The truth about love Aeon
At the dawn of life, did metabolism come first? Knowable Magazine
Would you take the jet suit for a ride? pic.twitter.com/IwBGnMZFXp
— White Ghost (@White_Ghost187) April 22, 2025
COVID-19/Pandemics
Why heart attacks are striking young people – and surprising connection to a pandemic drug rule Daily Mail
RFK Jr. declares autism in America as an ‘epidemic’ that ‘dwarfs’ deadly COVID-19 outbreak NY Post
Countries finalize historic pandemic agreement United Nations
Office Sales Trends Break After Two Decades as Pandemic and Monetary Policy Drive New Dynamics Globest.com
Climate/Environment
Science, compassion and Catholicism: How Pope Francis helped inspire global climate action Euro News
Canada’s top candidates talk up fossil fuels as climate slips down agenda BBC
I’ve Fought for the Climate Since the ’80s. All I’ve Worked for Is Being Undone The Hollywood Reporter
China?
Huawei to roll out AI chips in second half as potential alternative to Nvidia H20: report SCMP
Beijing threatens countermeasures against countries that ‘appease’ Washington in trade war The Guardian
China Responds as Territorial Dispute With US Ally Goes Public Newsweek
🌉Another marvel rises! #CCCC’s Ma'anshan Yangtze River Bridge in #Anhui sets 2 world records with its double 1000m spans & longest steel truss. With expressways & railways stacked, it powers #YangtzeRiverDelta transport. A milestone in #bridge innovation! 😍 pic.twitter.com/1ane9HjPtE
— China Communications Construction (@CCCCLTDofficial) April 22, 2025
South of the Border
Mexico’s president wants to ban U.S. ads warning against migration Los Angeles Times
Migrants traversing Darien Gap plummet 40% as Panama cracks down on major route NY Post
Pope Francis was a source of controversy and spiritual guidance in his Argentine homeland AP
European Disunion
It’s time for more majority decision-making in EU foreign policy Politico
EU opinion divided over bid to seize frozen Russian assets Parliament Magazine
FM: Hungarians are the only ones able to stop Ukraine’s EU accession The Budapest Times
Old Blighty
April will be cruel to UK households, but the economy’s problems are much longer term Business Daily Media
Israel v. The Resistance
Trump speaks to Netanyahu on Gaza hostage deal and Iran Axios
For 50 days, Israel has not allowed a single bite of food or a drop of water into Gaza.
Famine is imminent. pic.twitter.com/mK4UcGW878— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) April 20, 2025
Israeli siege ‘slowly killing’ over 2M Palestinians in Gaza, authorities warn Andolu Agency
Charities in Gaza are running out of food as Israel blocks all aid supplies Al Jazeera
US airstrikes killed 12 people in Yemen’s capital, the Houthi rebels say AP
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine ready to negotiate with Russia — if it agrees to ceasefire first Politico
Is a deal really emerging on Russia-Ukraine? Brookings
Ukraine’s robot army is a glimpse of future warfare The Telegraph
Tonight, #Odesa in Ukraine was attacked by new #Russian kamikaze drones “Geranium-3” with a jet engine.
source: https://t.co/a0PXNZ8DKW#UkraineRussiaWar #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/4ZnZVg84TO— John Miller (@Donni08916968) April 22, 2025
EUand UK preparing naval blockade of Russia Putin aide Big News Network
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Bankrupt 23andMe faces growing questions over data privacy CFO Dive
7 simple things I always do on Android to protect my privacy – and why you should too ZD Net
Shopify to Face Data Privacy Class Action After Court Ruling PYMNTS
Imperial Collapse Watch
California mayor wants to give homeless people ‘all the fentanyl they want’ NY Post
San Jose Approves Plan to Remove Homeless Encampment at Columbus Park The Epoch Times
Why most Americans may never reach their savings goals Macon County Times
Trump 2.0
Rubio unveils first stage of major State Department overhaul CNN
Jerome Powell’s Fed won’t rescue Trump from his tariff mess The Hill
Harvard University sues Trump administration to stop funding freeze BBC
Over 150 US university presidents sign letter decrying Trump administration The Guardian
DOGE
Tesla profits plunge as Musk promises he’s ready to step away from role at DOGE CNN
DOGE gains access to sensitive immigration data from Justice Department: Report Andolu Agency
The ACLU Is Suing the Government to Get Access to DOGE Records Wired
Downward DOGE: Elon Musk keeps revising cost-trimming goals in a familiar pattern The Register
Democrat Death Watch
Dem Jeffries brushes aside DNC big David Hogg’s primary plan, vows to stand by incumbents NY Post
James Carville takes aim at DNC vice chair as civil war escalates: ‘Insane’ Fox News
Immigration
Noem, DHS outline next step to speed up deportation process Fox News
Leavenworth, Kansas, could become a hub for immigration detention. Opposition is mounting KCUR
Farmers, seasonal businesses worry as immigration crackdown ramps up Portland Press Herald
The horse-racing industry needs workers on visas. Employers hope to still get them. NPR
Our No Longer Free Press
Is the Press Next? The American Prospect
Always ‘the enemy’ – Trump steps up media assault in first 100 days
Mr. Market Is Moody
Trump vs Powell: how the clash is impacting financial markets IG International
Madison Didn’t Predict the Market as the Last Check on Power The Daily Economy
As the dollar falters, the world’s central banks tread a tightrope — devalue their currency or not CNBC
Gold hits $3,500 for first time as US dollar sinks to three-year low The Guardian
AI
Academy confirms AI films eligible for top Oscar awards Andolu Agency
Exclusive: Anthropic warns fully AI employees are a year away Axios
An AI tool grounded in evidence-based medicine outperforms other AI tools—and most doctors—on USMLE exams Medical Xpress
When AI writes the laws: UAE’s bold move forces a rethink on compliance and human touch CIO
The Bezzle
Telehealth Fraud & Compliance: Preventing ‘Pill Mills’ While Ensuring Access to Care Med City News
SuperCard X Enables Contactless ATM Fraud in Real-Time Infosecurity Magazine
UN says Asian scam call center epidemic expanding globally amid political heat The Register
Guillotine Watch
The 5 most expensive basketball shoes in the world
📹top5expensive
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) March 23, 2025
Antidote du jour (via)
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
Donald
(melody borrowed from Donna written and performed by Ritchie Valens in 1958)
Ohh, Donald, Ohh, Donald,
Ohh, Donald, Ohh, Donald,
Heard of this guy? Tariffs are his game
Lays them deftly in a confidence game
On the whole damn world
Donald’s too stupid to see
His insanity
He blathers on from dementia zone
Cognitive health is all honeycombed
As the whole damn world
Ignores your tariff decrees
Even Bibi!
He’s snarlin’ about big black swans
While we lose revenue
Endless lies are all this guy can do
What in the world? Is this guy insane?
Why can’t he see there’s no penguins in this game?
And this whole damn world
Donald, they want you to leave
Why can’t you leave?
Ohh, Donald, Ohh, Donald,
Ohh, Donald, Ohh, Donald,
Ohh . . .
From Novara Media [UK], an interesting interview:
Harvard Economist: China Is Winning Trump’s Trade War | Keyu Jin
“Academy confirms AI films eligible for top Oscar awards”
I wonder if that will apply to script writing as well. If an AI comes up with the bulk majority of a script for a film, who gets the Oscar nomination then? Considering the low state of present script writing that may be a plus or a minus to be honest. By rights they should put some kind of mark on films that have been generated by an AI to a substantial degree but I doubt that they will do it. Thus it will be up to audiences to pick out what has been AI generated.
Rev, my reading of the article said generative AI was in, that the various branches- which includes screenwriers- will identify the proportonate use of AI in an aspect of each film. and will weight human efforts more heavily.
I wondered about that though at the end of the day this would be Hollywood self-regulating which I would see as problematic. It’s bad enough to come across short stories where the author gleefully says that it was mostly AI that wrote it. But would Hollywood fess up at all? Or would they see this as a great way to cut the costs of using screenwriters and let an AI do the bulk of the work.
“Or would they see this as a great way to cut the costs of using screenwriters and let an AI do the bulk of the work.”
You answered your own question. Remember those strikes by screenwriters a couple of years ago?
“San Jose Approves Plan to Remove Homeless Encampment at Columbus Park”
I see they want to spend $20 million on the new park. Let me do some math…
Average rent a month in San Jose: $3000/month + $150 in Utilities = $3150/month * 12 = $37,800
$20,000,000 / $37,800 = 529
So they could provide apartments, plus utilities, for 529 people for a year, but they think a park is a better use of these funds? Lets divide that by 5 years…105…I am sure there are less than 105 people living in that encampment. So they could give 105 people housing for 5 years and that alone would clean up the park.
The stupidity of people who run our governments I can understand, but the greed and selfishness I will never.
Thank you, Conor, for the links, especially with regard to horse racing.
It’s similar in the UK. An increasing number of stable lads and lasses are from overseas. With regard to the lads, it’s mainly India (often by way of Dubai), but there are some from Africa. With regard to the lasses, there are some from eastern Europe.
Few Britons want to be stable staff. As the pay is better in Ireland and France, where the industry is much better run, few Irish and French staff come over.
The presence of staff from outside the EU can cause problems. France won’t allow them without a visa, which can’t always be arranged quickly in racing terms. The African lad who looked after last year’s Arc winner, Blue Stocking, could not travel with the filly, so missed out on what would probably the greatest day of his career.
Please let me give a shout out to this community’s racing fans and send “season’s greetings” to, Montana Maven, Ambrit and Wukchumni. May your season be enjoyable and prosperous, especially with the Kentucky Derby on Saturday week. The Guineas at Newmarket are on the same week-end.
Thanks for the shout out, Colonel.
Its almost all Mexicans in the backstretches of the few remaining racetracks, horses are very much in their culture still, as opposed to here where you can’t even find a mechanical horse to ride for a Dime in front of supermarkets anymore.
I’m guilty of rarely going to the ‘oval office’ much these days, and the last time I went was down to Del Mar near San Diego, and this was at the height of anti-animal cruelty protests, with horses dropping dead or having to be put down on a somewhat regular basis, and there were the gringo protesters as you walked to the turnstiles to get in, countered by Mexican stable workers protesting that they needed their jobs.
The goods were odd, but the odds were good you could find your position represented that day.
Thank you, Wukchumni.
With your Czech background, have you ever been to the Velka Pardubicka?
Some Czech trainers and jockeys are competing in France. None here.
re: Germany
BSW files election objection today.
BERLINER ZEITUNG:
“The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) submitted its objection to the results of the federal election to the Bundestag’s Electoral Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday. Co-party leader Amira Mohamed Ali submitted the relevant documents at 1 p.m. Wednesday is the last day to file objections to the February 23 election.
The BSW narrowly missed entering parliament, receiving 4.981 percent of the vote—about 9,500 short of the five percent threshold. The party is therefore demanding a recount. Mohamed Ali clarified that the BSW does not believe there was any deliberate manipulation. “We believe that mistakes were made.””
We were hoping they would do this! Merz and Melnyk are making BSW look better every day.
re: Israel / Gaza
(not a new scandal but hardly reported)
Where’s the outrage over ‘systematic’ sexual violence against Palestinians?
Despite mounting evidence of the army’s gender-based crimes, Israeli women’s groups have largely ignored or denied the UN’s damning new report.
by Samah Salaime
April 17, 2025
https://www.972mag.com/systematic-sexual-violence-against-palestinians/
Re: Ukraine
Betteridge’s law of headlines strikes again.
Based on Dima’s Military Summary channel, whatever “deal” was being discussed appears to have collapsed.
Per Dima, Zelensky sabotaged it, or perhaps he was just an actor playing a role. First, Rubio canceled his trip, now Kellogg isn’t going and the whole thing is off.
It reminds me of the Istanbul agreement attempt back in 2022 that BoJo sabotaged. Seems to me that the Brits could be behind this latest sinking of a prospective truce, although that is pure speculation on my part.
Now we wait and see whether Trump walks away from Project Ukraine. May 1 would be a nice day to announce a cut off of all further military aid. Not that there is likely much left under whatever sofa cushions Biden left.
MoA has a write-up and better sources:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/04/setback-for-us-ceasefire-deal-in-ukraine.html
Thanks for that link ChrisFromGA and it explains why Trump is insistent on recognizing Crimea as Russia-
‘The U.S. acceptance of Crimea as Russian territory is an interesting point but likely based on an ulterior motive. It would lift sanctions on Crimea and allow U.S. companies to take part in the exploitation of natural gas fields around it.’
It always sounded weird as the Russian would not care if the US recognized Crimea or not. Crimea was Russian before there was even a United States and it would be like Russia agreeing on recognizing Alaska as American. Like with a possible revived NS2 pipeline under American control, American control over gas pipelines going through the Ukraine to the EU, and gas here that might go to the EU it is all about DC having control of the energy going into the EU so that they can always throttle it at will.
That sounds like classic “negotiating against yourself.”
We’re back to Yves observation that Ukraine still has agency. To really force them to bargain, the US will need to cut off money and ISR. And perhaps directly sabotage the UK’s efforts, engage the CIA to put some C4 in British weapon shipments and make them go boom in Poland.
I kind of doubt Trump has the courage for that, though he might just let the money expire, which it will any day now.
With Trump you just never know. I have tried to see what strategic thoughts he has in wrecking the US, its allies and all those relationships but at times I wonder if what we are seeing is just the result of Trump having Covid brain. He caught Covid back in October of 2020 when he was President so who knows how many times he has had it in the past five years.
Shrill, baby shrill!
The only sense I can make of it is that he is trying to burn down the power bases of the opposition and urinate on the ashes. See, for instance, higher ed which is almost exclusively in the Democrrat’s orbit. Extend this to foreign policy, and he is both punishing allies for critquing him as well as burning down relations to the point where even if the Dems come back into power, they won’t be able to repair the damage. Another way to look at it, is that he is making sure the status quo ante cannot be reassembled.
The problem with this view, is that Trump’s mercurial nature seems to be all over the place to the point where I don’t think he has an opposition because whoever he is opposed to changes from day to day if not hour to hour. Nor have I heard Trump articulate what his end state is other than platitudes (i.e. “make America great again’). I find it hard to understand why you would want to make a return to the status quo ante impossible unless you really want to commit to an envisioned end state and prevent those who take power in the future from rolling back your work. Maybe he just wants to burn it all down out of revenge. I can speculate, but I just don’t know.
Thanks for the link. And is this simply another of the Trump admin daily reversals? Perhaps it’s time for Trump defenders including Walter Kirn and Fox newsers like Turley and even yours truly (sometimes) to admit that Trump doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s doing–even as he insists on doing it and on playing his TV show role of the big know it all boss. Can’t he just go play golf?
Ron Unz is a somewhat controversial figure but he suggests that Trump may never have read a book from cover to cover including the many that he supposedly wrote. By contrast we once had presidents who read three newspapers per day or at least thought it important to claim to do so. Our other two branches of government are going to have to stop this runaway train and more power to them. It used to be said that the public preferred having the two parties divide control of Congress and the presidency so they could keep each other in check. If the Dems can’t even do that then they’ve lost the last lingering excuse for their existence.
I’m sorry that I have the sense of humour of an 8 year old but stuff under sofa cushions w.r.t. a pres/VP will always make me laugh.
Any day I can make someone laugh is a good day.
My suspicion is the White House is negotiating from the position that Ukraine has been winning.
A European deployment force. The 4 oblasts status. These are non starters. If they were palatable, Moscow wouldn’t have launched the SMO.
Despite the claims to peace, my guess is Trump thinks like the tariffs that he is acting from a position of strength.
Swap out a few place names with tariff verbiage, and it sounds like the article b had about the perception of Trump’s tariff negotiations. They barely know how they work and have no concept of what they want.
Yep. This is what truly puzzles me: how can such obviously mentally subnormal people rise to the top?
I think of it as the “sewage treatment plant” model of politics*. The big lumps float to the top.
*Can also be applied to organisational management.
Otherwise known as scum and turds are to be found at the top.
“Gold climbs above $3,500 for first time as Wall Street rallies after slide”
It is probably too early to fully understand what is going on, but last week I went to see what the latest forecast was for the economy by the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow. Well, if you haven’t seen it recently you should go check it out.
As of now they are posting 2 forecasts as they are sunsetting the current model on April 30th. The forecast difference is around 2% points of GDP. The current model is forecasting -2.2% while the new, to be implemented, model is only forecasting -0.1% GDP for Q1.
No here’s the crazy part… the only difference is that they are removing net imports/exports of Gold!
FRED data on nonmonetary gold imports for Q4-2024 (most recent data) does show a significant spike and gold exports looks pretty normal which means net imports above exports of gold was about $10B. Given the GDPNow model divergences one would suspect that the Q4 spike has continued and possibly gotten much bigger.
There was a massive spike in imports in Q2-2020 during the pandemic, but that would seem explainable by panicked gold bugs. Is the same thing going on now or is it something else?
Looking at how all the great powers are stockpiling gold it seems to be something else.
I would have thought for sure that Central Banks would be stockpiling Bitcoin, its what money plants crave.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, what few are piecing together or talking about….
Catherine Austin Fitts at Solari Report:
Trump Administration: Digital Control Grid Coming Together at High Speed
https://solarireport.substack.com/p/trump-administration-digital-control
Bad Cattitude (Brown University alum) has some thoughts about America’s elite universities.
elite universities are over
they just don’t know it yet
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/elite-universities-are-over
The second commentator’s comment about the current state of Harvard med school where his wife taught is not encouraging.
That might explain the sort of student docs that IM Doc has been seeing. And a coupla weeks ago it was mentioned here how top corporations are no longer hiring the kids coming out of those unis as they are lazy and stupid and are looking for kids coming out of State colleges instead. The most depressing part of that article, however, is how the best and the brightest are now being sucked up by Palantir who will turn them into monsters.
In the article, I sense that the author believes that markets, vouchers, competition, Palantir, and the like will work wonders to shake the calcified structures of higher education and release all the pent-up energies from those students eager to learn, thus leading to a rejuvenated meritocracy.
While the university system in the USA (and elsewhere, e.g. UK) is indeed deliquescent and the criticism against its ideological blinders, its top-heavy organization, the shameless exploitation of teaching staff, the insane tuitions sending students into debt bondage, the incomprehensible focus on sports and sport infrastructure, the ever-decreasing intellectual requirements, and the dependency on State funds while sitting on multibillion-sized endowments engaged in PE and real-estate speculation, one of his final comments reveals the flaw in the criticism:
“the intersection of interests between the best and brightest and those places most needful of putting them to good use and fullest potential has no place for the “elite” university as currently instantiated”
So the mission of a university is to act a high-grade training centre for the private sector. What he really wants is a Fachhochschule (as in German-speaking countries), not a university, but I do not know how this fits within the education system of the USA, and what kind of reforms would be necessary.
As someone who went to a state college (University of Texas at Austin), I say good. I’ll put the education I got there up against Harvard any day, and I only had to pay $800/semester back in the early 1990s.
– ‘I’ve Fought for the Climate Since the ’80s. All I’ve Worked for Is Being Undone’ – The Hollywood Reporter
When I saw the title of this piece in which “I” appears twice – and saw that it was from The Hollywood Reporter – I thought “uh oh.” Sure enough.
Of course I do not want to ridicule someone’s sincere concern for the environment and the current attack on climate science (or perhaps all science). I share those concerns. But I’m sure most NC readers already recognize the problems illustrated in this article. Privileged liberals – *Hollywood* liberals no less! – have a tremendous capacity to make themselves targets for the “anti-elite” propaganda of psuedo-populists on the right. This is an excellent example. And personally, a cute story about the mutual admiration between the likes of Chevy Chase and Madeline Albright is almost enough to make *me* question the environmental movement (not really, but c’mon).
Yes, a Case Study in lack of self-awareness and self-parody, with that nasty Albright aftertaste at the end.
“EU opinion divided over bid to seize frozen Russian assets”
In a way, this is a pretty funny story when you read through to the end. For years now the EU has been tying itself in knots trying to find a legal way to steal Russia’s $300 billion only there isn’t. Then there is the realization that if they did, that there would be giant sucking sound to be heard which would be investors all around the world pulling their money out of the EU before the EU stole it as well. But then the legal smarties found a way to steal part of Russia’s money by swiping the interest off those Russia’s funds even though that would be illegal as well. Then the financial smarties got involved and came up with the idea of using that stolen interest as collateral on loans worth tens of billions of dollar’s worth for the Ukraine. And I believe that this has been done a coupla times. And Belgium swipes money too by collecting taxes on that revenue. So it’s 2008 all over again and the EU has built themselves a Jenga tower of financial debt, just so that they can give it to Zelensky of all people. Now come the kicker in that article. ‘EU sanctions on Russia are set to expire in July 2025, and all 27 EU member states must agree on whether to extend them.’ So if Hungary or Slovakia vote no, then Russia’s money has to be returned to them. But wait, there’s more. All those loans that they made using the interest as collateral? They are now all on the hook to pay those loans back but without those Russian funds to pay for them and there is no way to wiggle out of them. Zelensky may say that he is good for the money but it is only a matter of time until the Ukraine reneges on all those debts. In short, they’re boned.
It’s like nobody in the EU halls of power at any point asked “what if Russia actually won this war?” Maybe EU is led by a mastermind like Vizzini from the Princess Bride: “inconceivable!”
re: US Navy vs. China
Full Committee Hearing: U.S. Military Posture and National Security Challenges in the Indo-Pacific Region
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Witnesses:
John Noh
Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense For Indo-Pacific Security Affairs
Department of Defense
Admiral Samuel Paparo, USN
Commander
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command
General Xavier T. Brunson, USA
Commander
United Nations Command / Combined Forces Command / U.S. Forces Korea
Written testimonies are downloadable
complete hearing, 3 hours
https://armedservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=5033
Comment via X by Tom Shugart
(Defense analyst, former submariner, bugsmasher pilot/flight instructor. Founder, Archer Strategic Consulting. @cnasdc Adjunct Senior Fellow)
Apr 18
A few interesting tidbits from INDOPACOM Commander Admiral Paparo’s recent testimony.
https://nitter.poast.org/tshugart3/status/1913206746417447349#m
DOGE
Tesla profits plunge as Musk promises he’s ready to step away from role at DOGE CNN
And DOGE hasn’t even yet transformed the United States Federal Government onto a profit operating basis? What a shame a truly missed opportunity.
The horse-racing industry needs workers on visas. Employers hope to still get them. NPR
How about visas for challengers to incumbent Congressman and Senators to give them a taste of what the pleasantry experiences?
‘White Ghost
@White_Ghost187
Would you take the jet suit for a ride?’
I’m calling the whole thing staged. That airliner is flying at a low speed so that guy can keep up and you can see the flaps down on that airliner’s wings to slow it down. In addition that jet guy would only have a limited amount of fuel so him flying there would be timed for that narrow window of time that he has to fly at speed. I’d say that that wing itself was the fuel tank. And you can be sure that there was eyes on this guy from the airliner in case he got too close.
Of course it’s staged. That jet-pack-wing was made for stunts in the first place. He jumped out of a plane that is filming it, and will land with a parchute (after he runs out of juice in a couple of minutes). It’s not like he is using it as a method of transportation in a daily commute, and ran into some friends.
To be honest, I immediately thought that the large airplane would cause so much turbulence, making it impossible for the diminutive jetman to fly that close to it. Ergo AI-generated video. But what do I know.
That’s why it’s flying to the side, slightly back. Three of them are in a natural formation that regular birds would use too.
“kamikaze drones”
I guess that makes for
kamikaze bullets
kamikaze bombs
kamikaze sticks and carrots
kamikaze negotiations
kamikaze pills………
got to love the little catch terms sprinkled in news casts and politics to sieze, capture, shock and awe people into a narrative….. always got to drive, nail and bring home the narrative.
Sort of like when a kid covers their eyes and thinks ‘If I can’t see you, you can’t see me’
I guess that is why the News media and politicians keep misdirecting or pointing anywhere except toward themselves……. Just the continuation of some basic cowardly behaviour and inbility to take responsibility for ones action- to always need the crutch of ‘it’s his or hers or this or that groups fault, enemy or actions’
Trump just plays it out like, for example ‘it’s the fed chairs fault, it’s the mexicans etc.
One thing for sure, Trump is brave in his willingness to exhibit cowardice….or is that stupid willing,…..
I have never seen the point of instilling mass distrust into a population or person (except when it is used to manipulate and contrive some delusion, giving power to the one pushing distrust) – it really never ends in peace or equity. Maybe the deployment of strategic trust
Sorry – just having dificulty finishing thoughts.
Regular drones are not kamikaze, and are meant to come back (much like Japanese aircraft back in the day).
Kamikaze President and Administration? Lots of trading to be done during that final glide path!
re: Golden Dome
sounds like the most expensive Clownworld of this century:
Musk’s SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump’s Golden Dome missile shield
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/musks-spacex-is-frontrunner-build-trumps-golden-dome-missile-shield-2025-04-17/
Is this why he appeared to tear up at the idea that severely autistic people will never pay taxes? How productive are toddlers supposed to be? WTF is talking about. Is it possible for this man to make any kind of sense at all?
Is preparing to launch a narrative that autism, like some mental problems, appears in the late teens and early 20s?
I know of 4 autistic male teenagers/adults in varying degrees on the spectrum that will never leave home, one of them-a 17 year old, doesn’t know how to tie his shoelaces-despite feverish attempts by mom & dad to teach him.
An empty nest is but a whet dream~
In the Rights of Nature department:
New Bill to Recognize Legal Rights of All Water Bodies in New York State
https://celdf.substack.com/p/new-bill-to-recognize-legal-rights
Whenever I see ‘MS 13’ in the news my mind wanders over to days of yore when the condition of a given coin was of paramount importance, and the grading scale went from Mint State 1 to Mint State 70, with an MS 13 grade being ‘Fine’, which was a bit of a misnomer as the coin was well worn.
Value differences could be vast in the MS 60 to MS 70 range, which meant the coin was brand new, with varying amounts of bagmarks and other detracting marks.
Similar to the Sport of Kings, the Hobby of Kings is on a downward slope, no young coin collectors and older collectors are all net sellers these days.
The price of old yeller has contributed to the downfall, i’ll give you an example…
Around the turn of the century, a $20 gold Saint Gaudens designed coin dated from 1907 to 1933 was worth around $3,000 in a PCGS (Professional Coin Grading Service) MS 65 sealed holder. It contained just under a troy ounce of pure gold in content, with the spot price around $300.
Now with the spot price around $3500, the very same coin in the same grade retails for $3850 presently.
You should really sit down one day and write all that you remember of coin hunting, how it was done, what were the grades, how they were selected, where you flew too to find good coins, etc. Then when you have finished, lodge that manuscript with some institution like a university. As this business seems to be fading into history, at least that knowledge would not be totally lost to history.
The world was a giant unconnected orb when I was pushing old metal around, and you had to be there-couldn’t do it from a laptop.
Some day i’ll write it all down, it was a perfect business for me in that I never knew really what would happen on a day to day basis, and no day was similar to any other.
Every country had somebody else’s coins, in my early trips to Aussie in the 1980’s, i’d come away with around a roll of 50x 1911-S Lincoln Cents in decent condition, and these were worth around $15 to $20 per, and why did this coin turn up all the time?
A enterprising gent in Sydney had imported nickelodeon machines from the states and they required American coins in order to operate them, so he must have imported bags of Cents along with the machines from the USA, back in the day.
1916 Buffalo Mickels were also surprisingly common in both NZ & Australia, and my guess was ANZAC soldiers must have picked them up when going through the Panama Canal to the war in Europe, as American coinage was used in the canal zone.
These were always in extremely fine condition, and really no big deal in the scheme of things, worth around $20, unless there was a rare doubled date 1916 Buffalo Nickel, worth around $20,000 these days. I bought 5 or 6 of these in my travels.
https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1916-5c-doubled-die-obverse/3931
Re: DNC VC David Hogg and his plan to primary ineffective Dems.
Last night on The Humanist Report, Mike Figuredo pointed out that the Dems Hogg thinks are effective are people like Nancy Pelosi and her side kick Van Hollen, Hakeem Jeffries and various other institutional road blocks to change within the Democratic party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XTBjK16gyE
It is difficult to see this as anything other than a psyop. The DNC runs a pretty tight ship, Gabbard had to retire from the DNC just to support Sanders in ’16, so it is hard to believe that this is anything more than a cynical ploy along the lines of the present AOC / Sanders Oligarchy tour to gather the sheep back in for their mid-term fleecing.
File under the “spaghetti sticks to the wall” category, this article: Why heart attacks are striking young people……………..
They tried linking weed to accelerating heart problems in young people, and now this. Any article that uses the term “conspiracy theory” displays its inability to propose a convincing argument. There are countless studies showing that the recent (new, improved) Rna vax is a fundamental cause.
A couple: https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/hard-evidence-in-new-study-brain-heart-damage-caused-by-mrna-vaccine_5074383.html
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/what-funeral-directors-know-that
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/fda-quietly-changes-end-date-for-study-of-heart-inflammation-after-pfizer-covid-vaccination_5013087.html
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/01/18/unequivocal-safety-signals-for-heart-blood-and-reproduction-found-in-yellow-card-vaccine-data-says-top-scientist-withdraw-them-immediately/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/13/bbc-cardiologist-aseem-malhotra-links-covid-jabs-to-heart-disease-deaths
I could go on and on and on………
Another culling of workers incoming at Intel, looking like another chop of 20% : Intel to lay off more than 20% of workforce, Bloomberg News reports
New CEO Lip-Bu Tan getting into a choppy mood right off the bat. Earnings call is Thursday so I suppose we will learn more then.
“Ukraine ready to negotiate with Russia — if it agrees to ceasefire first”
At this stage of the game listening to Zelensky is as worthwhile as listening to an Israeli spokesman. It is just lies and bs as far as the eye can see. Here Big Z is saying that let’s sign a ceasefire and we will negotiate the terms later. That’s like a union signing a contract with management and agreeing to negotiate the terms of the contract later. How well will that work out? It’s a good thing that Zelensky is a billionaire now as he will need big money to pay for guards and protection for the rest of his miserable life. If the west does not nail him to shut him up about all that he knows, then it is likely the ultra-nationalists that will hang him up like Mussolini.
file under What Could Go Wrong: from Reclaim The Net.
WHO Pushes for Permanent Tech Alliance to Institutionalize Digital Health Messaging and Behavior Control
WHO, Meta, and Silicon Valley plan long-term digital health alliance focused on narrative control and behavior change.
https://reclaimthenet.org/who-silicon-valley-digital-health-alliance-post-pandemic
Meta? Zuck’s FB empire? Behavior control? I remember that emotional contagion experiment FB ran in conjuction with a US three-letter agency. / ;)
Re: AI performance on US medical licensure exam
Teaching to the test would certainly be a strength for AI. “What are they getting at?” metacognition interference occurs when actual intelligence confronts standardized testing. When patients fail to match up with texts the AI will still rattle off ‘evidence-based’ algorithms that fail to account for subtle differences in presentations. But on the bright side, your insurance company will save money!
Migrants traversing Darien Gap plummet 40% as Panama cracks down on major route – NY Post
“But despite the significant drop in crossings, Mulino stressed that the numbers could creep up again without ongoing US support.”
But, in time, if the global south, BRICS etc. is rising and the USA is in decline, would those numbers creep up?
And doesn’t this kind of policy leave the USA exposed to a migrant hustle? Whenever sone govt wants money, they gather up some people to send across a border?