Spa day for baby monkey
[📹 monkeylover. club]pic.twitter.com/5L4d7s6ske
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) November 1, 2025
Why Do Spiders Decorate Their Webs? A New Piece of the Puzzle Nautilus
NASA’s supersonic jet completes its first flight in California Engadget
Why are we obsessed with serial killers? Mashable
Do mega-sporting events like the World Series pay off? Here’s the economic reality behind them The Conversation
Scientists just shattered a major exercise myth ScienceDaily
I tried lab-grown chocolate. Could it be the future of Halloween? Guardian
COVID-19/Pandemics
Researchers say Covid infection during pregnancy is tied to autism — but they aren’t yet sure why The Independent
Forgotten Pandemic: The Lessons We Refused to Learn The Pioneer
Climate/Environment
Humanity is on path toward ‘climate chaos,’ scientists warn Phys.org
Climate Change Made Hurricane Melissa 4 Times More Likely, Study Suggests Wired
South of the Border
Pentagon Tells Congress It Doesn’t Know Who It’s Killing in Latin American Boat Strikes Scheerpost
Trump’s military pressure on Maduro evokes Latin America’s coup-ridden past The Guardian
Demonstrators call for governor’s resignation after deadly Rio police raid Al Jazeera
China?
Students in China are encouraged to rest and nap during school.pic.twitter.com/p9UF5l6yfc
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 30, 2025
China’s Shenzhou 21 docks with space station, sets the country’s own speed record Phys.org
No China holiday surge for oil exporters as EVs dominate roads Cryptopolitan
China claims its new missile with retractable wings can change shape at hypersonic speed Interesting Engineering
India
Why India Consumes as China Constructs: A Tale of Two Growth Trajectories Observer Research Foundation
“Leave Violence, Join Mainstream”: Surrendered Maoist Bhupathi To Comrades NDTV
Africa
South Africa hits back at US refugee plan to favour white Afrikaners BBC
Why Africa has become a hotspot for war Al Jazeera
European Disunion
Entrepreneurship in Europe: Where are firms thriving and barely surviving? Euronews
Europe’s frightful economy Euractive
New EU border check system paused for tourists following French demands, port officials say The Independent
Old Blighty
Now Rachel Reeves targets wealthy Brits with ‘settling-up charge’ if they flee the UK Daily Mail
‘The money machine is misfiring’: City blames Brexit for UK’s £20bn productivity headache The Guardian
Israel v. Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iran
BABY KILLERS! İSRAEL!#FreePalenstine pic.twitter.com/qzFf2Er0TL
— Yaziyor (@serdaryaziyor) January 2, 2024
Israel blocks majority of Gaza aid despite ceasefire deal Middle East Eye
Israel Plans to Demolish West Bank Village After Residents Challenge Settler Outpost Haaretz
Israeli forces advance into rural Quneitra in southern Syria Middle East Monitor
New Not-So-Cold War
Pentagon says Ukraine can have Tomahawk missiles: Report The Hill
Russia’s Military Advantage Over NATO Larry Johnson
Russian Missile Strikes On Ukraine Hit 2.5-Year High In October: Report AFP
Ukraine says it hit a key fuel pipeline near Moscow that supplies Russian forces AP
Opinion: Why Trump’s talk about nuclear testing is dangerous The Salt Lake Tribune
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Press Release: Senator Markey Calls on Amazon to Withdraw Facial Recognition Technology Plans for Ring Doorbells Quiver Quantitative
NEO the first ‘consumer-ready humanoid robot’ will do your chores. But what about privacy? Unpublished
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Trump Doctrine: If We Don’t Like Ya We’ll Kill Ya Mark Wauck
In Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park, a fence won’t cure homelessness or addiction. But it’s a start Santa Monica Daily Press
Scenes from a local food bank in LA this weekend as SNAP benefits lapse Laist
Trump 2.0
With bombs and bravado, Trump puts his own stamp on Reagan’s ‘peace through strength’ mantle AP
‘At What Point Does This Cross a Line Into International Criminality?’ Politico
Trump’s unusual tariff strategy puts America’s allies in a near-impossible situation CNN
President Donald Trump hosts Gatsby-inspired Halloween party amid government shutdown CBS 12 News
Musk Matters
Elon Musk explains why Donald Trump is ‘not evil’ The Times of India
Tesla to ramp to 500 Robotaxis in Austin, 1,000 in Bay Area, by end of 2025: Musk Teslarati
Elon Musk Announces X Chat as Encrypted WhatsApp Alternative Coincentral
Democrat Death Watch
Immigration
ICE Barbie Plots Secretly Using Bounty Hunters for Round-ups The Daily Beast
DHS Wants States to Hand Over Driver’s License Data for Citizenship Checks ProPublica
DoD to send more military lawyers to Justice Department as some begin serving as temporary immigration judges Federal News Network
Our No Longer Free Press
Musk, Meta and IDF named “Press Freedom Predators” by Reporters Without Borders Dagens.com
Mr. Market Is Moody
Will the next World War be fought with gold? Here are the glaring statistics The Economic Times
Fed official warns inflation is still too high for more rate cuts TheStreet
AI
AI Blamed for Tens of Thousands of White Collar Layoffs Futurism
In a First, AI Models Analyze Language As Well As a Human Expert Quanta Magazine
Datacenter biz and nuke startup join forces for Texas AI ranch The Register
AI chatbots shouldn’t be talking to kids — Congress must step in The Hill
Researchers Apply AI To Defend Against Stuxnet-Like Cyber Attacks The Cyber Edge
The Bezzle
Miami investor used fraud to buy dozens of Boeing 737s, FBI says Seattle Times
‘Synthetic’ identity theft blends real and fake data to fool lenders Better Business Bureau
Guillotine Watch
the world’s most expensive pizza costs $12,000?! 🤯 It’s called the Louis XIII, created by Renato Viola, and is topped with three types of caviar, lobster, and is even served with Remy Martin Cognac. #PizzaFacts #LuxuryFood #WorldsMostExpensive #Foodie #DidYouKnow #RenatoViola pic.twitter.com/ep5rFnNAbp
— gourmet the food king 🤴 (@ekkofluid) September 7, 2025
Most expensive hamburger covered in gold and dripping in caviar has €5,000 price tag.
The expensive item was put on the menu at The Daltons restaurant in Voorthuizen, Gelderland, Netherlands by chef Robbert Jan De Veen (Netherlands) in 2021.
Named ‘The Golden Boy’, its price… pic.twitter.com/m4L8qLTo2S
— Q.I.B.L.A.H uncensored news (@QUNproductions) June 30, 2024
Antidote du jour (via)
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
“Why are we obsessed with serial killers?”
What you mean ‘we’, white man? I don’t know why people become serial killers nor do I even care. I only know what should be done with them – and with extreme prejudice.
“Why are we obsessed with serial killers?”
Maybe because the killer in me is the killer in you….
Disarm, by Billy Corgan
So I’ve watched a few of these series below on the central villain, and there is overlap of a kind, like deciphering whether the cult leader( ie, Jeffs ) or the serial killer is actually the worse and more effective evil. Exerting control seems to be a recurring theme.
– Jeffrey Dahmer
– Warren Jeffs and the FLDS cult ( polygamy )
– Ted Bundy
– John Wayne Gacy
– Zodiac
These are all dark, and highly disturbing. I include the last entry since per the film, released in 2007 and possibly overlooked then, the alleged murderer was never actually caught or arrested for his crimes. My conclusion…some people are just not wired correctly from the get to.
I actually have been a little curious about what the big deal is. Where I live, gang members have tens of bodies under their belts. There’re also a whole host of famous people who should be called serial killers but aren’t, like Obama. As far as I can tell, the only difference is that they lack individual notoriety for their crimes, for one reason or the other.
The article doesn’t address this at all, unless I missed it and I would agree that the author’s reported curiousity may be less ubiquitous than they believe. It seems to me like the fascination with learning how other persons met with a miserable end is a phenomenom driven by news outlets (traditional and novel) hyping up particularly unique cases as a relatively easy sell for views/clicks etc..
The difference in the treatment is just stark. My news is always filled with the more prolific of the twenty or so deaths over the last week, sometimes barely afforded a paragraph because it’s the same old story over and over. Even when bodies do get found in pieces it’s not particularly earth-shattering. As far as I can tell, it seems to be that having a hundred known victims can never live up to the hype of leaving three of four bodies in sculpted positions. ‘Slasher’ enthusiasts, I’m sure, hardly care to learn how Joe went from selling his body for food to doing his part, keeping morticians securely employed.
Mass murderers, spree killers, serial killers are categories, but I guess the category closest to covering officially protected perps would be something like “state sponsorsed terrorism”.
US media is obsessed with serial killers (‘we’ means them), because shocking content attracts audience. It’s softcore atrocity porn.
A polarizing film but one I think captured this well was Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers”. It’s too graphic and psychedelic for some but the way it portrays the media hype and popular fandom around a duo of serial killers was phenomenal in my opinion. Takes the old adage of “If it bleeds, it leads” and turned the dial up to eleven to critique the 90’s era tabloid news like Hard Copy.
Not sure if there are any modern equivalents but to me that film still holds up and remains relevant.
In an awful comparison, serial killers are tantamount to aces in that you need 5 kills to establish yourself as such.
Note to gun nuts intent on doing your worst:
Any outcome in the single-digits is pretty much yeah whatever as far as Presstidigitation is concerned. It might not even make the front page of the internet-such is fate.
By serial killers, do they mean social murders? Kills more people than any serial killer ever has.
On the AI front, this below in today’s FT reporting the same thing that commenter Rasperry Jam has been saying, that much of AI’s immediate future is in specialized foundation models using proprietary data.
.
No archived link yet — https://www.ft.com/content/91002071-7874-4cb7-9245-08ca0571c408
The new hot job in AI: forward-deployed engineers
OpenAI, Anthropic and Cohere have stepped up hiring for specialists to help businesses adopt their AI models
‘…Anthropic, OpenAI and Cohere are recruiting for so-called forward-deployed engineers, a new job for generative AI companies, as part of a push to generate more revenues by installing specialists within businesses to help them customise their AI models….
‘…The move comes as businesses across industries from manufacturing to healthcare are increasingly keen to adopt AI tools, but are often unsure how to use the technology and generate a return on investment. “A Fortune 500 bank has completely different needs than a start-up building an AI-native product,” said Cat de Jong, head of applied AI at Anthropic ….
‘While FDEs (forward-deployed engineers) represent a relatively small number of AI groups’ workforce, OpenAI said demand for these roles has exceeded its expectations.
‘The group used this approach to customise its technology for John Deere, an agricultural machinery manufacturer, to help create more precise farming tools. This resulted in farmers reducing chemical spraying by 60 per cent to 70 per cent.
‘OpenAI’s Fournier said: “We learn what customers in different industries really need, we experiment and innovate together, and then those insights help advance OpenAI’s research and product offerings based on what works in the real world.”
Me: This is AI coming for McKinsey, Bain, and the like.
i.e. Customers used to contract with a management consultancy firm, which then outourced a majority of work to an IT consultancy firm (ITF) that in turn might do 90% of work for 10% of contract value and the MCF took the rest. Any true value lay in which ITF the management consultant firm had the nous to choose.
With AI, the ITF — in this case, OpenAI, Anthropic, whichever– disintermediates McKinsey etc. and assigns their role to its own forward development engineers.
So if those forward-deployed engineers are working with a Fortune 500 bank or a corporation like John Deere to tailor those AIs to them individually, would it also work out that they would also be funneling those corporation’s vital information back to Anthropic, OpenAI and Cohere for use as training set data?
Yup.
One thought, suppose there are better, more efficient AI models than Anthropic or Claude, buying into solution before problem….
Don’t rule out consulting yet.
How about small language modules?
Open labs* are raining small language models right now, some under 1B parameters, which is small enough to work (with patience) on any laptop. Most recently, LiquidAI published open-weight small models specialized for retrieval-augmented generation, summarization, information extraction, and mathematics. There has been a lot of recent work in vision and OCR surfacing recently as well. Small models are becoming more capable and efficient not only to encode or translate the text of a page or sign or describe a photo, but correctly read and reproduce sparse tables or describe the actions occurring between two video frames (with bounding boxes).
* By open labs I mean those whose corporate future is not dependent on a world where all inference is centralized in a proprietary cloud, and who are not so motivated to hoard their IP or models. OpenAI and Anthropic, contrariwise, are worthless unless they can force the Western world to channel all its mechanical language processing through their machines and their meters. I think of OpenAI and Anthropic much like Uber, as regulatory plays intending to construct a regulatory environment in which the highly moderated service they offer is socially necessary, and alternatives are rendered illegal, unmerchantable, or impossible.
Reminder that the “anti”-AI movement is only a shaping operation in the larger war against local computation, and, being mainly funded and operated by US AI services majors, national security goons, and washed-up pundits trying to uphold a lifestyle, should only ever be held with the same absolute suspicion and cynical hostility as any other corporate astroturf.
The myth is not entirely wrong for some health conditions. My mother-in-law had polio as an infant. At some point in her seventies and eighties she (and the medical profession discovered that her muscles only had so many contractions in them and that the exercises she had been doing to maintain her strength were weakening her.
would it also work out that they would also be funneling those corporation’s vital information back to Anthropic, OpenAI and Cohere for use as training set data?
Typically legal agreements are signed between the model provider and the company purchasing the services that the purchaser’s proprietary data, code, trade-protected processes – anything that falls under IP – remains under the control of the purchaser and is not the property of the model provider. What this means in practice is more nuanced: these companies are hiring the FDE’s as part of a service to create fine-tuned models trained on the customer’s data and processes, for exclusive use by the purchasing company.
I’ve worked on projects like this for my company; we didn’t have access to the customer’s IP directly. What we did was brought in the trainer application(s), taught the purchasing customer how to train their model, and provided guidance on how to configure, evaluate and deploy it after it was complete. We also taught them how to prompt/interact with the models based on what they were trying to do. We – and likely these other model providers – provide the purchasing company with the model trainer because taking the customer’s IP out of their network is a) probably too much data, I’m talking in excess of 50 terabytes b) no company’s security team is going to sign off on that no matter how lucrative/cool the end use case will be.
So no, they probably aren’t taking the customer’s IP and sending it back to the primary frontier models for training in the way you are describing. They’re making a smaller version of the frontier model trained on the customer’s IP, for the customer’s exclusive use. The FDE are running the training and internal education projects.
Sounds like Lean Six Sigma “black belts”.
Maybe if Toyota did AI…..
Do these OpenAI deployed engineers have the business sense, to replace the usual business process redesign “help”
Do these OpenAI deployed engineers have the business sense, to replace the usual business process redesign “help”
They don’t work solo, they are always paired with an “echo” team member (sometimes called a deployment strategist) who is the business/pm/person who interfaces directly with the customer technical and business leads. The FDE takes their orders from the DS; the customer yells at/makes demands of the DS. The DS is responsible for initial technical requirements gathering and “phoning home” to the company when business facets change (expansion, contraction, new opportunities, etc). They aren’t there to fully alter the purchasing customer’s business processes but to help the customer achieve their goals with their purchase of the AI services. So it is more of an on-site service partnership than an outside consultant. I lead the deployment strategist team at my company.
The “forwards deployed” vocabulary is very militaristic. This strategy of embedding technical staff in the client on an open-ended consulting / brain-siphoning engagement is held up as the secret of Palantir’s “success”. I wonder if the buzzword comes from them too….
Anyway, we’re doing exactly this with our AI Fintech, building a very niche model and, yes, hiring forward deployed engineers for its deployment.
Hell’s bells, those photos of the ultra-refined pizza(s) are ridiculous.
As every Italian knows, pizza is its own food group, but there are rules. (Although in the Undisclosed Region the use of ingredients and doughs has some jazz-like variations, given that pizza is an exotic import from Naples and not original to the Chocolate City.)
Lobster and caviar defeat the purpose of pizza, which is as a comfort food that doesn’t have too much meat or fish on top. It is the dough that matters.
Second, I am seeing two other pizzas that aren’t pizzas. I’m not sure what the photos represent. They seem to be of a taco masquerading as a pizza — pieces of burnt sausage with raw lettuce, raw tomatoes, and sliced pickles? Or is this pizzaoidal object a discreet reference to Donald Trump’s eating habits?
So these gold-foiled pizzas with pickles are a long way from a real pizza — which reaches the splendor of pizza when topped with cheese and squash blossoms. Or one of those jazzy Piedmontese variations (served at my Undisclosed Favorite Pizzeria): sauce of porcini, topped with porcini and a delicate Piedmontese cheese that is softer and a tad more savory than mozzarella. (Not that I’m complaining about mozzarella!)
Heck, why waste a sturgeon’s time like this?
PS: From Renato Viola’s home page, I discover that he has decamped to Miami, South Beach. Sic transit gloria pizzae.
Thank you! I second that it’s the dough/crust first and foremost.
I enjoy anchovies (with capers and red onion, please) from time to time, and have even once made a lobster pizza (it was tasty!), but these are not what I crave when I’m craving pizza.
The State of Maine pizza, bacon and onion, is one of my favorites.
mrsyk:
anchovies (with capers and red onion, please)
Anchovies are an object of veneration in the Undisclosed Region — especially the big anchovies from Spain or Sicily.
So I understand your weaknesses.
Once at my son’s urging we did a lobster fried rice as he said St Tony Bourdain had it. We did it without my wife present (the chef, the boss). It was good. Later my son said he made it up about Tony.
There is a fancier Chinese restaurant nearby that makes a lobster fried rice and it’s delicious! They also do a nice dim sum lobster rangoon.
I wouldn’t do lobster on a pizza [or mashed potatoes(!), looking at you Barstool-reviewed local Maine pizza place that is otherwise very good], but I find that substituting real lobster for the generally faux crabmeat in Asian cuisine is a nice touch.
Horrible faux crabmeat is a nasty substitution for… real crab. Up here, on the BC Coast, the real thing is thankfully far more common — fake crab is extremely rare in Chinese restaurants, much more common in bad or mediocre Japanese restaurants, the latter often having both California Rolls and California Rolls with Real Crab on the menu.
Saladizzas? Note ingredients seem to have been added after the pizza is done. Weird. I myself have done some weird dishes as I sometimes tried to be creative with mixed results. Paella madrás comes to mind. That one was edible and quite a thing though I have not tried twice. With time my “creativity” has mostly gone and now I stick most of the time with traditional recipes even if some are new to me.
No garlic in the Spanish omelette then? (I’m torn on this one.)
Onion, onion! And you can do it “campera” (country-side) with added pepper and chorizo.
One bite, everybody knows the rules!
In our town we used to have a pizza place called the Pizza Research Institute (PRI) that had the most unusual pizza toppings I’ve ever encountered. Many of my friends raved about it but as a half-Sicilian pizza traditionalist I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to try them. Unfortunately I really did like their pizza (except anything with Gorgonzola, a cheese apparently made from someone’s very dirty underwear).
Example: the 3-P ….. pear, potato, and pesto. I know, I know…but it was brilliant.
Laughingsong: Sicilian pizza (which is not sfinciune, which is wonderful) is what we in Chicago used to call the pizza of risen dough with much tomato sauce and very little cheese. You’d buy it buy the rectangle at certain bakeries. Oh, no, I feel Proust’s pizza calling…
Note on sfinciune: I bought a slice of sfinciune at a nice grocery store in Palermo. It was ambrosial. Cheesy, plus a topping of gratinata, lots of breadcrumbs. Give it a try.
Pear, potato, and pesto. The problem is that the pear’s elegant sweetness competes with the pesto’s wonderful perfume. The umami of the potato can’t rescue that threesome. That’s one of the dangers of threesomes.
Now: Here in the Undisclosed Region you’d get potato, pesto, and hazelnuts (another object of veneration) or walnuts. Yumliziosa.
Yeah, I dunno what any of that is.
I did a Neapolitan style 10.5″ last night with a pizza oven, cooked up in about 2 minutes, starts to seriously burn at that point actually. Amazingly puffy but thin crust, overnight yeasted dough, just 00 flour, yeast, water, a bit of salt, and 1/8″ teaspoon of olive oil and a bit of amylase.
Pesto, fresh basil, mozzarella cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and scallions.
Best thing ever.
Call me a pizza pedestrian, but I prefer mine Montreal style (with the cheese on top) with salty meat toppings — never any vegetables.
About “Entrepreneurship in Europe: Where are firms thriving and barely surviving? ”
As far as I can tell what the data shows is mostly about how easy and cheap it is to set up and close down shell-companies. I.e. financial shenanigans that on balance is probably damaging both economy and lives.
I did not see any reference to that being part of the explanation, either the author is blissfully unaware of that or the author is aware and decided not to include it anywhere in the article.
Might be a combination of unaware and being slightly aware but digging into it and writing about it might not be good for career and social prospects.
“Opinion: Why Trump’s talk about nuclear testing is dangerous”
I’m thinking that it was defensive here. The Russians had just announced the successful testing of their nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik. This was followed up by the successful testing of their nuclear-powered torpedo, the Poseidon. For the Neocons, this was bad news. It is one thing setting countries on fire in the Middle east or Africa or South America. They told themselves that they were safe as they had an ocean on each side, Arctic wastes to the north and a narrow peninsular to the south. With these new weapons that obsolete belief is dead. Trump had to throw up a distraction so that people would forget those new Russian weapons so came up with nuclear testing and it has worked. Only thing is whether Trump boxes himself in and is forced to conduct a nuclear test in a year or two from now because of all his belligerent boasting.
It was another childish gesture. (Mine’s bigger than yours.) Quotidian Trumpian bravado. It’s not easy being a narcissist.
My best guess is he doesn’t know the difference between nuclear powered and nuclear armed.
I read someone point out trumps testing talk came just after his TACO with China.
It’s round 10 million of SQUIRREL
Nuclear testing is under the energy department, not the military. It would take probably years to put together the entire nuclear test program again before a single test could be completed.
Historians will look back on 2025 as the US empire’s Suez year, with not just China’s successful pushback against US efforts to stop its rise but also Russia’s crushing of the Ukraine regime and the US-NATO proxy effort to regime change Russia.
But, yes: 2030, if the Chinese perform a landing on Luna, is when this change will finally be absorbed by the mass of Americans. Those in DC will likely be the last to face the facts.
Here’s The Duran weighing in on this, and I have the same concerns:
Poseidon and Trump nuclear testing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugtS1clYjEI
Plus, they also discuss the myth that Reagan “won” the Cold War with an arms race, and yes, it’s a myth. I don’t know the details of what brought the USSR down, but I dare say that having old, out of touch, corrupt leadership class that caused great internal disarray was a much greater reason for the USSR’s collapse. (And I see parallels in America’s leadership today, bummer that!)
It appears that the USA’s famously brilliant negotiator of a president may not have understood what he agreed to with regard to Nexperia in his recent discussions with Xi. Per Arnaud Bertrand, the main value added by Nexperia NL to the supply chain of chips used in the auto industry is the production of the silicon wafers. Nexperia CN has now re-sourced those wafers domestically, which will leave Nexperia NL to wither away and the American and European auto producers even more dependent on China. Good job, wheeler-dealer Don.
There are still propaganda pieces in the Netherlands that Karremans did a great and heroic thing in stealing Nexperia.
I always knew that the Dutch press was mostly propaganda, but sometimes it is still a surprise for me when they lie about something.
There is a bus-sized hole in that agreement in that China made no commitment to actually approve shipments to Nexperia. In the case of rare earth exports, despite a commitment to resume shipments back in April, very few were approved over the next months.
so I scrolled through news sites….no mention of the World Series, lmao. (the secular, structural decline of baseball is another topic).
Society/mass culture has become, essentially, circles of “fandoms”—politics, sports, celebrity news, baking, widget-collecting, etc. There is no more universal (national) cultural glue holding society together (except, a John Carpenter-esque: consume!)
pretty wild that we live in an age where almost every First Worlder has a supercomputer in their pocket, and people have siloed themself into their own world with their own IV drip of info. it’s like a scene from “Wall-E”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xToQ4cIHkk
The only hint of violence on the diamond sputtered out during an ad hoc 7th inning stretch yesterday, but it was more of an Elks Club get together with no rabbit punches or fisticuffs to report and both teams dutifully went back to their respective dugouts…
In comparison, I cringe about 6.3x a game during an NFL get together-when violence on the gridiron seems almost like a gut punch to watch. A lot of the skills are similar, throwing, running, catching and hitting-with a different variant on the latter.
That was a World Series for the ages-one astounding play on the field after another, and I had mentally consigned myself to being on the losing side of an epic battle fought over 90 feet at a time in the 9th inning, satisfied in that i’d witnessed something special-and then redeemed by home run heroics by the least likely guy on the rosters to clear the fence.
p,s,
money, money, money dept:
Disney owned the Angels around the turn of the century, and in their wisdom decided to trash all of the older players contracts, which were dutifully retrieved by a dumpster diver, and then sold to a coin dealer in Orange County.
The ‘money’ one was Nolan Ryan’s yearly contracts, of which there were about 10 or so, and Nolan didn’t make jack, $27k.
I must’ve read through hundreds of player contracts, got a little dull after awhile
ah ha
The internet has everything!
Here’s the 1972 Nolan Ryan contract, and oh so plain Jane~
It fetched $6k in 2012 @ auction
https://collectrea.com/archives/2012/Spring/767/1972-nolan-ryan-signed-california-angels-contract-first-american-league-contract
On Nolan Ryan, when I worked at corporate HQ office of a local retail bank in Plano, Texas, circa 2011 to early 2012 my immediate manager was a Texas Rangers. Centered on the front wall of his office and opposite his desk was the timeless portrait of Ryan giving the business to an unfortunate Robin Ventura. Apparently there was disagreement on the high heat coming out of his right arm….
Always a shame that Ryan wasn’t gifted better team ownership or good franchise circumstances once he left the NY Mets; ok I guess the Astros had some years in the early to mid 80s after all. But for Ryan….No Cy Young award, but all them no hitters!
It’s a new age, and it’s filled with football (of the international variety).
Go check out an MLS game … Portland vs San Diego was absolutely electric last night.
Fans singing, smoke flying, drums drumming, banners waving, stands bouncing.
It is it’s OWN culture, and it’s international. Black, white, brown … every nation in the world represented.
It’s called “the beautiful game” for a reason, and the beauty extends beyond the pitch.
Maybe nobody’s talking about it because they can’t bear to admit that capitalism’s favorite team came out on top. I do like the individual Dodger players, and Ohtani especially is a pleasure to watch. And I do thank LA for taking a bunch of bunch of past their prime players with bloated contracts off the Red Sox’ hands several years ago. But LA is second only to the hated Yankees for teams I actively root against. It’s a team only PE C-suiters could love. Must be nice to bring in a billion dollars worth of pitchers for the last few weeks of the regular season and the p(l)ayoffs. Not every team has that luxury. Any mention of the Dodgers at NC should go under the guillotine watch.
I dunno, fell under the spell of Dodger Stadium-the only 1960’s NL baseball stadium still left standing-and unlike most of the other 60’s efforts in that regard, didn’t have the awful dual MLB/NFL thing going on.
Haven’t been to a game there this century, so i’m a little rusty-but oh the memories they linger pleasantly enough.
From what i’ve seen on tv, the aged edifice looks to have more advertising than I remember seeing, but I’m from the era when trying to make money on such things was considered crass-so it was scant.
The only indication @ Dodger Stadium was a big Union 76 orange ball on top of a pillar, so clean.
Watched a NHL game from the 70’s awhile back and the boards are bereft of branding, naked as it were-they almost looked whitewashed in fact.
Other than the link above?
Do mega-sporting events like the World Series pay off? Here’s the economic reality behind them
Or was this post a comment in reaction to it?
Why do we do, just as you say, why must we just, give you your way
Why do I sigh, why don’t I try – to forget
It must have been, that something we’ll later call fate
Kept me saying: “Comeuppance will have to wait”
I saw them enthralled, just couldn’t fall – ’til too late
It had to be you, it had to be you
I wandered around, and finally found – the somebody who
Could make a mountebank come through, giving F. Scott Fitzgerald his due
And even be glad, just to be sad – thinking of you
Some others I’ve seen, might never be mean
Might never be cross, or try to be boss, but they wouldn’t do
For nobody else, gave me my fill – with all your faults, I loathe you still
It had to be you, blunderful you, it had to be you
It had to be you, performed by Frank Sinatra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0w6StE9NFs&list=RD_0w6StE9NFs
“China’s Shenzhou 21 docks with space station, sets the country’s own speed record”
The Chinese say that they intend to land a taikonaut on the Moon by 2030 and going by this article, they are still on track. I can only imagine the panic in the Trump regime as the Chinese get closer and closer to their objective but it is not like they are doing anything about this goal themselves. There is no permanent head of NASA and the guy at SecTransport is acting head – while muttering about how NASA should be folded into the Department of Transport. And he has thrown contracts open again meaning that there is no clear set path to launch a Moon flight but competing corporations who probably have their own ideas how things should be done. But no doubt that Trump will stick to his demand that there be an American on the Moon before the end of his term. It’s a good thing that JFK never said that but only that it be before the end of the decade.
“‘The money machine is misfiring’: City blames Brexit for UK’s £20bn productivity headache”
What does “productivity” even mean when applied to a parasitic rent-seeking sector?
The article actually addresses this but then turns away. One cannot stare into the sun!
Of talks about how the historic UK productivity figures were driven by the productivity of the City and it has now cratered and brought the productivity figures down with it. I would like to see an analysis but I wonder if the current low measured productivity is actually any lower than before in many sectors (services), when finance is stripped out.
The real new productivity crisis in the UK is in manufacturing as a result of higher energy and commodity costs because of war on Russia. And possibly the explosion of low wage jobs using the boom in legal economic migration (and the no wage jobs using illegal migrants).
time change sucks if yer already insomniac and yer vertebrae wake you at 230am.
anyhoo..this made the dog and catpile jump up off of me and flee:
https://x.com/KimDotcom/status/1984812876398485824
‘This one is more accurate…😂’
https://xcancel.com/FPSPredatorsHA/status/1984849553355628689#m
In a nutshell…, lol.
I’m pretty thankful for the dog and catpile these nights. The fur-ball foursome got btus to spare.
yeah…before it was just Osa the dog, and Bob the Cat(who has always been kind of a dick)…but the 3 juvenile cats that were friendly to me at the bar…i brought them into the house while i went on my catmurder spree.
and they have become fixtures…much more cuddly than Bob ever was(he hates them,lol)so i have Bob behind my head in the pillownest, Osa along my right thigh, and 3 little cats piled up on my legs.
makes it hard to get up for coffee in the am.
or to tend the woodstoves, etc.
but they are a welcome source of heat…and pretty good company, so far…galloping alongside me back and forth as i go about my doins.
theyve also apparently inspired Osa to follow me around more.
she likes them, wants to play, etc…but they’re wary,lol.
and this sorta cold am(for me,lol-, was the first time she didnt growl when one of them slipped off my legs and nuzzled against her.
still…a warm woman would be preferable…
Scientists just discovered something that runners and cyclists knew all along. Even amateurs know that measuring pulse after waking up is how one can gauge change over time, and that it gets lower as you get in shape.
LOL, Trump science.
Believe it or not, that was the first guy on the Moon’s thoughts, too.
Neil Armstrong
That’s why he took one small step in stead of one giant leap.
Another example of why someone being an expert in one thing does not translate to them knowing jack about anything else. Yet, for some reason there’s no end to the various celebrities opining on important topics, tech oligarchs getting the grubby mits on everything, and me here in the comments sharing my opinion on stuff I clearly know nothing about.
…got the extended warranty on heartbeats
100 billion, or 100 years-whatever comes first.
And here I’ve been thinking I only had a set number of heart beats allowed per day and exceeding that number would be instant death. Guess I no longer have that excuse to not exercise!
Why Do Spiders Decorate Their Webs? A New Piece of the Puzzle Nautilus
~~~~~~~~~~~
I find black widow webs to be the most fascinating, almost looks as if the 8 legged one was on an acid trip during construction of.
So intricate and chaotic-but with a purpose.
Then there was the time NASA fed various psychotropics to spiders and photographed the results.
See: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/nasa-spiders-drugs-experiment/
Here’s a video that introduced me to that research
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZoZhM0E8Ow
I work in this area and this is my experience. Large companies (and some not so large) are extremely paranoid about allowing the AI companies to use their vital information for training. The major AI players all sell private instances where users are assured that no one outside of their company can use their data for training or analyze the custom models. They put language in contracts and audits are conducted by 3rd parties to verify these claims. Its above my pay grade to determine what they are really doing behind the scenes, but given the way the contracts are written it would be a major scandal if they ever got caught cheating.
A big worry to many is the user sending private information to the models running in public instances which do not have these guarantees. My employer blocks these sites, and we’re all told to use the private version.
A second worry that is coming on strong is the use of Chinese models like DeepSeek and Qwen (even privately maintained versions using open source) . More companies are adopting policies where these are forbidden because, I assume, the Chinese cannot be trusted. One company described it as “geopolitical models are forbidden”.
Re: Scientists just shattered a major exercise myth
This is not new. back in the 70’s a friend gave me the “using up extra heartbeats” thing and I pointed out that:
3 mile run at 160 beats per min 160*20 = 3200 beats
warm up cool down and other activity 120 beats per min 120*40 = 4800 beats
resting pulse 50 for the rest of the day 23*60*50 = 69000 beats
total 3200 + 4800 +69000 = 77000 beats per day
him resting pulse 72*24*60 = 103689 beats per day
(this assumes that during every day activity, his pulse is the same amount above resting pulse as mine)
he started taking the stairs
yeah this is some seriously auld news.
It’s good to get it out there anyway as lots of the kids these days are all weights and no cardio.
All weights and no cardio is also auld news, and no legs day too.
‘Massimo
@Rainmaker1973
Students in China are encouraged to rest and nap during school.’
If those kids are doing a 12 hour day, then this is a vital necessity. I really like the way those desks converted into beds and they could teach the airlines a few tricks. You can see that there are multiple models here in use. And after those kids have their nap, they are ready to absorb more lessons. Of course if you read the replies to this tweet, you will find many sour grapes-
https://xcancel.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1983685284827918711
I particularly liked the cabinets that had a whole bed hidden inside!! I could see a big market and lot of people making use of them. Homeless facilities, detention centers, airbnbs, Americans just trying to survive they’re inequality…
Also, how is the United States education system going to compete with China? 12 hours of instruction a day! (Minus naps)
I think car makers might be wise to incorporate some of the design implemented in the Chinese school desks to enable cars to become mobile homes … of a sort. Even dead cars could provide a home for the growing hordes of homeless.
I have mixed feelings about 12 hours per day of instruction for school children. I learned the most from my own studies after I came home from school and from the time I spent at the public library and in my room attempting to write the most convincing essay I could for a homework assignment. Once I reached an age of double digits, I estimate that many, though not all days, I may have spent more than 12 hours per day studying when I add my study at home with the time spent in the classroom. I also greatly value the time I spent learning to play a musical instrument, or wandering in nature and in museums or attending the Summer Shakespeare plays and orchestral concerts my parents brought me and my siblings to. I believe schools and parents should foster a love for learning, endless curiosity, imagination, and questioning the ‘right answer’ in a way I did not see or sense in the schooling of my own children. As u.s. school are constituted, a 12 hour school day would bring the death of learning and those attributes I value.
Son #1 is currently at a school where a 12h day is possible, if he went in for breakfast (07:30) and stayed for dinner (18:00) and left when the boarders do their prep (19:30ish). As it is, an 8.5h day is standard (08:45-17:15).
He often goes in early for breakfast because it is a full English (sausages and bacon, hash browns, black pudding, eggs etc) but only stays late to play DnD!
He also has Saturday school….
“Son #1” sounds like a name Musk would give to one of his kids. :)
FYI that the Sonar 21 link seems to have some information it shouldn’t in the link URL. It came from a subscriber and needs to be cleaned up after the “?”.
AI Blamed for Tens of Thousands of White Collar Layoffs – Futurism
There should be a case study about that headline as being indicative of a larger problem.
The real headline, more descriptive of the contents of the article and the reality (and also very catchy) is buried at the last paragraph:
“AI is a flashy scapegoat for mounting white collar layoffs.”
I drove by a ‘natural’ park in an arroyo yesterday, with pretty steep terrain, and a driverless mower on a two-track hydrostatic system was being driven by a parks worker with a R/C joystick gizmo, a dozen or so parks workers in sweatshirt uniforms watching. I circled back, got some pics, talked with El Jefe for a couple minutes. Asked him how soon he would plot waypoints via GPS, and have a computer driving it from an office with the lights off, the mower automatically re-docking to recharge batteries, and how many fewer staff he would have?
He opined there was always weed-whacking to be done, doubted any man-power cuts.
I was not in accord, but hey. Also asked him why they were mowing native bunch-grasses— wasn’t the point to be maintenance free and natural?
I also suggested he get some bumper stickers printed up: “Support Universal Basic Income”.
He was skeptical that Elroy, Jeff, Bill, Sergei would be delighted to start paying taxes to keep humans fed, clothed, warm, dry, and educated, with access to health care and clean potable water.
Oh well.
Who’s going to the park that the time and money will still be spent maintaining?
a parks worker, or a forward deployed engineer?
And if “natural”or “wildlife” was ever really the goal for the area, all machines would need to be removed as well.
“Desperate Special Forces Bid to Save Pokrovsk Fails as AFU Faces Unprecedented Collapse on Every Front”
I have no idea what good the Ukrainians thought that 11 special forces soldiers would do dropped near Pokrovsk. They were quickly wiped out so the whole thing was just a suicide mission. Seems that DC is going to have to get ready for several Ukrainian fortified cities to fall, one after another. I’m sure that Trump will demand an immediate ceasefire and to freeze this war on the contact line and if Russia does not agree, he will do something. But I bet that there will be an element of panic in the air when this happens, not only in DC but also in Brussels.
A F U Hmmmm. Irony or paradox?
A F U. Irony or Paradox?
The fog of war keeps getting thicker. Who knows what their goal was? Extraction? Protecting key assets? A coked out plan to have commandos raid behind enemy lines and save the day? A drowning person will grab on to anything they can in their desperation. I have no idea how the peace will eventually be shaped but the dimensions of the coming AFU collapse are becoming increasingly clear despite the fog. The AFU will be completely destroyed and any patriotic fighters left standing will join terror groups to make strikes throughout the world.
The best guess I’ve read so far is that they were supposed to reach the “sculpted” Pokrovsk city sign at the western entrance to the city, as the helicopter landed less than half a mile away and five of them were killed within a few hundred yards of it.
Had they reached it, they could have raised an Ukrainian flag there, take some photos and skedaddle to Dnipro with “solid proof” that Pokrovsk is like totally back under Ukrainian control.
It would fit in with the previous high-risk, showy gimmicks Ukrainians tend to do to win the war in social media, but which have little if any effect on the war itself.
Perhaps their intent was to surrender with the rest of the guys. That would sure be my goal.
This, my ol’ chap. Yet another one, straight from the UK. Shaken, not stirred.
As far as the expectations go,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx9z99YJ_7s&t=50s
> I have no idea how the peace will eventually be shaped but the dimensions
> of the coming AFU collapse are becoming increasingly clear despite the fog.
> The AFU will be completely destroyed …
Hei, what’s with the quisling defeatism?!? Why, just yesterday the chairman of Nato’s military committee, one Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, said that
>> from an operational point of view he considered the Russia-Ukraine war was
>> bogged down, and “it was almost time to sit and talk because it’s a waste of lives”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxng7kxnp9o
/sarc
That is Monty Python level article, image included. The only thing missing are the orderlies behind the dragon dude.
When the kessel starts boiling, you know it’s Minsk time.
re: Tomahawks – Russia – US
Mark Sleboda with Nima
recommended:
Who Cares if Trump Sends Tomahawks to Ukraine?
83 min.
https://marksleboda.substack.com/p/who-cares-if-trump-sends-tomahawks
Does it matter if US were to send Tomahawks?
Nope.
It´s mainly political.
The real danger of course being how would the Russians react.
Although, and I tend to agree, they would act only against targets on Ukrainian territory.
Why risk more if the military fallout of Tomahawks would be really limited.
Of course if the US wants to start WWIII. They can do that.
But the fact that someone at Pentagon – allegedly – greenl-lit it now – doesn´t mean more than just that.
Factions vs. factions. Provocation for sake of it due to lack of means and strategy.
Russians are well aware of this.
Fortunately for us.
Lagos, Lagos, Lagos to war, Lagos
Lagos, Lagos, off we go to Lagos, Lagos
Lagos, Lagos, Lagos, Lagos
We’ll save evangs from a scare, we’ll save them there
If we don’t save them there, how will Christianity fare
Lagos, Lagos, Lagos, Lagos Lagos
Lagos, Lagos, Lagos, Lagos
The Bridge on the River Kwai – Colonel Bogey March (HD)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k4NEAIk3PU&list=RD4k4NEAIk3PU
AI Blamed for Tens of Thousands of White Collar Layoffs – Futurism
(“AI is a flashy scapegoat for mounting white collar layoffs.” As summed up in the actual article.)
I have a crazy notion and, if needed, talk me down.
If they can get back to ridicuously easy money policy, they are going to credit “AI” with “productivity gains”.
The U.S. joint staff aka pentagon said there are enough tomahawks to send some to Zelenski.
Russian staff gets CNN feeds too!
What was not said: Japan wants 400 for their missile destroyers, there not being much carrier in missile defense.
Also, how to hit anything if U.S. does not provide top secret special access targeting and navigation aids.
Those spunky Kievan contracts can get all the engineering specs to do what U.S. wants with tomahawks.
Maybe shoot them off MiG 27’s.
Are they karting in a ship to launch them from?
A 50-foot sailing yacht named Andromeda.
Of course!
So efficient!
From what I’ve seen, there are two batteries in the Army inventory. I assume one of these would be sent in theater. The launcher is housed in a 40-ft container, so an inviting target. I suppose you could park these in the far west by the Poland border to make it a more difficult counter-battery target.
Targeting depends on the actual target and desired effect. If it’s a V-1-style terror effect, I suppose it’s possible that inertial nav all the way might be feasible. I would assume GPS denial is something Russia would pursue, at least near high-value targets. Tomahawk can have some onboard nav sensors that would be difficult to block, but depend on prior intel data, which I assume probably exists for any interesting targets.
Enroute planning is based the missile RCS (detectability) and low-level flight to take advantage of terrain masking. Again you need intel of the anti-air defense capability. I don’t know, but assume these days actual terrain elevation data is sufficiently available and easily disseminated to shooters that that is no longer a limiting factor.
While I suppose “black” programs could be postulated to exist, I continue to doubt the idea that a nuclear warhead option is available for any current missile or launcher.
Stock market bubble predictions are becoming, or it’s just my view, seemingly prevalent. As in surely this period of going gonzo for AI ends abruptly, and how everything Nvidia has touched becomes more valued than it was a few mere months or years previously. A golden age is upon the investing public or is it instead, to channel a horror film classic spin by Sir Anthony as Dr. Hannibal Lecter…” fools gold ” ? The article above on frothy indicators doesn’t conclude with a definite ” yes it is …”, but categorically it is suggesting the modeled PE history being utilized does say so.
Eh, so tonight “we’re gonna party like it’s late 1999….Two thousand zero zero oops out of time…”. Hey if FOMO or HODL work in cryptocurrency why not the stock markets?
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1olr5tj/does_this_look_like_a_man_worried_about_the_bubble/
Now there is a perfect scam. Buy with crypto – sell for dollars.
Why Africa has become a hotspot for war -Al Jazeera
Which reminds me of the latest “keep people scrambling foreign policy” effort:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-says-christians-face-existential-threat-in-nigeria/
“Trump threatens to cut off aid to Nigeria, orders Pentagon to “prepare for possible action” over persecution of Christians”
And before people jump in with “the military won’t have the ability to do this or that”, it should be obvious by now that winning some conventional miltary conflict is not the goal.
How odd the timing of that news when just a few days ago it was made public that Nigeria is looking to revive state-owned refineries.
One refinery of note:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangote_refinery/
And I don’t doubt other global players have lobbied the US to intervene.
There has also been a lot of talk about Nigeria (among others) transitioning from SWIFT to CIPS.
A shout out to the 12 step groups (Because it is Sunday) who are, to me, the most interesting spiritual phenomenon of the 20th Century.
I doubt that there is an adult American who has not lost someone they cared about to addiction, I certainly have.
I have also been fortunate enough to have several people I had written off become clean and sober, people who now contribute significantly to their communities.
I have read the “Big Book” and although it is better written than the book of mormon or the scientology texts, it is worthy of the Bulwer Lytton award…
Happily the program is summarized in two pages, one longer than the summary of “The lazy man’s guide to Enlightenment’.
Trump’s Retribution Campaign Leaves D.C. Prosecutor’s Office in Crisis (NY Times via archive.ph)
America is a banana republic
Bad Jonathan!
RE DHS Wants States to Hand Over Driver’s License Data for Citizenship Checks
It’s amusing that a kind of national database of Americans, once anathema to conservatives, is being implemented by the Trump administration under the dubious pretense of stopping “voter fraud”.
Literally there it is
I imagine Republicans in Congress will pass a bill to outlaw this or conduct investigations any time now…
That’s what the state ‘Real ID drivers license’ program is all about. It’s also the prelude to the rollout of official digital IDs.
Note: you do not have to have a Real ID drivers license to drive, or even to fly.
Twila Brase on JImmy Dore show. utube.
“Real ID” Is A TROJAN HORSE For Total Surveillance! w/ Twila Brase
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXf5NSYG5Is
More on the Digital ID with Twila Brase on Jimmy Dore. utube.
Here’s Why The REAL ID Must Be Stopped & How To Do It! ! w/ Twila Brase
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwhe0gNgxcI
if only the people didnt have goldfish memory,lol
my immediate recollection upon reading that was a few years ago in Texas….the texgop has long insisted thay they are all about Homerule…as in no intruding big gubmit from above, meddling in local communities.
until a few texas cities voted to ban fracking…or to not support the border patrol…or whatever.
then, Austin had to Step in and force them to toe the line.
at the time, i wrote a furious email to all the texgop creatures, including the lite guv, Radio Preacher, calling them out for utter hypocrisy.
that was also the last time i wrote a letter to the editor to the local paper/brochure.
(it was well received)
of course, the dems are no better.
all is contingent and transactional…except that it all must serve the already rich and powerful.
Researchers Apply AI To Defend Against Stuxnet-Like Cyber Attacks
This is very late to the party. We did exactly this with a French start-up (reverse engineer Siemens PLC’s and do deep packet inspection and AI analysis of packets and traffic to detect anomalies) which we sold to Cisco as the core of their OT (operating technology) division. In 2015-2018.
If these various desk designs don’t work out in Chinese schools, maybe blowing and Airbus can pick them up on the cheap and use them in planes.
I guarantee they would be a gigantic hit.
It’s going to get messy when the Turkeys come home to roost.
turkeys…at least the wild-derived ones…are rather fastidious, for barnyard fowl,lol.
its the dern ducks that shit everywhere.
one morning, unbeknownst to me, there was one roosting on the palapa thing above my barstump…and i’m sitting here drinkin coffee, listening to coyotes, and imagining Evangeline Lilly sitting across from me…and that damned duck just lets one drop, right on my shoulder.
and duckshit is pretty nasty,lol.
i look up ere i sit down, now.
but to your point…it was always gonna come home.
down at the bottom where ive lived for most of my life, that was frelling obvious…and has been ongoing…at first, under the aegis of the War on Drugs.
the difference between the late 80’s and now, is that the repression, oppression, and all around fascistic jackbootery has been creeping up the class ladder, of late…so more formerly important people are noticing.
Gaza is a Method…just like Jakarta.
the only question is where lies the bridge too far?
we’re obviously not there, yet…too many are still relatively too comfortable to upset the applecart and really resist.
but that will come.
likely when the Sith are even more well entrenched than they are, now.
and i remain a male Cassandra, being dragged out of walmart, crying “Doom!”
“Beware Chinese bearing gift cards!”
Oftentimes the commentariat is good for a chuckle. Sometimes a bellylaugh.
Robotaxis… I’m prosecuted if I mount the sidewalk and mow down a pedestrian. Who faces *any penalty* if a robo-vehicle does that?
Here is a very interesting video by Black American content creator Tabitha expanding on her theory that J D Vance will divorce his wife Usha in order to raise his chances of getting elected President. The New Kirx Klan Maga base will not tolerate a Brown Hindu Indian first lady. So Vance needs to get a new wife more to the New Kirx Klan’s MAGA-base’s liking.
” AMERICA FIRST… J.D. Vance Gets A Political Warning From A Leader of Young Republican Men!! ”
https://www.youtube.com/live/M3E3t00nXQ4
thats sad as hell,lol.
i know nothing about her, but i am an agnostic mystic druidy person, and my wife was catholic…and i supported our boys doing the catholic thing(imagine me in church…after her funeral mass, at the reception/dinner thing in the parish hall(overflow crowds), the Father pointedly sat by me, and we talked about Pseudodionysius,lol…because i am “not contained between my hat and my boots”…i told him that every priest needs a druid friend, and he agreed(!), but hasnt taken me up on it)
so i understand multifaith marriage, and how much tolerance and forbearance it takes.
thats the sort of example this country needs…and it would be doubly sad to see him cast that away…along with her and their kids…for some short term political calculation.
The problem with that theory:
Anyone that rabid about interracial marriage would likely not be excited about baby daddy to mixed kids.
He can’t divorce the kids.
I don’t know if the video talks about that. Don’t really want to watch it.
Tabitha is pointing out that J D ” Despicable Little Tatoo” Vance is entirely soul-less, pragmatic and beneath ethics and morality. She therefor predicts that he will divorce his current wife and even try marrying the Widow Kirk if he can. It may not convince GroyperMAGA because of the mixed kids.
But Vance will give it a good hard try.
The test of a theory is in the coming-true or not of its predictions. If Vance divorces Suha then Tabitha’s theory is pretty good. If he then goes on to marry the Widow Kirk, then her theory is VERY good.
Assuming Vance and his wife had a Catholic wedding, Vance would need to have the marriage annulled. Which can be done, but it is complicated.
he is not married to his current wife “through the Catholic Church”.
i state that categorically, because Tam and I tried, hard…but i would not lie.lol
the part of the Catholic Church apparatus that deals with that, to my surprise, is what used to be called the Office of the Inquisition(yeah, that one,lol)…called something else more anodyne, now, that i dont remember.
and they are hard core with their check boxes.
i was babtise Lutheran, against my will, that wasnt even formed yet,lol…but that part was ok(i was an Xtian, in their eyes)…but i wouldnt submit to professions of Faith…which meant a hard NO!.
theres no way in hell that Vance and his Hindu wife were married “through the church”.
the Catholic government(what it is) takes their rules seriously.
that Priest…Father Melvin…was a nice guy, and he meant well..a kind man, altogether.
but he was a clerk…checking off boxes…not a spiritual leader.
i found him kind and nice, but boring,lol.
his successor out here, Father Red…young guy, inquisitive, well read…is much more inspiring…but also more strict when it comes to the Forms…ie: when he heard her last confession, and administered the Last rights, i had to leave the room…because i wasnt a Catholic.
and she wanted me there.
bt all that was between her and god, and i was damned to hell, and all.
so i wasnt allowed in the temporarily Holy Space.
lest i pollute it with my heathenism.
Who knows. Maybe he will get ICE Barbie to put bounties on the children.
I know a reasonable number of Evangelical Christians and the ones I know are not racists; in fact some of them are themselves Indian (from India) and some are married to Indian people. Vance would have a great advantage among Evangelicals to remain married to Usha, not just because he is supposed to remain married, but also because the question of her possible conversion would be endlessly fascinating to them.
Regarding the Tesla robotaxi numbers Elon is spouting this line in the article stood out:
“Considering that there are only two months left in the fourth quarter of 2025, Tesla’s Robotaxi team will likely be extremely busy during the next eight weeks.”
Curious, I looked up how many are currently in the road: There are ZERO on the road in the Bay Area. https://electrek.co/2025/10/22/tesla-is-trying-to-deceive-investors-into-thinking-it-has-san-francisco-robotaxis/
From 0 to 1,000 in eight weeks? Sounds like another one of Elon’s fanciful predictions.
Also, according to that article they don’t have a California license for autonomous vehicles but the law isn’t a concern for Elon so doubt that is a concern.
A.I. Is Making Death Threats Way More Realistic (NY Times via archive.ph)
This year is lit.
Trump really is the perfect embodiment of our elite; petty, corrupt, self serving, careless, and entirely focused on immediate gratification. He’s the perfect symbol of a failing state, an empire in terminal decline, entirely unaware even of the limits of power or concerned with the outcomes of its exercise.
Well put.
I might hazard to add that the corruption is consuming everything and everyone around him. We’re down to M T-G and Massie on the GOP side as the only pols left with anything resembling a soul.
Even Rand Paul has become a petty, corrupt little tyrant. He was blathering on about raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 the other day – as if there aren’t a gazillion other real issues out there. I guess kicking old people when they’re down is easier than taking on the MIC, endless wars, genocide, and economic insanity … remember when Rand Paul actually stood up against someone more powerful than him? Remember when his Dad fought to audit the Fed? It’s all a memory now.
Other than the immediate gratification bit, that description might serve just as well for Biden, which is appropriate given the Uniparty nature of the late stage empire’s elite
Israel’s Zombie Economy Part 3: Israel’s Breakdown Into Tribes – Bassam Haddad Interviews Shir Hever
Part 3 of 5 part series by Jadaliyya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJTTm1Ep1mA
We are not obsessed with serial killers.
The PRESS is obsessed with sensationalism.
And only about doing sensationalism with POOR & POWERLESS serial killers.
Why?
To distract us all from the actual MASS MURDERERS, GENOCIDAL even, that present themselves as “democratic” or “moderate” or “good” people:
– Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, Netahyanu, etc.
There is not a single POOR & POWERLESS serial killer that reaches even near the kill count of the 5 Hitlers mentioned above.
The Press exists to distract and manipulate.
The capital/property exists to own the Press.
The labour rights DON’T exist in order to facilitate taming actual journalists.
The ones that refuse being tamed end up like Assange or the Gaza journalists…
This is what “freedom and democracy” really means in the collective West nowadays, and perhaps since always.
We all rember that POOR & POWERLESS guy named Jack, the reaper, from London.
But the biggest serial killer of them all, in London, are Queen Elizabeth and Winston Churchill, responsible for the provoked famine in colonized Bangladesh, resulting in the GENOCIDE of around 3 million humans.
The same press that tells us we “are absessed” with serial killers, doesn’t write a single line about the biggest serial killers of all, who exterminate millions of humans. Because when a serial killer is RICH & POWERFUL, the western “free and democratic” Press calls them “heroes” and “exemplar leaders”…
Sorry, there is plenty of evidence to counter your assertion. Mystery novels and movies, which are not press organs, are also fixated with serial killers. See the Academy Award winner Silence of the Lambs as one of many examples.
The Hollywood and the Press (aka MSM) are two cheeks of the same behind. Different organs working in concert.
Yup. They are obsessed, and we are getting the mushroom treatment.
I’m not obsessed with serial killers. Couldn’t care less.
My buddy says he’s a cereal killer and a celery stalker.
Ukrainian computer game-style drone attack system goes ‘viral’
I’ve been pondering some related things for a while and have some thoughts/predictions:
1. Video games will be used (maybe are already being used) to both train AI and find the best fpv pilots
2. Pro gaming is dominated by teenage boys. Not just because they are the most interested, but because they are the best at them. Once you hit 20 you’re too slow and on the way out.
3. It’s only a matter of time until we see an Ender’s Game scenario, in which teenage boys are recruited and utilised in real-world drone warfare and kill lots of “enemies”.
4. I hate this
You are late with predictions. ;)
FPV Kamikaze Drone, Release Date: 15 Dec, 2023
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2707940/FPV_Kamikaze_Drone/
Russian ad for feared RUBIKON drone unit
https://www.bitchute.com/video/qZ5EPTxaKXpi