Solving the Trolley Problem: Towards Moral Abundance 3 Quarks Daily
Does TED Still Make Sense? Quillette
The amazing stunts by freerunner Dominic Di Tommaso
[đ domtomato]pic.twitter.com/cd0T9VCvaM
â Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) April 17, 2025
Brand-new colour created by tricking human eyes with laser Nature
COVID-19/Pandemics
UN rights chief hails draft pandemic accord as milestone for equitable global health Andolu Agency
Measles outbreaks now declared in 8 states, including Michigan’s first in 5 years Fox News
Climate/Environment
Small ocean swirls may have an outsized effect on climate, NASA satellite shows The Register
Climate change is redrawing the global wine map. Hereâs what it means for your future vintages Euro News
Climate change will make rice toxic, say researchers Ars Technica
China?
China unveils worldâs fastest hard drive SCMP
China launches 6 classified experimental satellites with Long March 6A Space News
China pits humanoid robots against humans in half-marathon Reuters
Stability of a high speed train, China pic.twitter.com/fRnJrkqEVd
â Ăzer DĂślekoÄlu (@wrzl) April 18, 2025
South of the Border
El Salvadorâs president, Trumpâs new deportation partner, is a pro-Israel Palestinian The Times of Israel
Mexicoâs Claudia Sheinbaum woos Donald Trump with security shake-up FT
Brazil’s Indigenous leader Raoni says he is against drilling for oil in Amazon region Reuters
European Disunion
Labour costs across Europe: Where are they highest and lowest? Euro News
‘Careful dance between ideology and realpolitik: Meloni walking a tightrope between Europe and US’ France 24
Old Blighty
Fears that UK military bases may be leaking toxic âforever chemicalsâ into drinking water The Guardian
What the UK ruling on the definition of âwomanâ means for same-sex spaces, culture wars and more CNN
Drug Enforcement Leads To Increases In Violence, Report Published By UK Government Concludes Marijuana Moment
Israel v. The Resistance
âThey say Gaza still has food for one more month. But that sentence is a lie dressed in fact. [âŚ] We have already passed the point of scarcity.â https://t.co/3CcuotnnYH
â Nicola Perugini (@PeruginiNic) April 19, 2025
‘It’s really hard to have any hope’: Gaza doctor describes daily struggle BBC
Gaza had educational justice. Now the genocide has wiped that out, too Al Jazeera
Iran, US task experts with framework for a nuclear deal after ‘progress’ in talks Reuters
US Inching Towards a Deal With Iran Larry Johnson
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia’s Putin announces a one-day Easter ceasefire in Ukraine France 24
Rushing Ukraine into the EU? Thatâs Brusselsâ plan, not ours.
They want to admit a country with:
â no clear borders
â no functioning economy
â no sovereigntyAnd they expect EU taxpayers to fund a million-strong army for decades.
This is not peace. Itâs a blank cheque for⌠pic.twitter.com/h37g6DOwuwâ OrbĂĄn Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) April 19, 2025
Ceasefire countdown: Will London talks finally stop the Russia-Ukraine war? Mint
Russia handed over another 909 bodies of dead servicemen to Ukraine,
It received 41 Russian bodies in return.
These figures speak for themselves. The catastrophic losses of the Ukrainian military are now inescapable, even for the most deluded Ukrofantasists. pic.twitter.com/owP6g4r2zK
â Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) April 18, 2025
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Declassified Biden-Era Domestic Terror Strategy Reveals Broad Surveillance, Tech Partnerships, and Global Speech Regulation Agenda Reclaim the Net
Oracle hopes talk of cloud data theft dies off. CISA just resurrected it for Easter The Register
UI student files privacy lawsuit, boycotts class until school improves online security Iows City Press Citizen
Imperial Collapse Watch
The dollar’s sell-off raises concerns that investors are losing trust in the U.S. CBS New
America’s Looming Food Bank Crisis Newsweek
Trump 2.0
Medical Journals Get Letters From DOJ Medpage Today
Larry Summers on Harvardâs Showdown With Trump Yascha Mounk substack
Inside Trump’s tariff brain Axios
Nobel Winner Joseph Stiglitz on Columbiaâs Capitulation to Trump 3 Quarks Daily
DOGE
Elon Musk’s 25-year-old DOGE minion screamed at federal employees during 36-hour firing spree Daily Mail
House Democrats: DOGE is building a âmaster databaseâ of Americansâ sensitive information The Verge
Newsom to sue DOGE over AmeriCorps cuts: âMiddle finger to volunteersâ The Hill
Democrat Death Watch
Democrats want Joe Biden to stay away The Hill
The Remarkable Rags-to-Riches Story Of Stacey Abrams Zero Hedge
Immigration
US Supreme Court halts deportation of detained Venezuelans BBC
We Are US Citizens. My Children Are Still Terrified of Being Deported. Politico
Farmers, seasonal businesses worry as immigration crackdown ramps up The Maine Monitor
Our No Longer Free Press
Saving the free press â before itâs too late Editor & Publisher
Opinion: Political journalism ⌠without the journalist The Review
Mr. Market Is Moody
Why everyone is suddenly so interested in US bond markets BBC
Ditching Powell = $1 Trillion Meltdown? FX Leaders
The stock market may not have fully priced in a recession: Chart of the Week Yahoo Finance
AI
AI Art tools are getting insane.pic.twitter.com/GWErpuPHdj
â Grummz (@Grummz) April 19, 2025
Microsoft Broadens Always-Watching AI-Powered Recall Tool That Logs and Indexes User Activity Reclaim the Net
Samâs Club phasing out checkouts, betting big on AI shopping Fox News
âDonât ask what AI can do for us, ask what it is doing to usâ: are ChatGPT and co harming human intelligence? The Guardian
The Bezzle
Fake job seekers are flooding the market, thanks to AI CBS News
An Art Fraud Case That Is Bonkers Even by Florida Standards Vanity Fair
Mastermind of ‘one-stop shop’ fraud website with one million victims jailed BBC News
Guillotine Watch
Sky Cruise â a wild concept of a nuclear-powered flying hotel âď¸âď¸
Designed to carry 5,000+ guests in the sky with 20 electric engines and almost nonstop flight, this airborne city blends aviation with luxury.
[đď¸: Hashem Al-Ghaili] #SkyCruise #FutureOfTravel #Aviation pic.twitter.com/Ca6fjq6zhX
â Prakash (@Prakash20202021) April 19, 2025
Wow, this watch is thinner than a credit card and costs as much as a Ferrari! đą The Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra, with its mind-blowing 1.7mm thickness, will set you back a cool $400,000. Talk about luxury on your wrist! đźđ pic.twitter.com/ZHGcDmzG5S
â MangoWorxMedia (@MangoWorxMedia) April 19, 2025
Antidote du jour (via)
Thank you, Haig.
Happy Easter, everyone.
Happy Easter, Colonel.
Happy Easter to all.
The time of renewal is upon us.
Happy Easter out there in down under from out here in the southeastern US. Off topic but was watching perhaps the most apocalyptic* of such apocalypse film franchise series, the Mad Max “Fury Road” movie from 2015 I think. A stark reminder of what could still present itself, that of a citizenry overruled from a high citadel of power wielded by a truly mad person.
Install what one wilt on the boundless examples, from the modern world for a truly mad individual. Back to Easter…spring brings some promise of warm sunny days, bunnies hopping and baskets of little puppies!
Max Mad could turn out to be a rabid test, but lets not go there, yet.
Happy 420, and don’t Bogart that joint my friend.
Happy Easter and/or festival of the egg-laying chocolate rabbit to those that celebrate.
Reading through the genocide links (and others), I pray for some for rebirth. Though I’m no Christian, the christ = love bit has always resonated. My heart shines powerfully yet the mind thinks “whither love?”
Love to all the other shining hearts here,
BP
i’m no christian, either, but i second all that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMaWsfLYQko
and yesterday would have been Tam and i’s 26th wedding anniversary.
so since it rained all day yesterday, i’m thinkin about that, today.
Amflrtas, good to see your post and my thoughts are with you
Happy Easter, to all.
Peace.
Dona novi pacem.
“White House reveals COVID lab leak theory as âtrue originsâ of pandemic in flashy new website that blasts Biden, Fauci and Cuomo”
Just a coincidence that this website has appeared in the middle of Trump’s trade war with China. I can see the next step already. Trump will next demand compensation from China for all the deaths and economic damage done to America – or else. Thing is, there may be a problem calculating the “damage.” They may want to include the cost of all those American suffering from Long Covid but that would mean actually acknowledging that they actually exist which means that they would have to help those people. Does the Trump regime really want to go there? Either way US courts would play ball with him. It was a US court that found Iran guilty of 9/11 and demanded billions in compensation for the survivors. I’m sure that a US court would find China guilty of Covid as well.
Of course the US courts will find China guilty, they serve the powerful and for all the minor deportation sideshow there will be a lot of money to be made in pursuing compensation for all the victims of the Chinese virus. The old is new againâŚ
The Chinese have a “poison pill” strategy available. To wit, the ‘research’ was financed and run by Americans. Counter-sue for the Chinese damages.
This will get ugly very quickly.
For Chinese nationals in the USA increasingly worried about the emperors new rhetoric, there is always the Samsonite Option.
And Trump’s lab leak webpage has already conceded that Peter Daszak and Ecohealth Health Sciences was running the research…while Trump was president. This can also get very funny very quickly, in a very sick way…
Labs in Ukraine were in the news a while ago. Are those about to yield results, too?
Just a link for newbies by Yves from a few years ago where gain-of-function research was discounted (and there’s been associated discussion that the USA funded it to avoid laws on doing it on their own soil).
However, as you say, we’re in la-la land these days so logic doesn’t apply.
I know this is pointless but here the latest from Holmes:
The Emergence and Evolution of SARS-CoV-2
Unattractive for people seeking for narratives matching their priors but there it is. Plenty of data in there.
Anyway the White House web page is very revealing. In December 2019 i wouldn’t anticipate such a sharp moral and intellectual decline.
“The latest” is more than a year old, nothing new to offer in light of all the evidence that has come out since then to support a lab leak?
So where are we now with “lab leak” and scientific proof?
Theories, assumptions and so on are easy to make.
The lab leak story is exactly what you offer: no evidence, nothing.
Ok, but,
Wasn’t there a story, recently on NC, pointing out COVID 19 antibodies presence in people in Italy prior to the “official” start of the pandemic ?
Or was it in the waste water ?
I would be damned if I can find it…. Perhaps some of you have better memory than me.
Happy Easter !
The paper Ignacio linked argues that those results could be the result of contamination in the labs, because otherwise it would have resulted in outbreaks.
Thanks for the link.
The clustering of early cases around the market, the lack of early cases connected to the Wuhan institute and Wuhan institute neither researching the right strain or the right proteins for the furin cleavage site sounds like convincing arguments for a zoonotic origin.
Good paper.
Not that facts matter much in the political discourse of course.
thanks for the paper.
It appears to be from 1 year ago.
Since I have not dug into the current alleged new intelligence on lab leak – as it is currently under debate in Germany – is there anything to be added now what one year ago was not known but would substantially change anything?
I am willing to change my mind on Covid origin if evidence suggests. But in fact we do not know anything so what is there to change.
What bothers me most, in Germany to those very circles who are essential to countering the Russophobia out of shere satisfaction “lab leak” is now basically proven.
This is disconcerting just like with the peace movement building its arguments critical of NATO on NATO evidence towards underestimating Russian armed forces.
This is all very strange and not helpful. Politics is NOT science.
Terry, The first week of February 2020, a friend of mine, a physical chemist, handed me a paper, written anonymously (yes, I know but the content indicated someone active in the research community) outlining the timeline and itinerary of the Covid virus from a lab at a NIAID funded North Carolina university where gain of function research was performed on corona viruses.
An aside: I always figured such research was being performed to develop a universal corona virus vaccine.
Recall that during the hiatus on gain of function research during Obamaâs tenure, Fauci claimed an exemption.
At any rate, according to the author of the paper, the research was moved with the Wuhan level 4 lab being the end point. This lab had also received a great deal of funding from NIAID.
A couple years later, about the time of the article you cited, MIT reported an almost exact conclusion as the paper Iâd read nearly two years previously while also naming the NIAID subcontractor who facilitated the transfer to Wuhan.
A, for me, hilarious side note, is that a couple weeks following the MIT report, Oxford came out with their conclusion; it being a wet market origin. Sorry, Iâll go with the home team.
Thanks but I’m PhD in med stats and health services research….. I’ve heavily relied on links from NC now I no longer have institutional access to articles.
Apart from my purely anecdotal stuff about Long Covid I’m relying on NC so I can’t offer the kind of insights I did back in 2010…..
As a matter of fact there are other more realistic reasons to blame Covid on Chinese leaderships. No other than they promoted the run for wild meat in China, like beheaded chickens, hence SARS-CoV1 and SARS-CoV2. Now it is Trump’s time to run like a beheaded chicken to destroy whatever he touches.
Chinese typically do not behead chickens. Usually slit the Chickens’ throat, drain all the blood, then process the rest. Go to a Chinese grocery store and see that they sell chickens with the head attached. Beheading chicken is the practice employed in a western farm.
May be the correct expression is “headless”. Running like headless chickens: “to be very busy doing a lot of things, but in a way that is not very effective”. That is the meaning for you.
But the virus was done on NIH dime, no?!
As with the Spanish Flu was in fact the Kansas Flu, and was spread around because the US military couldn’t send men fast enough over the Atlantic, healthy or sick, this Covid Chinese flu was originated by the Americans… One needs to look at the first mover, no?
Yes, Happy Easter everyone.
That freerunner stuff is pretty amazing but I donât think my ankles could stand it.
There’s a certain admiration for doing really out there stuff, nobody’s gonna watch videos of Di Tommaso running down the stairs from the roof and cross the street and sprint up the stairs to the roof of the next building over. we’d ask for our 4 minutes back.
That said, doing daring stuff is dangerous. I never leave the snow for all intents and purposes when skiing, and one time I was riding a chair in Mammoth and small talk ensued as I asked the fellow next to me where he was from, and he said ‘right here in Mammoth’, and asked what he did, and he related that he was a surgeon, and I inquired what his specialty was?
He smiled and said ‘terrain parks’ which is where predominantly young snowboarders reside around monkey bars on the down low and jumps and whatnot. The ratio of boarder to skier in a terrain park on the slopes must be around 30-1, not our gig.
Yeah re danger. Most speed running videos I encounter online are of Darwin Award candidates where the runner decided alcohol was much more important than skill or judgment…..
I hang out with H3* types, who claim to be a drinking club with a running problem. not that there is anything wrong with that.
* Hash House Harriers
On on
Tight body control and balls of steel. Damn. I remember being young and immortal.
At least that guy knows what he’s doing and I’m sure puts the thought into it beforehand.
Too many say:” Hold my beer! Or, Hey yall, watch this!”
There will come a day in the lives of ‘freerunners’ when their flexible, powerful, proprioceptive body fails to deliver. The result will be a lifetime limp, or worse.
Oh, even if they do not have any accident, all those ceaseless violent touchdowns on concrete will ruin their ankles, knees, pelvis, and lower back in due time. There is a good reason why it is recommended to jog on natural ground (earth) and not on asphalt.
p.s.
My leaps* have all been into water-a softer landing than asphalt, with 30 feet up being my max. I eyed the 50 foot drop into the Research Pools on the Kaweah River @ Ash(alpulco) Mountain near the visitors center in Sequoia NP with oodles of trepidation, what’s another 20 feet beyond what i’ve ever leaped in the scheme of things looming large in my mind-a no go.
* we trained on large piles of sand next to 2 story homes being built all over my childhood haunts once upon a time
Lol, we trained in the snow that piled up below the eaves of the house.
I immediately laughed because this came to mind!
Snow and/or leaf piles. I even attempted to use an oversized umbrella once :)
Results: not good.
Hiking through the Rockies once with friends we came across what looked like a big, fresh pond of new snow, into which one friend impulsively jumped, with an immediate look on his face of “This might have been a mistake”.
He sank right up to his neck. Had it been a 30 or 40 foot deep drop, we’d have had no way of getting him out before he’d have suffocated in snow.
All’s well that ends well….
Something tells me that a good freerunner will plan their jumps with the care that a stunt person will use in doing a stunt. And that there will be a lot of off-camera training as well. But things will still go wrong-
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FlJlYBYM18c
And here is a really scary one to get the heart thumping-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZKmkkpEsnk (1:01 mins)
Does anyone remember this French flick (not flic!)?
“Ghettogangz – District B13” (2004) not bad back then. It started Pierre Morel´s directing career.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJPy7e5hvSg
I remember the freerunner hype in France hitting the intern. circuit around the time when “online” had became a viable model. So everybody knew about it instantly. And it looked more of a real thing audience members could reproduce themselves unlike “Matrix” stunts.
The godfather of freerunning and the related parkour is Jackie Chan, who was often his own stunt person. Videos of his mishaps are often included as B-roll at the end of his films. He’s had his fair share of injuries, including a literal hole in his head.
But when you ask him about his work all he talks about is “emotions” and “characters” and the “script”. đ
A propos “missing” the target:
THE OTHER GUYS in 2010 with the infamous “jumping from high-rise”-scene
23 seconds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SllLjsgWMtk
Ugghhhh please not Grummz. He is a well-known misogynist in the gaming community, as well as a big-time con artist.
Ad hominem and a violation of our written site Policies. You need to debunk the vid if you can, not attack the source.
‘Prakash
@Prakash20202021
Sky Cruise â a wild concept of a nuclear-powered flying hotel âď¸âď¸
Designed to carry 5,000+ guests in the sky with 20 electric engines and almost nonstop flight, this airborne city blends aviation with luxury.’
Errr, I only have two questions to ask about this atomic plane. One, will it be built by Boeing? Two, will it be flying anywhere near the Red Sea? You know of course that the wealthy that will be potentially flying on it will never front up with the cash to build this monstrosity so they will lumber the development costs on taxpayers across different countries. Sorta like they did with Concorde where British and French taxpayers paid for the development of this plane but for a long time could never actually afford to fly on it. But maybe the developers here saw the 2013 movie “Elysium” and want to create something similar where there will be poverty on the ground but above the wealthy will cruise in luxury with the best of care-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)
Very reminiscent of the Edgar Allen Poe story, “Melonta Tuata” (1849.) The story is about people who live aboard balloon cities in the sky. In it, some aircologies do “crash and burn,” but that’s the price of progress, right?
Wasn’t it Barnum who said; “No one ever went bankrupt underestimating the intelligence of the public.”
Stay safe. Keep your parachute handy.
HL Mencken:
“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”
I do think Mencken is wrong: some people probably did lose money, but that’s mostly because their customers went to other hucksters who “underestimated” intelligence of the masses in a different manner.
Before Poe was Johnathan Livingston and his third book of Gulliver’s Travels. Laputa, a floating island powered by massive magnets, housed elites that could land their island on any dissenting village on the ground and immediately crush it to oblivion. The same book also described a green revolution driven by reason that led to widespread crop failures.
paging Jonathan Swift
oops, thank you.
Why have so many smaller jet engines and not 4 extra big ones? Each of those smaller jet engines is contributing to drag, each needs a nacelle, each has more wiring and mechanical parts, more points of failure, and more of anything adds to mechanical complexity, which increases odds of anything going wrong. Many engines will have more fuel/energy draw than fewer. I’m not an engineer but I suspect this concept hasn’t gone anywhere near an engineer? Probably because they would ask questions like that, I suppose.
That shape reminds me of a certain 1970’s Fisher-Price toy plane.
I am an engineer. This is not a concept of a real vehicle, but more of a 3D rendering of a toy (as you have noticed). Out-of-proportion things look cute, and toys for small kids are intentionally make like that.
As far as many engines are concerned, they are present in ekranoplans but all of them are needed only at takeoff.
Triple redundancy required for aircraft failure modes that could cause human deaths.
The aircraft with 20 engines should fly safely with7. Electric generators should provide energy for 20 engines while 2 of three are inoperative.
Safety margins absolutely drive numerous faults most of these non safety problems.
The plane will be so big that repairs and supply will be in flight.
Theory of nuclear power aircraft has been explored. Years ago, one defense contractor I heard asked âhow big do you want it â.
Both the US and the USSR developed nuclear-powered aircraft during the First Cold War but gave up on it in the end. I read that it took years to finally kill the US one. A major problem was how to shield the crew so that they did not end up glowing in the dark. The other problem had to do with any time one of these planes crashed if they were ever put into production and how to clear up a crash site contaminated with a destroyed nuclear reactor-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_aircraft
You can visit the “Heaters”, HTRE-1 and HTRE-3, at EBR-1 just west of Idaho Falls.
Are you implying that the problem was not solved on nuclear powered submarines?
On nuclear-powered ships the problems are more easily solved as they have the tonnage to support shielding for their crews. For aircraft the weight of shielding is the limiting factor because the more shielding carried, the less weight in payload that can be carried. But you can’t chintz on the former or else you will be killing them off with radiation poisoning. Just as well as who wants to deal with an airplane crash that involves a nuclear reactor?
The reactors for the US nuclear bomber design were molten salt reactors, not regular boiling water reactors as in subs or power stations.
That’s where the thorium molten salt reactor concept was developed, in fact. Regular sub-type reactors were too heavy. The concept was that the plane would have taken off with conventional jets and then cruise for months without landing on nuclear power.
That would imply that they might have to live off recycled water due to the weight factor again. Aerial resupplying of food, supplies & spare parts would be fun and games as you would be talking about tons of material to transfer. In some ways it would be like how they have to resupply the International Space Station but here it would be worse as you have two aircraft in actual motion.
They would just convert aerial refueling tankers from kerosene to Mountain Dew.
Maybe someone actually made a proposal using off the shelf engines.
This monstrosity has the potential to become a ride in Disneyland at best. Moving along the rails slowly, so it does not break apart. It looks like a product of AI trained on child’s drawings.
The first ones to offer a ride on an atomic powered aircraft will be Russians. The wealthy will have a chance to take a sit on the Burevestnik, and hold on tight.
This video and concept is a couple of years old and was thoroughly debunked by YouTuber Thunderf00t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73DXyqW9vvE
You have a better chance of buying a Thorium powered car than ever getting into one of these things.
Aside from the absurd shape, non-aerodynamic ‘features’ (an **external** elevator?!?!), the video boasts of it’s airborne fusion power plant. It’s a joke. Lets see how gullible people are.
Way too much. I’ve just checked the original Youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrodDBJdGuo
This thing is presented as futurism, aka science fiction. It seems that the author(s) did not want to fool anyone, but that (we the) people are so gullible that they fooled themselves.
This is an echo of Fhloston Paradise from the movie The Fifth Element. Just search Fhloston Paradise and look at the images. It was a kind of a space ship hotel that flew around some planet. They would change altitude and such to get better views at different times. Really awesome. Opera hall, giant windows, luxury suites, Polynesian singers and dancers. I would love to visit this place. You can even get t-shirts and other merch labeled Fhloston Paradise.
Don’t forget to take your Multipass.
“House Democrats: DOGE is building a âmaster databaseâ of Americansâ sensitive informationWired reports the database could combine IRS, SSA, and voting records for surveillance targeting undocumented migrants.”
Good thinking adding at the end “targeting undocumented migrants” because that practically guarantees 50-ish percent support from the MAGA and Republicans for accessing “Americans sensitive data” by DOGE plus puts a culture war spin on it, and Dems will win landslides raking in the transgender Micro Aggression 13 different sexual orientations crowd.
After years of bipartisan support for FISA and its broad uses by “contractors” and others to gather data, of insisting on RealID, of legallized commercial sale of mobile phone location data collected from cell towers, of Bluetooth LE’s signaling location even when the devices are “powered off”, a new Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt campaign around personal privacy? Really? Isn’t there something more important to worry about? To campaign on?
This is a facist technocracy being installed in front of people’s eyes. Who will control these systems – Palantir et al. Trump is extremely old.
IBM built a repository of peoples locations and religion in the 1930s, under the guise of a census. Head of IBM USA got a German medal from Hitler for the work.
The data made the rendition of jewish people into ghettos and death camps so much more efficient, needed fewer resources etc.
First they came for the immigrants.
History rhymes.
I ainât that smart nor educated, but I am constantly amazed at how people insist on stupid stuff that they say we needed yesterday for âour safety,â âfight terrorism,â and âto protect the children.â
When one thinks of how each cool new violation of our privacy and civil rights is always used by the next administration to keep on violating, but people never seem to notice, itâs almost humorous.
The Sky Cruise: there seems to be a huge gap between what these advertisers/marketers can imagine and what the real economy can provide. Where will that thing be built? It must be a scam trying to hoover up some loose change among the venture capitalist crowd.
Astonishing level of disconnect with real life. An AI hoax?
It’s not about economy, but science ‘n technology. This thing is as real as Noah’s Ark. It is capable of flying as much as Noah’s Ark replica is of sailing.
Nuclear powered jet engines? There is a big gap between the design and real world physics!
I would sort it as a wild idea, either for the fun of it, or to attract stupid investment capital.
Help me. The US looked into this LONG ago, in the 1970s, and rejected the idea. The amount of lead it would take to protect the pilots would make a plane too heavy to fly.
Russia has been developing nuclear powered missiles…no idea where that stands.
It was the 1950s. The nuclear bomber was Curtis LeMay’s dream for SAC. It got killed along with SAC’s manned bombers by the development of ICBMs in 1957-59, just as much as by the problem with the shielding weight.
Scuttlebutt has it that the Soviets did fly their version up to circa 1962 by skimping on the shielding and the whole squadron of airmen assigned –20 or 30 — all had died of cancer within a couple of years after that.
The Convair NB-36H carried a nuclear reactor in the bomb bay, but the reactor did not provide any power to fly the aircraft. Call it mostly a flying test bed to size the logistics of dealing with nuke power:
Convair NB-36H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_NB-36H
The other nuclear powered effort was the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile (SLAM):
Supersonic Low Altitude Missile (SLAM) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile
A couple of nuke powered ramjet engines for the SLAM were built and successfully test run at the Nevada Test Site:
Project Pluto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto
Both efforts were cancelled to pursue ICBMs (SLAM went on longer since it was supposed to be able to fly for years in place of having B-52s airborne 24/7.)
As an aside, here’s the nuclear powered rocket engines which were also built and successfully test ran at the Nevada Test Site:
Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA
If NASA and America had decided to go completely hog wild in the space program (Moon base, go to Mars), the rocket engines would have most likely been used, but it would have been an incredibly expensive effort.
Not nuclear. Fusion It’s a joke.
Not a scam, nor an AI hoax, but regular science fiction (made for entertainment, and getting views on Youtube):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrodDBJdGuo
It looks like Miazaki Airways has a new “product” on the drawing board.
I hope it has a Kiki Suite.
It could also be a subtle send up of the recently discontinued Disney Star Wars Hotel “Experience.” (Disney supposedly lost a cool billion dollars on that scheme. I would be very happy to live off of the interest from that.)
Less of a Miyazaki, more of a Kojima. It’s concept art for a video game.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/5806449/Killer-is-Dead%28in-development%29
Some concept art done during the development of Killer is Dead (PS3/Xbox360). The game started out with having a more conventional look to it, and then changed to a style resembling Hellboy. I did concept for pretty much everything, weapons, props, but mostly environments.
“Measles outbreaks now declared in 8 states, including Michigan’s first in 5 years”
Still waiting for Fox News to come out and say ‘It’s just the measles, bro.’
“Freedom Freckles”
Heh! Heh! Heh!
In true libertarian fashion, now known as “Me Me Measles.”
Never forget that the “Rugged Individualists” are drawn exclusively from the population of survivors. The rest of us? Rule #2: Go die.
Thanks! I can’t stop laughing.
” Liberty Lesions”
That tag has already been reserved for the up and coming Antibiotic Resistant Syphilis.
That somebody stole the idea from me before I even thought of it myself shows that I was on the right track with that little phrase.
Does TED still make sense? Quillette (which doesn’t always make sense either).
I bumped into TED talks years ago, and even in its early stages, it was obvious that the TED talks are one more bourgeois affectation. Note the current price: 12 Grand USD.
A bargain for all of that bourgeois affirmation.
This sentence, not far into the [embargoed] article, is pure TED: Dave told me that heâs put together an international network of corporate leaders who meet regularly at âbespokeâ retreats in âepicâ locations such as Bali and Botswana.
Especially “bespoke,’ for that alluring air of English knowitallism and strong hint that one is dealing with a pretentious American.
Short answer: TED never made sense.
Short answer with hint of redemption: The height may have been this talk by Hans Rosling on how a simple invention (well, not so simple, but humble) changed the world. From twelve years ago.
https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_magic_washing_machine
re TED monetisation, I confess I was a little suspicious that the entire series of public lectures hosted by my old university employer in Sydney were pulled from YouTube a few years back. Are they on some platform now where you must pay? They were all TED-type talks intended to explore interesting topics for the lay audience.
Thankfully I’d downloaded mine and so far nobody has complained about me hosting it as it is fair use educational…..and it is me FFS!
I stopped listening to the TED-talls a long time ago. They became very quickly formalized and fossilized in terms of intonation, structure and form. They all sound like they understand a problem theoretically but canât give flying⌠practically, whether it is about poverty, illness or death I never heard anger, fury or sadness at the time. I see them most as performative and CV/LinkedIn-profile building activities.
Maybe it got better over time.
A coupla decades from now, TED talks will be in the same category as pole sitting and dance marathons.
This kind of pole sitting?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0k7cnj384&pp=ygUbc291dGggcGFyayByYW5keSBnaWFudCBwb29w
I can’t think of TED talks without thinking of this video: https://youtu.be/_ZBKX-6Gz6A?si=T12-vT0NeXrJBpam
Thank you for this! Hilarious. Though liberal PMC-types are just as conditioned by ritual and unquestioned beliefs as everyone else, they often think otherwise. It reminded me of that famous essay by Horace Miner, ‘Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.’ Most students used to have to read that back in the day – as we were being conditioned into our liberal PMC-hood.
You are most welcome! It’s a fairly old video by now, back when I could still stand to listen to NPR, my local station ran TED talks and I would listen to them while I worked on paintings in my studio. It didn’t take long to start hearing them as self parody, wondered if I was listening to a comedy instead. One had to wonder if all of these TED talkers were required to take a course on all of the moves and vocal inflections before they were allowed on stage.
The first time I saw a TED talk on You Tube, it was a mixture of laughter and revulsion as the person on stage played the crowd like a PMC violin. But the recommendations also served up the video I linked to. TED talks have been a joke for some time now. Some of the people I know who still listen to NPR, also think TED talks are important.
And of course The Onion on cars powered by compost. Love the audience reaction.
The only thing that makes less sense than TED is TEDx.
“What if I told you that everything you knew about slowly going insane on a desert island was wrong?”
A Pedant’s worst nightmare!
Encounters with Naked Capitalists in the Uncanny Valley.
“I’ll call the person who related this story to me as Professor X. They crave anonymity so as not to jeopardize their accreditation at a major institution of learning. This began as a simple, basic hike through Silicon Valley. It soon turned dark, frightening, challenging to the Approved Narrative. It started innocently enough….”
TED is is on the same cultural life cycle as WEF. For me TED went from “Oh, interesting, what’s this?” to embarrassed that I had mentioned this caricature of liberal solutionism to anyone I knew in a mater of weeks. I also enjoyed how it established its own specific emergent PowerPoint aesthetic that spread elsewhere.
Maine Monitor: Maine businesses and seasonal workers holding special visa.
The article reminded me of how many employers in the U S of A keep insisting that their businesses have to be based on thorough exploitation of the work force. This has been the argument of governments of the Southern states for years: right-to-work (so-called) laws, exploitation, and low wages. This has been the argument of the food-service sector for years and years: separate salary regulations, low minimum wage, and tips (so that customers can solve the business’s wage & hour policies for the owners — talk about hospitality!).
The argument that people don’t want summer jobs, don’t want to work in a restaurant, and don’t want to work on a farm just doesn’t seem to hold water, in my not-so-humble opinion.
Rather strangely, it is rightwingers (read to the end) who want to end this system of seasonal labor. Hmmmm. Now they will have to turn their sites back to Silicon Valley and its tales of entrepreneurial derring-do and all of those imported Indians (which has to do with the employers, not the Indians, please, who are collateral damage).
Strange indeed. But then, I grew up in a union family, back when the U S of A still had labor unions.
Those 30 or so men I saw a month ago doing everything except being cashier at the Wal*Mart in Frisco. Co. with the most interesting name tags and accents to match, were all migrant immigrants on a work visa from Mauritania.
Wal*Mart never does things on a 1-off basis, I wonder how many more Mauritanians are toiling for the Sam the man?
I heard Florida is legalising child labour from age 14, including week nights as long as they are home schooled. In other words if parents are poor enough their children can fill up the workforce (as long as they claim they are being home schooled), and they are working hard on getting parents poor enough.
Sure, in a decade and half the problem will be not enough children as poor people are postponing forming families, but that’s for the future to sort out.
They could increase wages and make the jobs more attractive, but we all know that won’t happen if there’s anything else they can do.
Expect “them” to make birth control illegal again. That should solve the “lower class population” problem.
Well they have made a good start in outlawing abortions.
First they outlaw abortions, and before you know it you get arrested for illegal pull out. Forensic experts will take samples from the curtains for a DNA match, to see if it’s yours. :)
The great irony is that âthe American systemâ of the late 18th and 19th centuries (bitterly opposed by the âfree tradeâ slave-owners of the South who lost a war over it) was predicated on high wage labour outproducing European âpauper labour.â This was the insight of Friedrich List and his American counterparts as outlined in Michael Hudsonâs America’s protectionist takeoff 1815-1914 : the neglected American School of Political Economy
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10074353-america-s-protectionist-takeoff-1815-1914
These also were the same ideas which led to Germanyâs rise from rural idiocy to industrial power which was the envy of Europe. And yet now both nations stumble around, bleeding out from the self-inflicted wounds of neoliberalism and austerity. Itâs like a form of collective madness ⌠đ¤Śââď¸
The Trolley Problem–
So Ezra Klein’s Eco-Modernist Abundance proposal makes its appearance at NC. Here’s a taste of the foolishness:
Yes, let’s consider this great solution to the climate catastrophe. Here’s what UC Davis scientists report about the energy requirements of lab grown “meat:”
That’s certainly an abundance of added CO2. Is that the abundance they’re talking about? Maybe just quit eating meat? Maybe use naturally grown meat substitutes like soy for your protein? No way, say Klein and his Abundateers. They much prefer a process with high capital and energy requirements because it will all be protected by a nice, monopoly-granting patent.
These people will do and say anything to avoid leveling with the public about a number of things including the trajectory of climate change, resource limits and the energy and resource requirements of their high-tech, corporate-based solutions. It’s just more PMC BS to forestall real solutions to the polycrisis that would interfere with their power and pampered lifestyles.
Remember the Trolley Problem is roughly this: a trolley with a driver and 4 passengers is headed for disaster unless a switch is thrown to divert it to another track. But diverting it will kill an innocent pedestrian on the alternate track. It’s a test of how deep your utilitarianism goes. Klein has changed the problem. Now we have a trolley with a few very self-satisfied but well-connected people, and diverting the trolley will kill dozens of deplorables. Easy choice for Ezra, especially since he’s on the trolley.
We ran a link to a piece that savaged it and piled on. But Ezra has enough allies that it still keep cropping up.
My question is that given the problems with Ezra’s
Prosperity GospelAbundance shtick just who is funding the effort?The people who want to control the future direction of the Democrat party. The Thompson and Klein “Abundance” shtick is their attempt to salvage their brand while seeming to discuss the issues that have caused people to fall away from the party.
Ezra Klein is representative of a special species of idiot â one who has floated on the endless supply of hot air emitted by the chattering classes, possessing no technical knowledge whatsoever beyond a smarmy sort of sophistry; a priesthood engaged in that oldest project of priestcraft: to justify the essential structure of current economic arrangements on behalf of those they benefit at the expense of the mass of working people.
Sometimes I force myself to listen to him to keep an ear to the ground for the hoofbeats of his herd â but it is nauseating work.
Abundance is just the latest symphony conducted on the upper decks of the Titanic âŚ
how about a million or more small meat producers…perhaps a bit bigger than me…instead of these derned cafo’s?
the ranchers who are my neighbors are a whole lot more humane to their animals than those meat factories….nearest neighbor currently running about 50 steers and cow/calfs for sale right there across the fence(i put a big water trough for them, so i get cowtv); he talks to them, and ive even caught him singing to them,lol.
and with local, smaller slaughtering facilities enabled, a meat eater would be better able to apply that fabled market pressure to enable more humane practices at that end, as well(i dropped 5 sheeps off at the butcher in fredericksbrg, tx last week, and spoke with the head honcho at length as he, hisself, helped me unload and situate them…but his facility is only for “not for sale” custom jobs)
(and this situation of almost zero local slaughtering/butchery is no accident, either, but the result of long term bribery by the big meat packers who just couldnt abide a local alternative to their near monopolies)
there are a whole lotta things we could do, without resorting to pink slime and factory grown cockroaches.
but like you say, Ezra and his cohort cant even contemplate such things.
run their trolly off the cliff, and then maybe we can do something about ag.
Would laws and regulations have to be changed to facilitate the thousands of micro-abattoirs and micro-meat-processors needed to support and service all the willing humane eco-clean ranchers?
The more final-point-of-use retail/personal meat-buyers are ready to buy meat from mini and micro producers, the more mini and micro producers will be able to stay in business or go into business. it will have to start with more end-use consumers being willing to pay as much more as necessary to support the existence and increase of mini and micro producers. It could be a badge of living the elitny life.
https://exiledonline.com/elite-versus-elitny/#:~:text=This%20article%20was%20first%20published%20in%20The%20eXile,act%20like%20hicks%20and%20get%20away%20with%20it.
I personally buy meat from such a micro-producer in my own microlocal area . . . Ann Arbor, Michigan. Here is that micro-producer . . .
https://www.vestergaardfarms.com/
“Would laws and regulations have to be changed to facilitate the thousands of micro-abattoirs and micro-meat-processors needed to support and service all the willing humane eco-clean ranchers?”
they would hafta be changed rather dramatically.
here in texas, in the last 10 or more years(due to teabilly state congresscritters, mostly,lol) they’ve changed the regs on a lot of stuff like that.
theres 2 micro (i suppose) grassfed beef companies who sell steaks(and even lengua!) in the little place i get gas, beer and cigs.
so its improved from what it was.
but the people tell me that they get more scrutiny than the big boys, by far.
(which is sorta ironic, i guess…since having an inspecter onsite, with his own office, was one of the ways they killed local killin facilities)
similarly, texas more or less legalised…umm….the tamale ladies,lol.
regs, from what the tamale chicas tell me, are not all that onerous…mostly because theyve seen an inspector once, before they finalised their pseudo license.
i have no idea how this sits with the federal regs.
and dont really know(texgov is rather opaque,lol)
what the liabilities are for either the localish beef killin and butcherin outfits, nor for the tamale ladies.
ive studied up the best i can my own eventual doins, out here..and it appears that i can sell just about anything i produce “On Farm”.
ill hedge and offer lunch for tips,lol.
cuz i aint gon be code.
clean, but not code.
IOW, i know all about how to not get people sick with my cookin….even the way i do now, essentially outside to the elements.
(not that hard, if one is cognizant of the temps and procedures and such…and especially the science of food safety)
the regs are there to force the unscrupulous to abide by minimum standards, becasue they (aside from having no scruples/moral sense) need to be forced to do so.
ive known many, many foodservice owner types who fit that bill,lol.
i am not to be counted among them, however.
i’d take it as a moral and personal failing if i made someone sick.
and move immediately to make amends.
i note that theres not a box to check on the foodservice forms for that,lol.
re: Wow, this watch is thinner than a credit card
Anyone else notice this watch is visibly NOT thinner than a credit card? What kind of person says things that contradict their own eyes and also shows a video contradicting their own claim, even while making the claim? Weird.
…what would John Cameron Swayze do?
He would take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.
…but the $400K timepiece in the video would not.
p.s.
Often spokespersons for Rolex are ballerinas or professional tennis players, and aside from a 3 minute limit on potty breaks between volleys… neither pursuit is timed, and even when things are timed, you don’t see a lot of interior linemen, baseball (not timed) or basketball players wearing watches, and why bother in hockey when your wrists are all covered up.
F-1 drivers seem to be a natural for spokesmen of high end Swiss watches in timed races, but it isn’t as if they ever look at theirs when en route in a race.
NASCAR? …not so much
I’ve never worn a watch and can typically be within 30 minutes of knowing what time it is by watching the sky, just how they did it in the old days hundreds of years ago.
That is not to say I don’t have clocks around me in the car, phone and laptop, all as thin as an after dinner mint,
I used to wear watches all the time, and if I could afford a decent replacement mechanical wristwatch, I would still be wearing one. A good watch will lasts decades longer than any cellphone, is repairable, and is a good fashion accessory. I don’t see what the need is for this $400k gismo that is likely to break if you sneeze on it too hard.
My Gen Z son is wearing his grandfathers’ watches. Not expensive watches either. He wore my father-in-laws timex with a new watch band and battery ($40) for 5 years until it had an accident and couldn’t be repaired. Now it’s my Dad’s old seiko (another $40) which I expect to last quite a while.
I did too (nothing fancy or heirloom) from the time I was a teen in theâ70s but carrying a cellphone around all day in my jacket pocket basically killed the utility of it, and I certainly couldnât imagine wearing one as a vanity item.
My wife is very good at guessing the time of day. I wonder if its connected in any way to her difficulties with seasonal affective disorder?
My mood is in some way controlled by the length of the day, which makes me very aware of the sun and the changes in when it rises and sets.
And the posting lists 1.7mm thickness for the watch and a simple search has the credit card thickness of 0.76mm.
Almost a mm thicker.
Still a good watch accomplishment.
As a lifelong âfixitâ and erstwhile VW/Porsche engine builder, the idea of a credit card that is 1.7mm thick boggles my mind. RUFKM?
Most likely explanation: “thinner than a credit card” was one of the marketing features in the design spec, they based their whole campaign on the idea, and no one bothered (or cared, or even knew how to…) to check that the final product met the spec.
So now we know where the “disgraced” Boeing managers went?
By pure coincidence, it also resembles the order they will be thrown against the Russian wall.
Rather than “labor costs” i would label that as a “wage repression index”. Hard it was in Mediterranean countries after the 2008 crisis. According to this paper: State-led wage devaluation in Southern Europe in the wake of the Eurozone crisis. The countries were the State has more control tools (and there is less collective negotiation) were the ones which managed better wage suppression. As asked by the ECB: The pivotal role of the ECB in maintaining borrowing costs at a sustainable level means that it can also credibly impose domestic reforms to the countries it bails out (such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland), or buys bonds from (such as Italy or Spain).
Yet i greatly disagree with your commentary which reflects little knowledge about these countries if any. So far might these sent, if any, might be soldiers from Guyana for France and who knows (Birmingham UK?), Denmark and a few from few Baltic sates. Bulgaria, with the lowest wages, will very unlikely send there any soldier to die for Z.
Disagreeing is fine, not getting the point also, acting like an ass not so much. But hey, what do I know.
> Collections: Why Celebrimbor Fell but Boromir Conquered: the Moral Universe of Tolkien [Bret Devereaux
>> In short, the historian tries to, in a way, inhabit the worldview of people long gone and to communicate those values and assumptions to a modern audience. One of the ways we do that is reading the things those past people wrote carefully for exactly that: values, morals, assumptions about the world, mentalitĂŠs as the Annales school would phrase it or Weltanschauung (âworldviewâ) as German would express it.
>> So weâre going to do a bit of that with Tolkien, looking at the way his legendarium treats sin and redemption, through the lens of two ambiguous characters: Celebrimbor and Boromir.
acoup.blog/2025/04/18/collections-why-celebrimbor-fell-and-boromir-conquered-the-moral-universe-of-tolkien/
Thank you for the Tolkien
re: Medical Journals Get Letters From DOJ
If they’re asking medical journals about diversity of viewpoints, they must not understand the concept of peer review and its role in scientific inquiry.
Did nobody at the DOJ take a science elective, or a science-related class in high school?
Or perhaps they did, and this is precisely what they wish to attack?
The whole thing sounds sinister and it is like that they are being told to prove a negative. And just what the hell is “competing viewpoints” supposed to mean anyway? Stuff that originated out of the Great Barrington declaration? Papers trying to prove that masks are dangerous? This sounds like the Trump regime trying to put their thumb down of the articles published by medical journals and I am not sure whether it has to do with Covid or the next coming pandemic. The fact that they are doing it indicates the importance the Trump White House assigns to scientific papers and how to control them for their own political purposes. Maybe the ultimate aim is to have those medical journals eventually send the White House a copy of every paper that they want to publish for some kind of vetting before they can publish it.
I’m excited to hear that the Trump admin is asking for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
It also has to do with the Totalitarian Prime Directive of controlling all expression and practice of thought to assert Full Spectrum Dominance over all persons and institutions in society. The Dominance is the point.
Time to figure out what are the serious journals edited in China, Russia, or Europe, and in which the results of scientific research can be published without the crazies in the USA censoring their preferred topics.
Stacy Abrams breaking new ground, but where is her book deal, and her art show? /s
Maybe she can share a Spotify podcast with Obama.
Been a real long while since I ventured out into the ZH territory but the article was linked so it’s all good. Grifting pays really well, who would ever know it.
Post Grad ( okay it’s a JD ) of Yale Law which I was completely not aware, so that information was useful. When I think about Yale Law, I’m reminded of Vincent “Vinny” Gambini seeing the Yale Degree behind the presiding Judge in the court case to defend the “youts” against the charges related to a murder those youths did not commit. Oh, and him eating grits …
“US Inching Towards a Deal With Iran”
You wonder if Trump will involve himself using his amazing negotiating skills by him adding additional conditions like Iran disarming itself and giving them two weeks to reply or else he will unleash hell on earth. Just to get better terms for himself and squeeze any conditions that he can out of them even if it jeopardizes the deal itself. But if he backs up a bit, then he will have a deal that he can claim as a victory – providing that he can get it ratified. Of course Israel is spitting chips about the whole thing and is saying that they may do a “limited strike” on Iran nuclear facilities with just a little bit of American help because they can’t do it themselves. Anything to blow up any deal and to also get America into a shooting war with Iran on Israel’s behalf.
Rumour has it that before he left, the Iranians gifted Steve Witkoff a hat-rack with several hooks made out of gold. They explained to him that the first hook is for his Iran hat, the second for his Russia/Ukraine hat, the third for his Hamas/Israel hat plus a few more spare ones for future assignments.
US sent a B -2 out of Diego Garcia where the 6 aircraft sit in tents so the rain doesnât ruin the skin to drop a 30,000 pounder on a missile tunnel. No joy!
Imagine losing the few B-2s that can fly, for no joy.
They may take out some assets hidden in residential building.
I do think that Israeli nukes has deterred Iran .
Bibi is not Truman, more worrying,
‘They may take out some assets hidden in residential building.’
Or as Israel calls them, Hamas barracks.
They do say every Palestinian is basically Hamas…
In fact Hamas is a legitimate organisation.
They neglect that all along.
I don´t know if there is anyone left making this clear.
Insane.
This “terrorism” bullshit has by now taken control of communication at large. They control the vocabulary and thus they control thought.
Israelis do not even bother to profer accusations of Hamas-membership or terrorism any longer; everybody and everything is fair game.
Re Fox News, Sam’s Club and “AI” scanning–admittedly Fox News is to news as Fox watcher Trump is to being president but is there anything “ai” about scanning a shopping basket full of products as you leave without a checkout? If any operation involving computers becomes “ai” then the term becomes meaningless.
And Walmart’s old dream of putting RFID chips on all their merch (to deter shoplifting) is hardly new. The last time it was proposed the Big Brother privacy implications of total surveillance were denounced but perhaps we are way past that now. Ironically when Bezos trialed his “just walk out” stores it was revealed that his “ai” consisted of legions of Indian workers watching cameras from far away.
Re your last sentence. If that wasn’t so sad, it would be funny.
Yeah, that’s pretty funny that Amazon already did this and it was Powered By Indians ™ and now somehow Sam’s Club is gonna nail it?
Ha ha.
Doubtful.
AI = “Actually Indians”
Is that a caracal in the antidote? I love caracals.
It looks pretty much what you say. Unless there is any rare caracal-like feline hidden in some unknown desert it must be a caracal lynx.
Caracal it is. Here is the source link: https://www.si.edu/object/caracal:nzp_NZP-20060822-136JC-000001
Very handsome feline. My cats are jealous of the ear tufts.
This, from the infrequently posting Andrew Cockburn, may be important: the secret emergency action documents that nobody knows about and few talk about.
https://spoilsofwar.substack.com/p/trump-is-opening-the-enemies-briefcase
And it’s a bipartisan thing of course because a move to defang this unconstitutional law was not supported by Pelosi and the Dems. As with so much of what Trump does–now but also the Hillary like election denial of Jan 6–his mentality seems to be backtoya to his perceived enemies. This knee jerk tendency is then hijacked by dubious advisers (i.e. Pompeo) who seek to weaponize it.
A happy Easter to all.
On my drive to a grocery store this morning I noticed several hundred people lined up to enter a Cannabis dispensary almost an hour before it opens.
WTF?
Then I remembered that It’s 4/20, Hitler’s birthday.
Turns out that Marijuana has their own holiday and this year it coincides with Easter. Who knew?
https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-cannabis-holiday-420-easter-sunday-cb03d644627c9fdde04ca9e3a3a619f2
>Drug Enforcement Leads To Increases In Violence, Report Published By UK Government Concludes
Friedman wasn’t right about everything, but he was right about drugs.
For those who choose to celebrate 4/20 Day, I wish you a euphoric one.
Here’s my own personal theory on where the 4/20 comes from. It relates to the scientific term for the primary (but not only) psychoactive substance 1-delta-9-tetrahydrocannibinol.
Tetra is of course Greek for…four.
Hydro refers to water, a/k/a H2O.
Put those together and you have 4h20.
Voila! Sure it’s overthinking things, but that’s part of what happens when you set your mind free to wander.
I’m going to go celebrate by getting out in nature and doing some rollerblading along the Riverfront.
References to rollerblading and skiing today!
Two of my favorite things.
Happy Easter to all!
The Trade Adviser Who Hates Trade (NY Times via archive.ph)
This guy
Really quite Elizabethan situation is it not. Members of the court being released from the Tower, at least he didn’t have his ears cropped or his hand cut off. I expect the granting of monopolies to make a comeback soon. The domestic legal framework against them is mostly based on common law but Mr Trump has influence with the judiciary. Even if this is too hard monopolies about foreign trade or space seem possible.
Maybe they will also pull a repeat of the seizure of the monasteries via a seizure of the legacy endowments of the universities they so despise?
This very well may make your Day (or week, or year)
A most powerful(and deserved) repudiation of gaslighting Archcriminal Elliott Abrams, who was most curiously granted some “breathing room” during the interview, via a “technical glitch” that removed Dr Victor Gao – Vice President of the Center for China and Globalization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA9pTqZ3NYU
re: Trump vs. students and Gaza
DROPSITENEWS
By Weaponizing Arrest Records and Suspending Due Process, the Trump Administration Has Targeted Over 1,000 Foreign Students
Facing sweeping deportation threats, international students and recent graduatesâwho have had their visas revoked or status terminatedâspeak out about living in fear and confusion.
by Meghnad Bose
Apr 19, 2025
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/deportation-students-ice-dhs-visas
Gaza is now largely annihilated. The Palestinians there will not be able to bounce back and re-establish any kind of reasonable living conditions in the foreseeable future, even if the devastation and slaughter stopped right away.
Meanwhile, as this article in Harpers Magazine shows, the Israelis are proceeding in a very similar fashion in the West Bank, relentlessly breaking the Palestinians physically and morally. Tulkarem and Jenin are gone, reduced to rubble, just like swathes of Gaza.
For a very long time, there have been discussions about the feasibility, utility, and impact of non-violent resistance to a regime of oppression, with the assessment propagated in the mainstream being that it is generally more effective than violent resistance. As reported in the aforementioned article, the Palestinians in the West Bank have now concluded after decades of protests and opposition that non-violence is pointless when facing colonialists hell-bent on carrying out a genocide and an “international community” that scoffs at every law and principle supposed to prevent such a crime.
thanks for Harpers
Hi COVID, is that you?
When They Donât Recognize You Anymore (NY Times via archive.ph)
No mention, of course, that SARS2 infects the brain, that it can lead to cognitive impairment, and accelerates dementia in seniors.
This timeline is so lit.
Hereâs an amusing item:
GOP Rep Mace tells constituent to âeff offâ
There does seem to be an element of confrontational behavior by the constituent, who confronted her in a store, but still, another âMAGA world moment!â
quick note by Taibbi on Harvard:
“(…)
Harvard has become a giant tax-exempt hedge fund disguised as an educational status symbol. The ease with which it makes money has allowed it (and other schools) to drift from its academic mission. Trumpâs threats might not be the ideal way to get there, but everyone would benefit from the school spending some time in the financial wilderness.
The school is a de facto business that earns billions with near-zero market exposure, thanks to bottomless subsidies and technical non-profit status. It can offer customers endless government-backed financing for tuition while keeping as a side business a monstrous tax-exempt hedge fund, donations to which are also deductible.
(…)”
Some critical reader discussion:
https://substack.com/@taibbi/note/c-110324939
Pope Francis has departed earthly life.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/pope-francis-dies-on-easter-monday-aged-88.html
Who was the last major political figure to meet him? Oh yeah……
Sorry for the snark, the guy seemed to be one of the better popes in terms of at least trying to follow the “be nice” bits of Jesus’s teachings. However, as a heavily lapsed Catholic I still didn’t adhere to the “lesser evil” thing by having someone like him in the Vatican compared to the shedload of frankly scary cardinals who could have followed Benedict.
Popes are like US presidents. They are praised by the faithful for being the lesser evil, and no one would have noticed that they change at all if it weren’t for the news banging on about it. Orange smoke coming from the White House chimney, same as the white smoke, and brown smoke.