Physicists uncover how geometric frustration shapes the rose’s iconic blossom Phys.org
Fed holds rates steady, warns of higher inflation and unemployment Reuters
Black smoke: Cardinals fail to elect new pope on first try Business Times
Climate/Environment
There’s a $1 Trillion Time Bomb Ticking in Muni Finances Bloomberg
Could climate change trigger the next subprime mortgage crisis? Fast Company
NSIDC announce a downgrading of service level for their sea ice index dataset which may mean no further updates.
These are globally important datasets for monitoring the ongoing changes to the climate. This is horribly damaging for global science.https://t.co/jcGzlJzU2Y pic.twitter.com/NsVWS86i0T
— Ed Hawkins (@ed_hawkins) May 6, 2025
Pandemics
Partnership formed to confront rise in illness, premature death in young Americans Insurance Newsnet. Some tidbits:
Insurance companies always know about population health. Their profits depend on it.
So the population should be interested in their reports.
Here’s one, linked in tweet below; and here are some screen-grabs from the report… pic.twitter.com/cwVtYftkmt
— Alan Barnard (@alanbarnard1) May 7, 2025
Scientists estimate higher rate of new-onset diabetes after COVID than in general population CIDRAP
Vinay Prasad insisted this was fake news. Now he’s regulating vaccines at the FDA after years of simping for repeatedly infecting unvaccinated kids with SARS-CoV-2 for money. Imagine slutting it up for viruses – truly pathetic! https://t.co/hpBOQsL42S pic.twitter.com/OE7HsITQJO
— Pandemic A. Index (@pan_accindex) May 6, 2025
You know how they say the 3rd generation to inherit wealth squanders it? That is what we are doing with public health right now. People living with all the benefits of it are dismantling it because they think it’s just natural to not have constant disease and death… about to…
— The Lone Masker (@wonderartsy) May 7, 2025
India-Pakistan War
Pakistan warns it will ‘avenge’ deaths from Indian strikes Straits Times
Did Pakistan just use most advanced Chinese missile to shoot down Indian jets? TRT Global
Did Western Intelligence Play a Role in the Latest Terrorist Attack in Kashmir? Larry Johnson
Trump offers to mediate Pakistan-India crisis The Express Tribune
Islamabad left with 35 days of water as Khanpur Dam levels plunge; irrigation, drinking water may be curtailed Free Press Kashmir
The Koreas
N. Korea fires unidentified ballistic missile toward East Sea: JCS Yonhap
China?
China Signals India Levy Is a Warning on Cutting Deals With US Bloomberg
China’s new growth playbook could go out the window with Trump’s tariffs Business Times
Syraqistan
U.S. and Israel discuss possible U.S.-led administration for Gaza, sources say Reuters
Israel Launches PR Initiative to Boost Global ‘Legitimization’ of West Bank Settlements Haaretz
***
Iranian terror suspects ‘targeted Israeli embassy in London’ The Times
We are seeing stories in the media that Iranian nationals are allegedly involved in a supposed plot to target the Israeli embassy in London.
Iran in no uncertain terms categorically rejects any involvement in such actions and confirms that we have not been informed of any…
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) May 7, 2025
***
Yemen – U.S. Concedes Maritime Defeat Moon of Alabama
Trump to rename Persian Gulf ‘Arabian Gulf’ during Saudi visit The Cradle
***
Syria’s interim leader Ahmad al-Sharaa visits Paris in first official trip to Europe Euronews. Commentary:
What a beautiful romance …
A decade after the horrific Bataclan attack in Paris, attributed to ISIS, @EmmanuelMacron welcomes “former” senior ISIS leader al-Jolani to France. pic.twitter.com/CZzj1FxC0v
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) May 7, 2025
Türkiye, Israel to hold direct talks in Baku on May 8: Israeli media Turkiye Today
European Disunion
New Merz government orders the pushback of all illegal migrants at the German borders, effectively abolishes asylum as a path into Germany eugyppius: a plague chronicle
German leftist EU lawmakers to travel to Moscow for Victory Day DPA
New Not-So-Cold War
SITREP 5/7/25: Ukraine Launches New Kursk Attempt to Spoil May 9th ‘Victory Day’ Simplicius
Ukraine considers shift from dollar to euro amid geopolitical realignments Reuters
Vance says Russia ‘asking for too much’ to end war with Ukraine Politico
Russia’s unilateral ceasefire comes into effect Anadolu Agency
Baltics close airspace to world leaders traveling to Russia for May 9 ERR
Trump Team Urged Ukraine to Take U.S. Deportees Amid War, Documents Show WaPo
Ukrainian women wounded in war take part in Playboy photoshoot – photos Ukrainska Pravda
South of the Border
“Liberation Day”
Tariffs begin to batter Long Beach Port; expect ripple effects across the U.S. soon, officials say Long Beach Post
U.S. pushes nations facing tariffs to approve Musk’s Starlink, cables show WaPo
Trump now wants everyone to stop asking when the trade deals are coming NBC News
NEW: Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff fiasco angered everyone from Democrats to Trump’s billionaire friends.
Now some people are suggesting that we go back to free trade.
They’re all wrong. Tariffs can help build a more fair and just economy — but not the way Trump is using them. pic.twitter.com/j4vX7wqp37
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 6, 2025
Trump 2.0
‘The Fix Is In’: GOP Wants Poor People to Pay More for Medicaid to Fund Tax Cuts for Wealthy Common Dreams
ELON MUSK SET TO WIN BIG WITH TRUMP’S TRILLION-DOLLAR PENTAGON BUDGET Nick Turse, The Intercept
As Trump Pushes Privatization of USPS, Amazon May Be Preparing to Take Over Truthout
Trump to Rescind Global Chip Curbs, Prep New AI Restrictions Bloomberg
Top Trump Crypto Buyers Vying for Dinner Seats Are Likely Foreign, Data Shows Bloomberg
Democrats en Déshabillé
Democrats Cave, Prepare to Rubber-Stamp Trump Crypto Corruption The American Prospect. Amid all the global turmoil, some things remain the same.
The Genius Act would allow Meta or Google to coin their own money. Why is that a problem? Well Mark Zuckerberg has already discussed charging businesses more after locking them into a payment platform. pic.twitter.com/BoTjJSFNPf
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) May 7, 2025
DOGE
DOGE Aide Who Helped Gut CFPB Was Warned About Potential Conflicts of Interest ProPublica. Was it sternly worded?
Data reveals Musk has delivered 0.25% of promised federal spending cuts Musk Watch
MAHA
OpenAI and the FDA Are Holding Talks About Using AI In Drug Evaluation Wired. What could go wrong?
RFK Jr. Unveils Autism Patient Database Project MedPage Today
Trump nominates Dr. Casey Means, wellness influencer close to RFK Jr., for surgeon general AP
With boost from RFK Jr. and Tucker Carlson, two chronic disease entrepreneurs vault into Trump’s orbit STAT. From October. A lot of good background on Casey and her brother Calley.
Trump Policies at Odds With ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Push MedPage Today
Police State Watch
Private Prison Company GEO Group “Excited” About Mass Deportation The Appeal
Immigration
“THEY ACTUALLY HAD A LIST”: ICE ARRESTS WORKERS INVOLVED IN LANDMARK LABOR RIGHTS CASE The Intercept
Federal judge temporarily blocks deportations to Libya Axios
AI
Family uses AI to create video for deadly Chandler road rage victim’s own impact statement ABC15 Arizona
OpenAI Claims Nonprofit Will Retain Nominal Control Zvi Mowshowitz
Healthcare?
Medicare Scramble: Wall Street Wants Insurers to Dump Costly Seniors HEALTH CARE un-covered
Groves of Academe
Shipman authorizes NYPD sweep of pro-Palestinian protest in Butler Library, police in riot gear arrest dozens Columbia Spectator
Columbia to lay off nearly 180 researchers funded by federal grants Columbia Spectator
***
Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College New York Magazine. Commentary:
Makes it a lot easier to hide the cognitive dysfunction that way (aka Covid-induced 🧠 damage). https://t.co/7R9RIbSBWr
— Dr. Sean Mullen (@drseanmullen) May 7, 2025
Imperial Collapse Watch
Report: Pentagon will likely fail audits through 2028 Responsible Statecraft
American tourist climbs over fence at Colosseum, impales himself on spike Los Angeles Times
Sports Desk
Sources: President Trump planning to create commission on college sports to address issues ailing industry Yahoo! Sports. “…the group is expected to feature college sports stakeholders, prominent businesspeople with deep connections to college football and, perhaps, even a former coach and administrator.” Unclear if athletes are considered “stakeholders.”
The Bezzle
New Hampshire Becomes First State to Pass Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill Into Law Bitcoin Magazine
Antitrust
Instagram’s Algorithm Recommended Minors to Putative Pedophiles Big Tech on Trial
Wall Street Tells Google to Break Itself Up Big by Matt Stoller
FTC loses appeal to stop Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal that already happened The Verge
Class Warfare
US companies plot $500bn share buyback spree FT
Student loan payments are back. It’s a problem for the mortgage market Housing Wire
Tax Evasion or Student Debt? The US Chose the Wrong Crackdown Bloomberg
Any “Halfway Decent Person” Can Join And Own Ireland’s Oldest Gym Defector
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jours here and here.
Bondi Girl
(melody borrowed from Modern Girl written by Frank John Musker and Dominic Roy King in 1981, and recorded by Sheena Easton)
That Mar-a-Lago glow looks trashy cheap you know
These kamikaze dames keep Trump in power
Pam does what Daddy said, worships his balding head
She’ll do whatever works to keep Trump in his tower
She shreds Epstein’s file and we wonder what for
She’s that Bondi Girl who’s working that revolving door
How she twists and twirls ’bout that Epstein man!
Tells the public lies though we make demands
Why not on TeeVee for us all to see?
But she cops a plea—she’s that Bondi Girl
Na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na—Donald’s zombie girl
She’s like a mannequin straight from a loony bin
She’s Donald’s secret twin her nose is brown
She swears he’s squeaky clean, calls him her cash machine
She’s always tryin’ his fevered schemes till they turn around
She’s wild and incautious but can’t help herself
The things she does are shady and crooked as hell
How she twists and twirls ’bout that Epstein man!
Tells the public lies though we make demands
Why not on TeeVee for us all to see?
But she cops a plea—she’s that Bondi Girl
Na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na—Donald’s zombie girl
(musical interlude)
Without Donald she’d be woebegone
She’s Donald’s little gnome—her feelings for him are known
A liar and spinner, a Trump franchisee
Nothin’ rages her hormones like him on TeeVee
How she twists and twirls ’bout that Epstein man!
Tells the public lies though we make demands
Why not on TeeVee for us all to see?
But she cops a plea—she’s that Bondi Girl
Na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na—Donald’s zombie girl
Na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na—Donald’s zombie girl
Na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na—Donald’s zombie girl
Na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na—Donald’s zombie girl
I like to call her “Pammy Bondage.”
Nice work, as usual!
She strikes me as the kind of woman who will completely disregard your Safe Word.
“Trump to rename Persian Gulf ‘Arabian Gulf’ during Saudi visit”
Not just Trump as the US has been doing this for many years to wind up Iran. But the disputes for this name has been ongoing for a long time-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf_naming_dispute
In other news today, the Government of Iran has stated that all correspondence to the United States government will now be changed officially to the government of South Canada.
I guess the sad part is that after having had their ass handed to them by Yemen, USA can only exert power on the level of the “Baltic superpowers” to try and annoy states they consider adversaries.
Baja Canada
Can we Mexico Norte instead?
How about Alta Mexico?
Why not just Aztlan?
Or Turtle Island?
Re: cheating on everything
Not the ‘end of education’ but a vigorous weeding out of the weak-willed and stupid I think.
Cheating in this way will simply make you an outgrowth of the statistical engine, indistinguishable from any other. “You” will disappear. Techno Buddhism?
Better question, what are these entities doing with all the time they have saved?
Correct, I think. Anyone who relies on AI to cheat to their own detriment will become part of the faceless, nameless body of AI slop. You’ll be replaced by a very short shell script.
Critical thinking skills will become an “edge” for anyone who dares to retain them. Surrendering to fraudulent, greased AI will be the path to oblivion.
The article provides an excellent argument for paying janitors and nurses more than college graduates.
To be honest I can hardly tell the difference between inept students in the AI age and before, there’s a real “it was ever thus” to it all. I suppose the difference is a higher proportion now actually get their degree, although when I was an undergrad at an American public university (not so long ago but before the great LLM golem was accessible) it’s not as though there wasn’t a plenitude of such characters whose principle contribution to the academic life was in tuition payments and perhaps the funding of local businesses (eateries, liquor stores, and those agriculture-adjacent entrepreneurs you can find on any campus worth its salt, getting the experience an MBA can only gesture at…)
Considering that many, if not all, undergrad institutions of higher learning have changed their mission from:
(1) producing educated citizens with a broad capacity for critical thought, appreciation of culture, etc. to (2) producing cookie-cutter corporate tools suitable for wage-slavin’ at Megacorp, Inc.
Your anecdote makes a lot of sense. Depressingly so.
I prefer not to click on “X.” For others also interested in “Rampant AI Cheating,” here’s a link to the original New York Magazine story:
https://archive.ph/ofxzl
Thanks! That story is truly horrifying.
I think these schools, like Columbia, that take money from OpenAI are going to have to realize they’ve gotten in bed with the devil.
There is probably only one way out – get rid of all digital assignments. No online exams, take home work submitted through the Internet. Go back to pen and paper. Proctored in-person exams, all handwritten. You’re going to have to put the students in a monitored room with a Faraday cage around it. Any glasses will need to be inspected.
Georgia just banned cellphones for school kids in grades K-8. It’s a small step. This whole AI thing is going to be the biggest disaster, ever.
Oral exams, or have the students write papers that other students then evaluate the writer defends in the class room – so even if it was written by an AI, the students have to know the contents and the context anyway.
Just the way it used to be back before the 90’s in my alma mater…
If AI is not beaten back here, then in years to come any graduating student from any university will have an open question over any degree that they earned. I think that your way is the only realistic way to go and any university that goes that way will find that their graduates will be sought after in the job market place.
It’s kind of funny, the solutions for this aren’t that difficult, as you point out. They involve going back to the past, which is hard for universities, probably because they’re guilty, like other institutions, of putting profits and convenience above everything.
They might have to hire more proctors and other support staff, and stop the trend towards online/asynchronous learning. Oh, the horror!
Watched a video of a 6th grader “giving” a “speech” in his class that he just had “written” for him by an AI. Stuttering, stopping, couldn’t pronounce many of the words…it was funny, in a very sad way.
Then he insisted to the teacher that he had written it….
When the flames died down he had been given a valuable lesson about how the coverup can be worse than the crime.
My day job includes tutoring groups of 7-8 medical students in their first and second years. Next January on the first day of the GI System we will read the first case and then I will ask the students to close their computers and tablets before we begin discussion. I predict the reaction will be strong, but over the past several years students have been completely unable to answer the simplest question without typing and staring at their screen first. Good training for using in-room electronic medical records on the omnipresent computer attached to the wall. Bad education in the fundamentals of medicine
Using AI for everything means there is no immersion in your subject. Using AI to slop out essays and code denies you the transcendence of truly learning—the change in YOU that comes from wholly absorbing what you study, and making it your own.
All AI can give you is the ability to assume a persona of and educated human, but you have no feeling for it, no seat of the pants ability to fly from problem to solution inside your specialty. What use is college if you don’t then wander the earth with snippets of Moby Dick, Shakespeare sonnets, the Upanishads, and a hundred other things that made you larger inside popping about in your brain, all those thoughts and ideas that made you not the same afterwards, that changed you to your core?
If you need a pair of glasses or a chip in your brain to talk to another human you are not even here.
That’s freakin’ beautiful … the best argument I’ve heard made, you win the Internet today as far as I am concerned.
I would like to ask permission to quote it, with attribution, of course.
Ha! These paragraphs posted on the internet mean all the AI engines out there have already sucked it up, and are feeding it to eager college students who need an opinion on using AI. Nothing belongs to any of us anymore.
“You will own nothing and be happy”
World Economic Forum, 2016
Meaning “We will own everything and tell you you are happy”
I keep coming back to the parallel with mathematical calculators. Those who are old enough may remember the uproar in schools when these became available, thus rendering arithmetic, trigonometric, logarithmic, and other numeric operations trivially easy to perform.
At this point, teaching kids to do such numerical operations “by hand” have pretty much fallen out of the curriculum and we assume kids present and future will use calculators to perform them.
I’m thinking we are on the cusp of a similar thing for language composition. Although much of current academics, especially in liberal arts studies, is built around producing written material, it seems like teaching could be done in other ways. If the written word is needed as an intermediate work product, nothing wrong with that, though the assumption would be it would be produced by students using AI tools. No one would be graded on their writing, just like no one is currently graded on their ability to add large numbers.
A change to be sure, but certainly not beyond the bounds of imagination.
Many people assume that writing is just the expression of thinking.
But if you study the history of rhetoric — i.e., the people who have thought most deeply about the relationship between writing and thinking, going back to and including the debate between Plato and the Sophists (with Plato eventually conceding to rhetoric in the Phaedrus) — you will find that they see it rather differently, viz., that people learn to think by writing.
So I will go with what VTDigger noted, above, that the whole AI phenom will work to weed out the weak-willed and stupid people.
There will be people who did the work, who learned how to think critically, and there will be the lazy, arrogant, entitled kids like Chungin Lee, who may find themselves left behind by the very people they sneered at for so long.
I’d like to reduce cheating in my class exams. It’d be easier if we had more proctors, and even easier if there was a faraday cage around the exam room. If there are hundreds of people in a room, it’s not very difficult for one person to look things up on their cell phone.
Where I think chat GPT, etc might hurt the most is in essay-driven classes. It’s absolutely to the student’s detriment, but over the long run it’s to society’s detriment as well. It also creates resentment among the students that don’t cheat.
Back in the day, on the first day of class I announced the final exam would be a take-home exam with a single question: “tell me everything important that you leaned (or disagreed with) in this class”. I never experienced much of a problem with cheating.
Admittedly, I taught mostly grad courses, so prefab essays weren’t available on he open market or via AI.
I was a roommate with a Cornell student (ILR School) who never turned in a term paper that he hadn’t bought.
It showed in his (many) later careers/jobs. He still can’t handle a simple spreadsheet and his emails have zero punctuation and are sent in all CAPS. He still brags about being a Cornell graduate :)
And I believe we’ll see a lot more of this level of “education”.
When I was in college I had a nice little business writing term papers for other students who were in the same classes as I was. I was a speed typist, which made it possible. Once I wrote a paper for someone who received a better grade than I did. He never let me forget it.
Must not have been oral exams following submission of papers. That’s how I would clarify if students knew anything. I would often call in sick (read their papers), miss a day or so, and then say “I couldn’t read your papers ’cause of headaches, so just give me a brief synopsis of your proposal”. Mean, or means testing?
Especially pertinent to occupations where lives could be at stake. Such as: doctors, police, engineers, pilots (of all sorts of vehicles,) and, of course, for our Moderne Times, Image Consultants.
At least old time cheating got a fellow student 50 bucks
In nursing education we have classes with a clinical component and classes without a clinical component. A student can do well in the classroom and fail clinically, so we have some checks on performance there. The final year is all clinicals with faculty supervision at a ratio of 1 faculty to 8 students, so if you can’t do it, we’ll know, and you won’t pass.
That’s why universities do not like to host Schools of Nursing or Colleges of Nursing, because the costs of supervision and the infrastructure of labs are high. It costs a university twice as much to run a School of Nursing as it does to host a department of philosophy.
Similar experience. I once wrote a paper that won a scholarly prize for the client who happened to be in the same class (not economic) as me. This was at a very highly thought of New England institution. My wife says she worked her way through college the same way. At least we learned to write and do research somewhat as well as Chat GPT. Chat GPT combined with a laser printer may put student ghost writers in the current generation out of business.
Re; Re: cheating on everything and re; AI
[IMPORTANT]
AI is just as overconfident and biased as humans can be, study shows
Irrational tendencies — including the hot hand, base-rate neglect and sunk cost fallacy — commonly show up in AI systems, calling into question how useful they actually are.
One of the surprising outcomes of the study was the way GPT-4 sometimes amplified human-like errors. “In the confirmation bias task, GPT-4 always gave biased responses,” the authors wrote in the study.
https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/ai-is-just-as-overconfident-and-biased-as-humans-can-be-study-shows
In an unexpected turn of events, a thing supposed to mimic humans ended up mimicking himans.
AI is making its way into aircraft and airspace management.
Long before AI left the realm of Science Fiction, confirmation bias was a well-known problem and frequent contributer to accidents involving aviation.
Even a pilot who seems to be carefully gathering and assessing all available information in a dispassionate manner may actually be heavily influenced by confirmation bias. The first problem is that, on a difficult weather day, the amount of information available is often more than a pilot can easily process. When this happens, our brains will naturally start looking for something in all that information to help us make sense of what is going on.
https://www.flyingmag.com/technique-accidents-dangers-confirmation-bias/
I’m not a computer science guy; I’m just trying to decide how concerned we need to be as use of AI becomes more common in aerospace.
As a end user of aircraft data programs and/or administrator in airline operations, I get to give feedback if the programs are lying. Most modern airplanes transmit data in various forms. Fault messages, system reports, full flight data, etc.
As we try to use AI with this data we find a lot of times AI gets the alerting wrong. It takes a lot of effort to get something useful from data to an alert to review.
I’ve also seen many magic beans PowerPoint presentations from sales teams from different companies.
“AI is just as overconfident and biased as humans can be, study shows”
So AI, constructed of human-created algorithms and educated with human-created content, shows human tendencies? And here I thought silicon was going to transform it magically into some kind of Super Intelligence.
AI is just a mirror.
That couldn’t have been done in Socialist Romania.
The end of term exams during the session period were a wrecking ball of students mental health. Never mind the cramming (the joke being a student in session could learn Chinese in 7 days) but the examination was brutal:
– an all day long or over several days, students waiting in their best clothes in line to enter the room and be examined.
– draw subjects at random from the cookie jar
– get 20 minutes to prepare their exposition
– stand in front of the blackboard (to be used as appropriate) and provide elaborate responses to the questions they got in their “fortune cookies”.
Very easy problem to solve, isn’t it?! Requires time, attention, a room, a board and chalk/washable markers.
Exactly the same in post-socialist Russia at least as of 15 years ago. (Except I don’t think I ever used a blackboard as a history student, but that might be different for precise sciences?) I suspect “technology” will have made its ingresses since then, but that can be rolled back if there is will.
Also, there have definitely been stories about AI-written coursework, which may endanger the traditional coursework-for-money industry. The industry may be harder to rescue, but on the educators’ end the problem is not anything new (as commenters point out above, of course).
“Trump offers to mediate Pakistan-India crisis”
Ooohh, no, no, no, no, no. No way. Absolutely not. Instead of trying to establish peace between those two nations, he would try to come up with a deal where the US would get something from both countries as a reward for all his hard work. Maybe he would threaten them with the tariffs from hell unless they did what he told them to do because the whole thing would be all about him. It would be better if they sent Witkoff and Lavrov instead instead with a blank check each. Nobody would win if both countries went for their nukes but Trump is too erratic and too much of a loose cannon to be trusted here.
He would rename Kashmir to Kushnemir (or maybe Cashmir), and build a resort there, with blackjack and hookers.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/real-estate/trump-towers-in-india-all-that-you-need-to-know-about-their-location-price-and-more-101737473112829.html
India will have the highest number of Trump Towers outside America.
“It would be better if they sent Witkoff…”
How many slush funds and tax free zones for oligarchs does the world need?
Oh…that’s right…the plan is for the world to be a slush fund and tax free zone for oligarchs.
MoA has an article up indicating that the Ukranian legislative body forced an amendment into the “minerals deal” that effectively kills the limited partnership agreement:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/05/ukraine-rada-blocks-detail-agreements-of-mineral-deal.html
This restricts the agreement to the “four corners” of the main document signed by Zelensky making any attempts to sneak in secondary documents null and void.
Looks like Trump got snookered.
“Ukrainian women wounded in war take part in Playboy photoshoot – photos”
Appalling. It’s something out of JG Ballard. I suppose the Nazi tattoos will be photoshopped out of the spread.
What’s truly appalling, it’s not the fact of the prosthetics, it’s the provenance of why.
Even Playboy is propaganda? I thought it was a distraction for men. I won’t go further because it’s so sick and debases everyone, including women.
As one of the most estimable sages in the history of advertising once put it, ¿porqué no los dos?
Gives new meaning to the phrase “war pron”.
I have no issue with the underlying concept as I think it can give a face to the wounded and really bring home the costs of war. But this is only being done in one direction and for the purposes of increasing Russia hate.
There is perversity in manhood. A lot of men will get off on watching pictures with maimed women…
The whole world is either out of Ballard or out of Philip K Dick.
I long for the bygone days when the world was out of more establishment-friendly authors like Beckett or Kafka, but I suppose I should be grateful I won’t live to see the world out of Schickelgruber.
Chips Act project, Central NYS edition. Massive scale, massive subsidies of $20B:
Exclusive: Micron report details lasting impacts to Central NY: jobs, traffic, population, pollution syracuse.com archive
An economic collapse might be good for some things.
Hear hear! And thanks for pulling all these quotes together so
“Each fab is 150 feet high”
Chip fabs are the equivalent of a 15 stories-high building? I had no idea.
According to the Great Lakes Charter (1985):
3 To assist in the ongoing collection of Great Lakes water use data and information, and in the
development of the Basin Water Resources Management Program, States and Provinces will
pursue the enactment of legislation where it is needed for the purpose of gathering accurate and
comparable information on any new or increased withdrawal of Great Lakes Basin water
resources in excess of 100,000 gallons (380,000 litres) per day average in any 30-day period.
4 The prior notice and consultation process will be formally initiated following the development of
procedures by the Water Resources Management Committee and approval of those procedures
by the Governors and Premiers. Any State or Province may voluntarily undertake additional
notice and consultation procedures as it deems appropriate. However, the right of any individual
State or Province to participate in the prior notice and consultation process, either before or
after approval of formal procedures by the Governors and Premiers, is contingent upon its
ability to provide accurate and comparable information on water withdrawals in excess of
100,000 gallons (380,000 litres) per day average in any 30-day period and its authority to manage
and regulate water withdrawals involving a total diversion or consumptive use of Great Lakes
Basin water resources in excess of 2,000,000 gallons (7,600,000 litres) per day average in any 30
day period.
so 48 million gallons per day would seem to require initiation of the consultation process. I have been unable to find any reference as to what limit, if any, has been established as the maximum diversion from the basin. It only mentions that the water may not be transported beyond the boundaries of the states that make up the charter group, ie. no sending Lake Ontario water to Alabama.
Consultation, schmonsultation! More job-killing regulations that impede groaf! /s
the red light started to flash for me too about that water diversion – seem to remember a similar roadblock to diversion of water to Wisconsin that was quashed – chapter and verse –
42 U.S. Code § 1962d-20 – Prohibition on Great Lakes diversions –
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-2000-title42-section1962d-20&num=0&edition=2000
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1962d-20
given the warm and fuzzy relationship we have with Canada now one can certainly wonder how far this diversion will get to becoming a reality –
I’m not so sure about that, there is a note on the charter webpage that parts of Illinois and/or Wisconsin are not subject to the charter after a decision by the SCOTUS in the case involving Milwaukee looking to extract water beyond its legal boundary. I didn’t go looking for the decision itself.
Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact (not sure if this is the latest)
Section 4.8. Prohibition of New or Increased Diversions.
All New or Increased Diversions are prohibited, except as provided for in this Article.
Section 4.9. Exceptions to the Prohibition of Diversions.
4. Exception Standard. Proposals subject to management and regulation in this Section
shall be declared to meet this Exception Standard and may be approved as appropriate
only when the following criteria are met:
a. The need for all or part of the proposed Exception cannot be reasonably avoided
through the efficient use and conservation of existing water supplies;
b. The Exception will be limited to quantities that are considered reasonable for the
purposes for which it is proposed;
c. All Water Withdrawn shall be returned, either naturally or after use, to the Source
Watershed less an allowance for Consumptive Use. No surface water or
groundwater from the outside the Basin may be used to satisfy any portion of this
criterion except if it:
i. Is part of a water supply or wastewater treatment system that combines water
from inside and outside of the Basin;
ii. Is treated to meet applicable water quality discharge standards and to prevent
the introduction of invasive species into the Basin;
d. The Exception will be implemented so as to ensure that it will result in no
significant individual or cumulative adverse impacts to the quantity or quality of
the Waters and Water Dependent Natural Resources of the Basin with
consideration given to the potential Cumulative Impacts of any precedent-setting
consequences associated with the Proposal;
e. The Exception will be implemented so as to incorporate Environmentally Sound
and Economically Feasible Water Conservation Measures to minimize Water
Withdrawals or Consumptive Use;
f. The Exception will be implemented so as to ensure that it is in compliance with
all applicable municipal, State and federal laws as well as regional interstate and
international agreements, including the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909; and,
g. All other applicable criteria in Section 4.9 have also been met.
——————————————————————————————
So if this is still the law, it seems like it would sink the project because I don’t see them treating and returning anything like the 50 million gallons to the basin, without using external water resources. Now I can’t find the page that listed the SCOTUS decision.
Still, there’s money to be made, so I would expect plenty of handwaving about about how green everything will be made after processing.
you are correct – don’t know about the SCOTUS ruling but the Waukesha diversion is used for drinking water and only 8 million gallons a day – a bit different reason than what is being proposed for the Micron complex and they want a lot more, 40 million gallons/day more – since Clay is within the Great Lakes basin it will be interesting how it plays out – and the charter indicates they have to return the water and they have to meet the water quality standards in the water that’s being returned – this will certainly cause an outcry for many reasons – i was thinking about the Foxconn plant that never really panned out – and Foxconn only wanted 7 million gallons/day – here’s a bit more granular –
https://greatlakesecho.org/2018/04/03/where-the-great-lakes-compact-ends-and-wisconsin-law-begins/
here’s what happened to Foxconn
https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2023/11/10/what-happened-to-foxconn-in-wisconsin-a-timeline/71535498007/
Thanks to Tom Murphy’s (“Do the Math”) series on Dan Quinn’s Ishmael at Resilience.org, I am finally reading the book many have found life-changing. Quinn was a master of myth: in understanding how they affect worldview; in adapting old ones for new purposes; and in creating new ones.
At one point, the mythical character of Ishmael takes the Roadrunner cartoon of Wiley Coyote and gives poor Wiley one of those early experimental flying machines where a human pedals to flap bird-like wings. He likens the doomed effort to take off from the cliff to human Taker culture’s ride since the beginnings of agriculture. It’s just that it was a very high cliff. Now that the bottom is getting nearer and nearer, we’re pedaling faster and faster, but to no avail. The wildly flapping wings don’t follow the laws of aerodynamics, so Wiley’s doing his version of Business As Usual at a faster and faster pace just gets him to the bottom faster.
In a nutshell, that’s all this ridiculous sales pitch we’re we’re hearing about AI, fusion, carbon capture and geoengineering.
Gaza: a Tory MP, Mark Pritchard, stood up a couple of days ago and said in the Commons that:
– they had always supported Israel, come what may
– they had got it wrong
– they condemn Israel!
Watch it here. Powerful stuff!
https://nitter.poast.org/joebrolly1993
And there has been total silence in the mainstream media. Nothing on the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, Times etc. There is one mention in the Independent (which valiantly bothers to publish but does anybody read it?!) and one on politics.co.uk. Shameful!
[Yves, perhaps this is worth a link, despite being a couple of days old?]
Thank you.
A group of senior Tories, led by Kent MP Kit Malthouse, has written to No 10, urging immediate recognition of Palestine and emergency aid. Soon after, Zionist attack dogs mobilised.
It says something when the only place to get news of what should be an epochal statement by a Tory MP is from the twitter feed of … the barrister acting for “Tory MP killers” Kneecap. :-) :-(
All these shenanigans by Labour and mainstream Tories in favour of genocide are terrible.
Although, as people know, I’m not as quick on my feet as I used to be, I’ve been in contact with Electoral Commission about setting up a left wing popular party to mirror Reform.
Might go nowhere…… but someone has to take a stand. I do have a plan….. fight Nottm city council in 2027 to gauge support…. call us something like Mercia Party to tap into old views. Then we’ll see…..
Count me in!
Call it Commonwealth to disguise it in the flag, honour the Levellers / Diggers and promote MMT at the same time….
MSN did pick it up, from the Irish Times. But otherwise, it’s as you say, it’s as if it’s being studiously ignored.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tory-urges-government-to-stand-for-life-in-gaza-admits-israel-support-wrong/ar-AA1Eh7Ao
an aside: Jimmy Dore on what’s happening in Isr. utube, ~13+ minutes.
Israeli Cops BEAT UP Hasidic Jews Protesting War In Gaza!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC7AP1CAnXk
As the WWII Allied countries prepare to recognize the 80th anniversary of victory over the Third Reich, how can they square their support of what is happening in Gaza now with what they are so rightfully proud they stopped then?
There was a victory over the Third Reich? Then how come we’re living in it now?
Two sources, plain spoken, insightful.
And they are correct in their analyses. I’ll take common sense from anywhere I can find common sense.
First,
The Lone Masker: “You know how they say the 3rd generation to inherit wealth squanders it? That is what we are doing with public health right now. People living with all the benefits of it are dismantling it because they think it’s just natural to not have constant disease and death… about to FIND OUT aren’t we?”
In my not-so-humble opinion, this is what underlies the use-and-throw-away mentality of many USonions. Public health? Heck, little Tiffany won’t get diphtheria. We don’t seem to know why. So let’s get rid of treatment of drinking water. Measles? A mystical, mythical rite of passage in Donna Reed movies.
What? The train system in the U S of A doesn’t work. Who needs it when there is Federal Express. (The late, excellent Tony Judt noted that train systems are a signal of a country’s commitment to making material progress, or not.)
Education? Heck, who needs to go to college? We already destroyed the trade schools, and we’re better off importing plumbers from Mexico.
Second,
the More Perfect Union video is worth your while. I have checked out who is behind More Perfect Union, and much of the staff is too-true-blue. But the on-air talent is talented. Their reports do synthesis well.
In short, though, the message of the video is that the U.S. of A. has to have an industrial policy, wage & hours policy (including control over executive compensation and corporate stock buybacks), and support for unions and unionization. The industrial policy would include selective tariffs. And the wage policy means repealing Taft-Hartley and so-called right-to-work laws.
I’ll wait…
While I don’t support some of your points (the sprawling US is not crowded Europe or Japan–there’s a reason why car culture took hold here) the one regarding industrial policy suggests this just out Link
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-the-us-built-5000-ships-in-wwii
Which is to say that the US once had an industrial policy but it took the crisis of a world war to provoke it. Trump in his shallow minded way has no clue about how America once helped to win WW2.
The reason car culture first appeared in the US is that it forms the basis for the consumer economy and FIRE sector. Abundant oil lubricated the FIRE sector. The amount of lending associated with the car culture is astronomical. Land is viewed as a consumable, whether in the exurbs or allowing our city centers and older housing stock to rot. The car culture allowed segregation to continue even after it was outlawed. Big box retail, office parks and mega-warehouses couldn’t exists without the auto-centric economy.
IMO from travels to Australia, Indonesia, South Africa and France all seem to follow this development model. Everyone is neoliberal with auto-centrism.
While population density certainly is higher elsewhere, even into the 1960s the US had a remarkable passenger rail system, with fast, frequent city center to city center services and many overnight long distance services – even in the south. Amtrak was established to relieve private railroads of their common carrier obligations. It was intended to die after a few years. Amtrak didn’t die because even red state senators liked having occasional trains in their states. But capital funding has never been sustainable; today’s trains have cars of 30-50 years old, locomotives are 35 years old, the Acela replacement sets are 5 years behind delivery date. Railroads are privately owned and they run slow, 3 mile long, 15,000 ton freights which don’t mix well with passenger trains running 70 mph. They fight any expansion of passenger rail.
The government will simply not allow decent passenger rail because it is a threat to the existing economic model. Neoliberalism IS our industrial policy!
It built those ships not because of an industrial policy, but because it already have a very developed industry backed by a large specialised workforce.
RE: why the US doesn’t have passenger rail at scale
“Car culture” is often mentioned, but already in the early 1950s, there was an initiative in California to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles via HSR (see the creation of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority and the role of the Monorail Engineering & Construction Corp.), but it would have taken the use of eminent domain to push it through.
The scale of the US is also often mentioned, but California is pretty close to the size of Japan.
San Francisco to Los Angeles is roughly the distance from Tokyo to Kobe.
Shinkansen Tokaido line was opened in 1964, extended to Hakata (including Kobe) in 1975.
Fifty years ago.
Anyway, California will never get HSR. That ship has sailed.
Even if the political initiative could be found today, the US is no longer capable of building it.
From Democrats Cave, Prepare to Rubber-Stamp Trump Crypto Corruption
I’m not so sure. The Founders are a deified, morally pure bunch. But it just ain’t so. Washington, for example, was a prolific land speculator. The populist The Democracy would have surely objected to this, however, and both the early federalists and the state sovereignists fought equality among classes in the early Founding days, with ultimate success.
I’m sure that the present day Democrats will have their fingers on the pulse of the nation-
https://xcancel.com/evanwch/status/1919600524946551032#m
After Hunter and 10% for the Big Guy it’s hard for me to see why the Dems wouldn’t cave on a new grift. / ;)
Numisaddicts is the study of funny money and/or people.
What was not so long ago an ongoing joke you watched from afar, is now official policy.
The Constitution was so perfect a document that it was burnt in effigy in Boston.
Correct link for “With boost from RFK Jr. and Tucker Carlson, two chronic disease entrepreneurs vault into Trump’s orbit”
https://www.statnews.com/2024/10/07/calley-means-casey-means-conservative-voices-of-chronic-disease-crisis/#selection-1111.0-1111.102
Nepobaby grifters, their pop was a founder of PWC. This part is fantastic:
You gotta hand it to ’em, it’s a good one.
Since Casey never finished her residency, is it the case that she is not actually licensed to practice medicine? The ‘journal’ of which she is editor is decidedly iffy in it’s science and topics (https://ijdrp.org/index.php/ijdrp).
Meanwhile, daddy was hardly a ‘founder’ of PWC: He sold his consulting firm to Coopers & Lybrand, opposed the merger with PriceWaterhouse, but ultimately ran the government consulting business for the combined PWC — because he had deep government connections, which is what you want in a salesman in that division. He’s hardly a saint, but not an obviously blatant sinner.
“Instagram’s Algorithm Recommended Minors to Putative Pedophiles”
I’m sure that it was all completely innocent on the part of Instagram. Accidents do happen. I mean, some kids really do like the actor Marlon Brando’s work for example and so seek to get in contact with the North American Marlon Brando Look-Alikes organization. It’s not Instagram’s fault they they put them in contact with that other group instead-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64NK1ftMCg8 (43 secs)
“American tourist climbs over fence at Colosseum, impales himself on spike”
From his hospital bed in Rome, he vows that one day he will have that Darwin Award and will not be denied it again.
Next stop, Pamplona.
Headline sounds to be ripped right from the cut clips for the newest installment to the Final Destination film franchise. I am amazed to be writing such a sentence some 20+ years since the original film, which in retrospect was quite inventive with the “plot twists” as they were…
Not the first time a non-Roman citizen has been impaled at the Colosseum . . .
“AI”, as machine learning is dubbed, is not the answer to actually doing police work or passing courses in university or being you best friend. I suppose it has its uses but it is not a substitute for human intelligence or effort. It looks to me that much of what is being touted as the virtues of “AI” is that it allows people to hand off jobs they do not want to do, jobs that require thought and sweat and effort, to machines. I am writing this comment using a computer that, among other things, makes it easier for me to correct the errors inherent in my less than stellar typing skills. It is a great boon. The computer can beat me at chess, but I can, at least theoretically, improve my game. The computer’s is fixed by its program. But, I do not delude myself that the computer is thinking any more than “AI” is intelligent. The ability to follow a program and juggle information at great speed exist because human intelligence set it up that way and it is limited by what it was designed to do. So, “AI” is just another human designed machine, a machine that is barely out of its infancy, and you want to trust it decide who may commit a crime? drive an auto? write your exam? be your best friend? I have been reading science fiction all my life and it is replete with cautionary tales about the machine, the mechanical brain, the robot that goes haywire. How is this different? Yeah, the money to be made. I see the wide eyes and smell the greed and just as in the stories there will be those who say, “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.” They will also be the first to bail out when or if their grand schemes create a disaster. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am just an old man who can’t see the glorious future. I hope that is true, but I doubt it.
I suppose calling AI “Inept Artificial Simulation Of The Kind Of Outputs Which Might Be Generated By Something Intelligent” wouldn’t fit in the heading of the business plan demanding funding.
Inside the Peeps Conclave. / ;)
https://mediaproxy.salon.com/width/1200/https://media.salon.com/2013/03/smoke-small.png
a closeup view:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a7/51/5a/a7515a8408cbbdfee17e7efbfbc19835.png
Gooooooood Moooooorning Fiatnam!
The platoon had taken R & R during Sede Vacante, and was now rested in anticipation of perhaps an orange plume of smoke emanating from a papal chimney…
Taibbi’s latest, public excerpt:
My Education Solution
Stop lying, blow it up, and start over
https://www.racket.news/p/my-education-solution
Taibbi not mincing words
American universities have become madhouses and ignorance-factories whose purpose is not to teach but produce sinecures for ed-sector dingbats.
On a personal level I can’t claim to have taken college very seriously but there was a time when you didn’t have to mortgage your house to attend one. Perhaps it’s the injection of money and class consciousness into everything that has produced a situation where the desirable goals of education are distorted. To repeat this commenter’s theme: affluenza is the American disease. Perhaps Trump will fix by making us all poor again.
How many campuses are affected by the new “censorship” and cutting of funds? I seem to only hear of Penn (at least as the House hearings were concerned), Columbia, Harvard.
What about all the others??? The university universe is more than those two.
And given that Harvard is at the all time bottom of FIRE’s list ranking colleges by free speech/expression, Harvard’s complaints about their rights of free speech and academic freedom ring completely hollow. This is the very world they asked for, they just thought that they would control the censor.
Thanks for the recomm.! Just downloaded the pdf:
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/2025-college-free-speech-rankings
I’ve noticed that too. Did young Donald get rejection letters from these three?
“Did Western Intelligence Play a Role in the Latest Terrorist Attack in Kashmir?”
‘While the initial conflict allegedly was rooted in Chechen nationalism and separatism, I have no doubts that Western intelligence agencies were involved in providing covert aid to the Chechens.’
Larry Johnson should know the answer to that. The CIA had their own ratlines into Chechnya feeding them all sorts of arms. The Russians complained about this but the US denied it so the Russians sent in a team to get proof which they did. They even gave the hot-shot officer in charge a gong for his efforts. And when the Russians went to Washington and showed them the proof of the US supplying military gear to the Chechnyans, the US officials simply shrugged.
Craig Murray might be better informed on India.
But that doesn´t mean I would contradict Johnson. I lack the knowledge here. It seems to make sense that eventually it is about BRICS.
Kashmir and the Indus
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2025/04/kashmir-and-the-indus/
He has warned of Modi as a possible threat for some time.
Mearsheimer too sees this of course as a proxy issue:
He spoke on Indian television, CNN that is:
https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/india-and-pakistan-on-the-brink
So now, American “contractors” working inside the Ukraine are regularly re-Kalibr-ated, out of existence.
Can those Western “contractors” really say to the heirs and assigns of their prospective hires; “They knew the job was dangerous when they took it?”
“Squaaaawk! for super chicken-hawk!”
Phyllis says that I could have done that tag line better. So…..
“Squaaaawk for Super Chicken, Hawk Hawk Hawk.
Squaaaawk for Super Chicken, Ha-awk!”
{Hey, neo-cons. Are you listening?}
“re-Kalibr-ated”
harsh but good one
re: Germany AfD extremism report + Harvard’s Antisemitism Report
BERLINER ZEITUNG
machine-translation
Explosive report reveals: How the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution came to the AfD classification
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified the AfD as “certainly right-wing extremist.” The report has now been leaked.
https://archive.is/Yvz2V
“(…)
The report contains incriminating statements from a total of 353 AfD members from all levels of the party—from the district level to the party leadership.
(…)
The incriminating statements are classified into four central categories: ethnic-based statements and positions, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and the principle of democracy.
(…)
AfD co-chair Alice Weidel appears several times in the report. Particular emphasis is placed on an interview she gave to Compact TV in July 2023. In it, she commented on the unrest in France and drew a connection between migration and violence: “Of course, this is possible here because it has fostered parallel societies when they simply have too much influx of people from a culturally alien context, from cultures prone to violence, such as knife crime.”
(…)
Co-party leader Tino Chrupalla is accused, among other things, of denigrating CDU politicians Friedrich Merz and Norbert Röttgen, as well as then-Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens), as “vassals of America” at a rally in Nuremberg in April 2023. AfD European politician Maximilian Krah has also been quoted several times. For example, he is said to have said on X in response to a statement by Green Party politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt on migration policy: “This Green master plan means population replacement.”
(…)”
I would assume you could find exact same statementns for most examples by other parties in the past that would have never been categorized as dangerously right-wing.
This mirrors to an extent the idiotism of speech and the scandal attached to it presented by USEFUL IDIOTS when quoting from the report about antisemitism at Harvard. Which is obviously laughable in its findings:
https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/heres-what-we-found-inside-harvards
“(…)
• Some Jewish students reported that they have been “ghosted” by longterm friends for expressing sympathy for Israel
• One student was told by another that “Zionists are not welcome at Harvard Medical School
• A professor began a class about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by telling students that “the discourse is saturated with the Israeli narrative” and that she had decided to, “with a heavy heart, remove Israeli sources from the syllabus.”
• In a Harvard-run privilege training, Jewish students were deemed to be privileged not only for being identified as white, but also because they were Jewish
• When Jewish students reported concerns about bias, they were asked “Who is more marginalized, Jews or Palestinians?”
• A student was asked: “Do you believe in decolonization in theory or in practice?”
(…)”
This is about the level of Russiagate. The basis is virtually or in fact nothing. And then an entire industry of opinioning is built upon it. This is not new. But the harsh material consequences are.
That “Women Wounded…” Playboy ‘spread’ is a sign of the times. It is the commodification of both sex and death; the perfect advertisers wet dream. Bernays has become the Evil Genius lurking behind our societal zeitgeist.
When will we see Playboy do “Women of Gaza?” (How many photographers will Playboy lose to Israeli snipers? They do qualify as “press,” thus, fair game to the IDF.)
You can never be too thin, so a Playboy spread featuring the women of Gaza is perfect, I’ll contact Heff and get her done.
I understand that Heff has been hanging out with Franco a lot lately. You might have better results through Heff’s legal reps, Kabala, Ouija, and Board. As McLuhan said: The medium is the message.
I used to hang out with Heff and Cosby once a year during the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl.
Cosby was the MC and you got the idea that the musical talent on stage was leery of him, as they well should have been.
You wonder how many of them have the hots for Bandera. That sort would not be so much wounded women as broken women.
It seems like a death cult. Fetishizing dismemberment. Ukraine is committing suicide in front of us, it is so tragic.
It is an attempt to boost natality. In order to avoid extinction of their master race, they need to work with what they got. It’s Make Prosthetics Sexy Again (because NATO/EU/USA does not ship Viagra, only condoms). Not so long ago, some Ukrainian porn actress made a similar photo-op with former soldiers. Maybe she is trying to create a new fetish niche, and corner the market from the start.
The sleazy 60s mag is merely expanding its objectification of women to other lightly thought out causes. Why oh why does anything connected to Hugh Hefner still exist?
Be careful what you wish for “C”. We could end up with Bob Guccione or, heavens above!, Larry Flynt.
I do agree about the commodification of the female form.
Wait! I thought everyone when asked(caught), said they read Playboy for the articles.
Well, now they can say they read it to support Ukraine.
Sounds like a subscription offer. 10 percent of every subscription goes to Ukraine in support for more prosthetics…
For more prosthetic b00bs.
Muni Finances
Some 15 years ago I was doing repair / replacement electronics work for Fortune 500 companies.
One day I entered the office of an investment banker to work as he left grumbling, “what a mess they had made.” He had left on his desk the muni’s pension fund tax schedule. A file abiout an inch thick.
re: antidote
I remember a movie quote (forgot the movie) where the villain mocks Cocker Spaniels, as “pretty” but dumb as hell.
“American tourist climbs over fence at Colosseum, impales himself on spike… the man … was left dangling and screaming in pain, while other visitors looked on in horror…” But then there arose from the stones surrounding, a ghostly cheer, as if old Roman spectacle had been renewed, and the barbarian might be left to die, his blood slaking the thirst of the dust in the hot sunshine.
“[…] his blood slaking the thirst of the dust in the hot sunshine.”
NONONONONOOOOO!!!
That blood falling on accursed soil will wake up the spirits of the gladiators who died fighting in the Colosseum! Hordes of invincible, undead warriors thirsty for blood and revenge will descend upon Rome and start a carnage!
Hey, who has a few millions to produce a new horror flick? Would commentator Alex Cox volunteer to be the director?
At least he’ll get affordable healthcare. And what a war story.
i doubt he will get any free care beyond what is immedately medically necessary if italy’s system is like the NHS.
also another example of why everyone should not neglect travel health insurance. sure another country’s health system may have a defacto unenforceable judgement….but I won’t be med-evac’ed out either (if my condition required it)
Italy has excellent popular medical care in the North (Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Emiglia-Romagna, Trento-Alto-Adige, Val d’Aosta) and probably as far as Tuscany and Umbria and Le Marche.
Africa begins at Rome but it is the capital so there is probably a shiny hospital for the political and tourist class.
Was traveling with a friend who has an Australian passport and has been a green card holder here for 15 years, and she was a bit freaked out coming back to the states, as a friend with the same circumstances was denied entry a few months ago based on what they gleaned from her phone, as she had been silently vocal in regards to Benedict Donald.
I’m glad to say, no problem for her coming back to the USA, but you shouldn’t have to fret over such matters.
If you don’t “fret over such matters,” then the State does not have sufficient control over you. QED.
It’s all about power and control.
re: Ukraine
THE SUNDAY TIMES
Ex-CIA chief: We gave Ukraine enough weapons to bleed, not to win
Ralph Goff, a former chief of operations at the agency, says Biden’s White House did not give Kyiv the weapons to drive out Russia for fear of nuclear war
https://archive.is/iLVuN
Of course this US-approach would make use of Art. 51 which suggests that support of the attacked country should be able to make the attack too costly and thus enforce the end or a ceasefire.
Which is again proof for how meaningless intern. law is rendered by the abuse of proxies. The assumption all countries are equally sovereign doesn´t apply. And that makes the entire system inadequate.
This is of course the future narrative probably taught in schools: RU won because we let them out of fear of their nukes. We now see it being established.
Not a word of 750k soldiers by April 2022 and those 8 years of training to NATO standard etc.
Nice to witness literally “history in the making”.
Not in my copy of the UN Charter. Art 51 just says:
“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
I have to look it up again.
Chomsky, among others, pointed out early into the war, that legislation would allow for measured force and proportionate support, including military, by the “intern. community” to push back the aggressor. Which is why he argued in favour of some simple arms deliveries. Of course not knowing then about the true nature of the war and its precedents.
may be just this “to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”?
Exactly what Russia used to protect the recognized Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk. Copying the US on the excuse to bomb Serbia and occupy Kossovo…which was kind of endoresed by ICC…
USA did not give Ukraine enough weapons to win, becase such ammount of weapons does not exist. I remember when Zaluzhny asked for a few-millions-or-so 155mm shells, and Uncle Tom Raytheon What’s-His-Name replied that there are not that much 155mm shells on the planet (it was also one of the rare cases of him tellin’ the truth).
“Vance says Russia ‘asking for too much’ to end war with Ukraine ”
This is yet another case of American negotiators negotiating with other American negotiators and when they agree, presenting their demands to the Russians. Russia’s ultimate aim is to make sure that the Ukraine will no longer be able to threaten Russia for good. The US/EU aim is to have a revitalized Ukrainian military that will be able to threaten Russia and ready to strike whenever Russia has a weak moment. The only concessions that the US has been giving the Russians are things that the Russians never asked for or needed – like recognition of Crimea or maybe, possibly lifting some sanctions at some indeterminate date in the future. I don’t think that Vance gets it. It is the loser in a war that has to make the concessions, not the winner. And in news that I saw earlier, Kellogg has made an agreement with the Ukrainians-
‘Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Kellogg stated that Kiev was “willing” to “freeze” the hostilities along the current line of contact and “to set up a demilitarized zone” that would require each side to retreat 15 kilometers from the current front lines.’
https://www.rt.com/russia/616989-kremlin-comment-us-peace-initiative/
God, do they even listen to themselves?
They only listen to themselves.
Classic NPR propaganda this late morning. Had it on and the radio as they’re running a special on VE day, end of WWII, etc. One focus is how the USA/UK and “the west” wanted to delay the announcement of Germany’s surrender so they could have a joint announcement along side the USSR. They had trouble waiting because the Germans had already surrendered to the USSR in Berlin, which the Soviets had completely captured. The “allies” were far to the west still. Also, NPR passively mentions how brutal the Soviets were in the march to Berlin, implying that the US et al were abiding by the rules of warfare. I feel someone nudging me. NY mayor Laguardia is announcing on local radio that people should not celebrate yet, but just go back to work. Sounds kinda like “shop ’till ya drop” from Bush, in the day. Same ol’ same ol’
Sorry, no Making Shit Up. This is the second instance in two days. This is the last time you will be forgiven. Once more and you will be banned.
The reason for the delay was that the USSR found a deficiency in the surrender instrument and it needed to be revised, which meant approved by the four main powers. The Germans had formally already surrendered to the Allies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Instrument_of_Surrender
This part IMHO is framed in a petty manner; the point about not being explicitly required to lay down arms and surrender alone would call for a redo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Instrument_of_Surrender
Do you disagree that the radio report implied the Soviets were ruthless and the west less so? Classic, Russia bad nudge. Don’t have a transcript yet so can’t link anything. And regarding “This is the second instance in two days.” I can only assume that you meant my comment a day or so ago about Pfizer not using placebos in their study. After a correction from a fellow commentator, and me doing more research, I started my reply to that person (Basil I think?) that I “type (meaning stand) corrected”. Perhaps you hadn’t seen that reply.
In any case, much appreciated.
Making Shit Up is Making Shit Up. Admitting you were wrong when someone made the effort to call you out does not give you a pass.
This is bullshit. The Germans were fighting like crazy against Russians, to delay them as much as possible and surrendering a lot to the Americans.
So of course the Russians were ruthless when the Germans were beserk to beging with.
‘Ali Abunimah
@AliAbunimah
What a beautiful romance …
A decade after the horrific Bataclan attack in Paris, attributed to ISIS, @EmmanuelMacron
welcomes “former” senior ISIS leader al-Jolani to France.’
Probably Macron is telling Jolani that some of the natives have been getting restless in their former African colonies which they want back so can they do France a solid and lend them some of their mild head-choppers?
…goodness
at this point all I can do is turn to the movie remakes of OSS 117…
OSS 117 Le Caire Nid d’espions (Cairo, Nest of Spies) – Bambino song
3:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE6jppsjo9E
“Israel Launches PR Initiative to Boost Global ‘Legitimization’ of West Bank Settlements”
Well it’s not exactly the first time they’ve done this, although the ‘influencer’ spin is terribly unsubtle. Maybe it works but for my money (it’s not my money) surely they’d be better served astroturfing comments sections on widely circulated news aggregators…has anyone seen shekel denominated deposits in their accounts recently?
Matter of fact on the foreign-targeted Israel propaganda note: “Ukrainian women wounded in war take part in Playboy photoshoot – photos” – I’m quite certain “girls posing coquettishly in IDF uniforms” is an entire subgenre of Israeli influence campaign. Article on the matter here (I think rolling stone is ok to link to) although my experience with this sort of thing mostly consists of receiving in without my consent while engaged in other discussions. I have to wonder how exactly these ideas circulate through the ever-seedy universe of American allies. Did Netanyahu phone Zelenskyy up and tell him the sitting US president is partial to well-appointed Eastern Europeans beauties (and neglect to inform him of Trump’s undignified history with the disabled?)
Since there’s no bonus antidote, here’s one:
https://t.me/putingers_cat/13787 (video, 0:09)
wow
The tweet about “NSIDC announce a downgrading of service level for their sea ice index dataset” is interesting. It reminds me of when you haven’t seen a child in many years, and then you do. “Oh my, how you’ve grown”. Well, in this case it’ll be, “Oh my, it’s been what, 5 years or so? You have shrunk so much”. We’re beyond the frog in hot water phase, we’re all in hot water.
All these cuts to agencies that monitor weather, climate change, even storm damage, remind me of “Don’t Look Up.”
The silver lining is that there are no starships to take the elite on another habitatble planet…
Love the hit piece on Casey and Calley. This sentence was a gut buster: “Means, 39 — a dark-haired, fast-talking startup founder — has become a bit of a celebrity among conservatives. And his sister, redheaded, polished, vegetable-prescribing Casey, 37, has lent her M.D. to legitimize claims about a broken health care system.”
Oh that conspiracy theorist “vegetable-prescribing”. But maybe she’ll change her hair color or attend a MET Gala, she’d be cool then.
Sounds like my vegetable pushing grandmother. Wait until she starts suggesting we all chew each bite 20 times. (Grandmother again)
And a redhead to boot? Oh, the horror! /s
> Any “Halfway Decent Person” Can Join And Own Ireland’s Oldest Gym
>> I ask Stephen why, being so proud of this place (he’s used the words “family” and “special” more times than I can count), he’s not more protective of who gets to join the family.
>> “We want to be here another hundred years,” he says. ”
A positive case of community building, ninety years old. Summat like the Green Bay Packers, over one hundred years of community ownership. Paying attention to what works.
re: health and private equity.
THE RACKET
Private Equity and Hospitals: Have They Finally Gone Too Far?
Private equity has made significant investments in for-profit hospitals over the last 15 years. Perhaps it’s time to stop them.
by Eric Salzman
https://www.racket.news/p/private-equity-and-hospitals-have
I see both as water and oil and should never mix but that´s just an old-fashioned European view.
A former doctor turned documentary filmmaker did a few films about this in Germany.
The concept of his movies was showing hospitals as factories.
This was more than 20 years ago!
I found the movies a bit mechanical and sanitized. But the guy knew what was coming. Which is why he had quit his job. I don´t know what he is doing today though. Doctor again???
With reference to using AI to cheat in college – mind is one to a person. Neuroscientists can verify (albeit to some degree) the structural changes in the brain relative to thought, to say nothing of the assembly of cognitive and affective strategies brought on line by higher order thinking. While using AI may well bring better grades with less “work”, doing so is at high personal cost which will cloud a lifetime of endeavor, since college is generally one of the few opportunities in life to spend a few years solely in pursuit of learning. The example of Roy Lee exemplifies that cognitive dysfunction of AI – college as simply an intellectual car wash so as to be able to win the most toys, again without real world, deep thinking. The limitations and dissatisfactions of such a lifestyle are probably only recognized when he is in his forties and the pile of toys is simply a pile of salt, if he recognizes it at all in the haze of a dozen pharmaceuticals taken to fill the emotional void, stave off the daily depression. Again, mind is one to a person and we each have opportunity to make of it what we will, ideally with a conscious, well considered architecture of choice.
re: Sentinel missile crisis
via Martyanov
Air Force now expects Sentinel ICBMs will ‘predominantly’ need new silos
“Part of the requirements, initially — ten years ago when this program was started — was to reuse the holes, the missile holes at the launch facilities,” said Air Force Gen. Thomas Bussiere. “Shockingly enough, if we look at it, that may not be the answer.”
https://breakingdefense.com/2025/05/air-force-now-expects-sentinel-icbms-will-predominantly-need-new-silos/
“(…)
To house the new Sentinel ICBM, officials previously planned to refurbish 450 existing silos currently used by the Sentinel’s predecessor, the aging Minuteman III (MMIII). But as the Pentagon works through a cost breach analysis for Sentinel after its price tag ballooned last year, officials now expect existing silos will largely not be reusable after all.
(…)”
which will put the new pricetag well over $1T without the missile actually existing yet.
Martyanov therefore argues that eventually US will loose one element of its nuclear triad.
TC 29:00
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2025/05/catastrophe-now.html
Congratulations to Bob from Chicago. Um…I imagine the theological arguments about pizza are about to get heated.
NotTimothyGeithner: He hasn’t spent much of his career in Chicago.
But he is from the Vatican bureaucracy, in a position that was highly visible internally but not so visible to the general public in the pews.
https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2025/05/08/chi-e-il-nuovo-papa-robert-francis-prevost-si-chiamera-leone-xiv/7980726/
His Wikipedia profile:
He served in Peru from 1985 to 1986 and from 1988 to 1998 as a parish pastor, diocesan official, seminary teacher and administrator. He was made a cardinal in 2023. He served as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America since 2023. He served as Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru from 2015 to 2023, and was general of the Order of Saint Augustine from 2001 to 2013. In 2023, Pope Francis appointed Prevost as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, a prominent role that elevated his profile as a potential papal candidate.[1][2][3]
On 8 May 2025, he was elected Pope, taking the papal name Leo XIV. Born in the United States, he is also a Peruvian citizen.[4]
English:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_XIV
So:
He isn’t likely to be a favorite with the US hierarchy (a bunch of clowns, anyway). In a sense, he is another Latin American = also Peruvian.
He also comes from the Augustinians, an ancient mendicant order. There hasn’t been an Augustinian or Franciscan pope in quite a while.
Taking name of Leo XIV. Leo XIII, of beginning of 1900s, first enunciated the social gospel of the modern Catholic church (although the various Pius popes thereafter made a mess of that… particularly Pius X and Pius XII).
He is some kind of compromise candidate, and we’ll see what all of the obvious politicking has produced.
As a leftist Italian said about working on issues of peace and the social state, referring to the Catholic lay organizations of Italians: They’re to the left of us.
As someone who is a bad Catholic and a bad Buddhist, living in a city with a wondrous revolutionary past, I am monitoring Catholicism as an emanation of Italian culture and as a continuation of ancient Rome in an Italian form…
As to Chicago pizza, I’ll go with the capsule review that I saw an Italian give it: An exploding volcano of cheese.
With or without the pineapple, it isn’t truly pizza.
Chosing an American is an interesting choice at a time when there are serious disputes between Rome and Jerusalem over Gaza. Sending the Popemobile to Gaza retrofitted as a children’s health clinic will probably last 10 minutes before it’s blown to smithereens.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-05/the-popemobile-of-peace-pope-francis-final-gift-to-gaza.html
Racket News on PE and hospitals. no paywall.
Private Equity and Hospitals: Have They Finally Gone Too Far?
Private equity has made significant investments in for-profit hospitals over the last 15 years. Perhaps it’s time to stop them.
https://www.racket.news/p/private-equity-and-hospitals-have
re: Israel vs. its own
Israeli Conscientious Objectors Endure Jail and Social Ostracism For Principled Stand
By Jeremy Kuzmarov
April 25
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2025/04/25/israeli-conscientious-objectors-endure-jail-and-social-ostracism-for-principled-stand/
We may have found ourselves an unlikely hero in the Dread Pirate Jerome Powell. The Fed Chair steadfastly refused to cave to the Orange Julius, holding rates steady yesterday, making no hints of “rate cuts” that meth-addled pivot mongers are craving, and warning about “substantial uncertainty” in the economy from the effects of tariff policy.
Orange Julius complained that “talking to him is like talking to a brick wall.” Sorry, the only one thick as a brick is our lying madman of a President.
The bespeckled Powell simply does his job, in a monotonous drone about “the balance of risks” and other FedSpeak.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-slams-fed-chair-powell-again-for-keeping-rates-steady/ar-AA1EoK1E
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trumps-plan-to-increase-tax-on-rich-could-hit-most-u-s-businesses-b829753d?mod=home_lead/
They are talking about loopholes, but what loopholes am I missing?
College sports commission to be led all time great Saban and some mythical billionaire creature I am just or initially unfamiliar with. Yes put the genie in the bottle that will fix these intrinsic problems….
Coaches and Athletic director roles ( highest level, Division 1 ) get paid rather well….and if they lose too much the coaches contracted pay is virtually non negotiable. But paying the players? Gasp, this would have never happened when Knute Rockne or John Wooden were accumulating accolades! Down near my location there is Clemson football coach, Dabo Swinney, who quite notably proclaimed he would do “something else” if players were being paid. Guess he likes that average annual salary after all
Meh college football in the biggest conferences is essentially a semi pro pipeline. Just check the defensive stalwarts playing now or in recent years drafted out of just UGA. Oh and I should find a hilarious column from the Babylon Bee, of course, about a certain all time, NFL head coach and his “budding romance “…