Links 10/4/2025

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1. Rolf October 4, 2025 at 7:26 am

   From Council Estate Media’s substack,

   [Trump:] “If you try to poison our people, we will blow you out of existence, ‘cause that’s the only language they really understand. That’s why you don’t see any more boats on the ocean. You don’t see any boats around Venezuela, there’s nothing.”

   What Trump is talking about here is fishing boats. He has terrorised fishermen into no longer pursuing their livelihood. He has spread hunger and fear by illegally blowing up vessels belonging to another country. That’s not just an act of war, it’s an act of terrorism.

   Trump is a terrorist.

   This is honestly the only way to now describe Trump and the government he controls: a terrorist leading a terrorist state.

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   1. Wukchumni October 4, 2025 at 8:28 am

      Nobody in the fatherland claimed to be a Good German during the war, only afterwards.

      I can’t even claim I was only following orders, being as complicit as the next person who sat idly at the most important turning point in our lives-as crushing blows one after another laid low our democracy-aided and abetted by the standing 9 count, er Supreme Court.

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2. The Rev Kev October 4, 2025 at 7:27 am

   “Donald Trump has declared the US is at war”

   Jeez, after playing around in the sandbox for the past twenty years or more, it looks like the US military gets to go play in the jungle again. It should be fun. More bugs but less sand. If Trump decides to occupy Venezuela’s oil fields like he did in Syria, what makes him think that the Venezuelans won’t just sabotage those plants so that the US gets no benefit from them? And what if the people there start an active resistance like happened in Iraq after the US had finished invading that country. Is Trump ready to be dealing with his own “Vietnam” for the next three years of his Presidency? And I bet that a lot of South American countries will be sending Venezuela military aid on the side as they know that they can be next.

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3. AG October 4, 2025 at 7:32 am

   re: New MI6 Chief’s Dark History Revealed Simplicius.

   “(…)
   Maria Zakharova had even recently suggested that people with Nazi ancestors were deliberately being put into positions of power, giving several examples:

   “The trend is clearly neo-Nazi: (German Chancellor) Friedrich Merz, (former German Foreign Minister) Annalena Baerbock, (Member of the House of Commons of Canada) Chrystia Freeland, (former President of Georgia) Salome Zurabishvili. Now we can add the head of MI6, Blaise Metreveli,” she emphasized.

   According to Zakharova, someone is “purposefully and consciously” placing Nazi descendants in leadership positions in Western countries.
   (…)”

   Of course to make a secretly planned “Nazi trend” out of coincidences is rather nonsensical.
   Russophobia in FRG is so rabid it concerns almost all backgrounds.
   Whether Iran-emigrés in THE GREEN party, old CDU guard whose parents were potentially in the resistance, eager lawyers with the SPD who are Eastern European immigrants or old queer artists voting for Turks in the THE LEFT warning of Russia.
   On the other hand many now dead Germans who helped create genuinely the old German-Russian cooperation were somehow affiliated with party structure in the 3rd Reich as young students eg.
   Certainly from a Russian POV provenance turns into providence. But that´s just that.
   Weren´t this heritage not the case nothing would change about the facts on the ground.

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   1. The Rev Kev October 4, 2025 at 9:19 am

      I had forgotten her background but when I saw her image, her hairstyle immediately reminded me of those tradition hairstyles that nationalistic Ukrainian men wear. But come on everyone – is this the face of a crazy woman? Hmm, bad example.

      It certainly is noteworthy the number of people in countries achieving power whose grandparents followed the mustache man – some more than others. I can only imagine how it looks to Russians who lost tens of millions of people fighting them down only to see their grandchildren take power with some of the ideals of their grandparents. It would be like a ghost from the past arising again.

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4. mrsyk October 4, 2025 at 7:39 am

   Working (archived) link for Why has Pakistan-administered Kashmir erupted in protest again?, Aljazeera.

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5. Wukchumni October 4, 2025 at 7:43 am

   US Treasury unveils draft design of coin with Trump’s profile RT
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   There has only been 1 live American @ the time on a coin, with some weird precedence, in that it was Calvin Coolidge on the 1926 Sesquicentennial commemorative coin, so D.T. Barnum being on the 2026 Semiquincentennial almost makes sense.

   Now, to give you an idea of who has been on American coins, P.T. Barnum was on the 1936 Bridgeport coin, so there is precedence there too.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Sesquicentennial_coinage

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeport,_Connecticut,_Centennial_half_dollar

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   1. The Rev Kev October 4, 2025 at 8:45 am

      Frankly the original article is wild. Next year the US is going to be 250 years old which is the same as saying a quarter of a thousand years old. You would think that there would be all sort of celebrations planned but this coin indicates that he wants to make that event all about himself. Look at the specs-

      ‘According to the first design draft revealed on Friday, the coin features Trump’s profile on one side, along with the words “Liberty” and “In God we trust,” and the dates 1776–2026.

      The other side shows Trump raising a clenched fist against a backdrop of the US flag, with the inscriptions “Fight, fight, fight,” “United States of America,” and “E pluribus unum.”’

      With his mug on both sides, it has very little to do with America’s Semiquincentennial but is all about him. Next year’s celebrations are going to be a joke and will make America look like a laughing stock if Trump has his way.

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      1. mrsyk October 4, 2025 at 8:53 am

         I wonder why the public wasn’t invited to submit design ideas…

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      2. griffen October 4, 2025 at 9:13 am

         Since it’s October and all manner of nightmare or terror films will be running throughout the month…why not the clown from IT? Pennywise on a US coin could be something unique and valuable by the year 3000.

         Your coins will all float ….you’ll all float! \sarc

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   2. wendigo October 4, 2025 at 9:15 am

      Not very original at all, Canada put a loon on the dollar coin in 1987.

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6. The Rev Kev October 4, 2025 at 7:56 am

   “French troops arrest captain of Russian ‘shadow fleet’ oil tanker feared to be behind Denmark drone incursions”

   Last I heard, that ship was continuing its voyage but do not know about the skipper or the first mate. Of course this is not to be confused with hostage taking – like Macron did with the Russian-born owner of Telegram. There is a – unconfirmed – story that when the French pirated that ship, that the Russians dropped a missile on a place outside Odessa where some 20 French mechanics were working modifying boats being delivered to the Ukraine from Romania. But if Macron keeps this up, certainly the Russians will respond. Perhaps those tankers will suddenly have a squad of Russian marines aboard for the purpose of fending off “pirates” on the high seas and armed with manpads to stop people getting any funny ideas. I think that Macron stated that the idea was to halt and delay Russian oil tankers to disrupt their schedules and to make them uneconomical to use. But does he really want to go there?

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   1. JohnA October 4, 2025 at 8:52 am

      Macron has also made a big show of the death of a French photojournalist embedded with Ukrainian forces on the front line. Nasty Russians and all that.

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7. griffen October 4, 2025 at 8:17 am

   It’s the dopamine wheel for all your little gambling hamsters, the growing influence of available sports betting and live action bets. I can’t watch 10 minutes on ESPN without a direct reference to how to position one’s intended betting or a news scroll that features game schedules with the prevailing odds attached ….Keep the machines on !!

   I checked a few weeks ago as US football got cranked up, and South Carolina is still in that list of 11 states where the action is not yet legal.

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   1. Wukchumni October 4, 2025 at 8:48 am

      Being in action was really my downfall when it came to 52 card pick up games. I could sit at a blackjack table for a mighty long time, and the cards did sway back and forth-you could almost feel it when all of the sudden you win 9 out of 11 hands, that sort of thing. Of course it goes the other way when you lose 9 out of 11 hands, chasing losses all the way.

      The thing was, I had to drive 250 miles to & fro, to be able to torture myself in such a fashion, and now from the privacy of your phone, you can get 4-1 odds on the batter currently up at the plate hitting into a double play.

      Even though they make shitgobs of money, are pro athletes any less susceptible to the lucky charms of gambling?

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8. Louis Fyne October 4, 2025 at 8:25 am

   >>>U.S. military planners believe that forces being assembled in Puerto Rico and the Southern Caribbean are now sufficient enough to launch “territorial-seizure operations”

   wish OpenSIGINT bros would attach citations. Wonder what article he cited.

   Anyone remember Grenada? by then and today’s standards, that was a *huge* operation—with an (arguably) embarassing level of US casualties/deaths given the absolute weakness of the opponent.

   granted this time around, there aren’t a flock of civilians to secure, but still…securing one offshore Ven. airfield = essentially another Grenada.

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   1. The Rev Kev October 4, 2025 at 8:32 am

      It’s reminding me more of the time that Reagan put a force of Marines into Beirut International Airport but with no follow up forces back in ’83. When a suicide truck bomber hit them over 240 US troops were lost. Reagan was smart enough to pull the rest of that force out but I think that a Trump would double down because of his wounded pride.

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9. LawnDart October 4, 2025 at 8:27 am

   Re; Trump 2.0

   YOU ARE INVITED TO THE MAGA BALLROOM 2028

   My latest AI experiment has gone viral reaching millions in less than 24 hours.

   The inspiration was the announcement by the White House of a new $200 million ballroom with renders that looked a lot like Versailles. Having just visited the palace on vacation and being somewhat disgusted with the level of opulence on display, I had the insight that this new ballroom could become a future museum like Versailles to show what happened in this era.

   I didn’t have a script but made it as I went and felt the karmic action and reaction would work well visually. More insights and powerful images came as I worked on it.

   I made the stills using Freepik and Sora. Used primarily Kling AI for video and sfx, last shot was with Veo 3. More sound design from ElevenLabs and the music is synced to Masquerade (Suite): 1. Waltz Khachaturian, London symphony orchestra.

   https://youtu.be/nD_25aSMSFc?si=gl44EtYrxECVKU7k

   Are some AI more equal than others?

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   1. mrsyk October 4, 2025 at 9:07 am

      Interesting query. I’ll argue the end product has cultural value. Nevertheless, a person with skills at digital animation could have put that together ex-AI.

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10. KLG October 4, 2025 at 8:40 am

    Betting anecdata: Late-20-something son of a good friend took in one of his friends when said friend’s life collapsed. The young man in distress could live in the spare bedroom indefinitely (within reason) for $1000. Turns out his online gambling debts prevent him from being able to pay, which is why the girlfriend put him on skates. Multiply by a million and you have a good idea of the pervasiveness of this ongoing catastrophe. I don’t watch nearly as much televised sports as I have in the past. The incessant DraftKings, FanDuel, and other ads (Bet $5 and get a $200 credit!) on all sports, golf included, make me much less likely to continue watching even at this low level.

    According to a young friend, it is much safer to use a conventional independent bookie. The bookie will cut you off at the first sign of financial distress…We are a very sick society. But this is common knowledge to anyone paying attention.

    Just saw that griffen beat me to this!

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    1. Wukchumni October 4, 2025 at 9:05 am

       We are fast creating a wasted generation of young men (women play a much smaller role typically in gambling outlays) many of which are to the point of robbing Paul to play Peter’s parlay, or at best are flat broke, with gambling opportunities a plenty out there like so many sugarplum dumplings.

       I wish them luck transitioning from slitting their risks in such endeavors, and a problem gambler typically looks like anybody else-no telltale signs of outward distress.

       Legalized casino gambling only shows up in 1931, I could see gambling banned in all forms by 2031.

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11. Alice X October 4, 2025 at 8:52 am

    A long interview from several days ago with a post peace plan insert at the beginning:

    Gaza’s obliteration has been paved by US-Israeli peace proposals | Norman Finkelstein | UNAPOLOGETIC (MEE)

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    1. mrsyk October 4, 2025 at 9:12 am

       Paved with good intentions then, heh heh;)

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12. The Rev Kev October 4, 2025 at 9:39 am

    “A vivid new telling of the herring farts / Soviet sub history”

    Maybe the Russians could mess with the Swedes by dropping buoys that broadcast human farting sounds from time to time.

    Click to Edit – 

    

    "A vivid new telling of the herring farts / Soviet sub history" Maybe the Russians could mess with the Swedes by dropping buoys that broadcast human farting sounds from time to time.

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