Escaping groupthink: What animals’ behavioral quirks reveal about the brain The Transmitter
The Problem with Dating Apps Uncharted Territories
Private Equity Vampires Suck How Things Work
Stick with the Doers Working Class Storytelling
Climate/Environment
Impact of heatwave amplitude, duration, and timing on parasite fitness at different baseline temperatures PLOS Climate. “Results show that heatwaves can alter parasite burden up to 13-fold, whereby amplitude, duration, and timing can interact with baseline temperature.”
Pandemics
WHO Novel Flu Update Includes Two Previously Undisclosed H5N1 Cases From Bangladesh Avian Flu Diary
***
Long COVID in Young Children, School-Aged Children, and Teens JAMA Pediatrics. Now the most common chronic condition in US children.
Why so many people are having strokes in their 20s, 30s and 40s: ‘We’ve never had patients so young’ New York Post
I feel the need to say this again – of all the possible scenarios for this pandemic “completely ignoring it in fact making it a taboo subject” was not one which ever remotely occurred to me. Not once. I still am finding it hard to believe.
— Emma Weisblatt (@Oldboatie) June 4, 2025
Water
A Song for the Cahaba River Inside Climate News
China?
Automakers Race to Find Workaround to China’s Stranglehold on Rare-Earth Magnets WSJ. “Major manufacturers, fearful they will have to shut down assembly lines, consider moving some parts production to China.” Take a bow, Team Trump (and every other administration for the past 30 years).
Desperate companies are smuggling critical metals out of China as export rules tighten Inside China / Business
The AI Attention War China Talk
Xi rumors; US-China tensions; Rare earths; Xu Qiliang Sinocism
US Pressuring Vietnam to Downgrade Economic Ties With China: Report The Diplomat
***
IN FOCUS: What is the Second Island Chain and how does it shape US-China’s ‘geostrategic wei qi’? Channel News Asia
Russia base strike a stark warning for US forces on Guam Asia Times
Syraqistan
US Wields ‘Hand of Genocide’ by Vetoing Yet Another UN Gaza Cease-Fire Resolution Common Dreams
Germany vows to continue sending arms to Israel Anadolu Agency
Almost 100 killed in Gaza in 24 hours as Israel stops aid The New Arab
IDF Promotes Officer Who Soldiers Said Ordered to Shoot Gazans Carrying White Flag Haaretz
Trump fires slew of pro-Israel officials in America First ‘course correction’ Middle East Eye
Damascus faces difficult choices in southern Syria in light of Israeli airstrikes – analysis Jerusalem Post
New Syrian group claims Golan strike, vows resistance to ‘Israel’ Al Mayadeen
More signs of Britain grooming Syria’s Al-Qaeda-rooted government The Cradle
Old Blighty
UK under dual pressure to increase defence spending now The Times
UK to provide Ukraine with 100,000 drones by April 2026 Kyiv Independent
UK Will Have Trouble Scraping Together 100k Drones for Ukraine, But More MI6-Backed Terror Likely Sputnik
Winter fuel payments to return — but half of pensioners will miss out The Times
European Disunion
EU frees up billions in Covid cash for defense spending Politico
Graham offers Europe-friendly carveout to Russia sanctions bill Semafor
Germany evacuates 20,000 people after WWII bombs found in Cologne Anadolu Agency
New Not-So-Cold War
reposted pic.twitter.com/Z2mH6alost
— ayden (@squatsons) June 4, 2025
Medinsky Reports to Putin & Other Doings karlof1’s Geopolitical Gymnasium
WHAT IS PUTIN TO DO NOW John Helmer
What Did Lavrov and Putin Tell Rubio and Trump? Larry Johnson
Did Trump Know About Ukraine’s Strategic Drone Strikes In Advance? Andrew Korybko
NATO hails Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web as most successful and estimates Russian aircraft losses Ukrainska Pravda
Yes, That Was The Plan. Andrei Martyanov. Concise rundown of the daily news in Western elites’ escape from reality.
Ukraine – Cost Of 6,000 Dead Soldiers, Thousands ‘Abducted’ Children Have Vanished Moon of Alabama
***
Ukraine relying on increased weapons production abroad DPA International
French Mirage 2000 fighter jets draw Ukraine’s national emblem over Black Sea – photos Ukrainska Pravda
***
The Death of Fukuyama’s European Children Liberties Journal
Normalizing Nukes Was Our First Mistake Rootless Cosmopolitan
L’affaire Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein Invested With Peter Thiel, and His Estate Is Reaping Millions New York Times
“Liberation Day”
US economic activity declines as tariffs pressure prices, Fed says Business Times
Trump 2.0
Trump admin claims Columbia violated Jewish students’ rights, threatens school’s accreditation NBC News
Trump signs proclamation to restrict foreign student visas at Harvard The Guardian
“The Intern in Charge”: Meet the 22-Year-Old Trump’s Team Picked to Lead Terrorism Prevention ProPublica
Trump orders probe of Biden mental state, executive actions in office The Hill
Leaked State Department Memo Reveals Profound Restructuring Drop Site
TRUMP ALWAYS CHICKENS OUT? MAYBE, BUT WALL STREET ISN’T OUT OF THE WOODS YET Notes on the Crises
Democrats en Déshabillé
is the theory here that we WANT trump to double down on his worst ideas and refuse to negotiate off-ramps? https://t.co/I7aR97exEs
— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) June 3, 2025
Gillibrand’s dual role: The Republican-friendly Democratic campaign chief Semafor. “The New York senator talked to Semafor about balancing her party’s push to retake the majority with bipartisan work on pro-crypto legislation.”
Liberalism’s Two Sides The Nation
DOGE
‘Big Balls’ Is Officially a Full-Time Government Employee Wired
The shrewd startup founder who led DOGE’s cost-cutting at HHS STAT. Unfortunately, cannot get around paywall. Here’s a snippet:
Brad Smith makes billions off Medicare & Medicaid. And for the first 100 days of this administration, he also controlled them. Americans deserve answers on that conflict of interest. https://t.co/5Z42BhtzE0 pic.twitter.com/RsUjRLfguB
— Jake Auchincloss (@JakeAuch) June 3, 2025
MAHA
FDA’s AI tool for medical devices struggles with simple tasks NBC News
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Apple Gave Governments Data on Thousands of Push Notifications 404 Media
Wars Come Home
Exclusive: U.S. Intel Warns of “Enduring” Gaza Outrage Ken Klippenstein
MIT Student Condemned Genocide — So ADL Chief Said She Helped Cause Boulder Attack The Intercept
Immigration
Judge temporarily blocks Trump administration from deporting family of suspect in Boulder attack CBS News
Looks like we’ve reached a boiling point when it comes to ICE.
Today in Minneapolis, a militarized federal task force raided the beloved Lake Street taqueria, Las Cuatro Milpas—and the community was not having it.
Agents from ICE, the DEA, FBI, ATF, IRS, and HHS rolled up… pic.twitter.com/RiXjMaoFA7
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) June 4, 2025
AI
Everyone Is Already Using AI (And Hiding It) New York Magazine. Hollywood.
This AI Company Saw Google’s Veo 3-Powered YouTube Slop and Said, ‘Hell Yeah’ Gizmodo
OpenAI slams court order to save all ChatGPT logs, including deleted chats Ars Technica
Our Famously Free Press
The Washington Post Is Secretly Planning to Start Publishing Articles Created Using AI Futurism
Imperial Collapse Watch
Learning From Ukraine’s Landmark Drone Attack: America’s Golden Dome Air Defence to Provide an Effective Counter Military Watch. See NC here.
Toxic Bomb Trains
Confusion On Sensor Plane’s Abilities Delayed East Palestine Train Derailment Response, Report Says Wheeling News-Register
EPA OIG Report Validates Key Claims by East Palestine Whistleblower, While Leaving Critical Allegations Unresolved Government Accountability Project
Silicon Valley
OPENAI’S PITCH TO TRUMP: RANK THE WORLD ON U.S. TECH INTERESTS The Intercept
How the Right Abuses Tolkien Current Affairs
Class Warfare
The Art of Organizing Labor Politics
Fisher of Men The Baffler. “Before Trotsky, Robespierre, and Thomas Paine, a revolutionary fishmonger named Masaniello took Naples in the name of the people—for nine whole days.”
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
153 comments
Comments are closed.
TACO Goes To Bat
(with apologies to Ernest Lawrence Thayer, whose poem Casey At The Bat was published in 1888)
Well, TACO showed us tariffs back on Liberation Day:
‘The world will pay our bills, and income tax will go away’
‘We are the greatest Empire, and we have no sense of shame’
‘Come kiss my ass, I’m so badass’ he crowed to great acclaim
The markets plunged most everywhere, distressed
At so much sudden damage to the monies they invest
‘The man cannot be serious—how did he arrive at
Such insane empty numbers? How did TACO figure that?’
But TACO kept insisting we could sell and eat our cake
By his financial voodoo we would solve our trade headache:
‘Them foreigners will all get screwed while we grow fine and fat’
While wiser voices took one glance and said, ‘It’s a cocked hat!’
The phones began to jingle as supply chains hit the wall
Some tried to improvise, some closed their shop for once and all
But TACO stayed ham fisted—said he wouldn’t change a word
That by everything he reckoned foreign wealth would be transferred
Investors grabbed their hats and coats to flee the burning smell
The markets could not rally—who will buy when you must sell?
You round off the accounting just to see where things are at
While TACO, Mister TACO, says ‘The bell is on the cat!’
Beneath his MAGA banner TACO made his bravest face
While the warning bells were blaring and investments were erased
His donors turned to mutineers opposed to his diktat
So TACO then allowed as how he’d ease up on all that
The people who had bought him didn’t like their new hair shirt
The man they had applauded had some tariffs to revert
Your donors must get richer or they’ll give you lots of lip
You serve them only, that is why you don’t shoot from the hip
Four months into this new year America is scared
TACO keeps on botching every new thing he’s declared
As haughty as a yachtsman who has never shopped for bread
‘Just wait a while’ says TACO, ‘It shall all be as I said!’
But his efforts they are feeble, and we cannot take much more
We are trying hard to be brave, but you said you’d stop that war
You’ve set the whole world on fire and you want to take Greenland
The deals you said you’re skilled in are for your own contraband
And now you say that Gaza is a property to own
That may be fine for your cult since they want you on their throne
But we have got a picture of your plans to stage a coup
And if it calls for war you’d better think before you do
You’ve broken all your vows and wrecked diplomacy abroad
You are sleepy and you’re spacey and the words you say are odd
You’re far too immature and old, your speeches cause us pain
You’ve got as much as you will get including that airplane
You’ve clearly lost your greasy grip, you fall down at the gate
You need some good psychiatrists to set your loose screws straight
You haven’t got the wherewithal, you answer ‘I dunno’
Your thoughts are wild and scattered—this is not a TV show
But TACO doesn’t understand the nature of his plight
He’s not the least bit aware as dementia starts to bite
His plans and polls are crashing, while our country’s down and out
And there’s no recourse for TACO—we can do without this lout
Bravo, a fine @ bat!
haughty as a yachtsman who’s never shopped for bread, spot on. In my finance days I worked with not one but two gentlemen who had never in their life done laundry.
Thank you.
This gentleman* may be another of these types: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4719846/Jacob-Rees-Mogg-never-changed-nappy.html.
Your two gentlemen may not be as rare as you think from my experience.
I say gentleman*, but stand to be corrected, especially by the British contingent. Why? His maternal grandfather was a lorry driver. His mother was a PA, his father’s. It’s a bit like the next queen. Her maternal grandfather was a miner.
If Froghole reads this comment, he may address a question with regard to the above gentleman’s wife and mother in law. One wonders what will happen to the Sondes estates in Kent, pass to the Saunders Watson Rockingham, the Naylor Leyland or the gentleman’s wife’s line.
I do hope there is more to the definition of a “gentleman” than never having done laundry.
The Kingsmen suggest that-
‘There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility comes in being superior to your former self.’
A family tree that looks really weird with few of the branches you normally see and person x being person y’s first cousin, 2nd cousin and 3rd cousin or somesuch?
My father liked to claim we were miners but it turned out he meant we owned one. :-)
(in the modest Somerset coalfields of Midsomer Norton and Radstock, an awfully small affair)
That was on his mother’s side who was a proper bluestocking (schooled at Roedean as a Victorian, the child of forward-thinking Humanists). I have inherited the milking stool she made in woodwork class: it’s all very Marie Antoinette.
His father’s side were ships’s captains from Aberdeen, with a genuine connection to the physical world and danger, but they and their extended family ran Aberdeen in the 19th century. There’s a street named after us: it’s near the docks and is these days the red light district. :-)
Thank you.
‘Christopher Webb
@cwebbonline
Looks like we’ve reached a boiling point when it comes to ICE.
Today in Minneapolis, a militarized federal task force raided the beloved Lake Street taqueria, Las Cuatro Milpas—and the community was not having it. Agents from ICE, the DEA, FBI, ATF, IRS, and HHS rolled up looking like they were ready for war. And Minneapolis PD was helping them. Why are local cops backing ICE raids?’
I saw this fiasco on the news two nights ago. At the end of it the Minneapolis mayor was saying ‘This incident was related to a criminal search warrant for drugs and money laundering and was not related to immigration enforcement.’ Of course if that was true, then why were there ICE officers there in the first place.
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/minneapolis-federal-raid-east-lake-street-mayor-chief-sheriff-react/
Seems that the elements of all those agencies think that for effective policing, that you do not need the help of the community. So how’s that working out for them?
I saw this fiasco on the news two nights ago… Me too. Crowd forms around federal raid in Minneapolis; MPD says it wasn’t related to immigration, KATP
The “Us or Them” line is solidifying.
The sight of all of those camouflage wearing coppers carrying assault rifles shows us what the Establishment thinks about the public; the Public are “enemies” to be feared and crushed.
This government has lost legitimacy.
State Sen. Omar Fateh agrees. “No matter the reason, one thing is clear: this display of force is designed to strike fear at the very heart of MPLS.” (MPLS= Minneapolis)
‘the Public are “enemies”’
As so many US police forces have received training from the Israelis, it might be more a case of ‘the Public are “Palestinians”.’
Camouflaged coppers on city streets kind of defeats the purpose, that is if there ever was one aside from looking more militaristic, don’t forget to blouse your pants!
I have not yet translated that interview with the Russian deputy at the OSCE but apparently he did report that when he addressed public unrest in case of opposition to the insane policies of the EU the fellow European “diplomats” assured him “we got enough police dogs for that kind of thing”.
I live near this place and I saw part of this raid. I do not believe that this was anything but ICE intimidation and brutality, because I have lived here for many years and seen plenty of crime and policing – this is a low income, over-policed and under-served area. I have seen an actual shoot-out that did not require one quarter of the personnel or one-tenth of the arms and equipment used here. Also, there’s quite a lot of visible sex work (and a likely brothel) near me, and plenty of drug sales and use, and while I personally do not want the cops called on those poor souls, it is obvious lies to say that there was a military-truck worthy emergency at the restaurant when no one is worried about the other stuff. Also, this is a residential area with many kids. There’s a major street with restaurants and businesses, but half a block down in all directions it’s just houses and apartments.
It was very shocking and terrible to see that truck there along with the gang of masked men. I was here when George Floyd was killed, I’ve seen National Guard trucks patrolling the alleys at midnight, I’ve seen fires and smelled smoke. For that matter, I’ve seen other ICE raids. This felt very, very bad. Different and worse.
Also, I do think that a lot of people are very angry – not just people who are politically plugged in, although they are the most visible and active. There were a lot of people gathered for hours after this all went down, and the mood was not like anything I’ve seen.
Thanks. Sheriff’s Dept on record lying.
The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, which said it was involved, denied that the incident was related to any immigration enforcement. The agency said its deputies were assisting federal agencies with executing search warrants for a criminal investigation., from the link I posted.
Gaza is coming home maybe.
Thanks for the eyewitness report!
So now we are all siding against law enforcement activities targeting drugs, money laundering and human trafficking? What kind of bizzaro world has this become?
You seem to have missed the point that those were just a phony cover story. The bizzaro tragedy is we now are tolerating brown shirt activity in the US.
Cover story for what, exactly?
How different is this from conscription gangs in Ukraine? Who’s next?
I missed the part of the story where ICE agents were forcing Minnesotans to join the army and fight on the front lines in Ukraine.
If “law enforcement” targeted the biggest criminal elements involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, gun running, various corruption and bribery schemes, not to mention mass murder and genocidal activities, maybe people would have more sympathy when “law enforcement” comes for the little people!
A bizarro world where people drop into NC out out of the blue to promote the official line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdSRm7Udn6w
The San Diego ICE raid video. Similar vibes.
Similar indeed, thanks. Soldiers in the streets. Is this the new normal?
Perhaps the raid was targeting the Sinola cartel, which actively uses Minnesota as an upper midwest hub for the distribution of fentanyl and other illegal drugs. Numerous raids and arrests have been made over recent years and this latest raid may be a continuation of that effort. If so, that would explain why law enforcement personnel are wearing masks — the cartel folks are not nice people.
Maybe, but what is lacking in these reports is any follow through on the outcome. Who was arrested and if they were busting a cartel operation why are they walking down the middle of the street pushing people out of their way. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just rent a sky writer to let the cartel know they are coming.
Maybe a show of force is a message to the cartels. The interference from the public is unfortunate, but I guess when you have local officials whipping people into a frenzy and even Govenor Tim Walz calling ICE a modern day Gestapo, people are going to freak out. I wonder what Walz has to say about this latest investigation.
Why all this speculation and acrobatic contortions to make this story make “sense” with the official line when we know it’s the DEA that does such police work, not ICE.
Yes, I’m speculating that the purpose of the investigation involved criminal activity related to Mexican cartels, but since the search warrants were targeted at “transnational criminal organizations” that is a pretty good bet.
You may “know” it’s the DEA that does such police work, not ICE, but that would be news to ICE.
ICE agents can legally execute judicial search warrants and conduct federal criminal investigations into the illegal movement of people, goods, money, contraband, weapons and sensitive technology into, out of and through the United States.
Gov. Tim Walz calls federal raid in Minneapolis ‘chaotic’
ICE is the only tangible part of the Benedict Donald’s coterie of up to no good that the public can actually confront, all the rest is sealed off tight as a drum, so ICE has become the public face of the Trump administration, and I know in my case, Mexican food has warmed the cockles of my coronary system, and i’d hate to see a favorite eatery raided of the talent.
I shouldn’t give away weaponry secrets for the next ICE protesters to use, but corn tortillas are Mother Nature’s frisbees, a deft toss can go 100 to 200 feet, and they are cheap!
100 of them might set you back $5.
But you might be on the receiving end of more than tortilla coming back at you. The Man loves escalation. Nonetheless we need to do something at some point.
I learned my craft at the Doo-Dah parade in Pasadena back in the day, and its hard to put the hurt on somebody with a corn tortilla, its more of an insult.
After a few years of tortilla throwing at the parade, Pasadena banned them on account of once they get tossed a few times, their aerodynamic structure is weakened and they fall apart, leaving a mess in its wake.
aye, Wuk…i immediately thought of a couple of little holes in the wall off of south first street in austin…where i first confronted things like lengua tacos and menudo for reals.
not a soul in those wonderful places spoke english, beyond “thank you”.
also the first time i encountered home made tortillas…harina y maise….
“UK to provide Ukraine with 100,000 drones by April 2026,” drones are the new 155 mm artillery shell.
I can’t remember off-hand…but IIRc, either China or Russia or both make 100k/month right now.
No magnets
Trump just asked Xi to give them back.
So much more debt and so much less for disadvantaged children and the disabled. And throwing money at a losing cause is rarely, if ever, a sensible political strategy.
Links today include a couple from The Times (of London). Another Times piece today claims Russia is nearing troop losses of 1 million based on ‘western intelligence, Ukraine sources and a US think tank’. At the same time, it puts Ukraine losses at 400,000. Such claims are then uncritically repeated in other media and blog sites, including Richard Murphy’s Funding the Future, a blog often cited by NC. That particular blog is a hot bed of Russiaphobic commentators, happy to call Putin a dictator, fascist, war criminal etc.
Little wonder that the majority of people in the west continue to support Ukraine and calls for more ‘defence’ spending to counter the ‘threat’ from Russia. At the same time, there is very little logical thinking actually looking at statistics into KIA and MIA, even though the POW and dead bodies swaps tend to be drastically higher for Ukrainians than Russians. Independent critical thinking in the west is sorely lacking, and even those voices that do this are readily attacked as Putinists, Putin puppets, trolls etc. Little wonder the threat of a direct Nato – Russia confrontation appears increasingly likely, to the detriment of all of us.
Richard Murphy’s entire blog is vibrating and oscillating from the author’s TDT and PDT.
Reading his stuff you’d think that BBC and FT are your normal truth peddling family loving NEWS distributors.
God I just love to hear BBCs announcing their “carefully scripted messages from our commercial partners” as “news”. You have to have humour.
“Learning From Ukraine’s Landmark Drone Attack: America’s Golden Dome Air Defence to Provide an Effective Counter”
So says U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General David W. Allvin. Hey, Allviinnn! Tell me then that the very next Air Force exercises, that you will let the Red Team use truck-deployed drones to make a mock attack on some of those B-2s and B-52s along the flight line. Yeah, they will never allow it because we all know that nobody will ever do that in the US of A.
Right, like nobody would ever fly a 747 into a skyscraper or the Pentagon.
That idea was featured in the 1994 book by Tom Clancy called “Debt of Honour”-
‘…an embittered Japan Air Lines pilot, driven mad by the deaths of his son and brother during the conflict, flies his Boeing 747 directly into the U.S. Capitol during a special joint session of Congress. The president, as well as nearly the entire Congress, the Supreme Court, and many other members of the federal government, are all killed in the attack.’
Secret Service agents had some manpads but they were useless against something as big as a Boeing 747 flying in to crash.
One can imagine some modified Amazon delivery trucks loaded with drones near US Defense facilities.
Amazon is probably delivering drones to consumers’ homes already.
And Amazon trucks are everywhere.
Then Golden Dome is activated and the consequential damage is far worse than what the drones would have done.
Triggering Golden Dome may be an inexpensive way to bleed and damage the USA after it has already built the system at great cost.
Estranged days have found us
Strange days have tracked us down
They’re going to destroy
Our casual consumer joys
We shall go on playing
And find new inflation in town
Yeah!
Strange eyes fill strange rooms
Voices will signal their tired end
The President is grinning
His apparatchiks asleep from sinning
Hear him talk of the big win
And you know this is it
Yeah!
Estranged days have found us
And through their strange hours
We linger alone
Bodies confused
Memories misused
As we run from the fray
To the strange might of Golden Dome
Strange Days, by the Doors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHOK87ozcho
Estranged days indeed. (Nobody told me there’d be days like these.)
(Nobody told me there’d be days like these.)
John Lennon (it rang a bell)
“Exclusive / Graham offers Europe-friendly carveout to Russia sanctions bill”
‘ “Why don’t we carve out for countries who are helping Ukraine? If you’re providing military economic assistance to Ukraine, you get a carveout. So China, if you don’t want to get sanctioned, help Ukraine … that makes sense to me,” Graham said in an interview.’
In the absence of President Trump, it’s nice to hear President Lindsay Graham acting so forthright. If Graham manages to cobble together a sanction-proof majority for that stupid bill of his, then if Trump was halfway smart, he should label it the Lindsay Graham Bill at each and every opportunity. Get that tag established in everybody’s mind. That way, when it blows up and the US has to cut off all trade ties with China causing catastrophic shortages, Trump can turn around and say that it was not his bill, he opposed it, and if anybody is unhappy about it then they should talk to the author of the Lindsay Graham Sanctions Bill. His office is thataway.
Trump thinks he is on the level of Putin, but can’t deal with Lindsay. Still better than Macron though, who thinks he is on the level of Putin, and stuggles with slaps on the nose and nose candy, I mean used tissues.
Why so many people are having strokes in their 20s, 30s and 40s: ‘We’ve never had patients so young’ New York Post
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A married couple I know here in Tiny Town were the epitome of fit, they’d go out for a 12 mile run and finish looking fresh…
Then about 6 years ago at 65, he has a stroke and their world was truly rocked, she had to do most everything for him since, and only vis a vis his athleticism, was it not worse than it might’ve been, which was plenty awful.
He can’t coordinate thoughts with spoken words and you can sense the frustration on his countenance compared to what once was possible.
Bad enough @ age 65, but having a stroke @ 35 could be a sentence of 30 years to life in the big house.
Do not despair Citizen! The soon to be enacted “Death with Dignity” laws will allow those poor youngsters who fall short of the capacity to enjoy a full life avoid the stigma and pain of knowing themselves to be a drain on the resources and psychic energies of their loved ones. Just look for the tastefully appointed Responsibility Pavilions next to your local FEMA Retraining Centre.
You will be Nothing, and be happy.
Larry Johnson emphasizes the novelty and significance of Putin declaring, now, that the Ukraine government committed acts of terrorism.
And in the Russian report of the Putin-Trump phone calls it is very strong:
Consider what this means in the West. For example, when Hamas is declared to be a terrorist organization this justifies the extermination/displacement of millions of people. There are plenty of examples that, according to Western moral doctrine, any action against an alleged terrorist organization, no matter the scale or horror of the consequences, is justifiable.
.Tom
Think of it this way: After the savagery of the massacre of Hezbollah social-services providers — which is who was carrying those pagers, not members of the militia — is the government of Israel involved in terrorism? What is to be done?
When we read reports of Israelis jailing some 10,000 Palestinians since the casus belli of 7 October, what are we to think?
When we read of Israeli military raping Palestinian men to death in jails after arresting them in Gaza, what are we to think?
The logical conclusion isn’t to destroy a whole people — see above, 7 October as a convenient casus belli. The logical conclusion is that the government in Kyiv, infiltrated and manipulated by nazifascists, is, like the Israeli government, in the business of terrorism, defined as attacking civilian populations at random to instill fear.
Thank you. That’s exactly it. What’s changed, according to Larry Johnson, is that even after the Crocus massacre Russia/Putin did not declare the government in Kyiv to be a terrorist organization but now they did, and in strong language. I’m inclined to see this as an indication of upcoming changes in how Russia deals with Ukraine.
I have a post just up. John Helmer effectively says this terrorist designation is a dodge. From his post:
https://johnhelmer.net/what-is-putin-to-do-now/
Alexander Mercouris in his post yesterday explained this pretty well.
Titled, Putin upgrade SMO.
See my post just up. That is NOT what Helmer says, and he’s read the relevant statutes and consulted with experts.
The terrorist designation is not an upgrade but a dodge.
According to Western moral doctrine, there is no moral doctrine, and any action done by West, no matter the scale or horror of the consequences, is justifiable.
Another commenter said yesterday (apologies for not giving you due credit, I only saw the post as I was switching off), something along the lines of:
“ it is not just Ukraine that needs to be denazified, it’s the whole West that needs to be denazified”.
That is the crux of the matter.
Ukraine will get denazified this year or maybe the next. But imagine all those euroNazis carrying the Nazi crosses of their fathers and grandfathers. That portion of denazification will take quite a bit longer, especially given their hogging of all governmental structures across entire EU.
That portion of denazification will take quite a bit longer, and it seems that it will be exclusively performed by islamization. A process that is well under way, and probably acording to some plan of some elites. One can observe the end results in the Islamic territories of the Balkans. Couple of centuries ago Brits chose Ottoman Empire to be their besties in the fight against those pesky Rooskies, and will stick with it. Turkish delight future for the superior race. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
“French Mirage 2000 fighter jets draw Ukraine’s national emblem over Black Sea – photos”
Are they sure that it was not a badly executed penis that they tried to draw? Fighter pilots do this stuff all the time-
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/30/politics/f-35-accidental-sky-penis
It should say: “French Mirage 2000 fighter jets fly over the part of Black Sea used for civillian air traffic, knowing that Russians won’t fire“. Maybe drawing penises and forks is what India should have done with Rafales, instead of combat.
A little postscript perhaps related to the India-Pakistan affair: Indonesia hasn’t received any of the French Rafales it signed up for a few years back and is now considering a Chinese offer of J10’s.
To quote Rev Kev “Decisions, decisions”.
Micron should visit Indonesia and publicly belittle them, maybe that will work.
Wasn’t Indonesia the country that was trying to buy Russian fighters a coupla years ago – until the US told that that that would be illegal under US law?
That reminded me of Serbia wanting to buy S-400 few years ago. Since it also seems to be illegal under US law, they got some Chines stuff in stead. They did get some Pantsirs, so I guess US law is fine with those. :)
The mice were, for all intents and purposes, identical: They were all derived from the same inbred colony, making them genetically the same, and they were all reared in a shared environment. At first, they all behaved identically, too, in the 2019 study on alcohol consumption at Vanderbilt University—they quickly learned how to access the drinking spout and imbibed similar amounts of the intoxicating liquid.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My sworn enemy (until around mid July and then its no big deal) is the Mineral King Marmot Cong: who relatively fresh from the big sleep, are ravenous for radiator hoses and specifically anti-freeze, which gets them a bit drunk, so hit and waddle runs on vehicles are practically a given unless you put a car condom on, is there an AA chapter for four legs bad?
Marmots are different from all other four legs in the forest for the trees-Sierra Nevada chapter, in that its the only denizen that will often come towards you, everything else runs away at the sight of us…
Wuk, you need some dachshunds. Watch this one catch a ground squirrel and shake it to death. My dachshund does this to marmots:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EadYOb-JO-E
I don’t really want to make the Mineral King Cong go away, they’re amusing.
Gus*, the Dachshund of a fellow cabin owner i’ve mentioned previously that took out an extended warranty on his vocal cords, went missing for 8 days in the flatlands a month ago and miraculously came home with either vampire fang marks in his neck, or more than likely coyote fang marks.
Must have been a pitched battle, 9 inch tall and 2 1/2 feet long Gus against at least one coyote~
He now barks in a rasp, which is ok by me.
* I think he’s tree’d at least 6 bears~
That’s really sad. The poor ground squirrel, and the poor marmots.
Check your yelp reviews, maybe your house whiskey needs an upgrade.
I wonder if they like mezcal?
The Death of Fukuyama’s Europe. Sheesh. Reading Barbora Chaloupkova is like reading someone who is a survivor of a cult and can’t give up the cultish thinking.
There’s this highlight (Chaloupkova is Czech — hence the wailing and gnashing of teeth):
‘As one Czech official recently told me after a private meeting with members of the current American government, the Americans tried to hammer the point home. “Madeleine Albright is dead,” they reminded the Czechs, preempting any nostalgic references to this monumental figure in Czech-American relations. Fittingly enough, it was Albright who famously titled America the “indispensable nation.” She is dead indeed.’
I know that Czechs like to eat the occasional houby, but Chaloupkova has eaten a basket of lies, bullshit, and propaganda along with an amanita muscaria. She wants to be protected by the spirit of war criminal Albright, she of the famous inteview by Leslie Stahl in which Albright publicly doesn’t give a shit about dead Iraqi children.
Yet the piece also explains the desperate measures going on in northern Europe: Chaloupkova and others roughly her age think that Ukraine is the Spanish Civil War of their times, instead of the proxy genocide planned by greedheads that it is.
It is going to take years to eliminate this level of self-delusion: So many institutions have lost moral authority, and Chaloupkova is that self-deluded combination of academic slop (Columbia, I note), neoliberalism, pointless media savvy, and failure of U.S. bourgeois feminism.
My parents met in Denver and lived there from 1954 to 1960, and you can imagine how small the Czech ex-pat community was, and my mom said that they knew the Korbels and saw them occasionally, but she related that she was an Alberta farm girl, and Josef Korbel was a diplomat, so they were worlds apart not to mention age difference.
Mom told me the idea that Madeleine Albright didn’t know she was Jewish until later in life, was so many levels of preposterousness.
“Chaloupkova and others roughly her age think that Ukraine is the Spanish Civil War of their times”
Actually not just those. In fact the only ones not thinking that are those who don´t know about the Spanish Civil War.
Nobody ever did know.
“Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie.
I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’.”
– George Orwell “Looking Back on the Spanish War”, June 1943
‘think that Ukraine is the Spanish Civil War of their times, instead of the proxy genocide planned by greedheads that it is.’
That’s a good thought that you had. When I think about it, I could see lots of people thinking about this war in those terms and that there was a bit of ‘romance’ to this idea at the time. Of course well know how that war ended. ‘Ask not for whom the Iskander roars down, Zelelnski. It roars for you.’
Is there anything more analytically barren and embarrassing than a framework where history begins in 1938?
Worse than useless, really … 🤦♂️
As it happens, the FDA used to keep the medical device issues database secret:
Five Things We Found In The FDA’s Hidden Device Database
This appears to still be available: About Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) Database
The last thing we need is LLMs summarizing incorrectly device manufacturers’ studies, allowing stuff to get approved that shouldn’t be.
And if a database of 5.7M incidents isn’t enough to scare you about medical devices, watch this Netflix documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bleeding_Edge
Based on what I saw, sometimes approvals are rubber stamps as long as it’s an “upgrade” of a previously approved device (with some recursive properties).
Re: Trump orders probe of Biden mental state, executive actions in office
History repeats! Back in the 80’s the cartoonist “Doonesbury” did a piece on the search for Reagan’s brain.
The sequel is out: The Search for Biden’s Compos Mentis.
It gives cold comfort to know that the Federal government is spending money on mental health research again.
“non compos mentis Joe” doesn’t have the same ring as Scranton Joe, but I think that future generations of medical students will recognize the term of art.
Joe, Joe was a man who thought he was a 2-termer
But he knew it couldn’t last
Joe, Joe left his home in Scranton, Pennsylvania
For some White House grass
Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back Joe, Joe
Go home
Get back, get back
Back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back
Back to where you once belonged, yeah
Oh, get back, Joe
Sweet Kamala Harris thought she was a woman
But she was Willie Brown’s man
All the pols around her say she’s got it coming
But she had to wait until she can
Oh, get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back Kamala, woo, woo
Go roam
Oh, get back, yeah, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Yeah, get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Ooh
Ooh, ooh
Get back to that action-figure pose
Your wardrobe’s waitin’ for you
Wearin’ those high-heel shoes
And a low risk, word salad speech
Get back on cue, Kamala
Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Oh, get back, get back
Get back, oh yeah
Get Back, by the Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEESfv-11ng
LOL. Todays antidote has been my home screen wallpaper for years!
AI bears in the trees last week, real sheep thrills in the trees this week.
Those are goats, Wuk!
…surely you kid
when i have had goats, they exhibited this behaviour…in mesquite trees, eating the beans, in season.so, right about this time of year.
a part of me misses goats…because(like donkeys) they have real personalities…individuals, and all.
whereas sheeps…well they’re a herd, above all else…and take different tactics and strategy to deal with, effectively.
I was chased and cornered by a big – bigger than me – ram once. Had curled-around horns larger than his head. I jumped up on a big rock and waited till he left.
2x RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT on MIC
Army prematurely pushes Black Hawk replacement into production
Plans to shortcut testing of new tiltrotor, decrepit U.S. military barracks on Guam, and more
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/army-black-hawk/
Gutting military testing office may be the deadliest move yet
The DoD will have to rely on biased sources in and outside the services that have approved half-baked weapons, vehicles, and aircraft before
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/dod-testing-cuts/
Shortcut testing of new tiltrotor sounds like something Musk & Techbros would do. Go straight to a live beta test of something inherently problematic.
Didn’t this approach lead to the whole concurrency mess with the F35?
Well, it’s a good thing helicopters are not complicated and naturally want to stay in the air. I’m sure it will be fine.
Edit: Looks like I was mistaken about the F35, the top Google result for “f35 concurrency” is a Forbes article which concludes with this pile of [solid gold analysis]:
Wasn’t ever that impressed with DOT&E in my time. They had their hobby horses like anyone else. But yes, approval of the TEMP (test and evaluation master plan) is a critical milestone in the life of a program.
OPEVAL is difficult because you are essentially dedicating operating units to testing when the joint commands are demanding the same resource.
I think Fukuyama is much maligned given the amount of crow he has eaten with his diptic: Origins of Political Power and especially with Political Power and Political Decay where he in fact guts the US like a fish.
Also, I don’t understand this fetish with The Lord of the Rings. I tried to readit but coudn’t. Too puerile. I did read The Hobbit when I was 12-13.
As a fantasy book, with elves and many monsters, I found the Witcher books (or the Warded Man serie of books) infinitely better in imagination, drama, ney tragedy, adventure, tension, etc. and kind of hard endings. Definitely not for psychopatic / asperger teenager billionaires.
Lord of the Rings? It’s fantasy. Let yourself go and enjoy it. I am not psychopathic a teenager, asperger’s or otherwise and not now nor ever a billionaire. I grew up on hard science fiction before switching to hard science.
I’m assuming this is the article that set off those musings:
The Death of Fukuyama’s European Children – Liberties Journal
This is part of the article set me adrift to another musing as well:
“America has been a fact of life for us. I was born in 1995. Long before I became aware of politics, the Czech Republic was comfortably seated in both NATO and the EU. The path forward was simple: we would keep doing what we were already doing. Catching up with the “old Europeans” seemed never-ending, and even thirty years after the Velvet Revolution, the Germans were still making more money than us.”
In general, I wonder about that happening in many places – that constant push “to catch up” to this or that.
It’s not necessarily the same thing as dealing with problems.
Reading The Lord of the Rings in the 1950s and 1960s, when there was really nothing like it to compare to, was a different experience from reading it now, when it’s been beaten to death by Hollywood. It went completely against the grain of the modernist literature that was the height of intellectual fashion at the time. The video and book publishing industry of the present has ruined many fine older works by “retelling” and spinning off and otherwise copying them to the point of exhaustion. The Creative Class now is anything but truly creative.
yes, Lefty.
i first read LOTR when i was 7 or so…so…1976?
year before Star Wars came out.
both have proved to be rather foundational to me.
both got me interested in knights and chivalry and revolution and good causes.
and then, a few years later…i found Vol 4 of Campbell’s Masks of God(Creative Mythology) laying about the house,lol…and ive never been the same.
that provided the reading list for the next 30 years…as well as what i strove to include in my Library.
and yes, i am a tolkien nerd…my first non-english language was quendi….boys and i use it(poorly) as a sort of battle language, when eyes and facial expressions dont work.(we also use Lakotah…due to dances with wolves, etc)
(usually to remove me from an uncomfortable social situation, as it turns out)
Perhaps I do know people who are using AI in secret – that’s how secret works. Mostly, though I know people who are completely open about using AI and when asked about specifics and errors, try to hand wave them away, insist that even with the review and rewrite time they saved time, and claim everything everybody does is bound to have minor errors. And I know people who press the AI users with the questions everything it comes up.
Not counting the people who use chat critters for the entertainment value of how badly they screw up.
I am never again entering my email address in order to open a web site. If they want look for it.It is all over the internet
Your comment remides me of the old saw, “I don’t sign my tax return. If they want me to guess my income for next year, let them guess who sent it in. “
Leavitt To Beaver pilot episode:
Everybody knew you didn’t mess with the Praytorian Guard in Humordor, and their weaponry was a pasted on cheery smile with a crucifix dangling down their throat to ward off vampires and/or pesky reporters asking pertinent questions, deflected with a ninja-kick by Karoline, often offering answers with kudos to a higher power, Donald.
Re Ken. Klipperstein’s latest. The genocidaires butchering the people of Gaza and their noisy claque can claim that opposition to their actions is motivated by antisemitism thus awarding themselves victim status as loudly and long as they choose. For myself, I am motivated by disgust, revulsion, and disbelief at the inhumanity of the shooters, the bombers, the spewers of fear and hatred in the Press and on TV in Israel. I am revolted by the mealy mouthed apologias issuing forth from the Israel lobby in all its manifestations in the US. The silence of most members of the US Congress is a signal act of cowardice. The president of the United States revealed just who he is with his ‘Gaza is great beach front real estate let’s turn it into a resort after clearing out that inconvenient population.’ To me you have all resigned from the human race.
aye, JMH. f&ck israel and zionazis in general.
they do not represent Judaeism, in toto…just are better funded than the rest.
“Never Again” didnt apply to brown skinned people that were in their way.(its always been a geopolitical Op)
and i will welcome the fbi, et alia and being cancelled…for saying so.
My immoderate comment on the genocide is Gaza has disappeared into the Internet ether. I have saved it in my Notebook. Writing it reaffirmed my opinion of both the murderous actors, pusillanimous “go-alongs”, and the fork-tongued supporters.
It’s here JMH. It’s a hummer too. I for one can feel the rage rising every day this genocide continues, while being viciously shoved under the rug.
“US Pressuring Vietnam to Downgrade Economic Ties With China: Report”
Now that’s a toughie for Vietnam to decide on. Do they ally themselves with the humungus economic juggernaut right next door to them or do they ally themselves with the feckless nation a whole ocean away that will probably end up demand letting them use Da Nang base again for their military in exchange for sanctions relief. Decisions, decisions.
“Automakers Race to Find Workaround to China’s Stranglehold on Rare-Earth Magnets”
‘Ideas under review include producing electric motors in Chinese factories or shipping made-in-America motors to China to have magnets installed.’
And when those cars are re-imported back to America, will the Pentagon rip the magnets out of those cars to use in F-35 fighter jets the same way that the Russians were supposed to have been taking the chips out of all those washing machine for their missiles?
Ideas under review should include sending emtpy made-in-America containers to China to have cars installed.
Aren’t there magnets in washing machines?
Better than that, you get whole electrical motor. And if I thought of it, someone else must have already made a Youtube video. Voilà
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgkcC7BnVCQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QYyzVyWckw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA3qTTKVfhQ
File under AI: From Reporter.
“Inequality Will Become Scary”: Artificial Intelligence Mutates from Assistant to Aggressor
https://en.topcor.ru/60500-neravenstvo-stanet-pugajuschim-iskusstvennyj-intellekt-mutiruet-iz-pomoschnika-v-agressora.html
Ken Klippenstein is fast approaching precarious intellectual territory. Sarah Milgrim (an American) and Yaron Lischinsky were shot and killed because they attended an inter-faith Jewish event. They did not attend an Israeli event. The shooter had no way of knowing Lischinsky was, in fact, an Israeli citizen nor did the shooter know Lischinsky practiced syncretic Christianity. The couple had no plans to live in Israel. They were American residents. More importantly to the newly single shooter, they were a couple. Klippenstein can’t shrug his shoulders safe in the assumption he would be given difference by the shooter.
(Lischinsky and Klippenstein, however, have VERY similar socio-cultural backgrounds. I know how everyone feels about veering into Ad Hominem so I’ll leave it at this: spooky.)
When you take it upon yourself to demonize what ONE believes are Jews to avenge the security efforts of a foreign government who seeks to destroy their assailants before that their assailants destroy them, yes, that is anti-Semitism. The shooter is in agreement with Hamas: both proud to hunt random people because they have the gall to find themselves inside Israel or be near the wrong event. It is a entirely selfish worldview based on shame. This is the type of thinking spirals into conspiracies from which good people never recover. To channel atheist Chris Hitchens, Jews and Hindus have seen your messiahs and said, “No, thank you.”
They’ve been killed for it ever since. It is beyond absurd. Jews in Palestine have suffered repeated organized violence since Passover 1920. It’s taken more than one hundred years for Gazans to experience a sample of what Jews have gone through for a millennia.
Won’t somebody think of the poor Zionists!? 🥲😭🤣
I”m crying so hard for those poor aparatchiks of the Third Reich, sorry, I mean Israel. So so many tears…
The solution to not getting killed in the country you invaded, colonized, ethnically cleansed and Nakba’d, is to GO THE FCK home to Europe where you and your kin came from. Grow up, put away your Hasbara script and stop spouting clownisms.
Funny thing; I just searched for “spendlove” and “site:nakedcapitalism.com”. Guess how many comments?
That’s right, this is Spendlove’s first comment. Probably the last as well. Hasbara indeed…
plus 100, Clock
“Yarón Lischinsky (30) and Sarah Lynn Milgrim (26), two staff members of the Israeli embassy in Washington”
https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/05/22/slain-israeli-diplomat-yaron-lischinsky-was-german-christian-who-fell-in-love-with-jewish-state/
I believe members of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division in WWII were not Germans, either.
“US Wields ‘Hand of Genocide’ by Vetoing Yet Another UN Gaza Cease-Fire Resolution”
Anybody else notice that when the US rep raised her hand to say no in that photo, that it resembled a Nazi salute? Just sayin’. So the Trump regime is taking the position that there will be no end to the killing until Hamas surrenders. But what happens if they do surrender but the Israelis continue their genocide? What then? Nobody is saying how Trump is demanding that the Russians call an unconditional conflict freeze while at the same time spiking one for Gaza.
The dating apps article fails to mention that those apps themselves have been thoroughly enshittified along with all other social media. Just as social media generally could, in theory, be beneficial to community and democracy and knowledge sharing, dating apps could supplement and enhance the process of meeting romantic/sexual partners in the real world. They just happen to do the opposite because clicks and money.
yep.
dating apps are fer shite.
nothing new, here.
its, as the article says, all about appearance, not anything to do with character.
hell, i spent 7 months texting with a “woman” who was perfect for me…unti she wanted me to send money to some iraqi firm that didnt exist, in order to safeguard her stolen taliban gold(from northern iraq…she was supposedly an army medic in irbil).
the actual woman it sent me pics of over thos months were likly of a real, and long dead, army medic.
sad, really.
with ai its just gon get worse.
Is it farfetched to wonder if the deleted Trump tweet above was generated by an AI that read the text another AI generated from listening to Trumps call with Putin?
>Fisher of Men
Masaniello had all the qualities modern liberals lack.
TACO Thursday deal:
Buy 1 taco and demand they give you 6 more free ones, but if they put up a fight at the cash register, pollo out.
Our new reality. Car Carrier With EVs and Hybrids is Burning and Abandoned Mid-Pacific, Maritime Executive
The vessel, which is managed by London-based Zodiac Maritime, is reported to be carrying a total of 3,048 vehicles, with 70 being fully electric vehicles and 681 being partial hybrid electric vehicles.
more
Electric vehicles have been a constant concern for the shipping industry with numerous reports of car fires. The fires are more difficult to handle because of the batteries prompting insurers and the industry to issue specific warnings about the handling of EVs. They have been believed to be the source of several other fires aboard ships.
Which makes me think: assume that a car manufacturer designs its vehicles so that batteries can be easily swapped in and out, wouldn’t that make it possible to reduce the risk of such fires by:
1) sending the cars (without batteries) on a normal vessel, with cheap insurance rates;
2) sending the batteries separately, on a special transport designed to contain possible battery fires;
3) reassembling the batteries into the cars at destination.
I know that some Chinese EV already feature the capability to swap out and in batteries rapidly (while Teslas require visiting a workshop).
Cost-effectiveness would depend on many factors: the risk of battery thermal runaway; value of the cargo, and the ship(s); cost of freighting two ships vs. one; expense of operating a special-purpose battery carrier; lower costs because of cheaper insurance rates when separating the cargo on two ships (one being designed to handle batteries); having to swap-in batteries upon delivery.
This probably qualifies as one of the “orphan” IT topics or one of the silicon valley ones. Has anybody who logs in to YouTube seen in their general feed a box where a video should be asking “Looking for something different? Get video recommendations beyond what you usually watch”
Errr, the general feed (i.e. not the one of videos from accounts you subcribe to) is meant to do this. So what gives? I have a bad mind and given the fact my very very strict usage of “don’t recommend this channel” along with downvotes etc has left YouTube wondering WTF to suggest to me. I’m getting repeat suggetions. Have I “run out of internet that is of any real use”?
It has given me today’s LULZ (tied with amfortas’s comment yesterday wondering about me which really made me laugh this morning).
Youtube’s recommendation algorithm tried for too long to be like Netflix’s—- but youtube serves a wholly difference audience than Netflix.
the “long tail” of content on youtube is far, far “longer” and “fatter” than Netflix’s. Just compare the number of movies on IMDB to the de facto infinite amount of content on youtube. then throw in that people go to Netflix for largely for entertainment; people go to youtube for entertainment, information, education.
I’ve opted out of youtube history tracking—and it’s interesting that you can imply a video’s core audience via the recommendation adverts you see. Say an ostensibly “left wing” video throws of John Oliver recommendations and pharma ads; an ostensibly “right wing” video gives me prepper links and adverts for gold, lol.
Thank you for the insights but it (to me) kinda illustrates some differences in how the two of us use YT. I used to like being signed in (so automatic history tracking) when using YT. I found a LOT of “more niche but more correct” channels on subjects like climate change, MMT, etc. The suggestions from the “random” tab (equivalent to using YT without being signed in) had too much trash.
Finally, I certainly use YT on my tablet/phone when lying in bed at night – thus enduring ads. When I use YT during office hours, however, it is on the Linux laptop with Firefox with every conceivable ad and sponsor blocker you can think of. Thus I see none of the “advert patterns” you mention……and since I click skip ASAP (usually at the 5 second mark) when watching on the tablet in bed, YouTube has (correctly) ascertained I will NEVER EVER buy or sign up to anything from an ad. Indeed after watching certain videos, I think it is reasonable to assume that 99% of YT ads are for products that are not helpful or actively fraudulent. Likewise sponsors (Better Help, the one about owning part of Scotland hahahaha). YT makes NO additional money from me beyond the basic clicks to interesting videos. And I wonder if I’ve started to bug them *shrug*
Then again they do say “don’t put down to malice what could easily be explained by incompetence” (or somesuch) and the ads still make me laugh, 25 years after I started deliberately messing with the algorithm by making them think I’m an older female. The ads are LAUGHABLY mistargeted.
I noticed something today that I am not sure if this is true but I suspect it is: when you are watching a program that is new and streaming ‘live’, besides the initial ad before it begins, it seems there are none during the program to interrupt the rest of the broadcast.
I am going to try and determine if this was a one off or is always the case.
Do not know for sure but I suspect that pure logistical issues mean they won’t give ads when it is live.
The ads will be there when watching SUBSEQUENTLY but not during IRL watching. I tend to avoid IRL purely because they’re ridiculously long with 95% guff. I’d rather see the edited 5% which I can watch on the laptop sans ads anyway.
I get the “Looking for something different?” YT box about once a week now. (That phrase reminds me of hearing just that question posed to me by a ‘Nasty Chicken’ down on St. Ann street in the French Quarter after midnight lo these many years ago. That YT reminds me so strongly of a Swinging Bordello tells me something about how that business is run. Pandering is the word we want.)
We both also get multiple repeats of “suggested content” in our YT feed. Since we supposedly disabled all but “necessary cookies,” (a regular chore when entering a new web domain,) YT seems to have given up on us.
Stay safe.
Thanks ambrit. Glad there are others…..and it really makes me more receptive to those people who I previously had pegged as kooks that “much of the internet is dead”.
If it were NOT dead you and I would get additional channels (even if small niche ones) suggested to us on topics we like. I strongly suspect “real stuff” has reached its peak and the rest is AI slop.
UK under dual pressure to increase defence spending now – The Times
The more people talk about how “behind” the NATO and associates are, even if it’s with the tone that it should be a state of affairs that brings them to some bargaining table, it keeps the offense & defense funding flowing.
The Trump administration has already proven to be the most corrupt, authoritarian, incompetent and flat out stupid administration in American history.
And we have nearly 4 years to go.
In regard to the ICE raids, this is why we have the second Amendment, for now.
I expect that will change, Bruen Vs NY or not.
Don’t worry, the next one will be worse.
I think Yves and some others in the comment section predicted that it would only be a matter of time before Musk turned on Trump.
Well, that time has arrived. The worm has turned, indeed!
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5335049-elon-musk-criticizes-trump/
Ultimate Fealty Championship # 86
Donald ‘Teetotalitarian Leader’ Trump versus Elon ‘Muskular Diss-Trophy’ Musk
2 go into the Octagon, and it doesn’t really matter who emerges victorious, we’re screwed as a country.
Lettttttttttttttssssss get ready to crumble!
Musk already challenged Zuckerberg to a cage match, didn’t he?
The undercard could be Vance vs. M T-G. Marjorie is a big CrossFit enthusiast, so my money would be on the mean, Greene, fightin’ machine.
Since we in the Palinstinian Movement sadly lost our doyen to some hockey player, M T-G has been our heroine fix, she loves to needle anybody to the left of her position.
Considering the “fanciful” policies she champions, it would not surprise me a bit to see her, like an economist, “assume a position.” As for “to the left of her,” are we proposing the Unification Church as her “Spirit Guide?” (It is not often that I get the chance to “Moon” anyone rhetorically, so do forgive the Argument from Infallible Authority fallacy.)
It’s a real pie throwing movie between the two of them on X today. Get out the popcorn.
I don’t do X/Twitter, but Elon just tweeted that Trump is in the Epstein files:
Live updates: Trump fires back at ‘CRAZY!’ Musk, who then claims president is in Epstein files
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/trump-the-next-100-days/5334193-live-updates-trump-merz-travel-ban-senate-house/
So it’s on – I guess.
But honestly, I assumed everybody that was anybody hanging out in NYC back during that time probably ended up in those files one way or another.
Maybe McMahon can be the referee for this match.
I am seeing reports that EM is now calling for impeachment of DJT.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/05/trump-elon-musk-fallout
—
As Lambert was wont to say, “What have you done for me lately?”
Doge Eat D.O.G.E.
(Sung to the tune of “Dog Eat Dog” by Ted Nugent)
Sabotage on the MAGA streets
A bromance overturned
You can’t do nothing to beat the cheat
And if you don’t, you’ll get burned
Bloated gubmint behind every door
Costs more than you got
You best be up if
You want some more
Cause if you don’t
The Bill is shot!
[Chorus]
Doge, Doge, Doge eat D.O.G.E.
Doge, Doge, Doge eat D.O.G.E.
Doge, Doge, Doge eat D.O.G.E.
Kamikaze from the Senate floor
A swan dive on the street
Musk couldn’t handle
This madness no more
He cried, “you must impeach!”
[Guitar Solo]
Doge, Doge, Doge eat D.O.G.E.
Doge, Doge, Doge eat D.O.G.E.
Doge, Doge, Doge eat D.O.G.E.
(repeat chorus)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcbJwiYARdY
This is utterly hilarious.
Ain’t enough popcorn in the world. The guy who allegedly can’t use his thing properly against the guy who allegedly wears a diaper. Note my allegedlys so nobody gets into trouble. But you don’t need to descend to such insults to see the disjoint.
RE Pandemics: the spike protein was not required for a positive test result in 237 of the 239 EUA tests authorized by the FDA.
As a side note, I’ve been reading news reports over the past few days of how former University of Michigan president Santa Ona will not be assuming the top job at the University of Florida. The University of Florida Board of Trustees approved him unanimously, and I assumed it was a done deal. However, the Florida Board of Governors for the state universities apparently didn’t approve of his DEI ways in Ann Arbor, so they voted thumbs down by a margin of 10 to 6.
I remember raising my eyebrows when I first heard of him heading to Ron DeSantis-land, so I guess his bid has reached its logical outcome.
My apologies for not including any links. I’ve been able to include them in the past, but for whatever reason I can’t seem to figure out how to do it today.
No worries!
Former University of Michigan president rejected for University of Florida’s top job amid conservative backlash