Top synchro execution in action!
Gabriela Agundez and Alejandra Estudillo deliver height, precision, and perfect timing 🙌🇲🇽#Bestdives pic.twitter.com/P1Kxc04dvh
— World Aquatics (@WorldAquatics) May 18, 2025
The breakthrough proof bringing mathematics closer to a grand unified theory Nature
20-Million-Year-Old Rhino Fossil Rewrites Evolutionary History SciTech Daily
An electric scooter that accelerates faster than a Tesla Model 3? No thanks! The Verge
COVID-19/Pandemics
Actually, research supports the COVID school closures The Hill
Climate/Environment
Researchers develop 30,000 AI-induced climate mitigation scenarios Andolu Agency
EPA eliminates research and development office, begins layoffs ABC News
China?
kindergarten lessons in China
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) June 17, 2025
Exclusive: China quietly issues 2025 rare earth quotas, sources say Reuters
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang praises China’s EVs, says he would love to buy Xiaomi car Global Times
‘Great British Energy solar panels’ were made in China BBC
New Images Of China’s J-35 Naval Stealth Fighter, Could Depict Third Example The War Zone
China begins construction of world’s largest hydropower station in Tibet Andolu Agency
Will China Abandon Its Non-Interventionist Foreign Policy for Iran? Oilprice.com
South of the Border
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy may deny flights from Mexico over broken aviation agreement NY Post
Could Trump’s threats against Brazil backfire? Al Jazeera
IMF and Milei – partners in Argentina’s neoliberal autocracy Bretton Woods Project
Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa Can’t Afford to Eat on a Carbon Diet The Ecomodernist
French military to leave Senegal amid ongoing withdrawal from Africa RFI
European Disunion
EU’s Bold High-Speed Rail Vision Faces Major Hurdles: Can Europe Overcome Challenges To Achieve Its 2030 And 2050 Goals, You Need To Know Travel and Tour World
Old Blighty
UK reduces voting age to 16, aims to boost electoral participation Scripps News
Britain faces a test of identity: Will Britons become a minority in their homeland? – opinion Jerusalem Post
Israel v. Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Lebanon
Gaza is undergoing one of the worst famines in the world and what do Israeli citizens do?
They are attacking a destroying what little aid caravans go to Gaza.
They want babies to starve and children to die.
They say it all the time. pic.twitter.com/xmaFxA3TCn
— ADAM (@AdameMedia) July 19, 2025
JUST IN: British surgeon Dr. Nick Maynard says Israeli soldiers in Gaza are turning the targeting of Palestinian children into a “HUMAN-HUNTING GAME.”
“These children are being targeted almost as if it’s a game… One day they’re all shot in the head, the next day in the neck,… pic.twitter.com/YMRjdNA58L
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) July 19, 2025
Bad Days and Worse Days London Review of Books
Dr. Hussam Abu Safia fed two spoonfuls of rice a day in Israeli prison
——
In an interview with Arab48 published Thursday, attorney Ghaid Qassem said that director of Kamal Adwan Hospital Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, who is currently imprisoned in Ofer prison, had been subjected to… pic.twitter.com/VST2Ttmg7I— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) July 18, 2025
Why Did Israel Attack Syria? What Comes Next? Zeteo
Israel levelling thousands of Gaza civilian buildings in controlled demolitions BBC
New Not-So-Cold War
The notion that Ukraine might defeat Russia and destabilise it has always been a delusional fantasy. They are outnumbered, outgunned, and facing a nuclear superpower; this is not strategy – it is madness. It’s time for peace and common sense to prevail ‼️ pic.twitter.com/40RXiUDayo
— Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) July 18, 2025
Condoleezza Rice: Trump’s aggressive stance on Putin is ‘turning point’ in Russia-Ukraine war The Hill
The CIA Initiated an Intelligence and Terrorist War on Russia Based on a Lie Larry Johnson
Genocide or tragedy? Ukraine, Poland at odds over Volyn massacre of 1943 Al Jazeera
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
For privacy and security, think twice before granting AI access to your personal data TechCrunch
USDA again asks for Kansans’ personal data, as lawsuit seeks privacy protections Kansas Reflector
Imperial Collapse Watch
‘Home bags’ aim to ease hardship for Brockton’s homeless students. How the program works. The Enterprise
These 10 states have the worst infrastructure in America in 2025 CNBC
Trump 2.0
Donald Trump Is Having One of His Worst Weeks, Ever The New Republic
Republicans’ food aid cuts will hit grocers in many towns that backed Trump Politico
Barack Obama Now Squarely in Russiagate Crosshairs Matt Taibbi
Musk Matters
Trump administration ordered review of SpaceX government contracts following Trump-Musk fallout: Report The Economic Times
How Elon Musk Created a Nightmare for Donald Trump Gizmodo
Elon Musk moves xAI, Grok onto Palantir turf The Street
Democrat Death Watch
How can Democrats win back working-class voters? Change their tune The Guardian
Democrats’ 2024 Autopsy Is Described as Avoiding the Likeliest Cause of Death NY Times
Immigration
Thousands of Californians lost work after LA immigration raids. Citizens did, too Santa Monica Daily Press
New Jersey’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst to be used for immigrant detention CBS News
Our No Longer Free Press
Journalists among those arrested during immigration-related protest in Cincinnati NY Post
Did Trump Play a Role in Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Getting Canceled? Fulcrum
Mr. Market Is Moody
Dollar Weakens as a Fed Official Calls for Rate Cuts Nasdaq
Stocks just hit a ‘line of death’ last reached at the peak of the dot-com bubble, veteran investor Bill Smead warns Business Insider
Another major trucking operation files Chapter 11 bankruptcy The Street
AI
Meta declines to abide by voluntary EU AI safety guidelines The Register
People Are Becoming Obsessed with ChatGPT and Spiraling Into Severe Delusions Futurism
The Bezzle
Christine Hunsicker, CEO of a Bankrupt Fashion Tech Startup, Charged for Alleged $300M Fraud Scheme People
Guillotine Watch
This LA mansion is selling for $250M, it is the most expensive home for sale in the US pic.twitter.com/EwnswjSezp
— Business Insider (@BusinessInsider) September 8, 2018
💎 The most expensive ring was created by Swiss jewelers Shawish.
The ring is not adorned with a #diamond – the fabulously expensive accessory is carved out of a single diamond.
Its cost is $70,046,000. pic.twitter.com/YGZuz9h3Cy
— Jaouad (@jaouad2d) March 4, 2024
Antidote du jour (via)
A bonus:
The leap range of a tiger. pic.twitter.com/HYo4AEIcOU
— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) July 20, 2025
A second bonus:
That sign about falling cats is hilarious. pic.twitter.com/LOQYaZgS5e
— We don’t deserve cats 😺 (@catsareblessing) July 18, 2025
And a third:
Beluga whales love to play, scare, joke and generally interact with humans.
This clip is the perfect example.pic.twitter.com/YZwf3LteJv
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) July 19, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
‘Business Insider
@BusinessInsider
8 Sep 2018
This LA mansion is selling for $250M, it is the most expensive home for sale in the US’
I wonder how many staff are required to keep that place going. At a minimum you would be talking about a team of chefs, groundskeepers, maintenance staff, serving staff, cleaners, etc. So I am thinking maybe a few dozen all told with some living on site. At least the interior is done in warm colours where some mansions featured on NC have interiors that can be at best described as tacky, cold and jolting to the eye.
1) It looks like a hotel, not a house where people live.
2) If I can pay $250M for such a mansion, why would on earth would I bother with a “non-functional helicopter” blocking the helipad, instead of a working one?
3) It is supposedly full of art — I could not find anything looking like it (but what do I know about the recent trends and tastes of the high gentry). The huge camera sculpture is supremely tacky.
4) A bowling alley? A screening room with seats that become beds?? A wall of candy???
5) No books. Anywhere.
6) Why all the giant displays everywhere — including outside the house?
7) Why were the bathrooms not shown?
All of it gives me a slight impression that it was generated by AI.
“It looks like a hotel, not a house where people live.”
Maybe somebody will buy it and make the most expensive Airbnb property. Cleaning fees or requirements could address Rev’s questions about the maintenance expenses. The most likely customers/clients could be young professionals doing their “micro-retirement”.
Turns out a lot was unexplained here. The “non-functional helicopter” was a collectible from a TV show. The house was indeed listed for $250 million, maybe as a publicity stunt, but then sold for a mere $94 million (chump change by comparison) way back in 2019.
It’s been noted here about the muted colors in movies now, with technical explanations about post-production predominating. But comparing automobile colors from the ’70’s to now, what was day-glo has become dark-green being a bold individualistic statement. There’s more shine, but not more saturation.
A main axis of the World Values Survey is ‘survival / self-expression’. Is it consumer preference driving the wash-out? Or is it, you’ll eat what you’re served? Images of traffic jams in Brazil (a high self-expression country) look as washed-out as here, so that indicates the latter. A brief walkthrough of a Kardashian mansion I saw had no color, only glass and white, and no individual signification. No family pictures on the wall, just corporate art. Lifeless.
With respect to cars, in my experience, the cars that are black or white are the least expensive. The red, blue or sparkly paint cars also have more expensive equipment packages. The sparkly paint is also more expensive to repair as I learned when someone bonked into my car with black sparkly paint as I was putting kids and groceries in the car and then drove off
The last car I have had that wasn’t black or white was in high school when I got my mother’s tan jeep as a hand me down.
It includes a car collection so that’s pretty cool I suppose. Probably none that should be driven in public of course. I get the bowling alley portion of the video clip, and I’m immediately reminded of the brutal and ultimate ending scene from what I call an epic film, There Will Be Blood.
“I’m finished!”
I’m most interested in the non functioning helicopter, and if I have to buy the rest of the mansion to get it, so be it.
There Will Be Blood is based on Edward Doheny, a ruthless oil man.
To make amends later in life he paid for the building of a large Catholic church on Figueroa St in LA, wags at the time called it ‘Doheny’s Fire Escape’ as it was pretty certain he was going to hell~
His mansion is now owned by something like the actor’s guild. I was there for a screening way back when. Then there is the story of his family yacht.
Back in the 60’s I rubbed some shoulders with some nichiren shoshu crazies that cooked up a scheme to start a revolution in Mexico. For the first step (don’t ask me why) they hijacked the Doheny yacht. They were hunted down by the coast guard and prosecuted for piracy and attempted murder and half s dozen other crimes.
Had to look…
https://youtu.be/aKYCa56tDSw?si=nQI_VGx1N-3UmclP
“I’m finished!”
You must admit, he really didn’t have anything left to do after that.
That’s why they’re called job creators Rev!
Bring those Chinese kids in and save some money.
It’s on the news. It was Clark Gable’s house. Beverly Hills. His widow refurbished it to sell it. This is on the news.
re: US media
How Public Media Lost The Federal Funding Battle, And What Happens Next To Stations, NPR And PBS
https://deadline.com/2025/07/pbs-npr-funding-cut-explained-whats-next-1236461136/
Last time I looked every PBS program was preceded by a long list of oligarchs both living and dead who participated in its individual funding. Shouldn’t be too difficult to round up a few more to fill the funding gap. Look for the pinched reactionaries to next attack the NPR and PBS 501(c)3 status. What’s Ken Burns gonna do?
I saw NPR manipulate a story to fit their agenda. They ignored facts and tried to inject uncertainty and doubt into an issue with which I was very familiar through work. That was years ago and they only got less objective and more obvious in their biases.
Advice: Go to that permanent brunch and have another cocktail on their own nickel.
Yesterday, while going to get our Muddy Fork croissants, the NPR man spoke of people who rode that plane, including Bill Clinton, who had ‘never been accused of any crimes.’ I’ve been used to the rhetorical twists. But to listen to him flat lie was the Timberlok in the coffin. Dan Schorr dies yet again.
Stephen Colbert getting the axe. It’s unfortunate for the staff and apparently it was well staffed. I shed no tears, crocodile or other, for this individual. He turned into a political hack at best, far from his time at Comedy Central initially working for / with Stewart, then launching his own branded report show. Someone at that level and in a signficant role and time slot, well perhaps he and also the show writers, really could’ve done better than opening on a recurring “Two Minute hate speech” during the first Trump administration.
Last year he did give a poignant, even heartfelt it seemed brief recap and memorial to country star Toby Keith. It started with an appearance by the Big Dog on the aforementioned CC show. Obviously the politics of these two entertainers varied quite much.
And hey this proves the axiom, unless you own the company you can become expendable. Start a podcast…. everyone else has one.
C’mon, man. Think of all the good things that Stephen Colbert has done that we can remember him by-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq76QSlRiPo (1:27 mins)
I watched Colbert for a bit on Youtube back in 2016, when I followed American politics with interest. Soon came to the conclusion that it wasn’t for me. However, I did have a favourable impression of his immediate post-election performance. It had the air of someone talking shocked and anguished people off the ledge, which I do think is a good thing to do, even if the people in question and their tragedy are a little hard to take seriously. That said he also seemed to be the sort of entertainer who’s squarely oriented towards cheering up a particular political grouping, in his case the Democratic faithful, and not doing anything more interesting or complicated. Good for them (or perhaps bad now, but I doubt he’ll just disappear – he has talent for this specific thing he does).
People like him are the part of the problem, doing brainwashing of the populace for the benefit of the “elite”, and hence the Guillotine Watch material. They deserve real axe. Staff too, because the “I was just following orders” talk works only in the minds of those saying it.
I remember being astonished at public outlets going along with the dissing of Sanders, outright misleading of listeners, who went out and backed Clinton and Biden as ‘more electable’. How’s that working for ya, PBS?
The high point of Colbert’s career IMO…His performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner 2006. He ultimately became the person he used to mock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-a2KeyCAY
His brilliant best, relentlessly oblivious as his audience stopped laughing and viewers at home couldn’t stop. Turned out his advantage was playing a character, rather than being himself. I won’t miss him either but I’ll always miss his smug, glib blinkered alter ego.
Re: How can Democrats win back working-class voters?
Dream on.
I have to admit that the first thought that popped into my mind in reading that headline was ‘How can cannibals stop being cannibals? By not eating people.’ Yeah, not going to happen. So, ‘How can Democrats win back working-class voters?’ By offering immediate material benefits to their lives. Also not going to happen.
One concern I have is that Trump’s policies will make the status quo ante more appealing to voters.
There are no cannibals in our village any more. We ate the last one yesterday.
and then there’s this take-down of AOC by Caitlin Johnstone this morning –
AOC is definitely honing her political chops and duplicity –
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/07/20/aoc-is-a-genocidal-con-artist/
reached out to share the AZ billboard of tRump from yesterday’s links with an acquaintance – her first response to me was, “I haven’t forgiven you yet for this past election. I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel”
my transgression was not voting for Ms Giggles – my mistake was sharing for whom i did vote –
and it wasn’t tRump –
for some there is no hope and no rational debate – my daughter told me to just forget about political conversations with folks – shaking my head, she may be correct –
Fetterman in disguise?
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/30/cort-m30.html
Never thought I would see the day where I was disappointed that AOC would vote against MTG. But here we are
noticed in the MTG clip that she was disturbed by the fact that Israelis have Universal Healthcare and Subsidized College – would be interesting if she followed up on those too –
does MTG not have an AIPAC handler?
Re: AOC-
I’m thinking AOC has dreams of becoming the future Nancy Pelosi with all the attached grift. So disappointing, along with Sanders. AOC’s concern that the Israelis need the money to buy more “defensive” weapons so they can protect themselves just helps Israel to fulfill the “Plan” to destroy Gaza and wage destruction across the Mideast. In the words of Mike Tyson ” Everybody has a plan until they get hit in the face”.
AOC’s “eat the rich” dress during the early stages of an ongoing Pandemic worn during a high end who’s who social event was by that point all anyone needed to know about how shallow and duplicitous she is.
And this is why I particularly despise liberal Democrats. Republicans are at least honest about what they’re about. Democrats are “working tirelessly for a ceasefire” lol.
Although when it comes to the Pandemic, an ongoing threat to the working class and humanity, most Leftists are missing in action as well. So what passes for the Left in America isn’t really useful for much of anything, either.
So what passes for the Left in America isn’t really useful for much of anything, either.
That is the Left as defined by the Right, and the “two” right-wing “parties” are in cahoots here: the right-wing left is very useful to the ruling caste, as the article posted by Jabura Basadai illustrates well.
The Left that considers itself not to be liberal Democrats also abdicated any responsibility towards protecting the working class from an ongoing Pandemic. Find me any not-liberal-Democrat leftist blogger or podcaster that acknowledges the ongoing Pandemic. I’ll wait.
UK reduces voting age to 16, aims to boost electoral participation – Scripps News
Time for Semper to post the movie “Wild In The Streets”? :)
Every satire and cautionary tale is becoming non-fiction/documentaries.
If you become an adult at 16, then you can be enlisted and sent to fight and die at 16.
Zelensky liked that.
In the UK, you can sign the papers at 15 and join at 16! So your comment is sadly true enough.
When people called for them to be aligned, they were thinking of the higher number….
At the same time, we are seeing the long infantilisation of the WEIRD adults. People do not form independent lives, households etc until 30+, instead living an extended adolescence through university. Indeed university itself is now being required to act in loco parentis of ostensible adults (there is a long and very sad campaign by parents of student suicides to force UK universities to do more bit the fundamental problem is 18 year olds are adults and if they want to fuck up, neither their parents nor an institution can or should babysit them; NB: this campaign is not about fixing negligent mental health care but about extending pastoral supervision).
As a result, we should probably be *raising* the UK voting age to 25 or 30!
What are the demographics for the 16 and under cohort in the UK?
From the sad crime stories in big cities and economic distress everywhere, what are the risks of a surprising, non-Britishy result or two from the Council level on up the ladder?
How soon will there be a Polymarket or similar betting pool on issues?
Recently I’ve become of the opinion that voting age should be in fact raised to 40 to be honest.
At 25 I was a veteran of three wars, two coup-de-tats, and several covert actions. I lacked educational experience but obtained my bachelors by 30.
At 25, I had something to say based upon real-world experience, and believe me I would have said it if I could only articulate it well. All I had was my vote.
Decades later I come across people far older than I– in their 60s, 70s, 80s– who have a child-like, simplified view of the world without the nuance and understanding that I had obtained by the age of 25, and you’re telling me that the voting age matters?
Good point. Voters should be 25-65.
We have had 16+ voting age in Scotland for about a decade, for the devolved Edinburgh but not Westminster government.
I was fortunate enough to teach Modern Studies, aka Civics, at secondary level and even my cohort of 13 year olds were more thoughtful about voting than many adults.
Age is not the most useful metric for being sensible enough to be trusted to vote.
The youngsters all took their democratic privileges very seriously.
Media disinformation and bias, plus the lying scum in the political class are the biggest drawback to sensible exercise of the vote, with 47 the porkiest pie teller I have ever encountered
Re Did Trump Play a Role in Colbert–not only does the article not answer its own question but it also ignores the fact that Colbert was a government promoting outlet for his good friend Biden until last January. Additionally any broadcast outlet is by definition a government partner since their license grants them what was once a triopoly status and the ability to print money. That’s not nearly as true as it once was and for sure it was the Republicans who tossed the Fairness Doctrine. But one should certainly not judge the opportunist Colbert to be some kind of noble figure. For people like him it’s easy to be smug when you are preaching to the converted. Indeed your rice bowl depends on it.
We do need the media to keep the elites honest but in that increasingly ownership restricted space there is little to keep them honest. One might even argue that’s the bigger problem.
I read somewhere the show has been losing money for a long time.
He was cancelled, not due to the losses of money, but because Trump wanted him gone. The same will happen to all the others that speak out against the Nazi regime. Losing money is just an excuse and not true.
He should have never been canceled because he has the highest viewership of any of them, and is one of the greatest late night comedians ever.
So I am told.
Yea, and proof that propaganda works.
From this side of the Atlantic, he seems as grindingly predictable in his gags and idées reçues as the “alternative” comedians were in the UK during the Thatcher years. Some of these were very funny and insightful people (Alexei Sayle) but not when they were on primetime.
He is no loss.
Amusingly, Trump seems to be the first President to generate the bent-out-of-shape media hatred that Thatcher did in the UK. She too was an arriviste vulgarian.
So we can’t have an equal and opposite to Fox’s Hannity or so many other fox celebs beating the GOP drum?
I don’t recall Colbert ever being successfully sued for falsehoods or various improprieties like Fox. I stopped watching Colbert when it got less satire and more cheer leading but as it is not fraudulent it should be taken as part of the political discourse however blinkered.
I started to go down the rabbit hole to test the waters, primarily suits filed by X against channel this that and the other. Omg and SMH, it’s a list of law suits alright and likely one I can’t summarize well or with precision. I will likewise suggest, certain media channels proved their loyalty when they disquieted the notion of say for one example, the Hunter Biden laptop. Trump is a narcissist, this is a given. Fox news can spew a ton on information at the core audience and just on the other aisle, I’d argue that CNN or MSNBC have done and will continue as well.
By the way, what is Don Lemon up to these days anyway? Oh, and Jake Tapper wrote a book to help assuage his hand in the ” Biden is mentally healthy and fully aware. “. Ugh, much of it requires a double take on most days.
Other countries most likely have their news, the US has a large contingent of stenographers. Pick your favorite flavor of Kool Aid. And to add, the likes of a Sean Hannity, a Rachel Maddow, and until next May at least Stephen Colbert are paid quite well.
My point is, as Mencken said, don’t underestimate the stupidity of the American electorate.
So there are plenty supplying the koolaid. They are paid. Money is now speech. Just be glad there are still two major sides vying. When one side can shut down the other and instill loyalty oaths for law enforcement then we might be in trouble. Oh wait!
I will concede you make a good counter point. We’re not yet at the level of say, Carnegie and his massive steel plants hiring Pinkerton’s to fire on the unruly mob of non union workers….not quite yet at any rate.
To borrow a classic phrase generally attributed to financier Jay Gould, ” I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half…”. As someone else in comments often puts it, this timeline is lit.
I agree, I shed no tears for Colbert himself. As soon as he hit the big time he was just another boot licker
For the establisment elites. Quit watching him and the others a long time ago. Late night show comedians have not been funny or entertaining for years.
A coupla years ago they had these American late night show comedians on late TV here in Oz as cheap fill. It was just garbage from end to end and I would rather watch an ancient rerun of Red Skelton and Jack Benny instead. At least they were funny.
Benny Hill in 2028! Sure, he’s British and dead, but those things don’t seem to matter anymore in American politics.
Absolutely Benny Hill and the only reason I did not mention him was because he was British. He was rude, crude, vulgar and sexist – and absolutely hilarious-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv1FBqFOTLQ (4:34 mins)
His life’s work reminds me of a tombstone I read about upon which the following words were carved-
‘R.I.P
Here lies my Husband, he was
Dishonest, erratic,
Erotic, irresistable,
Wanton, untrustworthy
And a liar.
Sadly missed by his
Everloving wife.’
I had a feeling you and he got along. I’m a bit young to have followed him in real time, but I eventually caught up.
Peace.
Stephen Colbert was actually very, very funny in Strangers With Candy, a sitcom starring Amy Sedaris as a 40-something former addict and prostitute who returns to high school (Colbert plays a neurotic [and gay] teacher having a long running affair with a colleague). He did a great job as a “reporter” on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, way back when it was still funny, and invented a twisted conservative talk host persona for The Colbert Report – that show was likely the height of his talent expression. I still don’t understand what happened to his edge.
There’s a clip of Amy Sedaris on The Late Show getting interviewed by him, both of them reminiscing about their débuts in the business, living in relative poverty, and you can see some of the real man revealed for a moment. And then it evaporates.
Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner was when he peaked in my view.
Actually making light of the sitting, war mongering, USA president (Bush II) and toady journalists, who were in attendance.
Courageous stuff, given the potential for revenge from the targets of his humor.
This version of Colbert may have simply been a product of his writers, and not evidence of a critical, independent, thinker one could respect.
But one can be sure he banked a lot of coin in his career.
I think it is not really such a wonder that a strongly Democratic-aligned comic would courageously assail some Republicans. Nor is it in any way incompatible with his career since then.
Stewart was funny back in the day. Carolinian Colbert played a parody rightwinger on that show and later on his own Comedy Central show. Perhaps it’s an indication of his true lack of bite that the latter was surprisingly popular among conservatives.
I’ve always thought his comedy was more pandering than satire but that’s just me. Lenny Bruce he is not. The pandering got worse when he made the big time at CBS.
And to say he’s better than his lame late night competition is not much of a boost.
The funniest thing from Jon Stewart is when he presented a medal to a Nazi at the Disney World.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFpHtufCIZ4
Re; People Are Becoming Obsessed with ChatGPT and Spiraling Into Severe Delusions
“…Vasan agrees that OpenAI has a perverse incentive to keep users hooked on the product even if it’s actively destroying their lives.”
“The incentive is to keep you online,” she said. The AI “is not thinking about what is best for you, what’s best for your well-being or longevity… It’s thinking ‘right now, how do I keep this person as engaged as possible?'”
We’ve seen this before, and many of us here likely have experienced lost or ruined relationships in our lives because of it:
Facebook’s ethical failures are not accidental; they are part of the business model
Facebook’s stated mission is “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” But a deeper look at their business model suggests that it is far more profitable to drive us apart. By creating “filter bubbles”—social media algorithms designed to increase engagement and, consequently, create echo chambers where the most inflammatory content achieves the greatest visibility—Facebook profits from the proliferation of extremism, bullying, hate speech, disinformation, conspiracy theory, and rhetorical violence. Facebook’s problem is not a technology problem. It is a business model problem. This is why solutions based in technology have failed to stem the tide of problematic content.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8179701/
Pain (upon others) = Profit (for shareholders)
Who wants to tie this in to “our” law-makers personal investment portfolios? Ride ’em out on a rail in ’26.
I forget the author but around a month ago I read a short blog piece about a new OpenAI hire who was a top executive at facebook in the early 2010’s and the message was something like the person in charge of ruining facebook has just been hired to manage user engagement at OpenAI. The process is an A/B testing group which measures how long the user stays at the site and there is only one measure anybody cares about and that is to keep them online. Like the old casino manager instruction to keep them playing.
Ghislaine Maxwell believed Trump would save her, now she’s documenting everything behind bars: jail source- NY Post
That’s cool. She gets writing tools that can be used to make shanks. That’s some self-protection.
Supposedly she had already been moved to a cushy white collar crime type facility where shankings are rare.
As for The New Republic up in Links, Max Blumenthal on a podcast asked why the Dems hadn’t used Epstein against Trump long before and that’s an interesting question. I probably follow the news more than your average MAGA but didn’t know that Trump and Epstein were15 year bosom buddies. This weekend’s NYT story even cites an incident where Epstein brought one of his girls up to Trump Tower for a visit. It’s impossible that Trump didn’t know what was going on and suspicions that he participated need only the slightest verification. Hubris meets nemesis.
On the plus side Mrs. Vance will make a nice first lady. Sooner than we think?
Well Max Blumenthal should know that the reason why the Dems could never use Epstein against Trump and the Repubs as doing so would burn a lot of their own donors. And it would certainly drag down Bill Clinton as he used to take flights on the Lolita Express which would also mean that Hillary Clinton would get dragged down as well. In wrecking the Repubs, the Dems would wreck themselves so we have a MAD situation here.
Dems are as involved with Epstein, etc as the RINOs.
When does US stop suffering pedophiles?
How do we become a sane nation?
When do we insist our weapons not be used for genocide?
Probably, at least 10 or 20 years after we stop rewarding calculating, ruthless, back-stabing, greed driven psychopaths to promotions on the ladder towards CEO.
We bemoan the ethical and wisdom lapses up at the top of the pyramid, and ignore that the entire base of the pyramid is infested by equally poor barely human specimens. The rot goes all the way down. It’s as if the proverbial small town used car salesman or crooked sheriff broke out of their niche and infected the rest of the population. Time for society to have a hard look in the mirror. This is what ‘we’ want, apparently, since it’s what ‘we’ reward.
Thank you for writing this, cfraenkel.
In my opinion, the role of the US population in US decline warrants far more discussion.
I believe the US population is not just a passive victim, but in many cases an active participant, e.g. by continuing to refuse to hold the people that have been wrecking the country for decades now accountable in any meaningful way. At the very least, more people could stop legitimizing the current system by refusing to vote, but even that is apparently too much to ask.
So we get the “leaders” we deserve, I guess.
Leaders in Washington and State capitals who ignore their constituents and grovel for money by selling their souls to high bidders, and the occasional blackmailer! Make the processes transparent and auditable. Maybe one of the brewing scandals will help clean out Washington for a new crew.
In my opinion, that’s wishful thinking at this point.
I suggest we use our power over our own actions to withhold our consent to be governed. Votes can still be manufactured of course, but at least our conscience will be clean.
Re: Human Programmer beats OpenAI (op cit)
Gimme a break. Tom’s Hardware doesn’t give details about the challenge’s challenges, but it seems I first encountered this kind of problem (“dynamic programming”) back ca. 1980, matching speech signals to targets, and it was already an old problem, a variant of the “traveling salesman problem” in which a self-driving car has to cross Manhattan.
And the contestants weren’t allowed to look up any of the 55+ years of solutions OpenAI had been trained on??? Shades gladiators forced to compete against lions in the Roman Colosseum.
A publicity stunt.
>How Elon Musk Created a Nightmare for Donald Trump
If Musk really wanted to ruin Trump, he would offer $1 billion to expose Epstein’s client list. That’s less than one percent of his total wealth.
Something tells me that the Musk Trump feud is as fake as all these peace talks.
Musk gets tongues wagging and X fingers typing. That big platform reaches a huge audience, non-geriatrics and those who don’t watch the shrinking nightly news.
‘Science girl
@gunsnrosesgirl3
Jun 17
kindergarten lessons in China’
It’s a fascinating view of how another country sees education. The idea seems to be to make those kids self sufficient from an early age and develop their hand-eye coordination. It’s almost a meme how guys right out of high school have no idea about cooking and will just go for Door Dash instead or get their moms to make them something. Of course the comments for that video clip are mixed and some are really experiencing sour grapes-
https://xcancel.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1935044059506295111
In USA they skip the manufacturing, and sent kids directly to sales and other services.
Seems like a Chinese reinvention of Montessori…my kids did a lot of similar stuff, though definitely not at such a high throughput rate!
I immediately thought the same thing: Montessori school with Chinese characteristics. Which is definitely cool. I’m sure there are reasons (maybe some cynical), but I’ve never understood why no country has ever tried just mainlining Montessori education into most of their schools.
Hope there is a good Emergency Room nearby. Wonder how liability law works in China?
I became a “latch-key kid” around that age, long before ambulance-chasers and St. Reagan’s intrusive nanny-state/authoritarian police state started sucking the life out of… well, pretty much everything.
We’ve become a society of pussies where any risk is unacceptable to many– even calculated ones: pain, real pain, can be a valuable teacher, and I’m not talking about hurt feelings here (although those can have value too).
Those kids are starting much earlier in life than ours, learning self-suffiency and skills necessary for “adulting,” things that many of our man-childs and 40-50 y.o. “girls” have never, and won’t ever, learn.
I am impressed by what I see in the video, and am saddened by what I see being done to our youth as they are encouraged to distance themselves even further from life’s realities than even their parents likely are.
Happy Moon Day everyone!
(Drops drawers in reply.)
Re: AI robot does gall bladder surgery (op cit)
«Autonomous surgical robots like SRT-H promise faster procedures, fewer complications and better access, especially in rural or underserved areas.»
Calling Dr. Mengele…
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones..,,
For the upgraded plan for this autonomous surgical robot, you will also be able to have anesthesia while being operated upon.
Another target for hackers!
Acceleration is not only about power-to-weight ratio, but also rubber meeting the road. In addition to that, going fast is not only about accelerating, but also slowing down. Small wheels (and small brakes) are inherently bad at that, because they are small. A team of ex-Formula One engineers knows that, which means they are just talking the talk for publicity.
Also, the smaller the diameter of the wheel the higher the rpm, so going fast on these would probably require Formula One level maintenece. On a positive note, having an accident on these while driving at maximumu speed means that you won’t be suffering a lot. :)
Anyone who took the trouble to get a mechanical engineering degree ought to be able to spot the truth being gently stretched in the article. You can have all the power and more importantly, torque, in the world, but you’ll be on your backside in a heartbeat if you try to do 0-60 in under 4 seconds. The faster model 3 trim levels will get you to 60 mph in under 3 seconds and will allow you to steer them while you do it.
I would love to see a proper drag race of the $30k scooter and see how the pilot handles the issue of front wheel liftoff. The blooper reel should sell like hotcakes!
Just out of curiosity, are there many people here with enough money to spare that they need to find something to do with it, who don’t invest in something unethical?
Starting a new job, and at a stage where the basics in life are sorted, and have the nice problem of not knowing what I will do with the money (which of course I will need to in-part use for retirement some day) – but after years of reading NC and the ills of ‘money making money’ in general etc. – am kind of paralyzed as to what to actually do with it, which isn’t going to be investing in something unethical one way or the other.
So am curious if there are people who have successfully navigated this, and are doing well, without selling their soul and ‘buying in’ to one variety of evil or other, with their investments. Whether it is actually practically doable.
I’m becoming more convinced that this is one of the ways – maybe even one of the primary ways – that economic conservatives and exploitative capitalists, achieve ‘buy in’ and votes among so much of the population:
Corrupting their ethics/morals, through gains from unethical investments (that many people are not even initially aware they are investing in, e.g. hidden/obscured in pension portfolio company lists).
Plenty of people turned off by the financial markets have sought to invest money in real estate; local rentals, AirBnBs, or flips, or land speculation. Which, perversely, has turned questionably ethical over the last 20 years, because these little real estate empires, along with the corporate ones, have jacked up prices and rents, and made affordable housing scarcer.
Yet if you don’t want to invest in stocks and bonds, it would still certainly be wise to secure paid-off housing in an area you won’t mind living in if society ever goes seriously off the rails.
I have long held a certain interest in local or state run credit unions, many of which have a local or regional tie to a former corporation or industry affiliation. Many of these succeeded as a basic truly co-operative, the largest are known by their TV ads or a sponsorship of a local arena perhaps.
Navy Federal is a real big one. But as I’ve found before you just need to check around for one that suits your needs for competitive money market rates or even CD offerings. Making a key assumption here, this is a US focused inquiry. One minor note, free advice is often worth the price (!)
In addition to local credit unions, there is a new category of socially and/or environmentally oriented financial service companies that are certified by the federal government if they invest primarily in local low-income markets. There are 1500 of them that specialize in lending to entities the banks either can not or choose not to reach….due to lower loan size or somewhat greater risk. The field is attracted talent and you can lend to them or deposit (if they are regulated. Most are non profit but some are small banks or credit unions.
Meant to say, they are called “Community Development Financial Institutions” or CDFIs.
There are project-specific municipal bonds. You’d be basically lending a city money for a project which you’d be able to get information about, at interest. If you don’t want to pay police salaries, for example, you could buy bonds for a park project. They have the added benefit of being one of the safer places to keep your money; cities rarely default.
I’m glad you bring this up. The old standby, ‘no ethical consumption under capitalism’ comes to mind, though here we’re talking investing, not consumption. My own thinking for small-time retail investors is similar to my thinking on boycotts: individual choice in the market is not how social change happens, and the ownership of the stock market is so highly concentrated that the little guys making money adding their small savings to finance ugly business makes little difference, except in that it makes life easier for them. Interesting theory about the compromises we make for more money inculcating cynical, self-serving and immoral behavior. I wish you well, and hope that if you find another route, you’ll share!
– ‘The CIA Initiated an Intelligence and Terrorist War on Russia Based on a Lie’ – Larry Johnson
I somehow missed the original article by Tim Weiner in Foreign Policy that is the subject of this piece. I had just read it this morning (it was linked at MofA) and saw Johnson’s rejoinder here. I’m not sure if it was linked in NC earlier, but everyone should read it. It is quite extraordinary for all the reasons Larry points out and more. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such an unintentionally revealing article about an important subject (the CIA’s Russia House and its role in Ukraine) and also its author. If there were any doubts that Weiner is a complete “toady” for the CIA (to use Weiner’s own term), this article should dispel them.
Unfortunately, because of all the despicable current actions by the Trump administration from Gaza to Ukraine to Epstein to DOGE to etc,.etc., it will be hard to take seriously any real “revelations” about Russiagate made by any of them. They will simply be seen as partisan rhetoric to deflect attention from Trump’s own evil actions (all of the sudden Gabbard has reappeared from oblivion to carry out this task for the MAGA faithful). And this will probably be correct. A curse on all their houses.
Small ray of hope:
Trump disses neo-con killapalooza:
https://thehill.com/homenews/5410319-trump-administration-turns-hostile-on-aspen-security-forum/
LOL! Trump probably didn’t realize that he would be praised at the conference by Condi Rice for his recent “aggressive stance on Putin,” according to the article from The Hill posted above.
A “bipartisan” conference of leading foreign policy elites. At the “Aspen Security Forum.” A panel “moderated by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell.” How could the Trump administration resist such an opportunity to share their views with the “foreign policy community”?
>Genocide or tragedy? Ukraine, Poland at odds over Volyn massacre of 1943
Any article about Ukraine’s dark past must conclude with a condemnation of modern-day Russia.
Ya gotta love how they take every possible opportunity to promote the bald-faced lie that Ukraine is a democracy, a modern, functional country. Before the SMO, it was “Europe’s most corrupt country” and “plagued by Neo-nazi nationalist movements”. Of course that’s all down the memory hole.
Britain faces a test of identity: Will Britons become a minority in their homeland? – opinion Jerusalem Post https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-861437
The Jerusalem Post is concerned that young British Muslims are going on camps where some form of indoctrination apparently takes place. I remember going on a boy scout camp when I was 12 and we were fed tales of the Empire and the need to maintain our right control our our colonies as a Christian mission, forced to wear funny caps, scarves and toggles at all times, and listening to lots of Methodist guff around the campfire every evening.
I buggered off home on the third day thumbing lifts all the way to my house and told my parents I had no intention of ever having anything to do with the scouts after that. I left the scouts and a couple of lads followed my lead because we saw the camp for what it was – a primer for the our right to defend the imperial system agin’ the dirty rat-fink commie coloureds in the colonies who wanted rid of our lovely Monarchy and Parliament.
The Jews have their own indoctrination systems for young people which have had a much more serious negative impact on British, European and Amercan politics since the 1930s and which intensified after the war with the legitimisation of the settler colony.
I find the idea that we will be outnumbered by Muslims in our own home less than likely purely on the basis of the demographics. I’m much more worried by the example set by Jewish and Christian Zionists in their wholehearted support for the Palestinian genocides than I am about Muslim girls’ fashion choices when camping, and the perspective that many Muslims and non-Muslims have on the political élite of the West given their open support for the deliberate murder and maiming of children who are inconveniently Palestinian by bombs, bullets and starvation – and it’s resulting power as a new iteration of the blood libel. The Zionists are attempting to extend their landholding by soaking it in the blood of the children they have sacrificed, and the blood they continue to sacrifice until they are stopped by military force as they continue to overreach, along with the Collective West by deploying the rundown Anglo-Saxon and European armouries.
There was an interesting article featured in the links yesterday and one section really disturbed me. ” In response to a question in The Brothers Karamazov about whether Jews steal and kill Christian children at Easter, Alyosha replies with a simple “I don’t know”. That is quite the glib treatment of blood libel.” https://unherd.com/2025/07/why-gen-z-goes-mad-for-dostoyevsky/?us=1
On the contrary, it was a profound treatment of the extent of one’s knowledge and the nature of truth which gave me great pause and resulted in many discussions with my fellows when I was a nineteen year old student. “…Alyosha replies with a simple “I don’t know””. How can he know? What other answer can an honest man give? A convenient yes or no, expressing belief without authority, or “well I’m rather a bit of a sceptic about that, actually, old boy”, depending on the audience, or just speak the bare unvarnished truth. My reading and re-reading of Dostoevsky in many different translations over the years have merely reinforced my belief that the position taken by Alyosha is morally and intellectually correct. For the honest, it must always be the bare unvarnished truth – and that is something which seems to have got lost somewhere in my lifetime.
I agree on that last part, and I think the author’s idea there was that one is supposed to always express the prescribed morally correct opinion on such things. Never mind that this prescribed morally correct opinion was not widely accepted at the time, and at any rate would indeed not have been honest (even moreso in the drastically different informational environment of 19th century Russia).
Alyosha’s answer is not merely a morally correct one, but also a scientifically correct one–and one thst dovetails nicely with the Grand Inquisitor’s line (from the samd novel, obviously): all too often, we are too sure that everythingbwe think we know is “two times two,” just a matter of “mathematics” and selff evident truth. The situation is so bad in the West that even George Orwell fell into this mental trap.
Something else was wrong with this Jerusalem Post article about the UK other then the jncongruity (seriously, Israeli commentary on UK social conditions? There’s no interest in Israel in Blighty’s crumbs. If they need a surveillance overflight from Cyprus, they can order it via Uncle Sam!) and that was the claim that Andrew Bridgend gave a speech in Parliament that 80% of thrle 250,000 rapes have been by Muslims.
If he had said that, it would have been front-page news and I don’t remember it. Have I
I just missed a memo? Does anybody else remember this? Or is this just more hasbara against muslims…?
“Genocide or tragedy? Ukraine, Poland at odds over Volyn massacre of 1943”
Yeah, the Poles are not going to forget the Volyn massacre – nor should they. There are about 100,000 Poles buried in mass unmarked graves and the Poles want their remains exhumed. Needless to say the Ukrainians are not thrilled at this idea. Polish President Andrzej Duda got stuck into Zelensky about this massacre so of course Zelelnsky played dumb saying-
‘Andrzej, I’ve never heard of the murders, the killing of Poles in western Ukraine, in Volhynia. They didn’t teach us about it in school.’
https://www.rt.com/news/621319-zelensky-never-heard-nazi-crimes/
But the Poles will not let this go and it was only several years ago that they made a film about what happened back then-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0POxClxb8cM (1:00 min)
Climate change as existential threat–
However you want to define it, climate change constitutes a threat of catastrophe for humans and other life on Earth of almost inconceivable dimensions. Recent estimates for impacts on humans and their economy may not be existential, but they project a Mad Max world with billions of dead, billions more desperately seeking to migrate, drastic reductions in GDP far beyond that experienced in the Great Depression and unpredictable and deadly geopolitical and sociopolitical conflicts.
Driving this disaster is a grotesque misallocation of wealth, income and consumption. Fifty per cent of carbon emissions are attributable to the world’s richest 10%. Moreover, in the USA, 50% of consumption comes from the richest 10%. This distorts the production of goods and services so that we have too little housing, health care, food and education for the poor, both in the Global North and Global South, and way too much in the way of affluent consumption like McMansions, SUVs, non-essential travel and boob jobs. Put succinctly, we’re burning up the planet to cater to the spoiled rich and affluent while billions go without basics worldwide. Thanks, capitalism.
Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel and Australian Dylan Sullivan published a paper in World Development Perspectives last September that laid out a plan for change that would avoid a catastrophic breaching of Earth’s boundaries while eliminating global poverty:
No, it will not put a Ford Expedition in every McMansion garage nor a porterhouse on every grill, but it will meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for everyone (as adopted by Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics) as it solves our society-disrupting inequality.
I encourage readers to check out Hickel’s and Sullivan’s paper while suspending questions of political feasibility. Does it seem plausible otherwise that the move toward eco-socialism could end the charge over the cliff while providing a decent life for everyone on the planet? Is there anything truly necessary or essential that would be lost?
If the plan strikes you as reasonable, what, or more accurately who, blocks its adoption?
i’m, of course, all for it.
but literally everyone i know in real life would be absolutely terrified and/or enraged….the 100 year Mindf^ck about what socialism, etc actually is…or could be…has been very effective.
True enough. But I do think people care about their kids and grandkids. No one wants that kind of world for them. One of the big problems is the array of forces that have expended great effort and huge sums of money aimed at planting just enough doubt in people’s minds to give them cover to roll with Business As Usual. The people behind that will have those billions who die on their karma.
And before long, that sharp down slope is coming anyway. This just keeps the party going for 10% of the world’s population a little longer.
“But I do think people care about their kids and grandkids. No one wants that kind of world for them.”
But do they really care enough? Most I know bury their head in the sand, outright deny the issues, or brand them a liberal hoax. The “aware” parents are mainly focused on setting their kids up to be the fortunate ones who will have the resources to rise above the rabble in hard times.
That said, even if they really do care enough I don’t know what they can really do about it. Are they gonna raise their kid to be a survivalist? Raise them in a eco commune? We all feel powerless to change anything systemic so why not raise kids to be successful capitalists so that they will hopefully be on top when the pyramid scheme of modern society collapses. Better odds that way.
As was said above, our best hope is to somehow radically reform incentive structures but in a society where public grocery stores in NYC is branded a communist takeover, feeding the homeless can be a crime, and healthcare for sick children is controversial, I highly doubt we are capable of anything remotely resembling a system that rewards those who do work benefitting others. Even if we could we’d need to get people like Jamie Dimon to accept he is in fact not doing God’s work.
A while back a younger friend asked me if I thought we could ever make the changes needed to become a better society. I said, “Sure. We’ve done it before. All it took was two world wars and a Great Depression for western society to make some positive lasting systemic changes.” Or, as the quote often misattributed to Churchill goes, “We always do the right thing after we’ve exhausted every other possibility.”
“20-Million-Year-Old Rhino Fossil Rewrites Evolutionary History”
Wouldn’t it be fascinating if they found the body of a frozen North American Indian in the permafrost from 30,000 years ago when the first of them were arriving in this empty double continent. Think about what could be revealed by an analysis if their teeth and what it would tell us of who these first people were.
There were a few findings along those lines, eg the Kennewick Man. People took them and their implications badly and the inconvenient findings were literally buried with claims that they were inconclusive, using the laws originally created to prevent grave robbing of old Native American burial grounds.
Yes, when fossil evidence goes against dogma, it takes a long time for it to be considered evenhandedly.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/jacques-cinq-mars-bluefish-caves-scientific-progress-180962410/
I see what you mean-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man
re: WWII interview
German blog NACHDENKSEITEN has a long interview with WWII historian Paul Chamberlain.
If interested use google to translate (archive.is wouldn´t work today)
Interview with Paul Chamberlin: The Second World War as a war of racist empires – on both sides
Paul Thomas Chamberlin is a professor of history at Columbia University and a renowned expert on 20th century international history. His writing has appeared in the New York Times and Washington Post , among others . He is the author of the highly acclaimed book “The Cold War’s Killing Fields,” in which he reveals the bloody global dimension of the Cold War. In his new work, “Scorched Earth: A Global History of World War II,” Chamberlin takes a radically different look at the Second World War: not as a battle between good and evil, but as a brutal conflict between imperial powers – on all sides. He shows that the Allies and the Axis powers were often frighteningly similar in their colonial ideology, their war crimes, and their treatment of the civilian population. In this interview, he talks about repressed chapters of war history – and why the Second World War must be retold.
The interview was conducted by Michael Holmes.
https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=136216
More like that’s a new idea for some European historians and students…
I think the myth that WW2 was a moral crusade against fascism, rather than a struggle between self-interested states, is not going to die any time soon. After all, people have been refuting it since the event itself, and any serious examination of it would point towards a more critical view as well. (A more critical view that, it ought to go without saying, does not mean it would’ve been better or even just as bad if the Axis powers had won.) An even worse version I see from time to time (though notably always in English, not Russian) is that WW2 was fought to save the Jews from the Nazis – judged by that standard, though, it was not very successful. Not to mention that back during WW2 that was the line of the Nazis and their sympathisers (I remember Mosley writing to that effect, for example), not of their opponents.
Pardon my cynicism, but it seems to me that a lot of people throughout the Western world and (with some tweaks) in the former USSR want to believe in the Good War in which the Good Guys beat the Bad Guys, without any ambiguities or complications. It is both genuinely reassuring to the people and very useful to the powers that be and their intellectual support, who keep finding new Hitlers to oppose. The Allies’ actions such as air bombings and ethnic cleansing are very useful in that regard too: if it was okay for Good Guys to do it then, it is this much harder to complain about them doing it to someone else now.
I suppose it still does some good to keep restating it and providing further proof, even if the basic thesis here seems so obvious that its rejection must be rooted in psychological and political factors that aren’t susceptible to arguments or evidence.
I think this linecof thinking goes back ultimately to the notion of so called “just war” itself, as that implies that there are some wars, if the cause is just enough, that you ought to be proud of. Since wars invariably turn “evil” in its conduct on all sides (atrocities against civilians, hypocrisy, etc), this gives justification to the excuses that these evils are justified because they were doing greater good, the other side deserved them, etc., feeding even more hypocrisy.
It would be far more honest if we could just fess up that, no matter what, to war is to sin and to sin gravely, and that we should try to minimize the evil that we do nevertheless and hope that God, if there is one, will forgive us, with the recognition that such forgiveness is not guaranteed. The trouble with the modern Christianity, at least the way it has developed in the West, is that we have lost the idea of sinning, at least when it is we who sin. Instead, we think of ourselves as instruments of divine justice, and so doing, mistake ourselves for God.
Excellent diagnosis.
re: WWIII RU –
Pascal Lottaz from Neutrality Studies interviews Dmitri Trenin.
Martyanov used to not regard Trenin as a real expert in military affairs.
Which he probably is not as far as real professionals are concerned.
I already wrote that it is odd if one particular individual is always being inquired on a variety of highly special subjects when it comes to a certain larger power regarded as hotile.
35 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giN29jR7VRc
I always thought that was funny because, iirc, Trenin was a GRU colonel and presumably, a graduate of the General Staff Academy, too. Martyanov is a bit too full of hinself more often than not.
RE: Barack Obama Now Squarely in Russiagate Crosshairs Matt Taibbi
I have no clue where this will go, but I’m guessing nowhere, like most other things I wish would actually go somewhere. These people don’t care about laws – they don’t apply to them. I would be nice to see St. Obama get what is due, but I won’t hold my breath.
What will be interesting is the spin and lies. I have been gone so I have not talked to my PMC friends, but I’m guessing they won’t/don’t believe one bit of it. After all, Tulsi is a Russian asset according to Hillary and most of blue MAGA believe that. Russia is also controlling Trump so this is all lies and nothing could be true. They have too much invested in Russiagate and of course they can never admit they were wrong.
But it would be nice, in this case, the Epstein case, or many other cases, these slimeballs would actually get what they deserved. But they won’t. They will continue to laugh in our face and get away with whatever they want. That’s one of the perks of being in the Big Club.
I think it has already been decided by the highest court that Obama can’t be prosecuted for official acts but it is exciting to think that if associated persons can be prosecuted at this late date for said same then just maybe we can prosecute the war crimes of the Bush era. Arguably the bigger slimeballs than mere election meddlers.
Agreed. Would love to see this heat brought upon the clan behind the biggest crimes of my lifetime.
Can’t stand Obama and his “high priest of brunch” status but I’m old enough to remember Trump’s team of investigators who were going to expose the fake birth certificate. Not exactly a guy with a reputable track record on this and an odd one for Taibbi to be hitching his hopes to.
https://www.civilbeat.org/2011/04/10184-trump-sends-birther-investigators-to-hawaii/
Christine Hunsicker, CEO of a Bankrupt Fashion Tech Startup, Charged for Alleged $300M Fraud Scheme -People
Of course, I had to check to see if she had ever been a Forbes 30 Under 30 alum. That has previously appeared on some high-profile rap sheets.
She wasn’t, but did make something called Crain’s New York Business “40 under 40”.
https://fortune.com/2025/07/19/fashion-entrepreneur-caastle-fraud-charges-investors-300-million/
A one-time ’40 under 40′ rising star in fashion pleads not guilty to charges she allegedly cheated investors out of $300 million
>‘Great British Energy solar panels’ were made in China
How many hospitals for Uyghurs have the Chinese bombed? What is her opinion on using British taxpayers’ money to support Israel?
When I read ” Sub-Saharan Africa can’t afford to eat on a carbon diet”, I noticed that the article carefully zero-mentioned legume and non-legume bio-fixaton of nitrogen and also carefully zero-mentioned other soil-borne bio-fixation of nitrogen. It very carefully only mentioned the straw-man technology of electrolysis to produce “green” nitrogen.
Gabe Brown and Gary Zimmer and others ( so few that they can all be individually named) are getting yields comparable to the Haber-Bosch inputters without Haber-Bosch nitrogen OR strawman “green” nitrogen. African agriculturists could study Gabe Brown and Gary Zimmer if they want to and see whether such methods can be used in SSA agriculture to fix all the crop-growing nitrogen which SSA agriculture would need to keep SSA fed.
+1
Even their discussion of urea carefully mentioned only manufactured sources.
In today’s Clown World, why Putin should fear Britain’s next fighter jet. 🤡
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/19/britains-new-giant-jet-fighter-prepare-marathon-russia-raid/
If Nato ever ended up at war against Putin’s Russia, experts say this means the aircraft would take off from a British airfield, fly to Russia undetected, destroy hostile air defences and then fly all the way back again.
What this article leaves out is that there would not be a Britain to return to for this Wunderwaffe if it somehow fulfilled its fantastical mission. The fact that such tripe gets published shows us that the mainstream media have nothing except pure contempt for the rubes who read them. At this stage, anyone still believing anything they tell us is an imbecile who needs minding.
Given that the RAF Tempest is supposed to enter service in 2035, there may not be much of a Britain to even take off from by then.
We’ll probably see a flying prototype of the Su-75 before a one for Tempest. Even if it looks like Rostec has frozen the Su-75 development for now – Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov did promise a flying prototype by the end of this year, but so far only crickets from Sukhoi.
Perhaps the Brits will be using a design similar to this for those covert raids. H/T Chas Freeman, who mentioned this during his latest interview with Nima, which also featured Lawrence Wilkerson.
When I see the things happening all around me in my own medical world, in other words, the frank incompetence that just was not present as recently as 10 years ago, I often wonder how things are going in other parts of the world and economy that are just as complicated as medicine.
https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/1946596722496491582
It just happened yesterday. Accidents and issues like this in aviation seem to be happening at an extremely high rate compared to just a few years ago. I am not even sure this is a Boeing issue or a Delta maintenance issue? I am not even remotely expert to make that decision. But these kinds of things are seemingly happening at an alarming frequency. I honestly do not remember this level of accident happening just a few years ago. It seems to be happening weekly and that has been true for the past several years.
I know in my world of medicine that this incompetence is actually happening. In aviation, is this type of thing becoming more common or is it that we are just seeing more of it because of iphone cameras and social media?
I believe a major contributor to increased errors with airplanes, significant uptick in auto accidents, etc., is our old friend, SARS CoV 2 and The Long-Term Sequelae. ‘Gone from the charts (only because we stopped collecting data) but not from our hearts! Or brains . . .
It might be the wonderful gift of private equity at work again:
https://truthout.org/articles/as-us-airlines-outsource-plane-repairs-private-equity-is-moving-in/
That’s a 24 year old 767-400ER so it’s all about good maintenance. I had thought Delta was still doing it’s own maintenance:
Delta TechOps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_TechOps
But I think even the majors are having a hard time getting good experienced people to do the work. PE owned, or flying out of the country for heavy maintenance, let’s hope these do not become common practices. You would think our ruling elites would have figured out that off shoring, out sourcing is not always a smart thing to do by now, but greed seems to over rule all else with these people.
Anybody who is anybody is flying private these days.
The thrust of history now read out digitally. Compelling. Thank you!
We are seeing more of it due to phones and cameras.
If you follow airplanes and I do, there are many sites from around the world that keep track of issues that might require return to the airport. This is much more common than you think, while still being a small %.
One issue with US carriers is that they have some of the oldest planes in the world. Older planes will have more issues as there is just more time on the airframe and engine. Yes they meet all the maintenance standards but well shit happens.
It is definitely not a boeing issue, boeing doesn’t make engines. As to a delta issue, once the NTSB issues its report we will find out if it was a part failure, or maintenance issue or something else.
For example we don’t know if this was a new or old engine, was it recently rebuilt or near needing overhaul, did it ingest a bird causing damage?
Every single airliner issue is investigated and a conclusion arrived at. if it’s something new, then it might cause a new check or requirement for an updated check protocol.
This reminded me of Russians dashcam videos of accidents. Lots of those around, because there are lots of dashcams in Russia.
Just to note, the synchronized dives were two sisters;
Lia Yatzil Cueva Lobato
Mia Zazil Cueva Lobato
. . . and not the names shared in the tweet. Credit where due.
They looked so remarkably similar that I wondered.
I kinda thought that they looked like twins myself.
I note that a piece from the “The Ecomodernist” is included in today’s links. Have a large load of salt handy before entering; this substack is just a rebranding of the old “Breakthrough Institute” which provided a platform for technocracy fanboys (Nordhaus et al.)
A sampling of receipts available at:
“The New Denial is Delay”
Everyone Warned the Breakthrough Ecomodernists
Hijacking ‘Anthropocene’: Anti-green ‘Breakthrough Institute’ misrepresents science
Rachel Pritzker is co-author of “The Ecomodernist Manifesto” and the money behind the Breakthrough Institute. They’re not as crazy as the billionaires pushing “Longtermism.” They’re telling us the boys from tech will handle it without more than wishful thinking to back it up.
They’re not as crazy as the billionaires pushing “Longtermism.”
Setting the bar pretty low! :)
Anybody else going to Economic-Con?
I’ll be doing cosplay as the total market value of the GDP, wearing thin.
I’ll be going as the J P Morgan Silver Desk Jockey. You can’t miss me. I’ll be wearing paper shorts.
Is this a thing?
Could be, it’d be great fun.
…what are you coming as?
There are lies, damned lies and statistics…the Atlanta FED predicts the US is likely reflecting a rebound for the Q2 forecast…Funny but under a Democrat admin, a projected GDP at 2.0 to 2.5 was considered a positive goal. Opinions can vary!
https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow
Additionally, Islamic finance has its own rules, much-eroded by oil wealth and greed, but within Islam, interest is haram (there are ways around this), as is profiting from things like alcohol or pornography. There are some funds set up for the purpose of easing the consciences of Muslims, while providing them with passive income; you might look into those. How they deal with oil investing and the issues that faces us with, we’d have to check. But there’s another avenue to explore.
Really, we’re dealing with our desire to gain without adding value by working. Poverty is probably purest (monks have long thought so), but everything costs money, and we can’t help others without standing on solid ground ourselves. How solid is solid enough? That’s personal preference, past a certain point. The other day, there was a piece hosted here by someone who had lived for years as a nomad. Others ‘need’ a certain quality in their food or shelter. Taking the extreme, if we were rapacious, and invested in everything ‘evil’ now, and it freed our comfortable retirements for volunteering our labor-time, would that justify having a portfolio of oil, weapons, tech, and drugs?
No one wants their excess, if we have it, gnawed away by inflation. I really do look forward to hearing any thoughts you have on the subject. When we’re talking economic matters, it’s a shitty world, which we navigate but cannot, except in miniature, change.
I’ve seen it said that the reason Trump is going after Brazil with tariffs is to put pressure on Lula, due to Bolsonaro’s ongoing Supreme Court case. Both are eyeball deep in the fundie evang crowd, discussed on NC years ago e.g. the actions of Bolsonaro’s mob in trying to keep power through violence.
A new film on the Brazilian fundie Right has just become available via Netflix for those who subscribe. The director, Petra Costa, is interviewed here (go to 45:14).
RE: 100 MPH Scooter:
Where I live these scooters are being sold to unsuspecting users out of former rental company stock’s. Fortunately, these scooters are now categorized as transportation devices and regulated in the same category as ebikes: no riding on sidewalks; bike lane speed of 20 MPH; max electric motor power of 750 W; battery must conform to specific safety standards; rider/driver must follow existing vehicle code (citations start at $100 and increase in multiples—confiscation is allowed).
The municipal code specifically disallows claims of poor infrastructure repair (potholes/crevices in roadway) for accident/damage. Ride at your Risk!
The article about poor infrastructure in the US is interesting in that maintenance of infrastructure has puzzling qualities about it. A group of people get together and fund the construction of something that likely will outlast the builders. Their kids or grandkids then have to fix it or maintain it. They may have quite different interests or economics. Also, the technology used to build in the first place may be difficult to repair.
I sometimes think that when something gets built it should be given an endowment. If you put a million dollars into a fund for a bridge then in 100 years that may become about a billion dollars and that would be enough to make substantial repairs if not replace it. The flaw in this idea is that if you set aside that much money in a public fund some grifter will come along and steal it.
Something a little similar exists for certajn bridges in the UK. A college contemporary is a trustee of one of these foundations. Rochester (Kent) and Southwark (London) bridges also have them. The trustees were granted powers by Parliament like sui generis corporations, usually including the power of tolling. They also owned land, either adjacent or further away. And they had powers of investment. A well run bridge can cover its repair and maintenance costs and generate quite a surplus. Some of these foundations give out substantial charitable sums from their surplus.
https://www.citybridgefoundation.org.uk/what-we-do/bridges
https://rbt.org.uk
re: the war on cash
via German HINTERGRUND magazine
The gradual abolition of cash
The following text is an excerpt from the Spiegel bestseller “War on Cash” by Hakon von Holst. The book was published by Hintergrund Verlag on June 30, 2025.
By HAKON VON HOLST
https://archive.is/FBWQu
That carved diamond ring is an impressive technical accomplishment, but it’s ugly as hell (and probably pretty uncomfortable).
Resizing will be awkward.
Easier to cut down your finger, like Cinderella’s sisters and the glass slipper…..
Diamonds are quite brittle so you could shatter it with a whack if you need it off your finger in an emergency.
Wedding ring stuck on your extra middle-age weight fingers no longer a problem with this new trick!
Whack strong enough to get it off your finger, would get the finger off too. :)
There are rings hard to remove in actual use, made of tungsten.
https://www.ringrescue.com/blog/emergency-stuck-tungsten-ring-removal
On the Mohs scale of material hardness, tungsten carbide ranks about 9, just below diamonds, making it one of the hardest materials on earth.
The Chinese kindergarten video is AI. So is the narration. Watch and listen closely. That stuff is getting quite good. “Rolnded” on the girl’s shirt while the “narrator” is saying “….to tackle next”?
Naw that’s fake.
There has been videos showing this in Chinese kindergartens for years now which predate the introduction of AI.
Which does not mean that this video is not made by AI trained on those older videos. :)
Dang it moderation queue for now so I can’t edit but I might have been wrong.
https://algrande.shop/products/rolnded-patchwork-shirt-collar-long-sleeve-button-up-top
I am still trying to find any actual confirmation of such a school and it all leads back to that social media (TikTok, Insta, FB, YT vid) some with a different narration “voice”, all with the same script. Color me surprised and corrected if I was too skeptical.
The article in the NYT on the ‘Democrat Autopsy’ mentions that “producing a tough-minded public review of a national electoral defeat would be a politically delicate exercise under any circumstance, given the need to find fault with the work and judgment of important party leaders and strategists.”
The article then goes on to completely exclude any mention of the Gaza Genocide, which the NYT has invisibilized… imagine that!