a sovereign currency and any Russian deficit spending will accrue to the privet sector. War is pretty much a business.
“…the privet sector.”
The Russian version of hedge funds?
A second Doctorow has hit the blogosphere
Re: Child labor in FL
Actually this may be good, it shows people that their standard of living requires child labor or slaves. Team R delivering as promised: “we got rid of the brown underclass, now we will need your children please.”
Perhaps a wake up call.
The child labor will be by brown people and only a few similarly poor whites.
To your comment I get the horrible feeling that there will be more than enough poor whites in the near future.
I mean there is value to kids doing a little work and chores but within the realm of earning some cash in their pocket, learning responsibilities and skills but not a return to what’s below.
https://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/index.html
Well, maybe as manufacturing is brought back at least the new factories will be a little cleaner and safer…
We poor whites harvested crops in a prior era and that paid for school clothes and some even afforded bicycles. There was camaradie and someone always had an AM radio for musical diversion. That started at age 12 and went on for years.
Same here.
We stole, really just borrowed, the tractor and went for a joy ride. This led to 9 months of cleaning police cars for community service
Forget about underage kids working, how come I never see 16-18 year olds working-as was the custom when I was in high school. Most students didn’t work, but plenty did, selling shoes at Thom McAnn or working at McDonalds or somewhere else in the mall
I never lifted a finger other than to be a numismatist’s apprentice when I was 15 pushing old metal.
The demographic changes do indicate it will be mostly brown people.
If the social contract programs were hated by the elite before, since the anger at the New Deal, they see now as a most opportune time to pull up all ladders.
“we got rid of the brown underclass, now we will need your children please.”
You left off a sentence in quote?!
“we got rid of the brown underclass, now we will need your children please. Now, Go Die!”
‘Hey, your child got it’s arm mangled in the machinery at the factory today and now we want you to pay for the down-time as we had to stop the line to get the machinery clean again.’
If that sounds dark, children were frequently mangled in the machinery of the 19th century factory mills where they had to duck in and clean out gunk while the machines were still working.
Phhff, still happens today. Just a fine by OSHA. Just the cost of doing business.
Sarcasm off.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/12/immigrant-child-laborers-killed-factories-osha
For it to work in the truly diabolical way of centuries ago, going to school – at all grade levels – is going to have to cost more money.
Charter Schools.
Tote that barge, lift that bale, show a little grit and you lands in jail…
Boy oh boy. The lyrics to that song went through quite a few changes over the years.
Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ol%27_Man_River
The book and musical play “Show Boat” are about a hundred years old now. Times have changed, but people stay the same.
Stay safe.
Yeah, I knew Robeson’s shift on it. :-|
“Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?”
Florida — making the world safe again for Victorian era working conditions
p.s. speculative question:
If countries train their population for long wartime production such as during WWI/II does that training/focus pay off in the post-war development?
e.g. did Germany´s post-1945 rise profit of that? Or rather not? May be USA did?
The bigger question being probably in how far the institutionalisation of war-related R&D, education and production may benefit a society/economy.
And with this of course:
What to expect from Germany´s intended course for war economy. Critics say arms industry makes little sense because it´s concept of profit is one-dimensional. Once the tank is destroyed it´s worthless. And if it is not being used it again is worthless in the long-term causing insane costs and being very ineffective for the broader society and its needs.
I assume by wartime production you also mean a wartime economy similar to WWII at least in terms of prioritization of the war effort?
If so, the neoliberal West will fare very poorly and any such attempt will most likely hasten an economic collapse.
There is a reason countries like Russia and China can and could (respectively) handle such a shift.
I bought a couple complete runs of 1943 and 1944 National Geographics at a yard sale eons ago and got around to finally looking at them, and the adverts are all oriented towards the war and many of the articles as well.
In 1942 rationing started and no civilian cars were made for the duration of the war, and many of the ads say something along the lines of ‘when the war is over, you can expect blah blah in consumer goods, etc.’
In contrast, we were told to go out and shop our hearts out after 9/11, and have experienced no lack of anything since-save occasional toilet paper runs early in Covid.
There was a wonderful fold-out map of the southwest in a NG from around 1941 or so. Many of the routes shown are no longer on maps today. The roads are still there of course. I used it to drive over the Chuska mountain range in about 1988. I think it might be paved now but it was a dirt road then.
>”There is a reason countries like Russia and China can and could (respectively) handle such a shift.”
The question of course what are the differences between EU and RU/CHINA for latters´ ability to handle it.
We have such factors as control over necessary resources which EU does not own on the level necessary.
Or the much discussed inefficiency of the Western MIC-production which has been turned into a scam, to rip off a country´s wealth instead of producing goods that fulfill their task for a fraction of the cost. But this unlike natural resources can be changed.
Another could be the disunity among Europeans on arms manufacturers and their inability to agreeing on one particular design. But not in all areas this is true.
Airbus for reasons others here can judge unlike me, sort of worked out.
“can be changed“. Except the war talk is being driven by financial pressures, not the other way around. Also – while probably sufficient, the profit and grift motive in the MIC is not the only factor at play. To be efficient at the Russian / Chinese level, the labor base would need to not pay for Big Pharma / Medical insurance profits, Big Finance interest payments on housing and credit cards, Big Ag profits on food distribution, etc etc.
Well, naively spoken by me – addressing a factor that is potentially under EU elite´s control. If of interest for that same elite is an entirely different matter as you suggest.
In how far do the efficiency issue of arms production and living-costs for the population relate?
Seymour Melman (After Capitalism) thinks than in US, there was a tradeoff between excellence in military R&D and excellence in development of civilian industrial base. (Only so many engineers produced by the educational system; he also thinks that the emphasis on military industries damaged management style, since with the adopted “cost-plus” procurement schemes, there was little incentive for the military industry managers to worry about improving the productivity of defense industrial designs and processes). SM thinks that US adopted an explicit policy of out-sourcing civilian industrial base development (his index case is “machine tools”) to other countries and focused its resources on defense technology development. In the end, this negatively impacted even the defense industrial base, as we see now in the West.
I read accounts about how wartime mobilization trained both workers and management to operate effectively in large organizations. These pertained specifically to Japan after WW2 and South Korea after the Korean War, but no reason to think it wasn’t universal.
If so, could US have become the giant industrial power without the Civil War? Was the British “malaise” (that is, how it fell behind Germany) due to Britain being the only industrial country that didn’t have a conscription based army at any time in latter half of 19th century? Idle speculation on my part and probably something likely full of holes once you look at the details, I’m sure. But the social spillover effects from conscription and mass army has to be considerable.
The Union states of the northeast US were well along the way to industrialization by the start of the War Between the States.
Some of it was protective tariffs, some of it the US already enjoyed immigration surpluses.
Tariffs protecting the north’s industrial development were mainly against Britain who were the cotton sellers’ big customer. Thus during Jackson’s presidency there was nullification by South Carolina and its constitutional crisis.
Perception that the federals were favoring the north were slightly less than the realization that Lincoln would finally shutter slave state creation…… reasons for secession.
I suggest the “false claims act” in federal law goes back to the cheating on the Union purchasing officers during the War.
Not that anyone pursues false claims these days.
I think you are referring to Edwards Deming’s work that shifts quality control and process innovation to the line workers. It was very successful in WW2 manufacturing in the US but after the war the US returned to a traditional hierarchical system where workers just did what they were told. After the war Japan manufacturing embraced Deming’s philosophy that became Kaizen and is the reason Toyota’s are much better cars then Fords.
Fun fact. Demming was bought over to Japan at the behest of MacArthur, Shogun of Japan 1945-1951.
I expect Russia to launch a fresh offensive, because that’s what armies fighting wars do (espetially after rasputitsa ends).
I’m convinced that the neocons whole approach to “ending” wars suffers from projection. Unlike our adversaries we have long ago forgotten what it is like to actually win a war to end it. Since WW2 we have adopted the “cut and run” option without exception and so expect that everyone else has also done so. The Russians and other of our enemies seem to have remembered that there is another option. It always interests me when the brainiacs write that virtually all wars end with negotiation because by and large those wars were also virtually always started by the US and cutting and running certainly is our go to alternative. Kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.
Except that the US foreign policy seems to have pioneered the “move fast and break things” philosophy after Vietnam, and is now applying it vigorously at home and abroad. Sowing chaos is what we do. Because it’s so much easier than actually building stuff. If we can’t “win”, nobody can. Nihilism rules. But at least the squillionaires get to keep their stuff. For now.
Because “winning” means having to own the aftermath. We “won” the Civil War in 1865, only to give up, cut, and run 12 years later, because the aftermath turned out to be too messy. Yes, this is somewhat tongue in cheek, but the lessons are still applicable.
If we couldn’t invest a generation or two to make a complete victory out of a war that took place in US soil, that cost 600,000 American lives, why should we spend so much for a “victory” in faraway places?
It’s what’s known as the “pigeon maneuver” in chess: shit on the board, declare victory, and fly away.
That is exactly what Putin said of Obama in more or less those words.
The other difference is that the Russians are fighting right next door, not 6000 miles or more away, let alone across an ocean. USians seem unable to grasp this, either in motivational nor logistical terms.
Russian forces have maintained strong pressure through the winter.
Good weather and dry roads…..
RE: Trump’s immigration policies could wreak havoc on this rural town powered by mushroom farms
Well at least they are honest and declare that the “American Dream” is to run a business that profits by exploiting cheap labor, right in the first paragraph –
“AVONDALE, Pa. — In this sleepy, rural corner of southeastern Pennsylvania that produces 70% of the nation’s mushrooms, President Donald Trump’s immigration policies are threatening the American dream for a tight-knit community of generational mushroom farmers and the immigrant workers they have long employed.”
I mentioned last week that the entire staff-save cashiers, of the Frisco, Co. Wal*Mart were from Mauritania-and frankly I had to think just where the heck it was, and then reading the Wiki on it, Mauritania is one of the last countries on this orb with slavery, and Wal*Mart never does anything as a 1-off, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauritania
Thank you for the great selection of links this morning, Haig!
Yep!
There he was with the old man
Stranded again so off he ran
The Golden Billion world crashing around me
No possibilities of getting empathy I need
He looked at me and smiled
Said no, no, no, no, no child
See the DOGE and Elon try
Up in the air he likes to fly
DOGE and Elon try
Below he had jobs to fry
He rolls back down to the warm soft ground, laughing
He don’t know why, he don’t know why
DOGE and Elon abide
Well I stumbled upon your secret place
Safe in DC you had no tears on your face
Wrestling with your desires of frozen strangers
Watching your fires, the message hit my mind
Only words that I could find
See the DOGE and Elon try
Up in the air he like to fly
DOGE and Elon try below he had jobs to fry
He’ll roll back down to the warm soft ground
Laughing to the sky, up to the sky
DOGE and Elon abide
We’re getting older the world’s getting colder
For the life of me I don’t know the reason why
Maybe it’s livin’ making us give in
Occupations rolling out taken back on the tide
We’re lost balance together ocean upon the sky
Another night in this strange DC town
Moonlight holding me light as down
Voice of confusion inside of me
Just begging to go back where I’m free
Feels like I’m through
Then the old man’s words are true
See the DOGE and Elon try
Up in the air he like to fly
DOGE and Elon try, below jobs had to fry
He’ll roll back down to the warm soft ground
With nary a little tear in his eye
He had to try, he had to try
DOGE and Elon abide, yeah
Up in the air he like to fly
The DOGE and Elon try, below he had jobs to fry
He’ll roll back down to the warm soft ground, laughing
He don’t know why
But he had to try, he had to try
DOGE and Elon abide
Dog & Butterfly, by Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y64rTtAjpRM
“Another night in this strange DC town
Moonlight holding me light as down
Voice of confusion inside of me
Just begging to go back where I’m free
Feels like I’m through
Then the old man’s words are true”
niiiiiceee…! as is of course the DOGE refrain with “DOGE and Elon abide”
Heart: the Wilson sisters are currently on a US tour with Cheap Trick and Iggy Pop. Heart puts a lot of spotlight on the songs with Nancy’s solos.
A friend sent me some kicking videos. Amazing how these cats stay going.
I saw Ann and Nancy play outdoors here in Atlanta back in 2013. The Wilson sisters put on a good show. John Bonham’s kid (Jason) opened up for them and joined them onstage for a song or two.
‘Complex Style
@ComplexStyle
Jay-z is the first person to own the $340,000 Bugatti Tourbillon watch, designed by Jacob&co. ⌚️’
Must be slowing up. It took me a minute to work out how to tell the time on that watch. It’s like something out of Mad magazine.
I have saved that minute, because I never bothered with that (since the watch was’t really intended to show the time to the owner anyway).
For whatever the reason, it tells the very same time as a Timex.
It seems that a lot of men have given up on wearing wrist-watches as they have the time on their mobiles already.
I bought and sold quite a few of mostly Rolexes/Pateks, et al, once upon a time…
Funny thing is, i’ve never cared to wear a watch~
A watch is a prison
You wear it
how nicely it shines
And your keeper
Is time
I noticed that some 20 years ago. About 10 years ago everyone seemed to be wearing “smart” watches (and comparing their step counts). Lately I’ve noticed wrist-watches are starting to make a return.
Me, I personally prefer analog wall clocks. Maybe because I grew up with an old pendulum clock in the living room and battery powered one in the kitchen. And the digital clock radio beside the bed.
I wonder how many youngsters could pass the clock drawing test, which is still used in cognitive function evaluations. And don’t get me started on the lost ability of cashiers to mentally calculate correct change for cash transactions. Kids these days!
And map-reading? Long gone…
“Kids these days!”
But some things never change:
“Kids These Days” – Tom Rush (cover?)
@The Rev Kev at 10:15 am
I bought several TCK wrist watches at my local Provigo (large grocery store chain in Quebec) for $4 each.They keep the time pretty well and I use them when I travel away from home and don’t want to worry about losing my mobile phone or getting it wet at the Cuban resort I go to for part of the winter.
This. I gave up on mine almost 20 years ago.
Can someone explain why someone known as Jay-z is able to waste so much money on a watch? I think I missed something.
That’s nothing, young rapscallions such as Drake and Tiny Town’s very own Adin Ross, routinely bet millions on sporting events~
What (nick)name would be watch-appropriate? Something like Robber Baron The Third?
He’s probably getting paid to wear it for promotional purposes. Or a significant discount.
Or free.
Just speculation on my part.
As i read and watched the video on X my first thinking was “what a show of moral decline!”
He is just another wealthy celebrity (a rapper) who is finding ways to flaunt his wealth like wealthy celebrities have been prone to doing since the dawn of time.
This is no different than the overpriced wines, yachts, or automobiles that these types also tend to buy to show off.
When you’re that rich, you don’t need to care about the actual time. The ticking number is for the poors. It’s just a fancy bracelet.
– ‘Inside YouTube’s Weird World Of Fake Movie Trailers’ – Deadline
That “trailer” for Titanic 2 was both scary and hilarious – as much of the world is these days. That AI can create increasingly realistic images is of course worrisome; that it would be used to advance our ever-more shallow and somatic “mass culture” industry in this way is prescient. As we have seen over and over, yesterday’s ridiculoous satire is today’s reality (that little “Taylor Swift” jingle at the end was a great touch; it made me laugh out loud).
But the Deadline article provided the absurdist topping on the cake:
“Instead of enforcing copyright on counterfeit commercials, Deadline can reveal that a handful of Hollywood studios are asking YouTube to ensure that the ad revenue made from views flows in their direction. Quite why they are doing this is a mystery (all the majors approached by Deadline declined to comment), but it raises questions about their willingness to take cash for content that exploits their IP and talent, at a time when there is an existential crisis about how copyright collides with AI. Actors’ union SAG-AFTRA describes our revelation as a “race to the bottom.””
Lenin was supposed to have said something like “the last capitalist will sell us the rope with which to hang him.” I think that quote was fake, but hey, does it really matter at this point?
‘Community Notes & Violations
@CNviolations
Mar 28
This is the side parking move by BYD, an electric vehicle manufacturer in China.’
I have seen videos of other cars doing this over the years but in the comments for that video clip, somebody posted a article about a earlier effort that includes a video-
https://gizmodo.com/this-1930s-invention-was-supposed-to-make-parallel-park-1837608190
Big difference with this new design is it’s accomplished by driving the rear wheels in opposite directions, so they’re skidding, while one of the front wheel is locked, and the other rotates the car…. lovely. It’s not like we’re not already drowning in microplastics (~40% of which are from tire rubber.)
And you thought EV tire life was already awful – you ain’t seen nothing yet!
There’s a video in this link that shows the maneuver schematically : https://www.ichongqing.info/2025/03/30/byd-unveils-yangwang-u7-with-world-first-crab-walk-feature-and-advanced-wheel-control-technology/
and Buckminster Fuller’s contribution :-
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_car
“Elon of the Flies”
A plane full of High Technocrats plunges in the ocean not too far away from a deserted island, and most survive the crash thanks to government intervention. They get into an argument over who gets to be named Piggy, and seeing as it’s an apt name for all of them, they decide to all take that moniker. Peter is in charge of coconut derivatives, and all goes well until they die of hunger, because there actually weren’t any coconut trees on the island.
Thanks for reminding me of a classic: Bob the Angry Flower presents Atlas Shrugged 2: One Hour Later.
It’s too optimistic but still funny.
Assume a pallet full of boxes of cans of pork and beans, and also assume a can opener.
From MIT Technology Review, 2019:
Gene-edited cattle have a major screwup in their DNA
Bid for barnyard revolution is set back after regulators find celebrity “hornless” bovines contaminated by bacterial genes.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/08/29/65364/recombinetics-gene-edited-hornless-cattle-major-dna-screwup/
RIP Richard Chamberlain, now a member of the small club of deceased celebrities I once encountered. I waited on him once back in the 90s when he dined at the seafood restaurant wherein I toiled.
For anyone looking for a Chamberlain retrospective, I suggest The Last Wave.
I’ll always associate him with Dr. Kildare and with his part in the “Towering Inferno”. RIP indeed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Chamberlain
I’m kinda surprised you didn’t mention his part in The Thorn Birds, Rev. :)
“Konnichiwa Anjin-san.”
The first “Shogun” mini-series was our entertainment out in the wilds of New Mexico as we awaited our overdue first baby.
I read the book but never got around to seeing video as I was overseas at the time.
The Bourne Identity on VHS, the good ol’ days.
…for me always part of that quirky band of men in costumes doing The Musketeers in less serious yet more professional era à la Richard Lester
https://www.imdb.com/de/title/tt0072281/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_cdt_c_61
Oliver Reed
Michael York
Frank Finlay
Richard Chamberlain
Christopher Lee
Jean-Pierre Cassel
Raquel Welch
Geraldine Chaplin
Faye Dunaway
and Charlton “from-my-cold-dead-hand” Heston of course as Richelieu
From Richard Lester’s Three Musketeers – a favorite quote
https://clip.cafe/the-three-musketeers-1973/no-one-asked-delicately-the-cause-in-were-being-expected-die/
And I agree on Last Wave!
The Lady’s Not For Burning (Full) – 1974
youtube.com/watch?v=zbKrRIkhxhk
I believe that Chamberlain played a lead role in “Shogun” (the first production that was shown on NBC in the late ’70’s or ’80’s.
RIP Richard!
We sat across the room from him in a Thai restaurant in Honolulu years ago. My wife still recalls it whenever he appears on our TV.
I heard the invisible hand had a tryst with imaginary numbers, but then they stopped seeing each other.
“The Invisible Hand,” as in the hand of the pickpocket who stole your Social Security “wallet?”
Lately I have been feeling a lot like that unfortunate Sachem who did the deal with the Dutch back in 1626.
See: https://www.livescience.com/was-manhattan-sold-for-24-dollars.html
Today, my Dutch Uncle wants me to trade my Own Private Idaho for a few measly strings of Quantum.
I dunno bout this.
I reckon I saw enough shiny baubles in terms of throws festooned on pines along chair lift lines ascending into the ether last week @ Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge, Copper and Keystone, to have bought Manhattan back in the day 400 years ago. Not too many bras though-a trickier toss than beads.
ambrit, my GGPs are thought to have been there at the “sale”.
“Scoop: Israeli Mossad asks African countries to take Palestinians from Gaza”
Probably find that they will only ask northern African nations this. That way those Palestinian can still be in range of Israel and can still be bombed from time to time. Some addictions never end.
Madagascar?
In terms of Big Brother and the holding company having the goods on us via our handhelds, my soon to be late mom was in the hospital and not doing so well, and my sisters and I were discussing her wishes to be cremated should she pass away… and then I glanced at my eavesdropper and tho and behold was an ad for cremation services on it~
Yikes
Oh yes. That’s why I do not carry the phone, a flip phone, Dinosaur Senior Brand, anywhere except for daytrips. (Even then it’s usually in a Faraday pouch.)
The same, curious, synchronicity happens to us on our desktop computer.
Fun thought experiment. Take the data hoard from 23 and Me and cross reference it with the data mined from the Ashley Madison Files. Some interesting “cross fertilization” has to have happened.
Call it “Persecution Futures.”
My sisters did 23 and Me, which I took to mean Me being the sibling that relied on their results, the milkman notwithstanding.
My sisters did the same thing. I told them that it was useless since the company did not test for extraterrestrial lineages.
I hear they get that allot…
*Gasp!*
Watch out for that X-alotyl lineage! Cut off one appendage and another grows in its place!
You should encourage them to delete their DNA data before the bankruptcy hearing. YOU can be identified from their DNA sequence data, as a sibling. That’s how the detectives identifed the Golden State Killer.
Well, I hadn’t planned on going on a murder spree…
Sibling? Bah, third cousins will do! Thanks to these websites and foolish distant relatives getting tested, the fruits of my father’s enthusiastic donation to the local fertility clinic in the unregulated 1950-70’s have popped out of the woodwork, looking for their missing link.
The close family are all too cynical by nature and nurture to have participated but that didn’t save us….
Trump says he’s ‘very angry’ and ‘pissed off’ at Putin during an NBC News interviewhttps://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/30/trump-very-angry-and-pissed-off-at-vladimir-putin.html
Putin will now surely do the right thing.
You’re A Bad Man! (Twilight Zone)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jocI_R8lMpM
Just saw this elsewhere. Out of the Biden frying pan into the Donald fire? At least if it’s Trump doing the ranting the Dems and press may complain? Maybe?
Benedict Donald appears to be a turncoat, and yet a couple of Dartful Codgers of the Michigan medium-right political persuasion assured us ‘to give it time, let it play out’ as their reassurance we were indeed now on the right track.
What would it take to shake their trust?
Gilbert Doctorow finally admits the truth–Trump is not some kind of master negotiator.
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/03/30/latest-twist-in-the-ceasefire-talks-trump-says-he-is-pissed-off-with-putin/
Instead he’s a blohard and a very unpleasant one when he’s threatening to kill people. This id is too naked.
Nah, I fully expect a political version of “I told you so” and “It took him long enough” to be falling out of the mouths of the usual suspects.
Trump is ‘very angry’ and ‘pissed off’ because Putin didn’t send him flowers for March 8. :)
Trump is just throwing his toys out of his pram as he has realized that international negotiations require wearing your big boy pants.
Mailed a check from Tiny Town to one of the Dartful Codgers in San Diego, and I had to do a stop payment on it after 10 days, worried about potential theft and altering, etc. He tells me now it just arrived on the 11th day.
According to the Google, that’s 342.8 miles
The distance for a letter to get from St Joseph Missouri to Sacramento is 1,667 miles and they got ‘R done in 10 days time, 165 years ago.
USians have been spoiled by the traditional service levels of the Post Office. One of the big surprises moving north of the border was how long Canada Post routinely took to get a letter across the city. (measured in weeks, not days. Admittedly, our reference point was in the before times)
I came to Canad from Scotland in the .60’s I could mail a letter to my Mum on Monday and get a reply the following Monday…..those days are long gone now…takes 2 weeks to just get to scotland
I sometimes buy board games from people on Boardgame Geek.
Shipping prices have become a lot higher in the last few years but those from Canada are so bad that any Canadian seller is automatically excluded from my searching nowadays.
If you were a pony ( or a person) leaving St. Joe (I grew up close to there), you’d be amazed you can gallop (or run).
I was sending checks to Tucson AZ every month for about two years. (From the Portland OR metro area.)
Between 2021 and 2023? Because of how long it was taking, I wound up sending them by certified mail. Certified mail gives you a tracking number so you can use the USPS web site to see where it is. I also made sure to mail 15 days *before* they were due.
The longest it took was over 17 days. I remember it sitting “in transit” according to the USPS website for 15 days.
During that time, I do not recall any of the CM pieces making it to Tucson in the 4 to 5 day USPS delivery window[1]. The USPS site has a map that will show the zones that will be traversed by your piece of mail from source to destination.
I have also noticed a big push by phone, credit card, health, people to move to electronic statements and payments. I have not done so. Along with this, the bills are arriving much closer to the due date. Probably to *help* me make up my mind to switch. So I usually cut the check and mail within a day or two of getting the bill. Even then it can be very close to the due date before I see the check clear…
USPS – Used to be rock solid. After privitization, when they make it *more efficient*, things are going to get interesting. I’d expect mail delivery to be cut to once or twice a week. Along with guaranteed delivery times to be extended by quite a bit. If you want it fast just pay FedEx $50 for delivery of your letter.
1 – This is what I remember the USPS time was supposed to be from their map.
If the US Postal Service ever got privatized, expect large swathes of country post offices to be closed as being “uneconomical.” And if challenged about this, they would reply ‘Hey, we’re a business now, not a charity.’
BrianC, barring a miracle today, I’m going to break your “in transit” record. Mailed a REGISTERED letter from Italy on Feb. 27 that “Departed USPS Regional Facility ORLANDO FL DISTRIBUTION CENTER” on March 11 and has been “Moving Through Network In Transit to Next Facility” since March 14. That’s 15 days and counting. Destination: NC Dept. of Revenue, Raleigh NC, a 9-hour drive from Orlando. By comparison, it only took a week to get from Italy to NYC customs processing.
Why a registered letter? I’ve already seen twice that USPS tracking for the Italian version of certified international mail goes blind just before delivery. And because the NCDOR’s e-pay web site won’t accept a foreign payee address for a domestic US bank payment. Same barrier to reporting the issue via the USPS “missing mail” site. Crapification all around, old mechanisms and new.
Like you, I conclude that FedEx (or DHL) is the only alternative — but you’re out of luck if the only delivery address is a PO box!
re Peter St Onge’s remark: A new study finds 2/3 of Middle Class Americans are struggling financially, with half living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Of the 2/3 struggling I bet that there is a subset of these folks who are college grads with outstanding loans that may face a further sting to meeting basic needs.
Scanning WashExaminer, found the following:
“When the COVID-19-era pause on federal student loan payments ended in September 2023, the Biden administration introduced a 12-month “on-ramp” to help borrowers transition back to repayment. During this period, borrowers were protected from most penalties for missing payments, but this relief ended on September 30, 2024…“It is reasonable to expect student loan delinquency to surpass pre-pandemic levels when new delinquencies hit credit reports,” the Fed’s report also said.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/3361787/student-loan-borrowers-credit-hit-late-payments-federal-reserve/
The European Union Is Damaged by Its Loudest Supporters Jacobin
Indeed. Coincidentally, today El Pais published an op-ed signed by Antonio Scurati in the same vein of those supposed “pro-european”, so-called “liberals”, described in Jacobin’s article, which joins a series of “pro-european” Op-eds authored by Spanish columnists calling for a sense of European patriotism, as the only thing left sane in this crazy world. This Scurati starts calling Trump traitor, traitor! with a naiveté which I cannot see clearly if it is planned or real. Do these people really feel betrayed or this is only a PR instrument to justify the unjustifiable by outraging the masses? I bet on the second. But this will be counterproductive. The populaces will be outraged by the ineptitude of these new “pro europeans” and the accompanying social cuts associated with the newest re-birth of Neoliberal policies.
I was scratching my head about what countries complex PIIGS.
One effect of giving up Guiness stout for Lent!
PIIGS = Germany, Latvia, Findland, The Netherlands and Poland, if I recall correctly.
One thing this Scurati gets right is that there aren’t enough warriors in Europe to fight the kind of war being played in Ukraine. He is calling for conscription, conscription!
PIIGS= Portugal, Italy, (Ireland), Greece, Spain.
Years ago, here at NC, i noted how stupid that acronym was and i got agreement on that. It was indeed symptomatic about a self perceived sense of superiority of some and now we are seeing who the real PIGS are (hope the actual piggies forgive me), though there are still some unable to come to the realization. That is why i mixed the countries as my way to stating, once again, how stupid is that acronym.
Ignacio: The PIIGS are Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain.
Antonio Scurati has plenty of egg on his face for his intemperate comments at the demo in Roma sponsored by Michele Serra and Repubblica (and paid for by the Comune di Roma, city hall, which costs are now being investigated and contested). Scurati wrote the trilogy “M” about Mussolini, and a streaming series was made from his books.
Presumably, he doesn’t write in Castillian. What is the source of the warmongering remarks?
Conscription? Because the Italians aren’t bellicose enough?
Send Pina Picierno! She’s an out-and-out guerrafondaia.
I was hoping you would get the irony in my reply.
Ignacio:
Sorry for being literal-minded. Two reasons:
I enjoy being a PIIGS.
Second, I went this morning, in spite of the dawn of l’ora legale, to a special screening of No Other Land. Which I recommend. The film can seem somehow monotonous, but the monotony is the banality of evil — the Israelis showing up again and again to victimize the villagers. Before the showing, though, there was a special guest, a local historian / essayist who writes much too much for La Stampa, who gave that Official European View. At a certain point, thirty or so minutes into the endless psychologizing, I wanted to get up and say, “Basta! Enough with the psychology and platitudes about the what you call an insoluble situation.”
Forty-five minutes of introduction to the film, in which said dignitary talked about the mutual hatred of Palestinians and Israelis.
Does the word “hatred” come up in No Other Land? No.
Which is why my patience is exceedingly thin today for people like Antonio Scurati and Domenico Quirico.
[Abbracci malgrado tutto, as I sign off these days. Maybe I’m just a clock-change zombie today.]
You are forbidden absolutely. When i read “PIIGS” in a Reality Czar context i am certain it is not the same as in let’s say, a Financial Times context. You have bula papal on this issue.;)
The “psychologizing” is indeed the worst part. Often followed by the statement that people are not biased when laying out their quid-pro-quo argumentation as if the PLO were the biggest recipient of US military aid after Israel and there were F-35s with the flag of Palestine thundering across the Golan Heights.
How do you see the reactions in Italy to the film? According to boxofficemojo in Europe box office was highest in Italy with $372,471.
Scurati doesn’t call explicitly for conscription though asking were our warriors are and how we would need them to fight the Evil is basically the same. He probably wrote that in Italian and was translated by El Pais (this and a few articles before). He signs the article. If he has a son in “fighting age” would he like him sent to fight for democracy and values in Ukraine?
Sounds very “anti-Semitic”.
TWiV 1204: Clinical update with Dr. Daniel Griffin (51 minute audio or video)
I expect things to get much more chaotic as the year progresses, with Societal collapse more likely than not.
One thing I don’t see mentioned often in these scenarios is Dogs.
I have lived through several economic downturns and one thing I have observed is people abandoning their Dogs when they can no longer afford to care for them.
Usually in rural areas, often not far from cities.
The Dogs that do not starve, pack.
And they have no fear of Humans.
>>>And they have no fear of Humans.
Of course they don’t. We have spent twelve thousand years, if not thousands longer, breeding that fear out of them. Just as we spent hundreds of thousands, if not several million, years breeding this fear into every other animal species.
Geezus.
Between you and IM DOC, the DOOMERISM is off the charts.
When the going gets tough, the tough get doing.
This despairing online is useless.
Y’all act like all of a sudden the worlds ending. It’s not. China Russia Iran they are getting their shit together.
The US Left should too.
Start a new party.
Go do something locally IRL.
I’ve told Yves this before and I’ll tell you too.
EVERYONE FIGHTS. NO ONE QUITS.
re: China Aims To Operate World’s First Hybrid Fusion-Fission Nuclear Plant By 2030
Any thoughts?
Last time I think commentariat was skeptical on this issue and on what the news really meant.
Not an expert, but the article says they’re using a blanket of fissionable materials to capture the fusion generated high energy neutrons. On the one hand, that might be an efficient way to convert the neutrons to heat to power a conventional steam turbine. On the other, one of the main selling points of fusion was how relatively clean it can be in terms of radioactive waste. This might be good economically during it’s service life, but also as expensive as a conventional fission nuke to decommission. Maybe they’ve identified a relatively ‘clean’ fission reaction, with short lived waste elements. Maybe not.
This was always, always the nightmare scenario for fusion, going back 60 years: build a fusion reactor 1.0 as a fissile material breeder reactor for nuclear power and nuclear weapons (there is not enough uranium in the world for fission reactors to scale as a dominant energy source), then don’t bother trying to build the fusion 2.0 that everybody said the whole point of this 60 year research exercise, because 1.0 is already so expensive and it’s taken so long.
Fusion 2.0 is the jetpack of the 21st century. It is genuinely creepy to see this scenario playing out.
I don’t have enough expertise in this area to comment with authority, but it’s an interesting take on the fusion “first wall” problem. How do you put a sun in a bottle, and how do you extract the energy and convert it to electricity?
Plasma-facing material https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma-facing_material
They are doing the very hard work of making progress with very real things. This also is extremely impressive:
China’s Thorium Nuclear Reactor: A Game-Changing Energy Breakthrough! https://engineerine.com/chinas-thorium-nuclear-reactor-energy-breakthrough/
Research of this type in America (which we once lead) has seemed to have devolved to “drill, baby drill” which is certainly a much lower risk, and certainly a huge money maker for the oil companies, but when success does come, it’s going to be big. The US National Ignition Facility mentioned in the article started out way back as a potential fusion power prototype, but has become a means to test aspects of the US nuke stockpile – no power generation in it’s future:
National Ignition Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility
Stockpile stewardship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockpile_stewardship
And these efforts are all part of the National Nuclear Security Administration which got whacked by DOGE firings.It doesn’t look as if American elites care about this type of research any more which is very unfortunate.
Glen, you have the causal arrow backwards. Lawrence Livermore has always been a nuclear weapons lab. The National Ignition Facility is essentially repurposing their existing testbed for modeling nuclear weapons, so that they can pimp for more funding. That’s it. Thanks to fundamental physics, it is a non-starter as a scalable approach to civilian fusion power plants, ever.
I’m well aware that LLNL was started by Teller to make the “super” (H bomb), but the NIF was originally started as the Shiva laser facility to test inertial confinement fusion:
Shiva laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_laser
By then fusion had been a project running at LLNL in one form or another almost since the inception of the lab:
Project Sherwood and magnetic fusion https://st.llnl.gov/news/look-back/project-sherwood-and-magnetic-fusion
So I don’t dispute that LLNL was first and foremost about bombs, but I don’t think the public was aware of just how much work was being done in the fusion reactor area (it was classified for decades) just as most Americans remain unaware that America built and ran a prototype thorium reactor in the 1960’s:
Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment
It’s as if once the national labs (which had been founded for weapons – no debating that) got too far out of building bombs they just walked away from doing the work. But it was never really picked up and followed thru. Perhaps they figured the PWR was all that was required.
This is similar to the end of the Cold War peace dividend which never materialized. The DOD budget is now larger than ever. So too with nuclear weapons, we’re in a new nuke weapons race whether people realize it or not (although I doubt that China’s hybrid reactor is to make bomb material, just look up the history of Hanford and Savannah River to see how that’s been done), and the peace dividend that was possible has never been done (at least in America).
Let’s be blunt, Silicon Valley and all it created (until it enshitified in to Silly Con Valley) happened as a commercial spin off from America’s DOD need to develop ICBMs and spy satellites. It’s how we can sit here and have these on line discussions. But the peace dividend from the Manhattan project seems to have sputtered out. It looks like China is taking up the mantle of progress that America dropped.
Appreciated
👍 as well as the other comments
U.S. Prosecutors Probe Tip About Timing of Pfizer Vaccine
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-third-term-white-house-methods-rcna198752
Trump won’t rule out seeking a third term in the White House, tells NBC News ‘there are methods’ for doing so
President Donald Trump said in a Sunday-morning phone call that he was “not joking” about a third term, adding that “it is far too early to think about it.”
FDR slogan: “Better a Third Termer than a Third Rater.”
https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/vote/1940/1940_3.html
I dredged this one up out of my personal songbook, seems apropos for today with a few re-worked lyrics:
Inspired by “Little Bitty” by Alan Jackson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo2OIUpWznY
Little Grifty
A vacant office tower owned by crooked, crummy banks
It got sold for pennies ’cause it’s prospects really stank
Carved up into tranches by a Wall Street Wunderkind
It’ll end up in a teachers pension fund
Chorus:
It’s alright to be a little grift-y
Scam your hometown, or a brand new city
The cops don’t care if you swindle in style
Ponzi goes on for a little bitty while!
A little healthcare system turned into another scam
Better stay healthy or you’re living on spam
A little bitty pill that you need to stay alive
The price went up due to profiteering jive
[Chorus]
You know you got no job and a stimulus check
A six-pack of beer it’ll buy while markets wreck
A little bitty D.A. in a fancy pantsuit
A long list of crimes that she won’t prosecute!
[Tempo slows to half time]
A big orange clown
And a silly MAGA girl
Got your vote, now they think they rule the world
They don’t care about our hopes and our dreams
They’re all part of a big old rotten scheme …
It’s alright to be a little grift-y
Scam your hometown, or a big old city
The cops don’t care if you swindle in style
Ponzi goes on for a little bitty while!
(repeat chorus)
You really do get spoiled when you do not live around urban sprawl. It appears to me to be the worst it has ever been.
The family and I are in a big city for a tournament. We went to the Wal-Mart for toothpaste that was somehow forgotten, and some legal pads. In the Wal-Mart, immediately upon entering the door, the cops had 4 young men handcuffed and sitting on the floor. We went back to the pharmacy area, only to discover that all of the merchandise there is behind lock and key. There was already a huge line for the one lone person to help. There were no legal pads to be found in the Wal-Mart. Those shelves appeared to be bare. An entire section for office supplies, and there were no obvious pens or pencils, but lots of very expensive packs of Sharpies. Tons of empty shelves where paper, construction paper, glue, tape etc used to be. We were looking for some kind of DVD to play on the way home, no luck. Every single shelf in the entire electronics section under lock and key, and after 10 minutes, not an employee to be seen.
Last night, we went driving around, and I honestly do not recall the driving to be so crazy, when we left the big city less than a decade ago. We do not eat out much in our little area, so I was literally mortified at the prices of everything here – 7 dollars for a cup of coffee in a breakfast diner, etc. We have witnessed two episodes of shoplifting at convenience stores, and this morning while in the diner, there appeared to be people leaving without paying the bill. My kids got to witness a felony in progress in the parking lot. I noted with some disgust, that ordering any kind of food in kiosks in hotels, etc, in this case an Einstein Bagel store, is now just a horrendous ordeal. The place was obviously severely understaffed. The line to order was very long – and it appears to me that most of the people were trying to “Starbucks” their orders. In other words – “I know it says Asiago cheese on the menu – but we want a combination of Pepper Jack and Cheddar. Please take all the egg yolks out of the eggs, and we do not want the bacon very crisp, etc.” My elder family members that ran restaurants back in the day would have told them to take a hike. Instead, who was taking the hike were the multiple paying customers at the very end of the line. And the thing is ALL of the kiosks were just like this. We have been to multiple gas stations and convenience stores where there were just homeless people everywhere. Unfortunately as a physician with decades of inner city medicine behind my belt, I can tell instantly how deeply suffering they were. My kids offered bananas and mandarins from our bag to each and every person huddled around the ice machines. They all refused any fruit. An even worse sign.
I have looked in vain every day we are here for a local paper in the convenience store or gas station. Nowhere to be found is any kind of newspaper.
I feel like Rip Van Winkle. Instead of time like it was for Rip, it is time AND place for me. We are approaching about a decade being gone from urban areas as a lifestyle, and when we go back now, I feel like I am on an alien planet. It is striking to me how different it is. And it has made me wonder all day if the people who live there are like frogs boiling in hot water. They are so used to it, that it is everyday life for them.
Dare we guess which city this was?
I’ve encountered the Walmart drug shelf thing even here in small city Bible belt. So it’s not just the big bad coastals. It all seems to be a sign of the times even if it’s up for debate just what that sign is.
I knew people who were stealing stuff like televisions and mailing the bill to the Sears before the company went under because they couldn’t find anyone to buy it from. Around the same time, I was working at a different department chain where we got a lot of complaints from corporate about customer complaints, lack of sales, and increased shrinkage. This was after they had reduced the number of sales staff to five employees for a store with two stories and ten departments, which they eventually closed for lack of sales even though it was still making a profit.
This was over twenty years ago and it seems to be getting worse. When I first started in retail thirty-five years ago, I was told customer service was the key, and there was plenty of employees to cover all aspects of the business, and we had good benefits and good treatment from the company although low pay, but ten years later, that all died after the old senior management that had been trained by the original owner retired. Cut, cut, cut, lie, and betray for the quarterly earnings report, forget anything else.
Germany´s largest twins in the electronics market Saturn/MediaMarkt – long time rivals until they had to merge – around 20 years ago already said, we make the money not with the huge TV-sets or PCs but with gadgets and service.
Their more professional counterpart CONRAD Electronic which supplied hobbyists and pros closed all its shops 2022. Since online only. Which nowadays makes it an odyssey to get anything fixed or fix anything yourself. While Saturn/MediaMarkt was a usual retailer, CONRAD had honor and class. Employees would dwelve into a problem or make detailed suggestions of how to repair yourself.
iFixit is only a shadow of that. I honestly would have huge problems without iFixit. But that too is evidence for some deeper problems.
By now if you need any spare part you go online and then via mail. But getting your mail is an issue of its own. Germany has become an insane place.
In fact when I want second-hand electronics or kitchenware I turn to Austrian online platforms where private people are selling. With someone from Vienna or from the rural areas there I can be sure they are honest, and the merchandise is in top condition. Living costs are lower there. Quality of everyday life better. So why should people there want to rip you off.
The whole thing makes me want to weep.
God help us all.
I hate having old people check me out at the Piggly Wiggly, that clearly MUST work (including an old woman with braces on her wrists-obviously in pain.) People are suffering and it’s going to get worse.
Corporations and billionaires are apex predators and parasites. These are the people that the democrats and republicans serve (at the state and federal level)
I walked my dog for two hours today. All I could see was darkness.
@IM Doc at 3:36 pm
Yikes! That sounds really grim. I haven’t experienced what you did where I live (Ottawa ON, Gatineau QC). I understand some 3rd world-like hiring of poor locals for work day by day does happen in Albany NY some 400km south of us.
What city were you in?
Keith, the homelessness in Ottawa near the Market (my daughter is living there now) is shocking — I don’t see how you possibly could have missed it
I remember when Panera was bought out by PE and introduced those stupid kiosks. Not long before employee staffing went down. Portions went down. I haven’t been back in a decade really except a few bagels. Those doubled in price.
PE enshittification has ruined many a franchise. I stopped in at a “Jersey Mike’s” a year or so ago, and the bread was so small it looked like the bread sticks they give out at Olive Garden.
The “large” sub was more like a 6″.
No sale.
I thought the Jersey Mike’s thing just happened recently, around Nov 2024. I did notice this at Jimmy John’s, where the bread last time looked more like a bread stick, which was very out of character for the time I’d bought there before. This back probably back in 2022-23. I haven’t been, my last sortie was Jersey Mike’s somewhere between here and Raleigh. JJ has been majority owned by PE since 2019.
I could be confusing the two … all these sub chains have become the same, probably because they’ve all been bought out by P/E.
Thanks Doc.
“And it has made me wonder all day if the people who live there are like frogs boiling in hot water.”
We are all in that boiling hot water. It’s just that rural areas will have a slower rising of the temperature.
>>>It’s just that rural areas will have a slower rising of the temperature.
And what happens when the entire pot boils over?
We are all entering The Jungle. Or some version thereof. I suppose that life is not completely linear in one direction. Two steps forward, one back. Three forward, two back. I fear we are going to be taking many steps backward before society as a whole progresses again.
Of course if you are in the top tier….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
You should sit your children down and tell them how cities and how things are done were very much different when you were younger and explain in detail what those differences are. They have no context with what they saw and may think that everything that they took in was ‘normal’ and just the way things are. On the present trajectory, can you imagine what they city would like like when your kids are your age? They would have to go visit that city in armored cars and wear body armour while hiring the services of a local gang for protection. But most of all with your kids, explain how things got to be the way they are and that is was not some sort of natural evolution but because of choices made – or not made.
Well said. Yes, these were and are choices made, not inevitabilities or laws of nature.
I honestly feel sad for kids being born today. Certainly this is not a world I’d want to grow up in.
Yeah bro where ya been?
I’m 40 and it’s been going downhill for at least a couple decades now as the suburbs sucks up all the rich people.
Why don’t you do something about it?
Help start a new party.
Remember you’re the elder here.
In contrast, last Sunday, I was in the American Dream Mall, located in the swamps of New Jersey near NYC, for the first time in my life. Wife wanted to go to the large outdoor Asian food festival, so we did.
The indoor water park and indoor theme park were packed with children. Every thing was staffed, stores open (despite the county blue laws), and shelves full.The mall was very crowded. And very diverse. I walked past Orthodox Jewish families with yarmulkes and Muslim families with thawb and burqas.
Felt like I was walking through a crowded consumerism bubble.
re: visualizing secret intelligence estimates
A paper on the probability words used in intelligence analysis. Each word is meant to relate to a specific probability range. But people interpret these words in varied ways. “Participants greatly overestimated the probability for realistic possibility”
e.g.
“”We observed that Dutch analysts’ and officer cadets’ estimations of the English-language verbal probability terms were characterized by overestimation at the lowest probability level and underestimation at the highest level””
via:
https://nitter.poast.org/shashj/status/1905558086842019956#m
paper/pdf is here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/02684527.2025.2468049?needAccess=true
Visualizing versus verbalizing uncertainty in intelligence analysis
Mandeep K. Dhami, Jessica K. Witt and Peter De Werd
ABSTRACT
We compared the probability terms used by Western intelligence organi-
zations against two visual encoding channel-based representations of
uncertainty (i.e. darkness and thickness). Analysts were more sensitive to
the probability being communicated under the word than thickness con-
dition but not the darkness condition, with no difference among the visual
conditions. However, sensitivity was not perfect. There was no difference
in inter-individual variability across all conditions, which was generally
poor. Test-retest reliability was greater in the word compared to thickness
condition, but not the darkness condition, although, it was imperfect.
Finally, analysts did not fully comply with existing uncertainty commu-
nication lexicons.”
p.s. It appears more like a toolbox for communication for successful careers in the intel community. Rather than warning the superiors of mistakes with honest, relateable analyses.
My expectation of the SSA “Upgrade” is that they will “Accidentally crash” the system in a way that will require recipients to reapply in person within a specified period of time or have their benefits cut off.
Preferably at a closed office.
Simply make an appointment by phone with one of the staff that has been fired to improve efficiency, wait times before having your call cut off seldom exceed 180 minutes.
I believe Leland Dudek is the acting director of the SSA, his name will shortly be on the lips of the 71,000,000 Americans who won’t be recieving their Monthly SS $.
And almost a third of them own guns.
Dude, Dude, Dudek perhaps prudence would be the better course…
What is needed here is some organizing principle that will give those suffering and armed ‘consumers’ effective targets for their “tender ministrations.’ In short, we need Vanguard Cadres. Mere mobs will not do.
Despair not. Stay safe.
And the elites were shocked, just shocked when Luigi adjusted the UnitedHealth CEO when almost anyone else regardless of politics or class just purely loathes the American Deathcare industry.
I guess, sorta, that losing my SSDI and Medi-Cal would be soothed by some ancillary justice. Just being really grim here, I think that some enterprising risk takers would organize a dead pool. While the NSA and CIA, plus the American military, and all the hired security goons of the oligarchs would be after them, there are probably ways to reduce the risks to anyone running a pool.
What a seriously grim, dystopian thought.
Now we know what it takes to make Democrats look “good”.
NYT article on the “secret” US involvement in Ukraine war. No big surprises, but who decided to publish and why now? US generals want to get their side out first. Essentially, they could won if they listened to us. But also how the US got suckered into escalating…they couldn’t help themselves.
“New York Times investigation reveals that America was woven into the war far more intimately and broadly than previously understood. At critical moments, the partnership was the backbone of Ukrainian military operations that, by U.S. counts, have killed or wounded more than 700,000 Russian soldiers. (Ukraine has put its casualty toll at 435,000.) Side by side in Wiesbaden’s mission command center, American and Ukrainian officers planned Kyiv’s counteroffensives. A vast American intelligence-collection effort both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field.”
Very lengthy and detailed.
Also very suspect going by those hilariously “magical thinking” inspired casualty figures.
In essence, the NYT is admitting that the US is actively at war with Russia. The intelligence “sharing” goes way beyond ‘business as usual’ military aid.
Could this also serve as a “bright shiny object” to distract the PMC class from the upcoming fiasco in the Middle East?
“We lost the Ukraine. So help us that won’t happen in the Eastern Oil Patch. Sign up now and avoid the press gangs.”
The NYT is preparing to climb down from its increasingly precarious pro-Zelensky propaganda perch. In a few years, we may even get an Iraq-style apology buried on page 18. The journalistic malfeasance of this once-respectable newspaper is disgusting.
And that, sports fans, is what we call “an admission against interest.”
After examining the witness at trial, the prosecution would turn to the jury and say, “so, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, because the defendant admitted that they were the mastermind of the failed 2023 counteroffensive, you must find them guilty of the worst defeat of an American military operation since Vietnam.”
Before the war there was an attempted invasion of the Donbass which ended with the boxing in of the invasion force and which led to Minsk 1. The idea of this invasion force was to run along the southern borders in an attempt to cut those Republic off from Russian support. When I saw this I immediately thought that this was a result of US planning as that would be what a US force would do. But way back then the Ukrainian army was not up to the task and ended up into a cauldron.
The battle of Debaltsove, I take it.
No, not Debaltsove. I should have clarified that. That one led to Minsk 2. This was an earlier campaign which led to Minsk 1. The militias let the Ukrainians advance so far and then slammed the door behind them leaving them in a cauldron stuck behind enemy lines with no hope of resupply.
Forgot to name that battle. It was the Battle of Ilovaisk-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ilovaisk
It ain’t over until the fiat lady sinks…
2025 Annual Threat Assessment
Seems a bit more realistic regarding Ukraine than last years report
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-2025/4058-2025-annual-threat-assessment
“Russia in the past year has seized the upper hand in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and is on a path
to accrue greater leverage to press Kyiv and its Western backers to negotiate an end to the war that
grants Moscow concessions it seeks. Continuing the Russia-Ukraine war perpetuates strategic risks to
the United States of unintended escalation to large-scale war, the potential use of nuclear weapons,
heightened insecurity among NATO Allies, particularly in Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe,
and a more emboldened China and North Korea.”