Sam Cox, also known as Mr. Doodle, spent two years transforming his 12-room mansion in Kent into a surreal, doodle-covered masterpiece. Every surface, including walls, floors, furniture, and appliances, is covered in black and white doodles
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) July 5, 2025
Scientists Unravel 2,000-Year-Old Roman Aqueduct Mystery SciTech Daily
Is It Cake? How Our Brain Deciphers Materials Nautilus
Kawasaki and Foxconn build robot nursing assistant to tackle hospital scutwork The Register
COVID-19/Pandemics
Singapore Is Training Asia’s Next Generation of Pandemic Trackers Bloomberg
Nasal COVID Vax Shows Promise in Phase 1 Clinical Trial PR Newswire
Climate/Environment
Earth’s Climate May Be More Fragile Than We Thought, New Study Warns SciTech Daily
The glaciers of Canada, the United States, and Switzerland lost 12% of their volume in just four years Noticias Ambientales
US environment agency employees say Trump administration undermining mission Reuters
China?
China pours money into brain chips that give paralysed people more control Nature
“This Bridge Shouldn’t Be Possible”: China Unveils World’s Highest Mega-Structure Now Ready to Open Above the Clouds Sustainability Times
How this long-lost Chinese typewriter from the 1940s changed modern computing
South of the Border
Mexico Is Showing the World How to Stand Up to Donald Trump The Jacobin
Trump Moves to Restore Hard-line Policies on Cuba Barrons
Travel Warning: Canada Issues Advisory For Peru Following State Of Emergency In Lima And Callao
Africa
EXPLAINER – South Africa’s coalition government is in crisis, but will it collapse? Andolu Agency
Cardinal says race to exploit Africa’s resources is the origin of armed conflict Crux
European Disunion
Austerity Linked to Over 1 Million Preventable Deaths in EU ScheerPost
From Welfare to Warfare Quillette
As Tariff Deadline Nears, No U.S.-EU Trade Deal in Sight Reuters
Old Blighty
UK police arrest protesters after ban on Palestine Action goes into effect Andolu Agency
UK arrests 83-year-old priest for backing Palestine Action and opposing Gaza genocide Middle East Eye
Israel v. The Resistance
BREAKING:
Israel just killed Dr. Moussa Khawaja in Gaza.
They dropped a bomb on the tent he was sheltering in, killing him and his entire family — including his three children.
He wasn’t a combatant.
He was a doctor, devoted to saving lives. pic.twitter.com/8TJ0f10Bb3
— sarah (@sahouraxo) July 5, 2025
‘Going hungry’: More than 700 Palestinians killed seeking aid in Gaza Al Jazeera
The IAEA’s MOSAIC Weapon: Predictive Espionage and the War on Iran ScheerPost
Children of Gaza 🇵🇸 , Holocaust Survivors . pic.twitter.com/Lrd2JUHxga
— Irlandarra (@aldamu_jo) July 4, 2025
She is 1 of ~930,000 of children in Gaza facing “slow death” from malnutrition due to Israel’s severe restrictions on food and medicine.
Forced starvation is an act of genocide.
This violates Article 54 of Additional Protocol (I) Geneva Conventions. pic.twitter.com/0x4pXq1Wf2
— Mohamad Safa (@mhdksafa) July 5, 2025
Iran and Its ‘Ring of Fire’ Vanessa Beeley
US/Israel Versus Iran – Round One William Schryver
New Not-So-Cold War
‘Dire’: Kyiv badly hit by relentless Russian attacks after abrupt US halt to Patriot defence support France 24
Ukraine war briefing: Power to Zaporizhzhia plant cut off as UN watchdog warns nuclear safety ‘extremely precarious’ The Guardian
BlackRock halted Ukraine recovery fund following Trump victory, France working on replacement, Bloomberg reports Kyiv Independent. Yves notes: “We’d called this an example for “the hall of hollow mandates”. BlackRock went along for all the face time opportunities with political leaders. But they had to know this was a non-starter.”
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
The internet makes our privacy laws obsolete Washington Examiner
Hidden cameras in hotels and Airbnbs are more common than you think — 5 ways to protect your privacy Tom’s Hardware
Imperial Collapse Watch
A trip through the America destroyed by ‘inevitable progress’ The Hill
Mobile shower unit will serve the homeless Annandale Today
Homeless student counts in California are up. Some say that’s a good thing Stocktonia
New East Asian Attitude Between China, Japan & South Korea Karl Sanchez
Trump 2.0
Trump tariff letters going to a dozen countries Monday Axios
Shock poll shows Trump’s approval rating savaged by key group Daily Mail
Will Trump’s megabill help Democrats win the House? NPR
Donald Trump’s UFC stunt is more than a circus. It’s authoritarian theatre The Guardian
Musk Matters
Musk calls Bannon a ‘fat, drunken slob’ and says he should be arrested as their feud rages on The Independent
Elon Musk’s proposed new political party could focus on a few pivotal congressional seats The Guardian
Elon Musk floats strategy for new political party Axios
Air Force Halts Project With Musk’s SpaceX Daily Beast
Democrat Death Watch
Lucas: AOC and Zohran Mamdani are now the leaders of the Democratic Party Boston Herald
Most Christians say they would never vote for a Democrat, poll finds The Christian Post
Immigration
Trump ramps up deportation spectacle with new stunts and ICE funding Axios
Florida Democrats denied entry to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ after Trump visit The Hill
Trump got $170 billion for immigration. Now he has to enact it Politico
Our No Longer Free Press
Trump is waging war against the media – and winning The Guardian
DOJ Joins Lawsuit Against Media-Tech Collusion Over Censorship Reclaim the Net
Mr. Market Is Moody
U.S. Trade Deficit Widens: Market Implications Ahead Tip Ranks
Is the U.S. Heading Toward a Real Estate Crash and Debt Bubble? Norada Real Estate Investments
Michigan’s Rising Unemployment Claims: A Canary in the Coal Mine for the U.S. Economy? MarketPulse
AI
Laid-off workers should use AI to manage their emotions, says Xbox exec The Verge
An AI Revolution in Military Affairs? RAND
this story is going wildy viral on reddit.
ChatGPT flagged a hidden gene defect that doctors missed for a decade.
ChatGPT ingested the patient’s MRI, CT, broad lab panels and years of unexplained symptoms. It noticed that normal serum B12 clashed with nerve pain and fatigue,… pic.twitter.com/e8BaSrDmKo
— Rohan Paul (@rohanpaul_ai) July 5, 2025
The Bezzle
120,000 fake sites fuel Amazon Prime Day scams Fox News
Crypto Scam Victim Sues Banks for $20 Million Loss Coin World
Guillotine Watch
35,000 square feet sky-penthouse.
The most expensive apartment on the planet.
Priced at $387 million. pic.twitter.com/TvyJ3ijucf— all yours (@realvibes4you) August 31, 2014
The most expensive meat in the world: Aged Wagyu beef $3200/lb pic.twitter.com/KOIddhY2lt
— NO CONTEXT HUMANS (@HumansNoContext) June 30, 2025
Antidote du jour (via)
And a bonus (Chuck L):
A male sea otter asked for help from people to help his female get out of the nets. In gratitude, he gave the rescuers a stone. 🥰
— Kevin W. (@Brink_Thinker) July 5, 2025
re: USA education history
Engl. review of “Mr. Lancaster’s System. The Failed Reform That Created America’s Public Schools” by John Laats, Hopkins University Press
https://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-143909?title=a-laats-mr-lancaster-s-system&recno=17&q=&sort=&fq=&total=20669
Appreciate this!!!
“Ukraine war briefing: Power to Zaporizhzhia plant cut off as UN watchdog warns nuclear safety ‘extremely precarious’”
‘The Ukrainian energy minister blamed Russian shelling for severing the last power line to the plant and its six reactors. Ukraine’s power distribution operator said its technicians had taken action to restore it. Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, which is not operating but still requires power to keep its nuclear fuel cool, switched during the outage to running on diesel generators, the IAEA said.’
Pull the other one. It plays jingle Bells. Of course neither the Ukrainian energy minister nor the IAEA makes mention of whose diesel generators were used to supply power. But gosh darn it, Grossi and the IAEA still can’t work out who is shelling and bombing a nuclear power plant. ‘Tis a mystery.
Of course they do: IAEA people told them where to shell…
re: Iran
In case we didn´t have it in the links before
The IAEA’s MOSAIC weapon: Predictive espionage and the war on Iran
Backed by US funding and Palantir’s AI tools, the IAEA turned its Iran inspections into a surveillance regime that blurred the line between monitoring and military targeting.
by Kit Klarenberg
JULY 2, 2025
https://thecradle.co/articles/the-iaeas-mosaic-weapon-predictive-espionage-and-the-war-on-iran
last parts
“(…)
The timing of its rollout – two months prior to the Obama administration’s nuclear deal being agreed – could further indicate it was explicitly funded with Iran in mind. As then-IAEA director general Yukiya Amano revealed in March 2018, the association’s penetration of Tehran was unprecedented.
At a press conference, Amano referred to the IAEA’s nuclear “verification regime” in Iran as “the world’s most robust.” The organization’s inspectors spent “3,000 calendar days per year on the ground” in the country, capturing “hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by our sophisticated surveillance cameras,” which was “about half of the total number of such images that we collect throughout the world.”
In all, “over one million pieces of open source information” were collected by the IAEA monthly.
The IAEA’s fixation on Iran, coupled with suspicions that it provided the names of nuclear scientists – later assassinated by Israel – raises the question: Was the 2015 deal always an industrial-scale espionage operation designed to prepare for war?
A wave of assassinations of nuclear scientists and IRGC commanders in the early stages of Tel Aviv’s failed war on Iran appears to support that conclusion.
Iranian officials not only suspended cooperation with the IAEA and ordered the dismantlement of inspection cameras, but also rejected Grossi’s request to visit bombed nuclear sites. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi branded the IAEA chief’s insistence on visiting under the pretext of safeguards “meaningless and possibly even malign in intent.”
What is clear is that any state still cooperating with the IAEA must now reckon with the possibility that it is not being monitored – it is being mapped for war.
(…)”
Nor who is delivering target coordinates……
The doodle house looks like aestethic torture. No place where you can rest your eyes and mind.
It reminds me of the dazzle camouflage used to befuddle adversaries during WWI.
I am not sure I could walk in that house without constantly stumbling on steps and stairs, knocking against doors and walls, and losing my bearings. Possibly a good deterrent against burglars.
Those dazzle ships were just trans-zebras wannabes, unlike the Tijuana donkeys. :)
Wouldn’t wanna be tripping while being in that house.
…… or macro-dosing!
It would appear that living with it didn’t do much for the artist’s peace of mind, either.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czd54lvjnmmo
Exactly. A better lomg-form article on Mr Doodle appeared in the Guardian recently dealing with his psychotic breakdown.
https://archive.is/MEcLA
Thanks Revenant. As you say, much more informative than the typically thin BBC gruel.
For those that want to experience lighter version of this type of sensory overload in real life, there are cafés around the World.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ9Gk-7yzu4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONci9ykySAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oOGIVNOu-s
OCD
As a visual artist with a particular interest in social / political art and cultural politics, I can’t help but find the whole story disturbing.
Artists have always required documentation of some kind to receive recognition / financial success, but the level of self-aware, social-media popularity that drives someone like this not only gives me anxiety just to think about it, but — not unlike ‘selfie culture’ — I can’t personally imagine what it would mean to be so self-conscious about every mark being made, and how that affects the process.
And that doesn’t begin to cover the contradictory “college trained outsider artists,” audiences obsessed with the idea of mental illness and creativity, or the straight-up derivative nature of the work — not just Mr. Doodle but the numerous artists working in this ‘all-over’ high-contrast style, indistinguishable from each other (unless maybe you care to learn their individual preferred iconography). Living in Brooklyn there were multiple artists using this style and winning public-art / mural commissions.
Someone wisely said to me “don’t ever harsh on another artist’s hustle,” which is good advice, since it’s a shit career if you don’t have either inherited or ‘partner’ family money. But damn, I don’t know where the satisfaction comes in with this hustle for the artists.
At its core the work itself is entirely forgettable once the viewer gets past the ‘wow’ factor of x-space being covered by patterns.
Agree.
In the above childishness though I would guess it really is merely an (art) performance only (any financial incentive known?), blending profession and private life into one for a limited period (is this his real and only home or is it truly just a performative art space?) – just like so-called star movie actors who cannot step outside of their homes any more – accepting however that a state of loss of privacy is guaranteeing their income. Quid pro quo.
If the doodles had been done as fractals. That would have been awesome.
It’s so very derivative of Keith Haring but without the soul and the radical left and gay politics. It makes me ill that this is what people want. Add the Ukrainian bride to the equation and I’m nearly ready to off myself, as an artist who put it somewhere aside in order to make a living as a lawyer (sigh).
During my year in art school I became increasingly put off by the fine arts scene to the point where my end-of-year essay was titled “From Post-Modernism to Post-Relevancy: The Current Era of Art” and was basically just a diatribe of the insular elitist culture that had no connection to society outside their small circles nor interest in any art that did resonate with regular people.
After dropping out I moved to NYC and my first job was at a restaurant where the owner was close friends with Mark Kostabi and had his art all over the walls. His cold appropriation of the Warhol factory system was about as vapid and exploitive as a third world garment factory. He would even have his “assistants” do napkin doodles which he would then sign. Also catered another “pop” artist’s gallery show which was attended by Donald and Marla Maples. The gaudy affair cemented my distain for the fine art scene.
The type of art they celebrate and the crowds that flock to it are the last ones who should be doing so. And, as has been discussed here before, it’s primarily just a money laundering racket anyway.
This is why I actually love the “banana duct-taped to a wall”. It’s one of the only works of art in recent times that spoke to regular people and clearly expressed much of what is wrong with this industry.
The fine arts collapse into irrelevancy really was the canary in the coal mine for culture in general. Elites glad-handing each other over derivative meaningless slop at decadent celeb-idolizing affairs where untold wealth is garnered while completely insulated from the lives, ideas, and culture of the rest of humanity. This insulation is like inbreeding and each generation of art degenerates. As you said, this doodle art has fragments of Haring DNA but minus any of the qualities that made his work vibrant and alive. Its posh hotel room art.
The documentary “Exit Through The Gift Shop” best expresses it in showing how a guy used money, celebs, and PR to become and overnight artworld hotshot named Mr Brainwash.
This welcoming of “popular” art is evident at all levels of the “art market.” Case in point being the time I helped Phyllis run a tent at a regional arts and crafts fair in Southern Mississippi. It was somewhat inland, but close enough to the Gulf Coast to attract quite a lot of that crowd.
Over a three-day weekend, a holiday no less, Phyl sold exactly no works; which included watercolours, hand-made jewelry, and fall themed wreaths, made from dried flowers, and similar ingredients. The wreaths were particularly good. Phyl has an eye for colour and form.
In the tent behind us was a group selling gaudy, tinsel, foil, and christmas tree light, (the tiny variety,) wreaths. All these objects did not have were tiny elves singing “O Holy Night” in Chipmunk voices. They charged pretty high prices. They sold a lot of their stock, because, as one of the women running the booth told me; “These styles are all the rage right now. You know, popular in the womens magazines and all.”
So, despair not, the Alchemist’s Creed is alive and well in America.
As Above, So Below.
Stay safe. Luck with your calling.
Very true. It’s not easy for substantive art to stand out next to shiny objects. Like with anything (food, books, fashion, etc) most have their tastes defined by convenience, novelty, and consensus. We often claim we are tired of the same ol’ same but lack the willingness to seek out experiences which may challenge and even disappoint us. Or worse yet, others might judge us negatively for liking!
I appreciate your kind words of encouragement. I try to not let my pessimism derail my focus on trying to make art that might matter to regular people. As a good friend who has been very successful making real art once told me: “That which takes time, time will respect.” (He heard that quote elsewhere and didn’t remember who said it).
Did someone say gift shop?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R7VChN-jKc
The cat olympics video is generated by AI (as its title indicates).
The $387M penthouse may be a real one, but it also looks as something that could be generated by AI. Or to put it in another way: architectural slop by real architects serves to train AI so that it can produce more architectural slop in turn.
I am not sure I could even find aged Wagyu beef where I live, but that meat seems to me to be marbled with a real lot of fat? And one should pay over $7000 per kg for that? Something escapes me.
Viewing the cat olympics video is an experience similar to viewing a boring cartoon. Waste of time. Ugly slab of meat? Space age penthouse? Ooooosie. More waste of time. NC, do better.
It would be a benefit if sites could moderate and not post AI, especially videos. Imagine in a year or so it could be a true benefit to readership claiming that “no AI videos are posted on our site”, essentially, an “organic blog”. Bon courage NC.
AI is not allowed and I am ripping out the cat Olympics.
TYVM!
In defense of the site; have you seen some of the real trash floating around the webs lately? Mr. Doodle is sane in comparison.
I was maybe going to suggest that reading the articles is more thought provoking than just driving by and looking at the pictures. Also it’s good to know whats out there, how to spot ai crap, what lengths rich morons will go to to justify or trumpet their untouchability, and the animal kingdom antidotes, well if you read the articles generally speaking, and this considering the sorry state of our little rock hurtling unspecified through space, you need the animal kingdom antidotes just to decompress a little.
Agreed. The sea otter video was a wonderful anecdote to the dire articles today and a perfect reminder of why it all matters.
That was the excuse for everyone having a Playboy magazine back in the day. :)
No, it was for the stereo ads.
It’s just a Sunday Supplement chronicle. It is interesting (and rather saddening) to compare the high-diving cats with the high-diving giraffes that I first discovered here on NC maybe 10 years ago?? My grandkids still ask to watch this.
I think the main difference is that the high-diving giraffe video tells a little story. It’s not a very advanced story, but it’s cute.
AI has a very hard time telling stories because of the lack of object permanence and inability to take detailed instructions (because it’s just statistical generation). David Gerard covered it recently at Pivot-to-AI, with rather funny examples of what happens if you try to generate famous (serious) scenes.
If you just try to get the AI to tel the story, yes it won’t get you there. But people are now starting to make coherent short films with it, but it requires some film-making skills and some actual work. The character consistency issue is mostly solved, but there is still work to do. It will be a non-issue in a few months.
Well I don’t mind the occasional ‘daily antitoxin’ post to keep me aware of what the scams literally looks like. This was definitely dreck. When the dive turns into that cartoon blur, it lost me completely. They couldn’t even make it up to the uncanny valley.
Fatty beef ala prime rib roasts and rib eye steaks can be very delicious, the fat marbling is the key to good meat with those cuts. As for Waygu, like most luxury goods, it is not worth the upgrade. I’ve tasted Waygu (not at that kind of price), it is good but not so much better than prime rib that I would try it again. There is a farmer around here who uses Japanese methods to produce Waygu-like beef, people say it is delicious and while not as expensive as Japanese Waygu, it is pricey and I don’t see a reason to try it.
My mother grew up on a dairy farm. She would always trim the fat she served us as children. Then she would eat the trimmings herself. She lived to 99 and was never fat herself.
Of course, back in the day, local livestock ate very little, if any lipophilic agricultural toxins …
Fat is flavor, according to people all over the world.
Yum!
It also satiates so a kind of dietish food reducing cravings for carbohydrates.
YMMV
“Fat is flavor” is yet another empty slogan Internet influencers use to entertain hoi polloi. It’s all about catchphrases.
Iberico pork otoh, so so worth it.
The penthouse is real. According to Google image search, it is located in the Odeon Tower in Monaco.
Yes, it exists! And for anyone in the commentariat with 387m clams lying around with nothing to do, here is a handy link:
https://www.thepinnaclelist.com/properties/tour-odeon-tower-sky-penthouse-principality-monaco/
I’m sure the 387m is just a highball asking price (a la Trump); they’ll probably settle for 350m. I always enjoy haggling at Tuscany’s outdoor antique markets (admittedly for drastically lower amounts).
Is it my imagination, or does that $387M penthouse look like it has a giant toilet in the front?
Flush the oligarchs!
re: Gaza / James Baldwin
machine-translation from German daily JUNGE WELT
Historical reflections
James Baldwin recognized parallels between the situation of Black people in the USA and the situation of Palestinians in Israel
By Jürgen Heiser
https://archive.is/bxvOJ
`For this reason, Baldwin largely dealt with the relations between Blacks and Jews in “The Harlem Ghetto,” criticizing not only their political but also their spiritual leaders. In religious terms, Baldwin argued, African Americans identified with the Hebrews of the Old Testament: “It is the Old Testament that is most often clung to and preached from. It provides the emotional fire and dissects the pain of slavery.” But for African Americans, this very identification with the ancient Hebrews became a source of bitterness. Jewish businessmen in Harlem were complicit in the white exploitation of Blacks. They were therefore “also identified with the oppression and hated for it.”
(…)
In contrast, Black people in the United States identified almost entirely with the fate of the Jews. The most devout among them felt like Jews themselves and waited for Moses to lead them out of Egypt: “As Israel was chosen, so they also consider themselves chosen. The images of the suffering Christ and the suffering Jew are combined with the image of the suffering slave, and they are one: The people who walked in darkness saw a brilliant light!”
(…)
In the controversial essay “Open Letter to the Born Again,” published in The Nation on September 29, 1979,² Baldwin concluded: “The State of Israel was not created to save the Jews, but to save Western interests. This is now becoming clear (I must say it was always clear to me). The Palestinians have been paying a high price for more than 30 years for the British colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’ and for Europe’s guilty Christian conscience.”
Baldwin had been concerned with the Palestinian conflict since the early 1960s, but his views changed radically over time. In his earlier essays, he rarely mentioned the Palestinians. Later, however, Baldwin adopted an increasingly critical stance toward Israeli policies, and his solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle grew.
In 2024, journalist Alexander Durie, writing in the US online magazine Literary Hub on the occasion of Baldwin’s 100th birthday, referred to the Palestinian scholar Nadia Alahmed.³ The activist works as an assistant professor of African and Middle Eastern Studies at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Durie pointed out to him that after Baldwin changed his mind about Israel, he consistently criticized Tel Aviv’s policies: “Baldwin was one of the first significant Black American voices to recognize the State of Israel for what it truly is.”´
I’ll give Baldwin the nod to being very early to write about the reality of Israel and Palestine. But I think many people have long recognized the state of Israel for what it truly is and as is often said around here, their financial interests mean they must ignore that reality.
With reference to America, but applicable to beneficiaries of imperialism everywhere:
“But for power truly to feel itself menaced, it must somehow sense itself in the presence of another power—or, more accurately, an energy—which it has not known how to define and therefore does not really know how to control. For a very long time, for example, America prospered—or seemed to prosper: this prosperity cost millions of people their lives. Now, not even the people who are the most spectacular recipients of the benefits of this prosperity are able to endure these benefits: they can neither understand them nor do without them, nor can they go beyond them. Above all, they cannot, or dare not, assess or imagine the price paid by their victims, or subjects, for this way of life, and so they cannot afford to know why the victims are revolting. They are forced, then, to the conclusion that the victims—the barbarians—are revolting against all established civilized values—which is both true and not true—and, in order to preserve these values, however stifling and joyless these values have caused their lives to be, the bulk of the people desperately seek out representatives who are prepared to make up in cruelty what both they and the people lack in conviction. This is a formula for a nation’s or a kingdom’s decline, for no kingdom can maintain itself by force alone.”
― James Baldwin, No Name in the Street (circa 1972)
More evidence of Trump’s bad character (vengefulness) courtesy of Steven A. Smith:
(Not that we need any more, but the anecdote is telling, IMO)
https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/big-beautiful-bill-dumped-effort-to-tighten-tax-laws-for-nfl-owners
Trump’s dalliances with pro American football date back to the New Jersey Generals, his USFL franchise that featured Herschel Walker, Doug Flutie and coached by Jim Mora. I’ll have to fact check the player profiles and league dates but eventually it was Trump that insisted on challenging the NFL, 800 lb gorilla back then in court, circa the middle 80s. There were some hilarious high jinks from league players back then, rushing to cash their paycheck, that anecdote came from a different team in the league…
The move into court just boded ill fated news for the fledgling spring football league, and a fatal blow to the USFL as a league. Back to the topic on tax laws, I’m sure no Senator or Congress rep would stoop so low as to do the bidding of influential billionaire class or team owners… meanwhile the poor must gladly enjoy taking their bowl of mush ala per Dickensian imagery.
As a Bills fan, I should probably say a prayer of thanks every day that Trump did not end up owning the Bills.
The NFL owners are notoriously a tight-knit and snobby club, and probably correctly sensed that letting Trump into their circle would be an epically bad idea. Like allowing a street prostitute to hang out with them.
Can you imagine? Trump would be firing Bills players and hiring others based on his extensive knowledge of the game, there would be shouting matches with the individual players wrecking team play, he would be getting into fights with other NFL owner while trying to poach their players with his money and his strategy would change on a day by day basis. Yeah, that was one big bullet dodge that.
Trump would surely not be a “Big, Beautiful Bill.” Here are some big, beautiful Bills:
Josh Allen, Bruce Smith, and Dion Dawkins (6’4, 320 lbs.)
Exhibit #1, Carolina Panthers team owner David Tepper
Exhibit #2, New York Jets team owner Woody Johnson.
Maybe with the coming fall, hope renews for these forlorn team fan bases; but even the hard core devotees really ought to question that investment of time.
Being in the coterie of 30 or so wealthy team owners just might mean, that a select handful of these billionaires are comfortable at setting their own franchise investment into a roaring dumpster fire of roadside theater. Not on my list is the LV Raiders, whereby majority team owner Marc Davis is paying former employees after a consistent failure at hiring a head coach or related coaching staff…
Counterpoint: if he’d been allowed to buy the Bills, maybe the rest of the world would’ve been spared from his political aspirations.
It’s hard to imagine that Trump could be worse than the Haslams, e.g. Johnny Manziel and DeShaun Watson.
The Hunts are a-hole billionaires always looking to grab taxpayer money, but they do stay out of running the team.
Caligula comes to mind.
Even ordering expensive shick and awe against a site buried un a couple hundred meters of granite.
Like going to war with Neptune.
Chic and awe sounds like Melania Trump’s fashion collection. :)
“Elon Musk floats strategy for new political party”
I would imagine that his strategy is to try to build up a party to challenge Trump and the Republicans. And when the latter return all those subsidies for EVs such as Teslas to make him go away, he will dissolve that party and tell all the people that followed him to vote for Trump’s Republicans. Will people forget that this was the guy put in charge of taking a wrecking ball to the machinery of Federal government whose effects we are seeing in Texas right now?
While USAF is cancelling SPACEX to give the business back to the vendors that lost it to SPACEX.
Would one of those vendors be Boeing? :)
Serial failures in AF orbital launch are from a number Boeing, General Dynamics, an entity called United Launch Associate (ULA)… the line of vendors is ample for “protected” competitions between incompetents.
In 1972 a NCO told me “no one ever lost money selling to Uncle Sam”.
I have observed no reason to dispute that claim.
Another $150B for competitions of incompetence!
I imagine Musk has too many enemies to get anywhere.
My memory is hazy, but did Trump do much for the 2022 cycle? This is where I can see pressure being brought. The Koch Brothers wielded power because they gave early and often, mostly early. With budget cuts, I can see the GOP elected getting antsy.
Musk seems to be following the philosophy of George W. Bush: If two wrongs don’t make a right, maybe we need three or four instead! And heaven knows with only two billionaire parties, the market is far from saturated…
re: COVID
THEORY & CONCEPT
Int. J. Public Health, 30 May 2025
Volume 70 – 2025 | https://doi.org/10.3389/ijph.2025.1607727
What Lessons can Be Learned From the Management of the COVID-19 Pandemic?
https://www.ssph-journal.org/journals/international-journal-of-public-health/articles/10.3389/ijph.2025.1607727/full
During the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2023), governments around the world implemented an unprecedented array of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2. From early 2021, these were accompanied by major population-wide COVID-19 vaccination programmes–often using novel mRNA/DNA technology, although some countries used traditional vaccines. Both the NPIs and the vaccine programmes were apparently justified by highly concerning model projections of how the pandemic could progress in their absence. Efforts to reduce the spread of misinformation during the pandemic meant that differing scientific opinions on each of these aspects inevitably received unequal weighting. In this perspective review, based on an international multi-disciplinary collaboration, we identify major problems with many aspects of these COVID-19 policies as they were implemented. We show how this resulted in adverse impacts for public health, society, and scientific progress. Therefore, we propose seven recommendations to reduce such adverse consequences in the future.
Nice link, thank you. On aspect of the failure of the COVID response is that CDC is still recommending the vaccines. It is prudent to review past problems but it’s worth our while to keep an eye on current mistakes ~ mistakes that are ongoing. Dr. Philip McMillan has been keeping an eye on this for quite a while. In a recent video (20 minutes), he informs us that Taiwan has shortened the gap between boosters to two months. In a CDC publication in October, 2024, they are discussing dosing every 2 months. By following CDC’s trajectory of “recommendations” he posits “when will it be, every month, every 2 weeks??”
Can you imagine taking a measles vax every 2 months? Immune disfunction anyone?
These people are morons
That’s just not true; SARS-CoV-2 is not seasonal. And we have over 5 years of data to demonstrate this now.
Granted they might have a very peculiar definition of “seasonal”, but out in the real world, if you can get infected year round, and you get additional albeit smaller waves at other times of the year in addition to a large “seasonal” wave, that’s not seasonal.
They also believe GBD was a serious call for an alternative approach to NPIs, however flawed their rollout and enforcement may have been, and there’s nothing about GBD that can or should be taken seriously.
The only consolation in any of this is the virus treats everyone the same, and these authors won’t be spared its effects either.
The history of the ongoing Pandemic is very much being written by people that are stupid, malicious, or both.
They use signatories as a sign of weight, and we know some were literally faked:
Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’
I can go on and on. The authors are perpetuating a manifest evil.
Thanks for this. The provided snippet was vague enough that I gave it a pass, but suspected it would end up saying we should have ended up where we are now sooner, as if we were in a good place.
The third-world-ization of the UK continues apace. Self-colonialism in this case.
re: CANNES film festival diary
LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS
What happens at Cannes
by Daniella Shreir
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n12/daniella-shreir/diary
“(…)
I arrived in Cannes with a terrible line from Sélection officielle ringing in my head: ‘To paraphrase Woody Allen,’ Frémaux writes, ‘Cannes is like sex: even when it’s not good, it’s good.’ No one is immune to a degree of corniness when it comes to Cannes. David Lynch’s Cannes Diary, a ten-part series of short missives documenting his experience as jury president in 2002, is primarily a vehicle for him to indulge his love of café au lait, pain au chocolat, baguette avec fromage and vin rouge. He praises the French as ‘the greatest lovers of art and protectors of art in the world’ and looks on everything with childish wonder. That wonder extends to the theatres, where audiences clap and cheer at the tacky festival animation, in which the red staircase floats up into the sky. In Lynch’s words: ‘Everybody knows about carpet. And everybody knows the colour red. So you put those two things together and you get red carpet. But there’s nothing like the red carpet at Cannes.’
Was this Cannes as good as bad sex? Bad sex is usually short. At Cannes, screenings run from 8.30 a.m. to past midnight. If you are a programmer or distributor, it’s typical to watch as many as six films a day. Members of the press rush off to file their reviews or record their podcast ‘takes’. Tickets are released at 7 a.m., four days before each screening, and disappear in seconds. It’s common for screenings to be illuminated by dots of light, as people try to book one film while watching another.
(…)”
After attending Cannes, a friend who used to work as a film distributor told me that she watched 70 films in one week.
I asked: “How did you manage that?” She: “Easy. I watch the first 15 minutes and decide if we might buy the film. If not, I walk out and go watch another one.”
Yep. It´s déformation professionelle.
In my youth I watched around 5/day in one week of festival, i.e. watch completely.
It did give you a decent understanding and overview of what was happening in the art form.
I do not know how I would operate today if I had to for job reasons.
A certain level of cynicism comes with the job, with the routine.
Which is no excuse. And I know people who do it the “proper” way even after 40 years.
If you really want to appreciate you can´t walk out.
Especially if it is NOT standard fare. You never know what happens in such movies eventually.
Of course the medium, the times have changed too.
Musk, Bannon, Trump feud–
Remember billionaires wanting to seastead? It was a cross between Galt’s Gulch and Elysium. We should expel them and their hangers-on to such a place while confiscating their wealth for the use of the 99.99%. I give it 12 months before they all killed each other, and what a shame that would be.
I found the Chinese language video fascinating, particularly in how it highlights the influence of Western thinking on the development of the language. It is interesting how there is not wide spread agreement about words.
It got me thinking about the limitations of traditional linguistic approaches. As I often joke, linguists could benefit from putting Noam Chomsky aside for a while and delving into the study of AI instead.
Love it or hate it, AI has yielded some intriguing insights that warrant attention from linguists. For instance, Word2Vec – a foundational technique underlying GPT models – embeds words (and now tokens) into high-dimensional space, revealing fascinating structural patterns. The vector between two points in this space often conveys meaningful relationships, such as the equivalent direction and magnitude of the ‘dad’ to ‘son’ vector versus the ‘mom’ to ‘daughter’ vector.
Moreover, the remarkable ability of these models to translate between vastly different languages with minimal training suggests that there may be more universal, underlying principles at play in language than we currently appreciate. In fact, some researchers are even using these tools to interpret animal languages, which raises compelling questions about the fundamental nature of communication and cognition.
Perhaps it’s time for linguists to explore the intersection of AI and language more deeply, as it may hold the key to unlocking new insights into the intricacies of human language and its relationship to the natural world.
Putting the shoe on the other foot, I have been reading essays by the Russian linguist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975), and it is interesting to evaluate human experiences with LLMs through the lens of his ideas.
Back in the day, some linguists did, in fact, inform the development of LLMs (at one point ca. 1990, the CIA offered to “fund my laboratory”, but I of course refused). That line of research eventually led to Google search, and thence to LLMs.
But as Fred Jelinek famously quipped “Every time I fire a linguist, the performance of the speech recognizer goes up”.
That’s a nice quote. I need to use it when I speak at a conference at some point in time.
I’m seeing a number of what I think of as sorting problems where AI finds useful deep patterns.
It takes substantial expertise to benefit from this and it appears, in addition to energy problems, at least the western roll out of Gen AI is mitigating reproduction of expertise.
If you think of it as a massively parallel quicksort on vector products, I don’t think you’re far off the mark.
Some things considered as part of AI used to be known as multidimensional optimization algorithms.
The sea otter clip has been on NC before and IIRC was previously under suspicion for being faked, either with AI or as a compilation of clips of different sea otter encounters. Sorry to be a downer….
Where is the over-priced penthouse, though? At those prices. Monaco or Hong Kong but it looks like the third world from its surroundings….
I appreciate your nose for fakery, Revenant.
Whether contrived or not, that clip is a cheap appeal to sentiment. Aren’t we humans wonderful, compassionate creatures, and look how animals appreciate us!
Some of the animal videos are wonderful and even wondrous. Too bad that we have to pick our way so carefully to single them out.
Even if it is fake there are lots of good people who do bring aid to animals in need. And sometimes a little positive sentimentality can be helpful. Humanity as a whole could stand to “fake it ‘til they make it” with regard to compassion.
It belongs to a genre of animals coming to people for help, with spliced together scenes of unrelated animal video. I liked one of these on YouTube and was then deluged. In this case, there were river otters and then sea otters involved, and they are different. One of the clips was taken from my home waters of Morro Bay where we have a very visible colony of sea otters.
I’ve heard about the subgenre where people put animal in problem in order to come and save it. Anything for views, and no one can prove wrongdoing.
The Rs have about 36% of the electorate and D’s the same. Neither is a majority party. Both need to amass support from the 28% to achieve a majority. The not brand loyal offer a diverse set of issue and culture groups. A great chunk will simply stay home if there is nothing or no one on offer. If Musk puts money into State House and Senate races (500 carefully targeted State House races would cost as much as one high spend US Senate seat), the America Party could deliver a grassroots shock to both parties. Reform sells especially well at that level. And campaign funding is tough to come by.
The chatgtp and the gene-story reminds me of my days selling online poker. You would take a person having had luck and blow up the story as if there was a strategy all the time, disregarding the more or less random character of the card being dealt.
I am not convinced that one diagnose makes a physician. But if this kind of diagnosis is just maths and sequence analyses maybe it could be used for proof-reading? Anybody knows more about such use-cases in medicine?
ChatGTP is so misleading here it is frustrating. First the poster writes “Despite seemingly normal B12 levels”…wait…did he do a Methytmalonic Acid test or only serum B12? Because the path to making a functional B12 in humans is a long one. And did he even get his homocysteine levels checked? Because he might have a B6 deficiency that is causing the B12 deficiency by overstimulating that methylation cycle.
This would mean that ChatGTP did not find a solution to his problem and the guy might just be experiencing a placebo effect.
But worse yet, that MTHFR polymorphism is not directly associated with lower B12. There is a lot of slop on the internet from pseudo nutritional genomics scams that ChatGTP picked up that links A1298C to B12 deficiency but it is not true!
See this study from last year…zero correlation:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00277-024-05937-z
Did methylB12 help him? Maybe. Will it continue to? IMHO, no.
BTW, I carry that same A1298C polymorphism (he calls it a mutation but it is not a mutation, there is a big difference) but I have Aspergers, neuropathies, and illness from a pathogenic SNP in the CBS enzyme and used to have very high homocystine. Only .0008% of people carry my CBS mutation while 10% carry the MTHFR A1298C polymorphism.
Thank you very much, good Sir.
About 30 years ago, I started having tingling sensations after mowing grass that were lasting longer and longer, eventually several days. Despite concerns about my doctor being a quack, I made an appointment. After arriving, I found a substitute, a retired doctor originally trained in France, and described my symptoms. He asked a few questions about red meat in my diet and I assured him that I generally ate chicken, not much red meat. No tests are performed. After 3 minutes or so he leaves and comes back with a syringe and explains that he’s going to inject me with B-12 and a bunch of other vitamins. I ask if he thinks I’ll need B-12 supplements and he says that I probably will, especially if I’m not getting enough from diet. The cure was virtually instantaneous, next time I mow, no tingling. I have supplemented with various forms of B-12 and the tingling has not returned. By far my best experience with a medical practitioner ever.
A couple of decades later, I find out through genetic testing that I also have single copies of a couple of MTHFR polymorphisms, 1298C and C677T, that perhaps explained my long-ago symptoms (or maybe are just coincidental.) Had that substitute doctor not been there, I’m sure I’d have had the same fate as the chat-GPT cured patient – decades of increasingly bad symptoms related to poor circulation.
I agree that parenthesis linked to B12 deficiency is common and easily observed by any well trained doctor. But the correlation to the MTHFR gene is not causation. It is highly likely that people who were raised generationally on a high red meat diet probably have these polymorphisms because a diet high in offal is very high in riboflavin, which is the cofactor for the MTHFR gene. So you’re probably deficient in riboflavin as well.
Re Tesla’s terrible safety record–inquiring minds might wonder why Teslas haven’t experienced recalls and the truth is that they have been recalled.
https://www.cnet.com/home/electric-vehicles/tesla-recalls-2-million-vehicles-over-autopilot-issue-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
The recall affects these Autopilot-equipped models:
2012-2023 Model S vehicles.
2017-2023 Model 3 vehicles.
2016-2023 Model X vehicles.
2020-2023 Model Y vehicles.
That’s nearly all the cars Tesla has sold in the US, according to The Washington Post. You can check whether your car is affected by plugging your vehicle identification number into the Tesla page or the NHTSA page.
This so called recall was little more than a software update from Tesla via cell towers. But one might argue that it isn’t enough for Tesla to simply say “oopsie.” Most recalls only apply to individual parts of the car but the claimed self driving feature affects the entire vehicle and the safety of the public driving around it, not just that of the possibly irresponsible owner. Surely all such systems should meet rigorous safety standards and testing by the government itself.
Time for a ban on full self drive and maybe those stupid disappearing door handles too? Trump is, after all, out to get Musk.
“EU blocks China’s jet”
It’s remarkable when you think about it. The Collective West, mostly under the direction of Washington, is trying to sabotage China’s development. Here it is passenger jetliners but you see it with communications equipment, satellites, computer chips, space exploration, etc. And yet with each attempt China just goes it’s own way and through their developments, may end up setting the standards for the 21st century. It will be a tough day for Boeing and Airbus when the Chinese have enough C919s for their own market and tell both those corporations that they are blocking planes from those corporations from their own skies on the grounds of “safety.”
With Boeing going there way is been going i doubt ” ” will be needed as one certainly wonders about the safety of Boeing planes. Heard anything about that last crash investigation? (I’ve not)
What will come of the air india crash investigation… youtube videos have raised some disturbing possibilities.
The collective West never seems to grasp the fact that sanctions, especially if left in place for long periods, usually achieve the opposite of what is desired. The result is typically that the targeted country finds alternatives to whatever it was that the West formerly did. It develops its own domestic industry, it finds alternative customers, and so on.
The West ultimately finds itself permanently irrelevant to the targeted country (and perhaps the rest of the world) with respect to whatever was being sanctioned. The targeted country thus becomes stronger and more self-sufficient, not weaker.
““This Bridge Shouldn’t Be Possible”: China Unveils World’s Highest Mega-Structure Now Ready to Open Above the Clouds”
‘Towering 947 feet higher than France’s renowned Millau Viaduct, this bridge is not just a transportation marvel but an emblem of architectural innovation. Built over a span of three years at a cost of $283 million, the bridge’s construction involved cutting-edge technology and meticulous planning.’
Only $283 million to build? While using cutting-edge technology? Can you imagine how much it would cost to build such a bridge in the west and how many years that it would take? Do the Chinese get to build it so cheap as there are not so many beaks being dipped?
Although that bridge appears to be real (quick search shows corroborating articles at a number of websites), Sustainability Times is an AI slop farm. If I were interested enough to want to know more facts about it I’d probably start elsewhere…
Yes, the entire article, including the ‘photo’ is AI slop. The structure is a suspension bridge – a very lightweight structure that seems to be justified solely as a tourist attraction. It’s in a very remote location and has almost no economic justification apart from the vague assumption that millions of tourists will come and see it. Guizhou province is poor and remote and for some odd reason has become obsessed with bridge building. They’ve spent billions on these bridges (10 of the highest bridges in the world are in Guizhou), claiming that all the traffic and tourists will somehow generate enough money to pay for it all. No doubt the citizens of Guizhou (or whoever is on the hook for all this money) are hoping that this all works out.
According to this peer reviewed article in Nature, the economic justification was releasing a lot of economic potential in the region and being a significant part of getting rid of powerty.
Apparently the rural places being more connected has generated 110-140 billion worth of economic activity annually.
I suggest you read the study. it doesn’t say what you think it does. It is simply laying out a theoretical framework for assessing how to analyse the economic impact of infrastructure using Guizhou and its bridges as an example. Regional economics journals are full of this type of model making. It says nothing about CBA for those projects, thats a different type of assessment.
Throwing around random figures for economic generation is standard justification for big infrastructure projects in all countries, you can pretty much come up with any number you want by adjusting a few variable inputs and outputs. I’ve never yet seen a road, bridge, or railway proposal that hasn’t been justified by its supposed indirect economic benefits – often derived by putting random economic values on someone being able to drive to McDonalds a bit quicker. Whether the benefits are real or not is the question and there is little consensus among infrastructure planners as to how to do this.
well, scepticism aside, it is a bloody big, beautiful bridge which enables people to get places, strategically situated in the south-east of China, therefore in a region where transport towards the growing economies of south-east Asia is valuable. I don’t think that comments about “being able to drive to McDonalds” count as much more than cheap jibes.
I’d say the Chinese government could have put their money into much less desirable projects.
The USA way would be spending even more money on even less useful thing, on a private property of some billionaire (or just dump money into Pentagon). Looking at everything trough the profit is why the Western civilisation as we know it won’t live to see the end of this century.
P.S. If Trump and Musk were still together, they would probably promise even bigger and better bridge, on Mars, for an affordable price of one hundred billion dollars.
It’s definitely a weird article about the bridge. The image admits to being AI generated and my first thought was that the design shown made no sense for a bridge with dimensions indicated.
Here’s a link that seems to have real images.
https://english.news.cn/20250608/86962626fb8e4a899a1793dae24fc103/c.html
I didn’t find any link that indicated the bridge is open yet, though it seems to be nearly completed.
It says right below the picture (not a photo), AI generated.
It also says that it is an illustration of a specific bridge, that is has no resemblance to.
So here’s where AI got it’s ‘bridge sense”?:
https://a.travel-assets.com/findyours-php/viewfinder/images/res70/203000/203060-Bixby-Bridge.jpg
That’s the Big Sur coastline and the bridge was built in the 1930’s with caste-in-place concrete.
So, AI generated “cast-in-place concrete” bridge image, for a text that says “built with steel trusses”, “massive concrete towers”, “glass walkway suspended”. :)
@RevKev perhaps you’ve heard of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge? The one that fell down in 1989 during the Loma Prieta earthquake and was judged to be cheaper to replace than to retrofit (originally estimated at $250M)? It was completed in 2013 for $6.5 billion. 24 years, 2.5 km long and 160 m tall.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-13/how-the-cost-of-remaking-the-san-francisco-bay-bridge-soared-to-6-5-billion
On top of that, the old Bay bridge was designed to support two commuter train lines. These were ripped out to make way for more cars, but the load bearing capacity was there. The new bridge section? Cars only.
One of today’s linked articles point to a much larger issue than you would suspect from the headline: “Cardinal says race to exploit Africa’s resources is the origin of armed conflict”. The larger issue is the continued argument for an ecological conversion that started under Pope Francis.
File under Climate/Environment:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2025-07/bishops-conferences-ecological-conversion-press-office-vatican.html
The document itself can be found here through a linked PDF. https://www.sjesjesuits.global/2025/07/02/a-call-for-climate-justice-and-the-common-home/
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to read the PDF since I am on a mobile phone, but I was particularly interested in this quote from another article:
https://www.ucanews.com/news/global-south-churches-call-for-ecological-conversion-ahead-of-cop30/109513#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17518086094890&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ucanews.com%2Fnews%2Fglobal-south-churches-call-for-ecological-conversion-ahead-of-cop30%2F109513
saludos
The EU refuses to certify China’s C919 aircraft. Meanwhile, China’s C929 and C939 aircraft are just around the corner. These aircraft might prove to be both qualitative and price competitive with Boeing and Airbus, and they are nearly all made with Chinese ingredients. And airlines in Asia, South America, and Africa are more concerned about price than brand names.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqH4N1YlUz0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynik56MdU-I
There may be some legal challenges before the C919 is sold outside of China, based on past history of plane makers.
Highlights of the 17-year Airbus, Boeing trade war
June 15 2021(Reuters) – The United States and the European Union on Wednesday announced a truce in their epic 17-year-old transatlantic battle over aircraft subsidies, hitting the pause button on the world’s largest corporate trade dispute.
Canada illegally subsidized Bombardier: Embraer
January 26, 2018 RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazilian planemaker Embraer said on Friday that the U.S. Department of Commerce has shown that the Canadian government “heavily and illegally subsidized” Bombardier and its C Series aircraft, allowing the company to survive and distorting the aviation industry.
The statement came just after Bombardier won an unexpected trade victory against U.S. planemaker Boeing Co when a U.S. agency rejected imposing hefty duties on sales of Bombardier’s new CSeries jet to American carriers.
The EU is not refusing to certify the C919. They have said it would take 3-6 years to certify, which is not unexpected given that it is a ‘de novo’ application, which is very rare – usually they are started in conjunction with domestic certification bodies and EASA/FAA. Certification is very time consuming as it involves full checks on the entire supply chain – for whatever reason, Comac thought they could just wheel up to Europe and ask for certification (they have not applied for FAA certification). When Embraer and Mitsubishi developed commercial aircraft independently they did joint domestic/EASA/FAA certification processes – this usually takes around 2 years after the first flight, assuming that the actual checking of design and parts was being done well before this. EASA took around 5 years (from first flight to 2012) to certify the Sukhoi S100 – this was done jointly with Russia authorities at the time.
The C929 and C939 exist as press releases and models only. The C929 was formerly a joint project with Russia which they played around with for more than a decade before it fell apart, now China is going it alone. Nobody expects to see one flying before 2029 at the very earliest, and even that is dubious. There is almost no information available on the C939 beyond a few very vague press releases.
C919 was certified in China 2023 and COMAC has worked with EASA towards certification since 2020 (and EU-China Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement). C919 core parts have already been certified by EASA (as per the video).
Even the EASA executive director Florian Guillermet admits that normal certification time is 1 to 2 years, but with C919 they will need 7 to 10 years. All the while there are a few dozen of them flying regularly in China. And about 10,000 Boeing all over the world with Chinese parts in them.
Given that COMAC will be busy until 2035 (or so) filling just the domestic orders, this will probably not be a biggie for them, but I can assume European manufacturers may start to face unforeseen obstacles in the Chinese markets soon.
It’s kinda hard for EASA to approve an application that hasn’t even been formally submitted yet – the discussions so far appear to have been entirely informal (this at least, seems to have been EASA’s understanding – no doubt Comac thought otherwise). The usual process is for joint certification with national bodies (such as with the Sukhoi, Mitsubishi and Embraer aircraft), and this process starts at an early design stage. For whatever reason, Comac did not seek a joint process and appears to have believed that ongoing discussions constituted part of a certification process, and have now been told otherwise. The 1-2 year time period applies as the period between when a prototype flies and final certification, but this is only the end point of a longer process – the A380 for example, took around 2 years after its first flight to certification, the Superjet took longer.
EASA is statutorily responsible for the safety of all aircraft flying in Europe. It has no obligation to make life easy for applicants. Comac could have started the process years ago, but failed to do so, probably because they were entirely focused on the Asian market. It’s also possible that, being newbies to this business, they were entirely unaware of how the process works and the French, being French, didn’t bother to inform them they were doing it wrong.
“US/Israel Versus Iran – Round One”
Everybody knows that the Israelis are going to go for another try as how dare Iran shoot back. So of course there is going to be a propaganda war to say that the US has to attack Iran again to protect democracy or freedom or mom’s apple pie. But there may be a major spanner appearing to make things harder-
‘Conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson has announced that he will air an interview with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, saying Americans deserve to hear directly from the leader of the country their military has recently fought.
In a short video on X, Carlson said the conversation, which was conducted remotely through a translator, will be released “in a day or two.” He acknowledged that he will be criticized for the interview, saying: “Why did we do it anyway? Well, we did it because we were just at war with Iran 10 days ago and maybe again.”
He argued that Americans have “the constitutional right and the God-given right to all the information they can gather about matters that affect them,” including hearing the views of adversaries.’
https://www.rt.com/news/621062-carlson-teases-interview-iranian-president/
So will Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham demand that Tucker Carlson have his citizenship or his passport revoked for this piece of “treason?” maybe charged with aiding and abetting the enemy?
Thanks for the link Rev. Sometimes it seems as if Carlson is more flash than substance so it will be interesting to see what information comes from this interview.
I for one was very afraid that there would be a false flag attack this past July 4th somewhere in America that would be blamed on Iran. It could be used to involve us in Iran. Fortunately it did not come to pass. It seems as though now the emphasis is on creating a proxy war using Azerbaijan and Armenia as foils. Larry Johnston has posted an analysis today on the situation there by David Davidian, an intelligence analyst who lives in Armenia. It is an area that I have little information about and I found it very helpful. It is called Armenia’s Prime Minister Is Trapped and has some needed information about the recent history of the region. It looks like a real problem for Iran and Russia.
So!
The ugly Americans in company of similarly disposed Brits and Israelis want to send US stuff into Baku?
Who knows what can happen?
As to US and Israel repeating the recent exchange, how much damage can Haifa and Ashdod endure? How soon before Iran runs out of targets in little Israel?
How many B-2s could be claimed to fly next thumping a mountain in Iran?
Quite fascinating how elites have lost control of the information system to a large extent in the last couple of decades. Can you imagine this interview happening under the old ABC/CBS/NBC regime? Not only do over the air stations require a federal license to operate but they are also gigantic for-profit corporations supported by other gigantic corporate advertisers. Thus there were plenty of levers available to prevent unwanted content from being available to Americans.
Now however, a relatively small operation, or even one dude, can reach the entire US population with whatever he wants to say, and there isn’t much anyone can do about it.
Of course this situation underlies the whole “fake news” panic we’ve seen in the last few years as the powers that be try to clamp down on information sources they don’t like. But overall the toothpaste doesn’t seem to be going back into the tube, and my impression is that Americans have largely lost their fear of unapproved people speaking out about whatever they want.
This is a real victory for democracy (small d) and will doubtless underlie a lot of societal changes as we go forward.
NC has followed the financialization, and corruption, of health care on several fronts. It looks like another Blue Cross/Blue Shield nonprofit, already being governed like a for profit company by the “right sort” of management, is going to finally be taken into the private sector, to seize the assets gained by its former nonprofit status. This is my interpretation of a complex story by LA Times reporter Laurence Darmiento: “Insurer Blue Shield of California’s new parent company alarms consumer advocates”
Original story: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-06-30/blue-shield-of-california-delaware-restructuring-charitable-obligations
Archived story: https://archive.ph/0ZTTj
I take an interest in this sort of thing because years ago, something called “Catholic Healthcare Initiatives” or “CHI” took over a bunch of midwestern Catholic hospitals, including the local one. It trashed the local “St. Elizabeth’s” to the point where people who worked there that we knew socially told us to use the other major hospital system. The care at St. E’s had been very superior to the care in the other hospital system (also ostensibly nonprofit) whose CEO of the time flew in from the Bahamas for his 3 day a week job. (Nonprofits run by “the right sort of people” support wealth over service.)
The care at St. E’s had been so superior because of a mentoring program for nurses, and staffing levels above those in the other hospital system. We had additional insight into the “trashing” because our family doctor was someone we originally encountered as a hospitalist at St. E’s. He was so good that we followed him when he set up a practice of his own. He too told us to use the other hospital system henceforth.
My point in telling this much of the story: At one time there was on-line a fair amount of information about the management of CHI (now renamed CommonSpirit Health), that indicated that it was a nonprofit being run by an interlocking family dynasty that was mining it for “for-profit” like incomes and side hustles. I cannot find anything on-line about that now. But “nonprofit” governance is, nowdays, often a sham.
I will vote for Democrats in 2026 if they ban religion and turn over every single Democratic strategist and neoliberal think tankie for the people to do with as they will. Otherwise they can all drop dead.
I think in terms of overthrow the lot, but the means elude me, except in dreams.
On the real estate article, “The number one reason most experts, myself included, don’t foresee a crash is simple: there just aren’t enough homes to go around. Mark Fleming, Chief Economist at First American, put it perfectly: “There’s just generally not enough supply. There are more people than housing inventory. It’s Econ 101.” And Lawrence Yun from NAR echoes this, stating, “…if there’s a shortage, prices simply cannot crash.”
The author’s bias is selling real estate. While we may not be on the brink of Sept 2008, even with a shortage of properties available if the prices are beyond what can be paid, they won’t be. So maybe at the moment we are looking at stagnation. However, the author did not discuss the situation with insurance. The market softness in the SE and Western US could be related to the insurance issue. A little longer term (12 months even) and we might be looking at an economic contraction plus greater insurance pullback. Between less buyers than can afford to buy and fewer banks willing to loan (you’ll never see a bank put down a mortgage without insurance! ) we might see a contraction at least in the areas most impacted.
Many of the old existing homes in the Northeast lie in the new flood zones. A Northward shift in the pattern of atmospheric river activity could devastate real estate in the Northeast. A quick look at parcel maps in several areas of the Northeast reveals a crazy quilt of parcels I would expect would be very difficult to develop and build new housing. Very long skinny parcels, long skinny triangular parcels, and random shape parcels predominate.
“A trip through the America destroyed by ‘inevitable progress’’
Sadly true this article. Recently I was doing some research on Newark in New Jersey. When I found an address, I would look it up on Google StreetView to see what is there now after a century. Sometimes the original building was still there which was of interest but all too often there would be a vacant lot or wilderness or some such and you knew that a century ago that this would have been part of a neighborhood where families were living. Now long gone.
RAND Paper AI a Revolution in Military Affairs got my attention as much as anything else revolutions in military affairs have a bad reputation.
It does suggest that AI drive a vast spectrum of swarming cheap robots, drones and self driving vehicles. Selling SkyNet. Quantity has quality.
The study recognizes AI can make information into knowledge but does not show how that is done better than the data automation evolutions already applied by militaries.
Next goal of data services is knowledge to wisdom, which AI likely won’t provide.
The report at least mentions “kill chain’, how to build SkyNet.
> Next goal of data services is knowledge to wisdom, which AI likely won’t provide.
The thought occurs that the training data for “wisdom” is quite thin at present. Maybe give it a few millennia.
I had the relevant conversation about the evolution of IT probably 30 years ago. At the time data bases and networked search were primitive.
RAND does not mention “wisdom” nor have I seen it as more like IT nirvana.
I once skimmed the Book of Wisdom…. In a different setting discussing wisdom, theological thought is “wisdom is thinking like God”.
RE: Texas floods
Couple of things; 1) Amusing to watch the blame game for this disaster. 2) Wonder about Amfortas the Hippie – haven’t heard from him for a while. I think he’s in Texas but don’t remember what part. Hope he’s doing OK.
He’s in the TX hill country and would probably be in the area but not sure if his land is close to any rivers and specifically the Guadalupe.
If I’m reading the wikipedia maps right, he wouldn’t be in the Guadalupe watershed, but did get a lot of rain. Hope that he and his are OK.
I am not amused by the commentary, especially coming from those who have taken a public oath to uphold the health of the citizens of this country…….no matter if they are MAGA, whatever creed, race, sex, whatever.
https://x.com/Fynnderella1/status/1941567217155571958
The Texas Medical Board should immediately delicense or sanction this MD. This is absolutely evil. I sat by silent for years, far too long, as one MD after the other taunted and humiliated the unvaccinated COVID patients, spewed misinformation and hate, and refused to see unvaccinated patients or patients who were not “following the narrative”. That silence is now over. I will likely join numerous colleagues across the country today who are preparing a complaint to the Texas Medical Board en masse.
It is one thing to make statements like this as a citizen. It is entirely different as a licensed, sworn by oath member of our profession. Social media has taken the consequences away from stupidity. We should all be civil toward one another at times of crisis. ESPECIALLY PHYSICIANS!
I am done with this. The reputation of the profession is in tatters in no small degree because of antics like this. Literally published while the hunt for bodies goes on. Her colleagues in her own practice have already scrubbed her from their website. It is like she never existed. That is simply no longer good enough.
What has happened to my profession? What has happened to the pediatricians, historically the most compassionate and humorous of all the specialties?
> What has happened to my profession?
Can’t speak for USians but I am profoundly disquieted by the number of medical doctors in the UK who, in a (perfectly understandable) quest to escape the increasingly rules-based and centralised “treatment pathways/protocols” (which are often politicised) are now using their day off to do part-time MBAs.
COMPLETELY the wrong thing to do IMNSHO. My medical friends, who were thankfully ignorant of economic issues beforehand, now come out, indoctrinated with Neoclassical nonsense and adhere to the (demonstrably stupid since they don’t deal with opportunity costs) rules and diktats of NICE. They become “difficult” to talk to.
I’ve become the “annoying f’witt” thanks to raising questions like “what happened to the THREE factors of production?” & “what’s the fundamental property of a BALANCE sheet?” Which they struggle to give a coherent answer to that is consistent with what has been drilled into them in their MBA course. They have inadvertently become part of the problem, definitely not part of the solution.
They should study health informatics instead.
My question is, are MDs always speaking as MDs, or are they allowed to express a personal opinion that seems to conflict with their public oath? I’ve known doctors who, away from the office, will talk about trying to get a patient for years to stop smoking and now the patient has lung cancer. And the doctor doesn’t speak sympathetically, calls him a fool, etc. But you know what? When the patient shows up at the hospital, the doctor treats him as well as any other patient. As far as I can tell, the posting was not made on the pediatric site, but on a personal one. I may be wrong, but if not, I may disagree with what she says, but it’s free speech, and she should not lose her job for expressing free speech.
Unfortunately, if you look at the multiple threads she did this weekend, she was given multiple chances by colleagues to clarify. The photo on this tweet was not the worst. Not only did she not clarify, she actually doubled and tripled down. It reached truly awful proportions. After the hospital systems she worked with began being bombed with complaints, everything was scrubbed.
I guess one of my mottos in life about online posting is if something is worthy of being scrubbed a few hours or days later, it is probably best not to post in the first place. In instances of extreme outrage, I have found it much better for all to unload personally on my trusted colleagues and not published to the world. Much of the time, with colleagues’ feedback, I learn that I am well and truly full of crap and being overwrought. And as you point out there is all kinds of locker room talk of venting frustrations amongst ourselves. It is sheer folly to put this type of discussion on social media
Yes, there is free speech. However, there are consequences to free speech. She has every right to say whatever she wants. I have every right to notice that her thoughts are inconsistent with the ideals of the profession and she needs to be held accountable as an example for all. Please note, I did not say a word about her right to say anything. I do decry the social media stampede to this kind of thing. And I have every right, given what she freely said, to never send her, her group, or her hospital another patient until there is appropriate accountability. Why would I expose a single patient to this?
As I have said, there was a time when professionals and doctors never said a word in public about their politics. This example is largely why…..although wishing death and harm on others is a bit extreme.
There are some saying what about the MAGA who had all kinds of nastiness to say about LA? I would agree. I have searched in vain for several minutes today to find examples of MAGA oriented MDs calling for death and destruction while the fires were burning. I have been unsuccessful finding a single example.
The complaint to the Texas Medical Board that you are considering joining is an example of squashing free speech. I’m not in the medical field, but I assume the Board could revoke her license or fine her, something like that. If that happens, then she is indeed being punished for her free speech.
As it is, she seems to be getting quite a bit of sh*t from citizens, customers and her employers. This kind of blowback I can’t argue with, but I don’t believe a medical board should be involved unless it involves her actual handling of patients.
Abusive or Disruptive Behavior: Engaging in public or private abusive or disruptive behavior towards the general citizenry, patients, their families, or other medical staff.
Dishonorable Conduct: Engaging in conduct that is dishonorable or that reflects poorly on the medical profession
Those are two of the six very broad categories of the Texas Medical Practice Act that are applicable to this situation. The other 4 are a bit more tangential.
This is codified into law by the State Legislature of Texas. It has been signed by the Governor of Texas every single time there is any alteration. It is the law. Every applicant who gets a license in Texas must take a test demonstrating they have mastered the rules and statutes in the Texas Medical Practice Act. It is called the Texas Medical Jurisprudence Exam. I will also tell you that Texas has extremely lenient laws compared to other states. That being said, I have known Texas physicians to have big problems from much less infractions. The laws are very broad and written in such a way that the members of the Board have some leeway in deciding the gravity of the situation. This physician decided to do this in the middle of a national tragedy. I am not sure how much sympathy there will be for her.
I will assert that you will find similar statutes in the books of every State of the Union. As was described to me by the Board member when I got my license 35 years ago, the medical license is a privilege not a right. It can and will be revoked for inappropriate behavior. It was reiterated to every young doctor in the room that the main issues with discipline were drugs, addictions, and inappropriate sexual conduct. But also if we by word or action caused great shame to the profession, there would be consequences.
Freedom of speech is a right. And she exercised it. We all have that right. However, there is no right to a medical license. A medical license is a PRIVILEGE granted by the states and there are very specific laws and statutes that must be upheld to maintain the PRIVILEGE. The profession as a whole and each state individually has its own rules. Calling for harm to citizens and kids and families simply because of their political beliefs is entirely inappropriate, a breach of medical principles and ethics, a breach of the very foundational oath of the profession, and a breach of the laws enshrined in the Texas Medical Practice Act.
FYI –
There will be an investigation.
From the Chairman of the Texas Medical Board –
It is clear they see the same issues with the law that I and many others do.
https://x.com/szaafran/status/1941712042022387749
I will go on to reiterate that there is a large contingent of physicians in America that are just sick and tired of this kind of thing and watching our profession dragged through the mud by those among us who thrive in drama and self-righteous behavior online. It is high time that something be done about this. This is the very definition of unprofessional behavior and is causing great problems with trust in our communities.
Jacktish, the ancient and modern recognized professions – law, medicine, the clergy – as opposed to the trades, have always been held to a higher standard of social respect and approval. These professions deal with personal contracts, crises and attendant personal secrets. Losing public faith in their carrying out their public duties impartially would be fatal to the professions. imo.
re: “I guess one of my mottos in life about online posting is if something is worthy of being scrubbed a few hours or days later, it is probably best not to post in the first place. ”
One of the things I’ve drilled into my students, at least wrt their uni email accounts (and hopefully their private email accounts): do not post anything online or in an email that you would not want your grandmother to read or to see posted on the church bulletin board.
That last sentence triggered a memory for me. I was reading about Scottish Regiments in the British Army of the 19th century who were very religious and whose orders were given in Gaelic rather than English. One threatened punishment to keep those jocks in line was that any punishment that they would receive in their Regiment would result in it being published and posted in their church back home. Very effective.
Sir, a state institution must not infringe on political statement.
Laughing and demeaning those who are dying and suffering is not a political statement. It is painful for me to realize that unfortunately in the USA, it has become the norm to engage in this type of thing – but it is not a sign of good judgement – but the most important thing – it is not in any way effective to convince others to join your ideas. And it certainly should not be done by those in my profession. It would have been one thing for her to state facts as she sees them. That is not what she did.
The statement violated state laws regarding the conduct of physicians. Physicians consent, as a condition of being licensed, to restrict their behavior, including their speech.
I’m not amused by pols covering their asses on this one. People have died. Better, I think, to be pissed off big time, and try to better understand how american capitalism continues to kill and kill and kill.
I agree. Seems to me state and federal officials should have been well aware of the flood risk, but chose to ignore the risk and spend money elsewhere.
https://theconversation.com/why-texas-hill-country-where-a-devastating-flood-killed-dozens-is-one-of-the-deadliest-places-in-the-us-for-flash-flooding-260555
That’s false. People in the area of the flood report getting MULTIPLE alerts on their cells many hours before the flood hit, and the warnings were clear that the risk was high.
What a tragedy and sadly part and parcel of the new normal with these everlasting gobstopper 10-20 inch rain events being a feature…
If a similar storm hit here, every last business along Hwy 198 would be underwater and then some, not to mention hundreds of homes. It would be just the storm’s effect locally, but everything falling as rain in the higher climes will come down muy pronto~
Now that ICE has a bigger budget than the FBI,DEA,the Marshal’s service and the ATF combined the fibbies will need to increase their focus on potential Domestic Violent Extremists while ICE will be adding Potential threats to America’s National Security interests.
There’s plenty of “Potential” here for budgets and AI is the right tool to use to fully exploit that potential!
False positives are a plus both because of budgets and the way it encourages people to stop saying mean things about our betters.
On being repurposed to go after different groups, during the investigations by HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee) on the State Department, it went from hunting down communists to hunting down homosexuals under the guise of hunting down communists. Employees would come to the interviews with investigators thinking that they would be good Americans giving information about spies only to be shown pictures of themselves going into gay and lesbian bars and asked about that. It was started by Senator McCarthy’s aide Roy Cohn, who was homosexual.
I’m always amazed (and I shouldn’t be by now) that people do not think about the future use and abuse of new laws and powers given to an administration.
They can learn form Ukraine’s TCC on how to maximize their profits and still show some results…
Hey, wait a minute. The Ukrainians employ snatch squads to grab future “recruits” off the streets – while ICE uses snatch squads to grab possible illegal emigrants off the streets. I’m seeing a similarity here. Next step – a Night and Fog decree like in 1940s Germany where people would go out in the dark and fog and would just disappear never to be seen again=
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacht_und_Nebel
https://reclaimthenet.org/doj-antitrust-lawsuit-trusted-news-initiative-big-tech-independent-media
The US DOJ seems to be supporting an interesting selection of what appears to be rabid anti-vaxers. Interesting.
That Chinese language video is yet another amusing example of Orientalism.
People often forget that Edward Said’s famous eponymous work wasn’t just about how European imperialists used knowledge of the other as a technology of imperial control. It was also about how the colonized sometimes actively participate in their own self-orientalization.
This amusing video relies on the confusion between graphemes, morphemes, and sememes to impress viewers for whom translation is necessary. The contrast between the familiar and the unfamiliar seems innocent enough but it subtly encourages identifying the familiar with a norm or standard.
One would never guess from watching it that there is a long history in the 20th Century of debates among linguists concerning the viability of the very concept of “word.”
Chinese language(s) underwent major transformation, predominantly in the 20th Century, following the invention of a national language, what we commonly call “Chinese” or “Mandarin Chinese” today. This transformation spanned everything from the grammatical to the lexical.
Today, a lot of people are quick to criticize the PRC for “social engineering” policies, especially in places like the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. These people probably forgot, or didn’t know in the first place, that practically everything about modern China, starting from the national language, is the result of a “social engineering” project.
I concluded she was just trying to sell her services as a tutor or some other such general-service linguist. It’s not easy to make money as a linguist when you’re competing with MT and LLMs.
‘Tears My Heart to Pieces’: North Carolina Braces for Medicaid Cuts (NY Times via archive.ph)
Maybe rural people need to band together and buy some of Trump’s shatcoins?
mANY INTERESTING COMMENTS ON HOW WE GOT WHERE WE ARE TODAY (DOMESTICALLY) IN THE usa. nO PUNDITS, LIKELY NO SUB STACKERS, OR REDDIT USERS. mAYBE LITTLE x OR bLUESKY?
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/5/2331391/-How-the-hell-did-we-get-here
From Nasal COVID Vax Shows Promise in Phase 1 Clinical Trial
Imagine if there was any real federal support.
(bold mine)
LOL, that’s swell!
Imagine if there was any urgency to reduce the spread of a level 3 biohazard in the middle of year six of the Pandemic, ha.
The Schryver article above says Iran won “a major strategic victory” in the recent war with Israel.
A few days ago, the strongly pro-Zionist Telegraph in the UK published new details of the damage done to Israeli military sites by the Iranian bombing, according to satellite data. Such information still cannot be published in Israel.
https://archive.ph/cT1KO
I wonder if the Russians and/or the Chinese were slipping the Iranians exact longitude & latitude coordinates of Israeli targets for maximum effect.
I doubt the Russians would, under the current administration. The almost 2 million Israeli Jews of Russian ethnic background are still regarded as part of the global Russian population deserving of protection. My guess is that most of what Iran gets from Russia are defensive weapons. China may have fewer conflicted loyalties like this, however.
Russia would have to remember though that World Likud regards Russia as an enemy of Israel. Why that would be I have no idea, especially as there are so many Russian-Israelis. Russia would remember how Israeli jets deliberately put a Russian Il-20 plane in the path of Syrian aerial defenses a coupla years ago leading it to be shot down with the deaths of 15 Russians. And they would remember how at the beginning of the Hamas war, over 1,000 Israelis who were fighting for the Ukraine had to pack up and return home. And more recently how the modus operandi of the Israeli attack on Iran resembled the Ukrainian attack on Russia’s bomber force. Apparently lots of ordinary Russians took note of that one as did the government. Chuck Schumer once said that so long as two bricks leaned against each other in America, that it would be loyal to Israel. I do not think that there is a similar feeling in Russia for them.
Israel demands total loyalty. The USSR during the 1970s and 1980s started leaning toward the Arab cause despite having been the first country to recognize Israel earlier on. They (or, rather, their successor, the Russia Federation) still haven’t lived that down as far as the Likudniks go. And really any original sympathies the USSR had lay with the Israeli Labor Party, which has pretty much been rendered an irrelevancy since Begin and Sharon and Netanyahu started dominating the political scene. But Putin and Netanyahu do have some kind of ongoing relationship which is not entirely adversarial, in spite of the official positions of their governments being at odds in a number of serious ways.
I forgot when posting this that the original ruling socialist party was Mapai, which eventually merged with some allied parties to form Labor. And apparently the party has recently rebranded themselves as the Democrats, a not very felicitous choice.
“The almost 2 million Israeli Jews of Russian ethnic background…”
Information in Wikipedia puts the proportion of citizens from Russian/former USSR at 15% — 1,557,698 people according to the latest figures. It is a lot, but still significantly below 2 million.
Thanks for the correction. I was trying to quote from memory something Putin said recently when explaining why “guaranteeing Israel’s security” was important to Russia. Maybe he was exaggerating, or maybe the translation was inexact. Or, more likely, maybe it’s that my memory is not too great these days!
Catherine Austin Fitts newest interview on a Dutch podcast, conducted in English. utube, long, ~2hr,34+ minutes.
”Depopulation is on the Agenda” with Catherine Austin Fitts | The Trueman Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoAX4FthYb0
Looks interesting, thanks.
Wuk, since you are a fan of “Scouting on two continents” by Fred Burnham DSO I think you would enjoy “An American Family on the African Frontier, the Burnham Family letters, 1893-1896”.
Thrift shops and Library books sales are wonderful.
“An American Family on the African Frontier, the Burnham Family letters, 1893-1896”
TS,
Read it about 15 years ago, the family were quite elegant writers, and Frederick Burnham lived about 6 lives in 1 lifetime, an amazing adventurer who is buried in Tiny Town’s cemetery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Russell_Burnham
re: US – SMO Russia
This is not totally new:
conversation Scott Horton with Glenn Diesen
about USA provoking RU into war and Scott Horton´s new book about that, PROVOKED.
For NC this is not new or really informative.
I still post it hear since I try to listen or read Horton when I can (I haven´t read his book yet).
But of course, sadly, this interview sums up everything that is also wrong with the US antiwar left and which encapsulates its incompetence in certain areas.
I am a bit puzzled that US folks who are so obsessed with figuring out the US MIC and military conduct in general like Horton have apparently almost zero understanding about the serious nature of military affairs in the Ukraine War.
Anyway, as a recap of events with all the Horton-esque rhetoric antics
Scott Horton: Provoked – How Washington Started the New Cold War
Glenn Diesen
Jun 29, 2025
57 min.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/scott-horton-provoked-how-washington
Rut-roh … Ansar Allah has sunk another ship in the Red Sea:
https://apnews.com/article/yemen-red-sea-ship-attacked-2f10bed442ebca4aa026b5dc67a05b76
Bomb-carrying drone boats were used. Sounds like another round of billion-dollar shuck and jive is on tap from the Pentagon.
Obviously, if Operation “Prosperity Retardian” and the Trump sequel (Operation Big, Beautiful B2’s Blow Up Empty Buildings?) didn’t do the trick, the third time will be the charm!
I think US and Israel may try a land invasion.
I doubt they will fare better than Egypt in the 1960s.
The glaciers of Canada, the United States, and Switzerland lost 12% of their volume in just four years Noticias Ambientales
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Using math without figuring in the rapidity of loss, that gives us 28 years before all the glaciers are gone, meanwhile here in the Sierra Nevada where the remaining glaciers are going away fast, I glimpsed the biggest one-the Palisade Glacier from about 5 air miles away as the California Condor flies above the 6th Big Pine Lake, and its fitting as the same glacier reached its maximum extent during the Little Ice Age, shift happens.
President Donald Trump, whose administration has worked to shrink the National Park Service workforce and slash its funding, on Thursday ordered Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to increase national park fees for foreign visitors, while also making parks more affordable for American citizens.
“From the awe-inspiring Grand Canyon to the tranquility of the Great Smoky Mountains, America’s national parks have provided generations of American families with unforgettable memories. It is the policy of my administration to preserve these opportunities for American families in future generations by increasing entry fees for foreign tourists, improving affordability for United States residents, and expanding opportunities to enjoy America’s splendid national treasures,” the president wrote in an executive order.
https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2025/07/president-orders-interior-secretary-increase-park-fees-foreigners
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As if we haven’t done enough to scare off foreign visitors filling hotel & motel rooms, restaurants, rental vehicles and a lot more, now they’ll have to fake Yank accents to get the ‘company deal.’
Nearly Half of America’s Murderers Get Away With It
Fun
“The lack of legal accountability emboldens criminals, leading to more crime and violence.”
There it is. You just described American Politics.