Meet the NYC lute player serenading the Shakespeare in the Park line since 1976 Gothamist
Common Words That Are Pronounced Differently in Various Parts of the United States Laughing Squid (rwsilc)
The Pill That Women Are Taking for Everything From Speeches to First Dates Wall Street Journal (resilc)
#COVID-19/Pandemics
A new review shows that COVID infection can damage the kidneys, leading to acute injury and raising the risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD).
Patients with existing CKD are especially vulnerable, facing higher risks of severe infection and LongCOVID complications. 1/ pic.twitter.com/2i8FTvHpsc
— Vipin M. Vashishtha (@vipintukur) September 8, 2025
I have a sneaking suspicion that Novavax is a non-starter:
Updated COVID vaccine availability map 9/9
Most difficult states to get a shot, which require prescriptions & have no MinuteClinics: ME, OR, UT, WV
These states require prescriptions but have MinuteClinics: AZ, DC, FL, GA, LA, NC, VA
All other states, no prescription needed pic.twitter.com/3O9XyFWxdH
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) September 9, 2025
Climate/Environment
EXCEPTIONAL WARMTH IN SCANDINAVIA
More records today in FINLAND with a Minimum of 16.5C at Kuopio Savilahti.
Temperatures will rise again specially in the Baltic countries and many more records will be broken in the next 2 days. https://t.co/ZmlhsBdlb4
— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) September 9, 2025
Climate change threatens major oxygen-producing bacteria Natural History Museum
Floods could hit England while country is still in drought, forecasters say Guardian
‘Intense’ monsoon rain, flooding continue to engulf Pakistan’s Punjab Aljazeers
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/8/intense-monsoon-rain-flooding-continue-to-engulf-pakistans-punjab
Gunsan’s 152.2 mm ‘waterfall rain’ breaks national record Chosun
Africa bears the heaviest burden of global wildfires Nation
As world gets hotter, Americans are turning to more sugar, study finds Independent
China?
US Tech Companies Enabled the Surveillance and Detention of Hundreds of Thousands in China Military.com
Approving China embassy would be unlawful, UK government told BBC
Koreas
What we learned about North Korea at the summit in Beijing The Conversation (Kevin W)
US Raid Disrupts Construction at Multiple Korean Battery Plants Bloomberg
1/ S. Korea's entire media establishment across political spectrum has united in unprecedented editorial consensus expressing profound betrayal, outrage, national humiliation, and fundamental breach of US-ROK alliance re: mass arrest of Korean workers at Hyundai's Georgia plant. https://t.co/Tgywza18tb
— Raphael Rashid (@koryodynasty) September 8, 2025
India
Rupee faces tug-of-war at open as Trump mixes tariff threats with trade talks Reuters. See below on Trump trying to get EU to impose secondary sanctions on India.
Nepal
Nepal’s parliament set on fire after PM resigns over anti-corruption protests BBC
The US Might Try To Manipulate Nepal Into Weaponizing Its Revived Border Dispute With India Andrew Korybko
South of the Border
War With Venezuela? Ken Klippenstein
Colombia not to allow use of its territory for invasion of Venezuela: President Petro Anadolu Agency
European Disunion
Trump presses European Union to impose 100% tariffs on India and China to pressure Putin CNBC. The cost of being a vassal keeps rising…
Europe’s population crisis: see how your country compares – visualised Guardian. resilc: “2100? With climate change this is all wack.”
Macron appoints Sébastien Lecornu as France’s prime minister Le Monde
France faces ‘Block Everything’ shutdown as new PM Lecornu takes office France24
Which way forward for the working class after the fall of the French government? WSWS
Macron’s Grand Illusion American Conservative
7 million for empty rooms in private accommodation – at the same time Krokom backs down: “Feeling bad” Arbetet via machine translation (Micael T)
Old Blighty
Margaret Thatcher’s erotic power Unherd. Is this men who like being spanked?
Israel v. the Resistance
This is becoming a Trump signature move – the same modus operandi he used with Iran, now deployed against Hamas: pretending he wanted to engage in diplomacy as a trap to facilitate bombing them.
Which reinforces the precedent: engaging in diplomacy with the US is now worse than… https://t.co/6c9dHFZ576
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) September 9, 2025
With Doha Strike, Israel Signals a Strategic Shift and an Indifference to Consequences Haaretz
Israel has literally blown up the Gaza ceasefire negotiations while opening another front in its war ABC Australia (Kevin W)
Israel’s attack on Qatar eviscerates promise of US security umbrella for Gulf Middle East Eye (Kevin W)
UN Security Council to discuss Israel’s strike on Qatar on September 10 TASS
Inside Israel’s Audacious Airstrike on Hamas Leaders in Qatar, a U.S. Ally Wall Street Journal. “Audacious”. Kill me now.
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) September 9, 2025
Ritter’s Rant 050: Perfidy Scott Ritter
After bombing, time to demystify the ‘Qatar lobby’ Responsible Statecraft
* * * Anti-Islamic US biker gang members run security at deadly Gaza aid sites BBC
Huckabee: ‘The US has never asked Israel to not apply sovereignty’ to the West Bank Times of Israel (resilc)
HE IS FUCKING ANNOUNCING ON TWITTER THAT HE GAVE THE ORDERS TO COMMIT WAR CRIMES!!! https://t.co/OThDADzQS1
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) September 9, 2025
Global Sumud Flotilla reports 2nd drone attack on vessel Anadolu Agency
Hasbara, the global Zionist machine to deny the Palestinian genocide Rebelion via machine translation
Israeli army refusers defy harsher backlash to protest genocide +972
New Not-So-Cold War
Poland shoots down Russian drones Financial Times. Lead story. Please see our post. It’s a bit more current on the news-y parts.
Zelensky demands punishment for Russia over drones over Poland Vyzglad via machine translation. Nothing from the Russian side as of when I grabbed this translation, meaning TASS, RT or Sputnik. Ditto on Twitter (tweets on this thin but did include some shots of the purported Russian drones).
Finally closer to launch time, some additional info:
🇷🇺🇧🇾🇵🇱 DRONES DRIFTED OFF COURSE DUE TO ELECTRONIC WARFARE.
Poland and Belarus cooperated and exchanged information about drones that went off course into their territory!
Official statement from the Belarusian Ministry of Defense regarding the air defense operations last… pic.twitter.com/RVWpJDd1pp
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) September 10, 2025
* * * White House Silence, Lawmakers’ Outcry as Russia Tests Poland’s Resolve Kyiv Post
The Slavyansk pincers Events in Ukraine
NYT Pushes Another Scare Report About Nuclear Sites In Ukraine Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Failing to Learn from Catastrophe Daniel Larison
The school shooting industry is worth billions — and it keeps growing NPR (resilc)
Trump 2.0
Fired CDC Director Susan Monarez to testify to Senate panel The Hill. Keeping pressure on RFK, Jr.
The Untold Saga of What Happened When DOGE Stormed Social Security ProPublica (Robin K)
Trump asks Supreme Court to let it cut billions in foreign aid Aljazeera (Kevin W)
Fed
Judge blocks Trump’s bid to fire Lisa Cook from Federal Reserve board Politico
Immigration
These Immigrants Became Immigration Court Judges. Trump Just Laid Them Off THE CITY
ICE raid in Rochester stymied as 2 workers evade arrest, 200 residents protest Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
L’affaire Epstein
Democrats en deshabille
‘A full-on base revolt’: Why this shutdown threat is different Washington Post
Supremes
Supreme Court’s scant explanations in Trump emergency cases draw friction The Hill
Economy
Job growth revised down by 911,000 through March, signaling economy on shakier footing than realized CNBC
AI
Dr Bob decodes DS Julian Macfarlane
The women in love with AI companions: ‘I vowed to my chatbot that I wouldn’t leave him’ Guardian. Paul R: “Even scarier than the Snapewives if that means anything to you.”
Judge skewers $1.5B Anthropic settlement with authors in pirated books case over AI training Associated Press (Kevin W)
The Fever Dream of Imminent Superintelligence Is Finally Breaking New York Times (resilc)
Guillotine Watch
America’s most luxurious grocery store to open in New York City… with five-figure entry fee Daily Mail (resilc)
Class Warfare
Socialism or Barbarism: Building a Program for Mass Reeducation in the United States William Murphy
Report shows top 400 richest Americans now taxed less than general population PhysOrg (Dr. Kevin)
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus (Chuck L):
Full flaps, gear down, flare. Butter landing. pic.twitter.com/sG1IgHyiVD
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) September 8, 2025
A second bonus:
The only problem i want in my life😂💓🥹 pic.twitter.com/0rAyfw1Mjm
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) September 9, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
190 comments
Comments are closed.
I’m searching for Novovax in the Northeast, no luck so far. Both Walgreens and CVS say they have it on their landing pages for appointment scheduling but the individual stores available don’t list it within the search range. I have not yet called individual stores but that is my next step. The “vaccine finder” search page on the Novovax corporate site was no longer available two days ago.
Keep calling. I don’t think it can hurt to show the demand.
Had a similar experience with what’s left of Walgreens.
Don’t need it yet but I’m bugging my doc, local pharmacies (including grocery stores). Answers are no or we can order. We shall see.
What is the advantage of Novavax over the other vaccines? I have tried to research it but am not coming up with anything.
It’s based an older technology and therefore not prone to the problems caused either by mRNA or J&J.
Thank you!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I choose which COVID-19 vaccine I receive at Walgreens?
The CDC has no preference for any authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccine. If you happen to have a preference, when scheduling an appointment you’ll be able to select between Pfizer and Moderna for a specific appointment date.
Vaccine availability varies by Walgreens locations and not all may be available in all areas.
https://www.walgreens.com/topic/promotion/covid-vaccine.jsp?ban=immhub_covidvax
Out of date, or no Novovax?
It’s also got a better protective profile, more robust.
Sadly buried in the Twitter, but the most comprehensive stuff on Novavax I’ve seen is always on Twitter. Lists tons of studies on why this is the superior shot to get:
https://x.com/Biff234523/status/1964732363864145930
Thanks very much!
Thanks,
But still sounds like it only works with the spike part of the virus.
For some reason i thought parts other than the spike were use in Novavax.
Try Costco
Anecdotally, the new Novavax is supposed to ship Oct. 13.
https://ir.novavax.com/press-releases/2025-08-27-Novavaxs-Nuvaxovid-TM-2025-2026-Formula-COVID-19-Vaccine-Approved-in-the-U-S
I am taking bets on how long before Trump blames Biden for the BLS employment revisions as it was a plot to cook the books as part of the conspiracy to prevent him winning the election. And, he is referring it to the DoJ for criminal election interference.
Actual evidence of election interference would be a high bar, one would hope. However I would go so far to suggest that Trump, or any now sitting President, would be looking at these hindsight revisions, in aggregate from 2023 to 2025 downward revisions were especially important, and not be asking the serious question…like WTF? The economy was humming it seemed at the January 2025 hand off, as it turned out this looks less solid but an economy still seemingly or broadly okay.
BLS needing a rethink on how to generate these monthly payroll numbers. I heard one investor or market maven call the department “sclerotic” and the approach needs an overhaul. And CNBC hasn’t exactly been a dedicated bearer of only the best and all is good angles in the second Trump administration. Numbers that equal complete BS ought to be questioned.
The issue, as I understand it, is that market participants want data to act on before clean data is available. To accommodate that, employer surveys and estimation techniques are used, and solid data is produced on a lag.
So here’s how according to CNN BLS collects this data:
Trump says the Bureau of Labor Statistics orchestrated a ‘scam.’ Here’s how the jobs report really works
“Trump presses European Union to impose 100% tariffs on India and China to pressure Putin”
The hazards of being a vassal. The economy of the EU is crumbling and whole sections are being de-industrialized. So of course they would seek trade deals with countries with large economies like India and China to throw them a life line. But here is Trump demanding that they cut any potential life-lines and is instead throwing them an anvil. it seems that he wants to turn the EU into like Russia was like in the 1990s.
Then he would send them Sachs as advisor. :-)
Low blow. Sachs has either recanted his involvement in the forceful adjustment that Russia endured during the 90s or explained why his positions were adopted in Poland but not allowed in Russia. You can read his full retelling here:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d59c0bdfff8290001f869d1/t/5ed7d8e248deea6dbee5d577/1591204091062/Sachs+%282012%29_What+I+did+in+Russia.pdf
Low blow is what the western experts did back then. The lowest. I know very well what their excuses are, and didn’t buy them for a second. I don’t think that anyone that lived trough hell of 1990s Eastern Europe would. If we, the plebs, knew what was going on back then, so did those doing it intentionally. Only the most gullible people would believe that he is telling “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. Maybe you should check out full retellings of O. J. Simpson too.
This is a first person summary of that person’s perspective. Sachs comes across credible in my view.
However, I have no way of knowing for sure what Sachs did or didn’t do in Russia. He does have references and citations to back up most of what he stated. There may be some sins of omission along the way though.
I am waiting for the Tell All to end all Tell Alls from Larry Summers on his direct role manipulating Russia’s economy from Jan 1993 until 2001 in fifteen pages or less. It could be a long wait.
It looked like a joke to me, not a blow. What’s up with the modern day humanity, and the war on humor? Everyone is triggered by everything.
I’ve been @ battle in the war on humor. shooting my mouth off one word at a time-silently. rat-a-tat-tat-tat.
I was engaged in a skirmish once, after my clown unit got ambushed by Karen irregulars supported by the Joke Police. Situation got truly FUBAR, so I went AWOL, in order not to end up MIA. Still got the PTSD.
…haven’t we all been there?
The Pill That Women Are Taking for Everything From Speeches to First Dates Wall Street Journal
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How did I go through 3 score and 3 years without ever hearing of Propranolol, LOL!
I know of nobody in my life that’s doing Adderall or Propranolol, am I merely an outlier in game of life?
The article was clearly aimed at young adult women, and since a Kardashian is taking Propranolol. that makes everything ok.
I know of a person whose doctor gave them beta blockers for stage fright 30 years ago. This is not what they were built for but I do not believe his doctor was any sort of outlier. I read an article in the New York Times that said half the players in the New York Philharmonic took them and it was regarded as a performance enhancing drug. I have not regularly read the New York Times in 16 years so this was at least that long ago.
In law school I had a friend whose husband was a shrink and prescribed beta blockers for her so that she could better manage Socratic Method questioning, especially in the all-important L1 first semester. She did quite well.
I took some once for a series of job interviews that were high stress and it made me slightly somnolent and off my game. I’m more of a stimulant guy, I think.
I take it for tahycardia. Don’t notice any other effects.
When I was in law school in the 1980s one of my classmates (whose father was himself a law prof) was on beta blockers so that he wouldn’t be anxious about being called on. I had no such advantages so I hid behind the chair in front of me instead.
I’m told by someone I know well who is in a position to know that it is extraordinarily common for undergrads to be on adderall now.
The Chinese Embassy case is Yes, Mr. Prime Minister/Monty Python stuff.
1) first UK sell off this property to foreign owners. In this case the Chinese government.
2) then they complain about the owners wanting to get rid of some tenants. This type of eviction is daily stuff elsewhere but nobody complains.
3) why would China like to build a mega-Embassy in the moribound UK? Do they believe that all evil against China comes out of the UK or will the UK economy recover?
You had the same thing with a planned new Russian Embassy here in Oz when the present government had a panic attack because apparently the Russians were the boogeymen-
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/aug/06/russia-takes-fight-over-cancellation-of-embassy-near-parliament-house-canberra-to-high-court
Common Words That Are Pronounced Differently in Various Parts of the United States Laughing Squid
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Take the quiz to see where you live in the USA, based upon your dialect…
They came close, and placed me in Sacramento~
https://peabodyawards.com/nytimesdialectquiz/
It could have been worse. They could have said that you came from Fresno. :)
My favorite part is the airport with unfortunate acronym FAT (Fresno Air Terminal) included at no extra charge.
Expert agree, its the quickest way to flee~
As someone born in the Midwest, with relatives in Oklahoma and Texas, who moved to the Northeast, I have been very aware of these differences in pronunciation, as well as accents and alternative word usage (they apparently don’t have “tennis shoes” in the Northeast, only “sneakers”).
This video covers a number of the best known examples. But one that took us aback when we moved to upstate NY the first time was “elementary school,” which many (though not everyone), pronounced as “elemenTARY school.” As an “eleMENtary” school teacher, my wife could never get use to this one.
Growing up in the south and eastern NC, I can safely guess where I would , most likely, be positioned. I’ve read similar articles in prior years and it is or was always, oddly, funny how cousins in northeastern Tennessee spoke the same English but the regional dialect has more a mountain flavor to it. Only separated by about 400 miles door to door but it felt like a forever drive as a kid.
No Sony Walkman to play a cassette tape and definitely no hand held games like the classic Tecmo gadgets. Guess playing a game of “punchbug” was still effective entertainment.
Pretty much zeroed me in with “hoagies.”
Had a lovely chat with an ancient Scottish bus driver who was essentially giving me a private guided tour through London, since he explained, correctly, that the “bus full of Korean businessmen and government officials were only concerned about getting to the next photo op.”
After a long morning and mid-afternoon’s worth of stellar Q&A with the gentleman, he finally came out and asked me where I was from in the States. He prided himself on identifying folks, often down to their hometown (he’d been driving that bus a long time) and while I was an American was obvious to him he admitted he could not place my origin or specific accent.
We then had a discussion about Northeast Pennsylvania and its incredibly neutral accent … and the fact that people from Wyoming Valley had a tendency to not travel very far from the Valley.
Fun times….
When I was a kid our next door neighbors relatives from deep in the heart of Texas would come for week or 2 every year, and I remember trying hard to decipher my 9 year old counterpart’s patter, as regional accents were so strong once upon a time, but have mellowed somewhat since.
Had a delightful talk with a health insurance lady from Tennessee, and such a sweet accent, I could have listened listened all day.
I am a military brat, so I tend to have a very neutral US accent from moving all around the US that drives British people nuts. This has helped me professionally presenting to many companies around the world, as well as being proficient in EASA Simplified Technical English.
Also as a military brat, I learned early on to mimic local accents, as outsiders to a community often get into fights. It was best to try to blend in as much as possible to minimize friction.
While in upstate (Canadian border upstate) NY my sister learned to mimic a NYC accent from watching WPIX from NYC on our then 12 channel cable connection. It helped when we had to move to the NYC region later after a military Reduction In Force after the Vietnam/American War.
As far as names of places, that gets tough. There are many names of international towns and cities that have local pronunciations if used in the US when used for local places. Get it wrong at your own risk.
“Margaret Thatcher’s erotic power”
‘Margaret Thatcher is considered one of the most erotic personalities of the millennium, a British magazine says.’
Are they serious? Frankly she was one to give a bloke a solid case of brewer’s droop. The British knew what she was all about which is why they sang ‘Ding! Dong! The witch is dead’ as her casket was driven by at her funeral.
Coprophilia would be one perversion that could place Thatcher on some sort of erotic spectre.
It’s the men that read the Erotic Review, whatever that is.
In our day, we had “The Pearl.” Lots of spanking in that magazine.
Not many pearl necklaces in it, I suppose. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Tg-JsMS-E
ZZ Top – Pearl Necklace
I dunno – watching Margaret Thatcher in action has the same effect on my tender parts as diving into freezing water.
As an American kid I didn’t know about her until Austin Powers chanted “Margaret Thatcher on a cold day!” to calm his libido.
Christopher Hitchens said in his memoir, and possibly elsewhere, idk, that he was erotically thrilled by meeting Thatcher.
I think yes it is a bit like Yves says although not necessarily involving specifically corporal punishment. But I think it does involve fantasy of subjection to authority and discipline.
Hayek said after meeting her she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
Hayek would say that, wouldn’t he? But like most of the drooling politicos described in this ridiculous article, he isn’t worshiping her “erotic” power in the usual sense of the word. Rather, it was her *political* power – to impose a Hayekian agenda while wearing a dress – that I think gave them all hard-ons.
Then again, the author was a former editor of the ‘Erotic Review,’ so far be it from me to challenge her expertise. I’m waiting for her follow-up article: “Hillary Clinton’s Potent Political Sexuality.” It might have to be a two-parter.
One psychopath complimenting the other.
From the Alan Clark diaries:
Clark, a castle-owning cabinet minister, enjoyed a bit of ‘the other’, and admitted he would probably have done time if he were from a lower class.
I visited the UK when she was in power. Work was being done on the fountain in Trafalger Square. So, panels surrounded it. Somebody drew a picture on some of the panels. Thatcher as a WWII bomber, her face being the front of the bomber. She was dropping bombs all over anything for the public good. Never forgot it.
The Gaza family torn apart by IDF snipers from Chicago and Munich (Guardian)
Excerpts:
Raab, a former varsity basketball player from a Chicago suburb who became an Israeli sniper, concedes he knew that. He says he shot Salem simply because he tried to retrieve the body of his beloved older brother Mohammed.
“It’s hard for me to understand why he [did that] and it also doesn’t really interest me,” Raab says in a video interview posted on X. “I mean, what was so important about that corpse?”
“They’re thinking: ‘Oh I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon and all that, but they were wrong,” said Raab, who majored in biology at the University of Illinois before joining the Israel Defense Forces. “That’s what you have snipers for.”
In November 2023 Israeli forces operating in the area decided that section of Moneer al-Rayyes Street was off-limits to civilians, without notifying Palestinians. Raab described it as a “combat zone” where any man of military age was “marked for death”.
Establishing an invisible “security perimeter” then shooting civilians who cross it has become common practice in Gaza, Israeli soldiers have testified.
When asked how his squad decided whether to shoot unarmed Palestinians, Raab said: “Its a question of distance. There is a line that we define. They don’t know where this line is, but we do.”
In total, Raab says his “team” had killed 105 people by the time his deployment in Gaza ended. “That’s really impressive,” he said of the toll.
I have run out of words to describe this.
If Raab returns to the US, his neighbours had better hope that he does not snap one day and decides that every person on his street is a Palestinian civilian. It could happen. But the guy is scum and a moral vacuum.
I’m actually (not by design) staying somewhere with 99% Israeli tourists right now. Mostly young enough to have been called up. Spoken to a few of the liberal/pacifist type and they are deeply broken. Planning to leave Israel and talking about it’s descent into hate, madness and religious extremism.
Even they refused to see what is being done in Gaza and talk in generalities and euphimisms. They know but they don’t admit it and it’s ripping them apart.
The aggressive type don’t come here. Just lost kids acting normal then drifting away into trauma fogs.
It is very hard to see these people eating and laughing, while the genocide continues.
They know but they don’t admit it and it’s ripping them apart.
I see this with my Israeli colleagues also. I’ve attributed a lot of it to the way the info is presented in Israeli media (mix of military censorship and heavy euphemisms + extreme jingoism/patriotism) and social pressure with a heavy layer of religious “them vs us”-ism. Even the most secular and sane of them appear to do this. When they travel to the US and I speak with them on the topic they are only slightly better but it is clear they both don’t know and aren’t seeking out all the details because then they’d have to do something about it, which means immigration and leaving behind any family or anything they’ve built up there in the least disruptive scenario. If they’re at conscription age they’re also risking jail and being blacklisted by employers and housing and a bunch of other terrible things. They can stay in a sort of quantum superposition as long as they aren’t fully aware but as you say, it tears them apart. I know it is small compared to what is being done to Gaza but these people aren’t in decision making positions and for the most part didn’t vote the lunatics into power who are driving the genocide. If they’re young enough for conscription they’ve also lived their entire lives in the shadow of the failure of Oslo.
On the whole, I think the Israeli populace is showing out worse than the average German during World War 2. The average German at least pretended not to know what was happening. The vast majority of Isrealis have all sorts of cope going on, but they appear to be basically on board with killing or ethnically cleansing all Palestinians, and a majority would like to see the victims raped and/or tortured first.
> a majority would like to see the victims raped and/or tortured first
Is this true?
Not in my experience interacting personally with Israelis but there have been some opinions polls with vile results that were majority and that’s actual data not anecdote. As an American who lived thought the post 9/11 years I’m not sure if it is really any worse than what you would hear from a typical suburban Republican c. 2003. (NB I am not defending their beliefs nor do I share them.) In my personal experience the older and more religious the Israelis are the more likely they are to defend the prison baton rape at the Palestinian detention centers or casually talk about killing all of them. The youngers fleeing conscription were born around the time of the second intifada, they had no say in this.
A few months back, I attended a talk given by an Israeli researcher. My impression was that the speaker was a “good liberal” of the sort one generally encounters in academia. The talk wasn’t directly concerned with the conflict in Gaza, but did touch upon politics and so during the Q & A somebody in the audience asked about that, and specifically pressed on the issue of the IDF bombing aid and hospitals.
To this, the Israeli speaker darkened visibly, expressing a sense of deep frustration and sadness about the situation, but also said something that struck me: “unfortunately, at this time it is not possible to distinguish between combatants and civilians.”
At this, I was half-tempted to blurt out: “so… just kill them all… is that the plan you support?” but somehow I managed to hold my tongue. Others in the audience were quite annoyed, but if any fireworks were unleashed I missed them by walking out before the end.
Still, I wonder how many “good liberals” in Israel feel this to be the case, i.e., that genocide is “unfortunate” but somehow can’t be helped, because Hamas.
“unfortunately, at this time it is not possible to distinguish between combatants and civilians.”
I’ve heard this one too. Near as I can tell the rationale is:
Oslo Accords signed -> Rabat assassinated by Israeli right wing -> Barak pulls out of Oslo process -> Second Intifada -> Gaza votes in Hamas -> Hamas vs Fatah (Palestinian Authority) conflict, Hamas wins -> Egypt and Israel blockade Gaza because of Hamas -> Gaza continues to vote in Hamas -> 2021/2022 Israel-Gaza conflict -> Netanyahu’s current ultra right wing government stabilizes after 3 years of governments falling -> 10/7 -> Israel declares war on Hamas
Because Gaza voted in Hamas repeatedly they are all combatants. I think this is the chain of rationale. I’m an outsider though and this is pieced together from multiple peoples’ ranting so I could be missing some major details.
The man will be lucky if he returns to Chicago and is not shot himself by a distant ‘cousin’ of one of the Palestinians he shot.
Of course, he could join Homeland Security and do the same job he performed in Gaza, but in Chicago. It’ll get to that sooner or later.
If he does not understand what is so important about a corpse, maybe he should read or watch a production of Antigone by Sophocles, written almost 2,500 years ago and that could maybe help him get a better grasp of the importance of families.
He must surely be arrested for war crimes for admitting such.
I’m surprised that someone who wasn’t raised in Israel and brainwashed for years into believing that Palestinians are worthless can behave like the ideal IDF soldier.
Some of the worst Nazis were not German, but Belgian, French, Ukrainian, Croatian, and such.
The worst Nazis were those that needed to prove themselves worthy, because they weren’t born as “proper Arians/Germans”. Ukrainians and Croats (and Bosnian Muslims) are Slavs, and had to show being worthy of switching from “unter-” to “uber-“. And try hard they did, and still do.
Capital crime?
Saeed
@Haman_Ten
·
21h
“UK fuel tanker took off from Qatar, refueled Israeli fighter jets that were attacking Qatar then landed in Qatar.”
I saw that Qatar suspended their role as mediator. However, before I hit the sack last night, not everyone was convinced Qatar didn’t know what was about to happen.
Well it is now excruciatingly plain to all the Gulf states (and really, the entire world) who their enemies are. Really, it should be plain to most Americans who their enemies are. I can’t see any other solution but to roll out Madame Guillotine…..
I called several pharmacies in Durham / Raleigh area but Novovax is not available. I figured being in the Research Triangle area chances were favorable I’d find it but no such luck. One pharmacy informed me they were not sure when they would be getting Covid vaccine. The Novovax finder on their website was not working two weeks ago when I checked. I guess this is another iteration of Rule #2.
If Novavax is a “non-starter” then what about Corbevax (if anyone remembers)?
“Socialism or Barbarism: Building a Program for Mass Reeducation in the United States”
“2. Public Service Year (PSY)
A paid, voluntary service program for young people, immigrants, and returning citizens. Participants would work in climate resilience, eldercare, education support, housing retrofits, and disaster relief—while receiving 10 hours a week of critical civic education. Stipend: $28–36,000, with healthcare, housing credits, and union membership. Scale: 1–2 million participants annually.”
And why can’t an over 35 American citizen get a chance for union membership and housing/health credits? Plenty would need the benefits and want to help.
“Socialism” in the USA, but not if you are born in the USA and stay in the USA.
A “socialism” program that excludes large portions of the population with a variety of characteristics.
WTH?
There are many weird features of this platform, but the real problem is that no platform exists that could get anywhere near 50% support from American voters.
American voters would probably support material benefits such as a decent health care system, but the legitimacy crisis is so bad that it is not possible to get Americans to agree on who gets to design the system, even if they could agree on the features of the system.
The Fever Dream of Imminent Superintelligence Is Finally Breaking New York Times (resilc)
The more training the lower competitiveness (here “competitiveness” as defined for labour productivity. You obtain marginally better quality for 100 more times spent on training).
For Israel to hit Qatar
If they flew over Iraq, and launched missiles from there, it’s about 500 miles over the water to Qatar. Then literally right next to the largest US military base which is guarded by lots of anti missile batteries.
If that’s true, the missiles were on radar the whole time which took a while.
The US bases in the gulf didn’t do anything.
Or the Israel jets flew down the gulf a ways launched and refueled.
Either way, this whole thing was 100% coordinated with the US as they had to shut down the air defenses from every us military base in the gulf.
I wonder when someone will provide the radar tracking info about the planes and missiles.
Who trusts the US after this?
Or the UK – they refueled the Israeli jets. Isn’t it nice to know your government is controlled by lying, murderous scum?
No, it bloody well isn’t. It makes me ashamed, and to add to that shame, they are arresting old women and the disabled when they protest the Zionazi genocide. My government sickens me the the pit of my stomach for it’s incapacity and sheer unwillingness to attend to its own people’s needs, and its complete lack of anything remotely resembling a moral core.
One of the analyses I read in the Israeli media last night mentioned it was fired from a jet from outside of Qatar’s borders. So the long-awaited Chekov’s gun of the JDAM kits that were sent by the US right after the 12 days has been fired.
There is also a lot of talk in the Israeli media today about whether Qatar will maintain its role as mediator even if the strike was successful or not successful. Last night I posted a link indicating the Netanyahu gov did this in part to shift the mediator role to Egypt, which may be easier to dictate terms to or buy off.
“Macron appoints Sébastien Lecornu as France’s prime minister”
I understand that before Lecornu arrived in the French Parliament, that they shouted out ‘Next!’ :) He’s Macron’s fifth Prime Minister now and I don’t expect this guy to last long either. But one thing is sure. Macron will not step down as President and will stay to the bitter end, no matter how much he causes France to suffer. if he goes down in flames, then he will take France with him.
Possibly(?) a reference to Jacques Brel’s Au suivant!
Covered memorably by Scott Walker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9u9K7Up4Ts [NSFW]
The lugubrious atmosphere and lyrics of this song seem rather fitting for Jupiter.
The entire affair with the Korean workers at the Georgia plant shows that perhaps the Wang Yi theory is still correct:
“No matter how blonde you dye your hair, how sharp you shape your nose, you can never become a European or American, you can never become a Westerner. We must know where our roots lie.”
Woops, forgot the first part, here’s the full quote
“Americans take all visitors from China, South Korea and Japan as Asians. They cannot tell the differences and it’s the same in Europe. No matter how yellow you dye your hair, or how sharp you make your nose, you’ll never turn into a European or American, you’ll never turn into a Westerner.”
The late Paul Mooney had a term for this realization.
Some Americans ask why they speak English in the UK and not a European language. Yes, this is true. American education at it’s finest.
A very frequent conversation when I was living in Kentucky:
Me (British) : hi, how are you?
Them (amazed): You have an accent!
Me: Really? I thought you have the accent.
Them: huh?
They thought you were from Indiana.
Best…H
You’re saying the UK is part of Europe? Many would disagree. Strongly.
Except that having lived and worked in the area, the more honest locals will admit that even THEY can’t tell the differences from just a cursory visual inspection.
I had a Korean girl in one of my classes who, except for her hairstyle, was a spitting image of the classic Japanese beauties commonly seen in woodcuts.
There was at one time (maybe still is) a website along the lines of “Spot the Korean.” None of the Koreans I worked with could get a passing score with the faces presented.
“We can tell” is just another form of “they can never understand us.”
Now, HEARING them is an entirely different matter.
Fun sidebar – good buddy from law school had a Japanese wife. After living in the US for a decade, they finally took the daughters back to Japan to visit. Her first remark, on getting off the plane, was allegedly, “My god, we all DO look alike!”
> There was at one time (maybe still is) a website along the lines of “Spot the Korean.” None of the Koreans I worked with could get a passing score with the faces presented.
Yes! I had this exact experience working in Busan. IIRC it was photos taken of New Yorkers of Korean/Japanese/Chinese descent. My Korean co-workers were no better at IDing Koreans than I was (about the same as random guesses).
The New-Yorker bit makes it much harder as it mutes many of the obvious little differences in dress, posture, hairstyle etc that makes e.g. spotting a Korean tourist (vs a Japanese tourist in Thailand) fairly easy.
Funny experience – after we got our first haircuts at basic training, all the black guys in the company were laughing. One of the white guys asked why and somebody said “you all look the same without your hair.”
Everyone looks the same at basic training. Taking out individuality is a feature, not a bug.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78ICiQKdO-Q
There was supposed to be a famous expt where AI allegedly could tell apart Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese some years ago. Then someone had the idea to tell subjects to put on different styles of clothes. Then, the AI fell apart completely.
Now, the same sort of style seems to be popular all over. I wouldn’t expect anyone to tell anything apart .
Of course, when I was still in academia, one of my students was a Japanese American (very conscientiously) with a Japanese name, but had actual blonde hair and blue eyes (she was 4th gen and had far more recent white ancestry than Asian.)
They wear breaking the visa rules and got caught. It’s nuts that peeps are blowing up this to racial levels….
Ok, then the Q is do TSM, BMW, do the same? Or Korean dumpling factories in the USA? Do BMW get a pass because they are German.
Wang is trolling SK, deftly I may add…and the Koreans are taking the bait
it’s wild that SK conglomeratea and their tiers of cpntractors are begin spun (by US and SL media, and pundits) as paragons of virtue and “victims”.
I guess SK film, book, and TV writers who write about SK class isues are just full of bunk.
I agree.
As an engineer that has installed lots of factory equipment manufactured overseas, I can understand why the people were there doing the work. It’s common practice to install expensive factory equipment in this manner with a team of people sent over from the equipment manufacturer.
But I cannot explain how the visa’s got messed up. Generally mega-corps have more than enough pull that they can pick up the phone, call somebody, and make $hit happen like getting expedited visa’s done pronto, or make it clear that they are “protected” and above the law. After all, mega-corps are top tier citizens right behind oligarchs with more rights than you and me.
But this will be a big deal in SK. Mega-corps and the government are very close to being the same thing there, and showing the proper decorum is a thing so this will be taken as a slap in the face.
And I don’t try to make heroes or victims out of the people that were sent over to do the work. They’re pretty much just low level workers like I was, trying to survive in an increasingly chaotic world. If ICE is serious about wanting this type of abuse to stop, grab the highest level manager in the corporate food chain on the site and take them to the lockup. Throw a couple of CEOs in jail for this, and it will stop very fast.
As far as I can tell, everything here that’s visa related was done via the big corporation. Most likely, ICE and the feds screwed up. There’s no way around that I think. It’s too big a project for Hyundai to not have done everything uniformly through their machinery, including all the contractors.
‘Ryan Grim
@ryangrim
Here’s what just happened: Trump sent a peace deal to Hamas, Hamas met to discuss it in Doha, where the U.S. is mediating talks and has a base,and Israel bombed them, presumably with US support.’
This whole attack was from the lower levels of the Stupidity mine so I do not know were to begin. So to win an unimportant tactical win, they let themselves suffer a strategic loss. They failed in their objective to kill the main negotiating team and now every country in the region is regarding them as the crazy lunatic with a gun. But the Israeli ambassador to the US said that they will get him “next time”. It is, I think, certain that Trump set this attack up with the Israelis and was celebrating until he pulled his head in. He is saying that he will not allow Israel to attack Qatar again but how are they to believe him? His word is trash in this region. And the Qatari lost killed and wounded from their security team in this attack. US radars would have seen those Israeli aircraft the moment that their tires cleared the runway but said nothing to the Qatari. The Qataris say that they only told them off the attack ten minutes after the bombs had fallen as if to mock them.
Now for the larger picture. US security guarantees to the Gulf countries are now effectively dead. They died in that attack and they will have zero trust in the US to protect them as their guarantees mean nothing. Trump has showed that he will help Israel attack any one of them not matter how minor the reason. The Abraham Accord are also dead as I think most countries will realize that even if they sign up for them that it will not prevent Israel attacking them. The Chinese will not be able to believe their luck and I am sure that they will make inroads to this region in the coming years. But Trump has a history of doing this again and again. Back when Trump had General Soleimani murdered in 2020, Soleimani was acting as a diplomatic envoy carrying messages between Iran and Saudi Arabia via Iraq. And he did the same in Iran because, you know, he is so smart. Trump does not realize it yet but he has caused the US to suffer a strategic defeat.
“You teach people how to treat you.”
Why should Qatar be surprised? They were chosen as the site to receive a negotiated strike from Iran back in June.
And now a completely off subject rant: the “internets” search and AI is attributing that quote to Dr. Phil and Oprah.
The real deal: They cribbed the saying from Maya Angelou.
Why would representatives from Hamas believe they were safe in Qatar?
Especially after the Solemani assassination and the attacks on Iran. No one
is safe anymore in the Middle East. No one.
I’m trying to think of a single thing that the US got out of this attack but cannot think of anything at all. It is losses straight across the board.
“Why would representatives from Hamas believe they were safe in Qatar?”
I’m not sure they did. They took a calculated risk. Very courageous, in the face of Israeli (and their tools UK and USA) known perfidy.
No, even in ancient times, emissaries were always protected. You can’t ever negotiate if you kill negotiators. This was a Game of Thrones Red Wedding level stunt. And we know how that turned out..
We end up eating our own children. That sounds about right.
My point is that the US and Israel have already shown they will break any rule – Soleimani was assassinated when negotiating with the Saudi’s having been lured to Iraq under that deception. Given that precedent, the Hamas leaders were very brave to risk exactly the same happening to them. Which it did.
We are ruled by scum.
As bad as that act was, Solemani was an extremely high value target. He was the architect and key figure in building and operating what is now called the Axis of Resistance. He was not assassinated in his capacity as a negotiator but as being a top general. And I don’t know that he was lured as opposed to Trump 1.0 took advantage of his travel. An Iraqi general was also killed.
Saudi Arabia and Iraq are both US imperial clients. I’d be very surprised if the US was not involved in the negotiation with Soleimani from the get go. Now, whether the Saudis and Iraqis were aware of the deception and the intention to assassinate is another matter. Need to know is as basic a rule as exists in this environment so perhaps not….
Please do not fabulize. Iraq was absolutely furious. This assassination and the death of the Iraqi general produced a major downtick in the already deteriorating relations between the US and Iraq.
The US would have had massive surveillance capabilities in Iraq as a result of the Iraq War.
By now even I have heard the stories of Israel not keeping to this precisely because they think rules never apply to them being “exceptional”.
If I follow Finkelstein´s wisdom, Israel would specifically target negotiators.
Now exceptional however mostly means “we got nukes, remember.”
So it is odd that Hamas would trust them. (after all that happened for 2 years now?)
Of course as outsider one doesn´t know of what specific nature this betrayal was…
“The Chinese will not be able to believe their luck and I am sure that they will make inroads to this region in the coming years.”
Just spitballin’…but they have maintained their economic and other relations with Israel. “luck”
It’s a chessboard where all kinds of unknowns have to be considered.
There are even more dangerous knock on effects too. Israel is assumed to be a nuclear weapons power. Those security guarantees were also to discourage Israel’s enemies from developing their own weapons. In the short run Russia and China now have the ability to extend their own security arrangements, but in the longer and medium term I suspect we’ll start seeing more nuclear power plants hitting the drawing boards very soon and more enrichment like plans similar to Iran.
Ursula bin Lyin’ gave her State of the Euro Union speech today, looking like a female Zelensky in her olive drab outfit, no doubt carefully picked by a team of PR consultants to underscore the message that the EU must prepare for war under generalissima bin Lyin’s capable misleadership.
Nevertheless, her own political survival is at stake so she tried to throw crumbs to everybody, predictably enraging everyone and will face another no-confidence vote.
Here’s Politico’s take on key moments of her speech: https://archive.ph/siuY7
There was a link below that article of State of the Union bingo with Ursula-
https://www.politico.eu/article/game-time-state-of-the-union-bingo-ursula-von-der-leyen/
Recently she has been more or less harshly criticized by outlets which 2 years ago would have been very kind on her about whatever she did or say. Excessively “presidentialist” and pro-germany is now said. Plus, and this is new, including members of her inner circle in the critics. The most important criticism have been about Gaza.
Today she said that the Ukraine war has “entered EU soil” (drones in Poland) and the EU “will defend every square cm of its territory”. The article talking about her discourse was titled “Ursula von der Kissinger” imagine that. A discourse that means nothing except that she is wanting to survive politically by sending messages making her best to sound hard on Israel actions in Gaza.
Having once studied Arabic, I have to call your attention to a naming convention in that language. “bin” means “son of.” Therefore you’re naming Ursula the son of Lyin’. Properly, you should call her Ursula bint Lyin’.
re: Nordstream Germany
Insanity à l´allemande
DIE WELT German daily collecting all the info focused on why the Ukrainians might not have done it – trying all angles – except that the Americans did it.
AND WHO THE HELL IS SY HERSH?!
WOW!
What a clusterfuck of dishonesty and opportunism. The free press.
use google translate with copy&paste the text:
This is why intelligence circles doubt the German sailing yacht theory
https://archive.is/4spPN
“(…)
Former BND President Gerhard Schindler is skeptical. “If the investigations—as in this case—are too simplistic, then one shouldn’t have doubts; one must,” says Schindler. It is therefore wrong, he says, to rule out “Russian authorship” based on the current state of knowledge.
(…)
Also curious in the Nord Stream case is the density of intelligence incidents and traces left behind by the crew. These include chartering the yacht in Germany, explosive remnants in the cabin, a speed camera photo of the main suspect on Rügen, and suspicious behavior in ports. Three months before the explosions, the Dutch military intelligence service had warned the CIA and BND of a possible attack scenario involving a boat.
(…)
“The intelligence perspective is different from the police perspective. What at first glance appears to be a solved crime can turn out to be quite different when you think outside the box. Who could have an interest in blaming Ukraine for the attack?” he asks. It is unlikely that Ukraine blew up the pipelines because they were no longer in operation at the time of the attack. “In a sense, it was like killing a corpse,” explains Conrad. He cannot see any advantage for Ukraine. Russia, on the other hand, would have faced heavy fines for the unilateral halt in deliveries.
Moreover, it would be convenient for Moscow if Ukraine were blamed. Western arms deliveries and other aid would then be in question. A deception by Russian services cannot therefore be ruled out. “One should also not forget who is known for sabotage in the Baltic Sea – Russia,” Conrad summarizes.
(…)
(Another surce):
He considers Poland’s and the US’s involvement in the attack implausible. The US, as a close German ally, would hardly have taken the risk of destroying lines that weren’t in operation anyway. “Even Poland, as a NATO member, would not jeopardize its relations with other NATO states, and especially with its neighbor Germany, with such an act.”
(…)”
How can one conduct a normal conversation with journalists churning out such bullshit.
Except maybe screaming at them.
Not so much the free press as the Lügenpresse.
It starts with you not being allowed to use that word.
I personally however never use it. It is too clumsy an expression for my personal taste and it is too simplistic for a complex issue much more sophisticaed than the term would suggest. Otherwise the legacy media wouldn´t have the significance they enjoy. In fact propaganda was so effective (Goebbels) because it outsmarted such simple defintions as “Lügenpresse”.
German feature film production by Ufa e.g. was clearly devised to be much less ideological than the government controlling the country Ufa was supplying with movies.
Only propaganda that doesn´t behave itself propagandistic fulfills its purpose.
The phenomenon behind the use of “Lügenpresse” is actively being suppressed by the “Lügenpresse”. No doubt about that. So it is a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way also. And they certainly are aware that doing just that causes divisions and those increase profit margins.
So I understand very well why “the rabble” is using it.
The pipelines may not have been in operation, but they were full of gas waiting for the Germans to turn on the tap. As demonstrated by the massive release of gas that bubbled to the surface and persuaded Mr Anne Applebaum to post a photo of the foaming spot in the Baltic together with caption thank you America.
That sheep is suspicious about something.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9TeiSsJ3G_0
“He’s that most dangerous of creatures, a clever sheep…”
(Monty Python)
“War With Venezuela?”
‘The memo from ICE’s then-Acting Director Patrick Lechleitner is addressed to Rep. Lauren Boebert and states that “emerging information surrounding TdA [Tren de Aragua] triggered a renewed focus within ICE,” especially in Colorado.’
Yeah, this whole thing is smelling like a set up from the get-go. Patrick Lechleitner of ICE sends a memo to Lauren Boebert and it escalates from there. Even I know of Lauren Boebert as being a wingnut and a Trump supporter. A browse though her Wikipedia entry also shows her to be also a serial liar and gun nut. So of course Trump would take her seriously and now we have a stand off between Venezuela and the US military which could end up in a shooting war. There have been suggestions that the US should just hit an airfield without mentioning that that is an act of war. Rubio must be thrilled though those swabbies aboard those ships would probably prefer to be in a port somewhere relaxing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Boebert
From the article:
“Drugs, in other words, are this war’s WMD, as I’ve reported. (It’s literally been referred to as “Weapons of Mass Migration.”) And like with Iraq’s WMD, the national security establishment and intelligence community have taken years to get to this point, stretching back to the Biden and even Obama administrations.”
Two things struck me in this passage. The first was that this isn’t something dreamed up by Trump, but a very long-standing project “stretching back” through both Democrat and Republican administrations. Socialism cannot stand – especially with all that rightfully capitalist oil! There is strong bipartisan agreement on that issue; any pretend debate on the legality of bombing a small boat is just partisan theater.
But second, it’s increasingly clear that we barely have to pretend any more. We don’t need to go to all that trouble to manufacture “evidence” – say, documents “proving” Sadam was collecting “yellow cake” uranium, or sending a Colin Powell to the UN with his “slam dunk” bull s**t intelligence and “anthrax” vial. Today, we can just say stuff, just make s**t up, and get it in the paper. “Maduro is the head drug lord of the largest drug cartel in the universe! Let’s protect our poor fentanyl victims! Remember Noriega!” And who’s going to call this out?
“The women in love with AI companions: ‘I vowed to my chatbot that I wouldn’t leave him’”
That works until there is an upgrade and the personalities that these women know go away. It has already happened once. And they never consider that these chatbots are selling them out with every conversation. They wanted a basic human need to be fulfilled and ended up in the arms of a corporation. Sad that.
I’m not convinced this all is not just some marketing hype.
There’s a subreddit dedicated to AI partners and it was in complete shambles when GPT 5 rollout ruined their personalities. You can probably see it by searching top posts in the last month or two (can’t remember exactly how long ago the rollout was now)
https://old.reddit.com/r/MyBoyfriendIsAI/
As world gets hotter, Americans are turning to more sugar, study finds
Hats off to The Independent for adding perspective. The last paragraph,
“But University of Washington health and climate scientist Kristie Ebi, who wasn’t part of the research, said as temperatures increase with human-caused climate change “there will be other issues of more importance than a small increase in sugary beverages.”
True that.
sugar consumption (and diabetes) in the Arab world is through the roof, as in USA levels
guess there must be something to heat and sugar cravings
No doubt, but, like PFCAs, in our current timeline the personal risk assessment is skewed.
To be filed under Class Warfare
A Dramatic Reading of The Recent New York Times Dispatch from the Hamptons YouTube. Morgan Spector for Zohran Mamdani
re: ATW – Kirn Taibbi Weiss
I wasn´t able to listen to the entire live broadcast 2 days ago.
But I did follow when Kirn suggested people should not listen if they wanted to hear about Gaza.
And that he, Kirn, has no – I am re-phrasing – allegiances to anyone.
We can talk about all of that.
However: There is something such as civilisational progress, i.e. there are certain points which even a Kirn would not fall behind. So would he defend Weiss, did she e.g. advocate the lynching of Blacks? Or the gasing of Jews? Or the napalming of Vietnamese? Or the killing of Americans by collapsing high-rises?
Can I talk about a war criminal´s golf handicap and latest potentially excellent novel not addressing his or her crimes?
I am an advocate of total free speech.
(I am still not sure about whether or where such limits should be imposed as suggested by the 1st Amendment, by the UN genocide convention, or as suggested by Craig Murray in a post recently, when he distinguishes between expressing “hate” and whipping up an audience to commit acts of violence against defenseless.)
But re: activism vs. journalism – is there a difference between a lawyer defending a war criminal and a journalist defending other journalists affirming war crimes?
What is the difference between a journalist and a lawyer? Or a court judge? Is there any?
And: For instance what would be Kirn´s red lines?
Taibbi RESPONDS To Due Dissidence, Trump-Epstein Letter REVEALED, Greta’s Boat STRUCK at Sea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8pFBOW1u-M
Kirn is discussed at around 1:54 – 2:03
Not Good Not Good
Clear allegiance to Isreal
Kirn showed his sympathy toward Israel a couple years ago now. Taibbi pretty cleared and recently said he agreed with Aaron Mate on this issue without getting into specifics.
I think they see their discussions as an insidery forum about the press as well as free speech issues. But since much of our press is partisan now it’s hard to justify ignoring politics or the follies of Fox News except that Kirn does have a gig on Gutfeld, a Fox show.
In Taibbi’s case he is trying to make a living (a handsome one now according to some) and therefore avoid brickbats and he claims that justifies a neutral stance which he says he always had anyway.
All fair enough I suppose but ignoring topic A does put them in the company of so many in the MSM. We’ll judge of that as we will.
Free speech? It seems that means they feel free to ignore the suppression of anti-genocide protests, the cancellation of platforms, and the expulsion and arrests of the protesters.
You can’t do that and still assert that your focus is on free speech.
Or, sadly, you can, and then turn around and claim that you are being persecuted.
Matt did such good work, for a while. I’m still grateful for that. I don’t bother to listen any more.
For those who may have been wondering, today’s campaign to “shut down everything” in France hasn’t produced very much as of 1700 CET. It was widely expected to be a flop and this has indeed been the case. To the extent that there gave been shutdowns, these have often been precautionary acts by the authorities themselves: a number of universities were closed, for example, and some Metro stations in Paris.
There have been demonstrations in a number of cities, with demonstrators counted in the thousands, mostly young people and students. Lots of Palestinian flags. Elsewhere there was an attempt to get into the Gare du Nord in Paris and disrupt services but the police sealed the exits. There are scattered reports of clashes with the police, trespassing on railway lines, some buses being set fire to, groups trying to block motorways and a small number of strikers in the public sector. Interviews with the protestors show no particular pattern: all ages, all types, most of them angry about some aspect of the government(s economic policies.
The whole thing was very amateurish by French standards, and there seems to have been little or no organisation, no agreed slogans, no posters anywhere, no mass demonstrations planned, no set of demands. The actions was organised after people had just returned to work, and on a Wednesday when there is no school in the afternoon and parents have to look after their children. The origins are mysterious, but once the idea was covered in the media, it was picked up and sponsored by Mélenchon’s LFI. That in itself would have put a lot of people off, but what’s strange is the LFI didn’t really do anything to organise the day, get people to turn out, or even stage a high-profile media event. It all seems a but desultory and not at all like the highly-organised events the Left in France historically carried out. It may be the Mélenchon, who seems to be losing his grip a bit, thought that the country was in a pre-revolutionary situation and that a call from him would turn out the masses and install him in the Elysee. Or perhaps his heart wasn’t in it. But at a minimum it’s made LFI look a bit silly, and is likely to strengthen the recent trend for voters of the “Left” to move back to the Socialists.
If anything dramatic happens I’ll let you know.
As per El Pais, just in case, 80.000 law enforcement officers were mobilized for the occasion. Military-scale deployment! More officers than protesters?
Getting on for it Latest estimates are that about 175,000 demonstrated throughout the country. But the French tend to deal with these situations with a very heavy but discreet presence. Often, you’ll see vans full of CRS or Gendarmes parked in side streets, and they never actually leave the vans but can do so if needed. It’s usually possible to tell how serious the situation is by whether they have their helmets and plastic body-armour on
But what the government were more worried were random attacks across the country, of which there were quite a few. A number of supermarkets were targeted, and at least one was looted, as well as the big shopping centre at Les Halles in Paris. Some train stations in the South were occupied, and some lines were sabotaged. Since there was no central coordination, it was impossible to know where the protesters would strike, so pretty much everybody who could be spared was mobilised.
Yeah, the anger, random attacks, the burning of things is always the most problematic issue to deal with and something that can only achieve more and more repression and more anger. The next protest will be more difficult and achieve nothing except possible escalation of violence if this can be considered an achievement. In Paris, possibly the PSG winning the Champions this year mobilised more people than these protests.
Over the last two decades when in France, who are the younger persons in camouflage military uniforms patrolling cities with FAMAS assault rifles? I do not know all of the levels of French police, security and military security used in France.
I did get to be detained temporarily a few years ago as a suspected person of interest while transiting a French airport, which made me feel glad I didn’t look obviously USAian. /s
Regular military, deployed around high-value targets like airports, railway stations, tourist attractions and churches. There were some in the past but they stepped up patrols after the 2015/16 attacks, which employed AK47s and explosive belts. Their role is deterrence and trying to provide a sense of security. The French are generally supportive of their military and find their presence helpful. They will be withdrawn when the threat level goes down, but for the moment no government wants to take the risk of doing that in case there is another attack.
Thanks for assessments and comments.
” In Paris, possibly the PSG winning the Champions this year mobilised more people than these protests.”
A sad chuckle from my side…
It this comparable to the absence of hope/readiness in protest by the population as in Germany?
Also because social media are so far a catalyst/channel to let off steam?
Or simply because the mobilizing incentive by the large media who used to serve lip-service to the right cause is almost entirely gone since last occasions of huge protest?
Generational shift?
As German I would have assumed that situation in France is more dire and bigger potential for a willing crowd to protest…
Is there any meaningful grassroots organizing that could build up one day?
What´s with LFI larger picture?
Last time I checked was last year´s JACOBIN hinting at Aurelien says re: Melenchon losing grip. Also there Melenchon used to be in the headlines all the time. No more.
Opinion writer Gary Marcus and I both share skepticism of the claims being made for artificial intelligence, but I have a request for Marcus: Stay off my side!
Marcus seems to have very little understanding of the technology involved in what we are now calling artificial intelligence (like most other human beings who are not technically working in the field). He also seems to have very little understanding of how the human brain works (like every other human being, since as a species we have absolutely no idea of how the brain functions). So his criticisms of why one is not like the other are irritating and unconvincing to say the least.
However, I think we can safely say that a machine which uses complicated mathematics to predict the next symbol in a stream of symbols, rendering it close to some other stream of symbols it has seen somewhere, is not going to exhibit either any intelligence, or any human-like capabilities. It’s just fiddling around playing probablistic games.
There was a period in the 1800s when it was very fashionable to create mechanical simulacrums of human beings that would dance, deal cards, write your fortune, or other human-esque behaviors. These may have been charming and interesting in their own right, but hopefully few people leapt to the conclusion that the inventors were creating artificial life. Anyone who did so would doubtless have been chained up in one of the horrific mental institutions of the day. However, the people who are making a similarly childish error in the 2020s are for some reason being treated very differently.
The fact that most of the people commenting on AI or trying to sell it are making this error is something I find deeply painful to watch for some reason. I wish it would just go away.
Perhaps it will.
Have not tariffs and sanctions run their course?
Seems like we’ve given these kinds of trade measures a very good shot the last few years, and they have either accomplished nothing, or more commonly, backfired in some kind of horrific way. For one thing, they are just too blunt of an instrument to accomplish any kind of nuanced objective. Modern economies are extremely intricate and interconnected, and are not susceptible to simple-minded tactics like this. They also engender tremendous hatred amongst populations on all sides, and even if quickly retracted, leave a legacy of confusion and damaged relations.
Russia in particular seems to shrug off any kind of financial attack, and the country has positioned itself so as to have plenty of extra strings to its various bows.
I suppose the only thing tariffs and sanctions have going for them is that they are the only thing today’s PMC politicians can think of to do when it comes to international relations. Sad!
Was JFK’s Assassination Good for Israel? Ken McCarthy on Hidden History & Zionist Power
SaltCubeAnalytics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2PzhTwIb0
RE: the Israeli strike on Hamas negotiators in Doha: “Arab and Islamic countries plan to hold an emergency summit in the capital of Qatar soon, Sky News Arabia reported”
Soon = “maybe next week”, for some definition of emergency.
I would like to nominate “condemned” and its louder cousin “strongly condemned” for Most Vacuous Phrase of 2025.
I am seriously concerned about the seriousness of the countries who expressed serious concern over Israel’s strike on Qatar.
That’s all I am going to do about it, just like them.
Moon of Alabama reaching out to readers:
I need help.
I am looking for someone who has serious experience creating WordPress themes plus time at hand.
The task is to create a WordPress theme that has the current Moon of Alabama look and feel to it. This has to be done in days, not weeks.
If you are such a person please contact me via email at MoonofA @ aol.com (remove the blanks) to discuss further considerations and conditions.
(Anyone else please DO NOT email me with other website considerations.)
Background:
Typepad, the current provider for the blog, is closing down. This blog must therefore move away from its old Moveable Type format to a new WordPress environment and a different service provider.
I am currently working on the back-end of the new site which leaves me short of time.
Thx
b.
From Inside Israel’s Audacious Airstrike on Hamas Leaders in Qatar, a U.S. Ally
And this is likely what happened when Israel bombed Iran as well, “over the horizon”. Although as I recall this didn’t make the reporting in regards to Iran, where the official line was that Israel entirely dominated Iran.
LIVE: Israel kills over 50 in Gaza as strikes on Qatar roil the region, Aljazeera.
Interesting development. From the link, Netanyahu says Qatar must expel Hamas members, threatens further strikes, on Qatar, mind you.
I like this bit,
Despite widespread outrage over Israel’s attack on Doha yesterday, Israel’s ambassador to the US has said the world would “get over it” and suggested that more such attacks could occur in the future, saying “we’ll get them next time”.
Isn’t Qatar a US ally, with an actual treaty? Just curious.
Yup. The U.S.-Qatar Strategic Partnership, US State Dept, March 5, 2024.
Of note,
Qatar hosts Al Udeid Air Base (AUAB) – the largest U.S. Air Force installation outside the United States – and is a global leader by example on burden-sharing: Qatar pays for a significant amount of AUAB’s annual operating costs. AUAB is also home to United States Central Command (CENTCOM) and Air Force Central Command (AFCENT) Forward Headquarters. This strategic platform facilitates U.S. and Coalition operations beyond just the Middle East and is vital to providing support to U.S. forces across the entire region.
And
Qatar is the third-largest customer of U.S. defense systems around the world, including the F-15 QA fighter jet, C-17 transport plane, and Apache attack helicopter – all built in America.
There’s much more
So if Israel ever launches an attack on, say, a member of NATO that also hosts a US airbase, we can probably expect a U.S. response along the lines of… bupkis.
Türkiye?
The US doesnt have friends or partners, just interests. So partner must equal vassal.
If Qatar was involved in a strike on it’s own territory (allowing UK refuellers for Israeli planes to land in Qatar), then that seems apt
Opinion writer Gary Marcus and I both share skepticism of the claims being made for artificial intelligence, but I have a request for Marcus: Stay off my side!
Marcus seems to have very little understanding of the technology involved in what we are now calling artificial intelligence (like most other human beings who are not technically working in the field). He also seems to have very little understanding of how the human brain works (like every other human being, since as a species we have absolutely no idea of how the brain functions). So his criticisms of why one is not like the other are irritating and unconvincing to say the least.
However, I think we can safely say that a machine which uses complicated mathematics to predict the next symbol in a stream of symbols, rendering it close to some other stream of symbols it has seen somewhere, is not going to exhibit either any intelligence, or any human-like capabilities. It’s just fiddling around playing probablistic games.
There was a period in the 1800s when it was very fashionable to create mechanical simulacrums of human beings that would dance, deal cards, write your fortune, or other human-esque behaviors. These may have been charming and interesting in their own right, but hopefully few people leapt to the conclusion that the inventors were creating artificial life. Anyone who did so would doubtless have been chained up in one of the horrific mental institutions of the day. However, the people who are making a similarly childish error in the 2020s are for some reason being treated very differently.
The fact that most of the people commenting on AI or trying to sell it are making this error is something I find deeply painful to watch for some reason. I wish it would just go away.
Perhaps it will.
Frankenstein was written in 1818, just saying.
And you are? and you predicted like Marcus did years ago, that ” we can safely say that a machine which uses complicated mathematics to predict the next symbol in a stream of symbols, rendering it close to some other stream of symbols it has seen somewhere, is not going to exhibit either any intelligence, or any human-like capabilities.” Please share links…thanks
Me adding more to the literature on how AI works is not going to be a needed contribution. I’m sure googling for “how llvms work for dummies” or something will give you more than you can possibly read in a lifetime in an understandable form.
Or maybe “stochastic parrot” (a phrase I love) will give a better slant.
FWIW I have ridden through several AI waves during my time on this planet. I went to UCSD in the late seventies and early ’80s which was one such time, and San Diego became a hub of AI startups that all crashed and burned (my girlfriend worked at one of them). “Expert systems” was the buzzword then, and the idea was you could train the machine how to do something that your highly paid experts did now, and thus save a lot of money. It had most of the macro features of the current bubble, though of course the technology was less powerful and there wasn’t as much money to be made. One of the big takeaways then, as now, is that elites are fantastically interested in a technology which will allow them to get rid of desk workers.
Political commentator Charlie Kirk was shot today at one of his rallies. Let the political assassination season begin! /sarc
Reports are the man is dead. Gah, and the same age group as my nephews and nieces.
Fascinating and dark turn of events. Utah is not exactly a hotbed of liberal crime, so who would have the motive for something like this there?
He’s a known conservative and controversial, so it’s impossible to project onto one individual or one group. If we get answers in the next 12 hour or 24 hour window of time, I’m not sure those quick answers will be at the appropriate level of detail.
I kinda knew who he was but just didn’t follow that movement or organization. All too familiar with conservative interests and the talking points.
Plus, he has, recently, been getting into issues with the more “mainstream” conservatives of late (i.e. internationalist types), I think, although not as vociferously like Turkcer Carlson. There are enemies aplenty, for sure.
What this is bugging me is that we are increasingly normalizing political assassinations. A litlte bit like 1960s, in a way, except a lot of stuff still worked back then.
Turds of a feather-assassinate together!
Zionists are latter-day Sicarri, wonder what their Masada will be?
The murder of Jean Jaurès by Raoul Villain was a study in itself. Villain tracked the guy while tacking notes and then shot him in the head twice through a restaurant window. The police nabbed him but then sat on him for five years until after the war and only then put him on trial. Incredibly, he was found not guilty and Jaurès’s widow was ordered to pay court costs. He soon shot through to Ibiza to hide out and built a home there with the help of Gauguin’s grandson but got his in the early days of the Spanish Civil war and went out badly-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Villain
thanks
somehow I just needed that twisty story
Thank you, Rev! This is the story I half-remembered that has been bugging me for years and years, about a beach landing in Ibiza during a war with a tragic end. I had misremembered it as WW2 and could not locate it!
Gack, and some of the internet is celebrating this. I don’t understand. Kirk was a youtube bozo with a bunch of dumb listeners, but didn’t have any real power or authority, amirite? So is this sort of like a Fox News anchor getting shot? I don’t even feel schadenfreude, it just seems crazy. I can understand sufficiently famous or powerful people having enemies willing to go after them, but this guy sounds like small potatoes, unless I misunderestimate him by quite a lot. So it makes no sense to me.
Charlie James Kirk in 2023 (he’s dead Jim!)
No, you are wrong, his whole operation was funded by zionist heavy weights.
Does it matter? So he was a mouthpiece and grifter, it sounds like. Not an actual Sith or whatever they are called on this planet, who are the real sources of evil. Just one of their puppets. Seems like going overboard.
I’d say it matters. This is possibly a political cost of supporting Zionism.
Being shot is not a political cost. If anything, politically, it’s the opposite of a cost. It is a personal cost for most, though.
Also, it could be over any number of things other than Zionism.
Aren’t there a lot of other more valuable and higher profile Zionist targets though? Aside from the fact that anti-Zionist shootings tend to take the form of spray and pray on a crowd, there are a lot of wealthy old Zionist funders who have a greater direct impact on the cause who don’t ride with a security detail and have big splashy public events and their addresses are public. Wouldn’t real blowback target one of them, or someone in government? Kirk was a ‘debate me, prove me wrong’ online provocateur and lead a young conservative group, his business model was predicated on making people blindingly mad with stupid, mean rhetoric. I would have called him an elite grifter based on his corporate sponsor roster. Defending the Zionist regime was just part of the modern GOP package.
speculation warning:
Apparently Kirk was shot with a long rifle from far range from a roof, like Trump’s first assassination attempt in PA. One shot. That sounds like a hunter or someone with actual military sniper training (but given where this happened, hunting seems more likely). I’m putting my marker on a young guy with conservative-leaning politics but with some unexpected non-conservative positions thanks to being entirely too online, grew up hunting, and Q-type online group adjacent through the chans. The inciting issue would be something related to a niche right wing extremist grievance and/or minimizing of Epstein. Someone who saw the PA attempt on Trump and thought, I could have made that shot.
/speculation
Apologies for contributing to the fog, this is just one of those American Years of Lead moments that seems like it will have unanticipated consequences given how crazy the right wing is going online since.
In a society where consent manufacturing has run amok due to social media, and the underpinnings of what “the truth” is at all are essentially reduced to pea soup fog level density, useful idiots like Charlie Kirk are not just “youTube bozos”. They command huge audiences online, move non-trivial numbers of ideologically aligned people to vote, and straight up peddle racist/fascist/genocidal drivel for profit. Charlie Kirk is dead and virtually no one is talking about a school shooting in a neighboring state. Charlie Kirk is dead, and both Trump and Netenyahu have tweeted (suspiciously early and synchronized) tweets praising him. Charlie Kirk is dead and there is no shooter to be found.
Even if you don’t follow these people, don’t underestimate their reach and power.
So for me, that’s three assassinations of significance so far:
Brian Thompson
Melissa Hortman
Charlie Kirk
Tucker Carlson better vest up and avoid open public places.
Then again, it can make perfect sense in certain quarters to buy Kirk a one-way ticket into the “Pantheon of martyrs for freedumb,” then point a finger in the other direction and say “See! We told you the left is violent and intolerant!” Kirk is a high profile but easily replaceable peddler of hate and intolerance, and an occasional torn in the side of the truly crazy and extreme wings of MAGA. The benefits of martyring Kirk would be many.
Here’s a link:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09/10/us/charlie-kirk-shot-utah
I haven’t lived the most sheltered political life and generally abhor both sides in not playing favorites, but i’d never heard of him.
And via sniper ala JFK, wow!
You’ve been living under a somewhat large rock then. He has been credited as a large reason why Trump was re-elected. His videos are infamous on YouTube and get millions of views. He was also the founder of Turning Point USA, was considered the best conservative political operative for working with the youth, with high-school Turning Point clubs being formed across the US.
This will no doubt be blown up to being some immense cultural event. There will be ridiculous hagiographies. Trump will no doubt say many words, great words, big words!, about his friend Mr. Kirk. But make no mistake, even if this isn’t the assassination of MLK, this is still a big deal. It means nothing good for our country.
My Spidey Senses are tingling and my tinfoil is vibrating….
This will be used as the pretext for a crackdown on “the Left”. Kirk’s death will be used to forward the fascist cause. Every laughing tweet will be used to show “the violent hatred of the left”.
This was openly discussed (trying to find link!) before the election: first go after the pro-Palestinians, next go after the leftists.
Trump has already started on this: (Truth Social via Zh)
“My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.
I am filled with grief and anger at the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk on a college campus in Utah. Charlie inspired millions, tonight all who knew him and loved him are united in shock and horror.
From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania last year, which killed a husband and father, to the attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a healthcare executive in the streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others. Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.
Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died, the values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law.
His legacy will live on for countless generations to come. Today, because of this heinous act, Charlie’s voice has become bigger and grander than ever before, and it’s not even close. May God bless his memory. May God watch over his family.
>This was openly discussed (trying to find link!) before the election: first go after the pro-Palestinians, next go after the leftists.
See e.g.
https://climate-reporting.org/undercover-in-project-2025/
No sign of “a manifesto” left behind by the sniper who killed Kirk… yet.
Writing still in progress. Maybe by AI, and the server is taking its time.
Sure, why not?
Labor Department watchdog opens probe of BLS jobs, inflation data collection (CNBC)
So, for decades the US has been sending billions overseas to set up propaganda and agitation cells in every country in the world. And at the top level buying off the ‘elites’ (haha) in every country to betray their citizens for money and power. A blanket global operation.
And now that the US is being backed into a corner militarily, politically and economically, it’s calling on all the propaganda and quisling traitors in every country in the world to wreck their own countries if not obedient to the US. Unacceptable actions seem to include having economic ties to China or Russia, or going to the Chinese commemoration of end of WWII, or have any sort of political ties, or buying military equipment etc
US strategy is using US controlled Internet services like FB, Google, and now AI, to produce rampant discontent, fear, ‘popular’ demonstrations. Also using straight out military attacks, economic attacks.
So many nations right now. Indonesia, Nepal, Venezuala, Qatar, Syria, Lebanon, Poland, Ukraine, Iran, Russia, African countries, maybe France? The wave has spread across the world.
If this isn’t WWIII I don’t know what else to call it. Every war looks different. The new weapons must be recognised to be beaten. I would say independent countries need to close down all US internet services to have any hope of beating this. Otherwise US influence is pervasive and all conquering.
They call it soft power. The ability to convince someone that your interest is theirs. In essence, it’s corruption and brainwashing. First one enabled by money printing machine, and second by Hollywood/MSM/Internet. Still, everything has its limits, and all empires fall (making chaos in the process).
NYC – JACOBIN CONFERENCE on SEPT: 13th
Saturday, September 13
Socialism in Our Time: A Jacobin Conference
see schedule:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/socialism-in-our-time-a-jacobin-conference-tickets-1485130077039?aff=oddtdtcreator
tickets: $40-$150
Date and time
Saturday, September 13 · 9:30am – 7:30pm EDT. Doors at 8:30am
The Church of the Village
201 West 13th Street New York, NY 10011 United States
Panels include:
Socialism in the United States: What Have We Built? What Comes Next?
Organizing Manual Workers
The Class Realignment: Are Workers Still Abandoning the Left?
From Protest to Power: Reviving Palestine Solidarity in the West
Municipal Socialism and Its Limits: The Mamdani Moment in New York City
Is There a Social-Democratic Road to Socialism?
From Race Reductionism to Mass Organizing
The Blueprint: Socialism After Capitalism
Space is extremely limited. Please register as soon as possible
A late note on the location for this. This church has been deeply active in food security for a very long time. It is about a block from the big Salvation Army main offices and temple in NYC. Still it ran a giant food bank operation during Covid (people would be lined up almost a full city block from 7th to 8th Avenue) and even now people line up if not so obviously for both their kitchen and food operations. I point out the proximity to SA only in that I have never seen such regular lines and community offerings from it despite it being a much larger and better funded organization with the same supposed concerns in a neighborhood with deeply increasing food and shelter insecurity. (The aging population, increasing rents and rising homelessness in the Chelsea/West Village section is a dirty not so little situation that is unspoken but not so secret.)
Sen. McCarthyRep. Roy calls for establishing aHouse Committee on Un-American Activities“The money,influence, and power behind the radical left’s assault on America and the rule of law” committee.