A master chef transform simple ingredients into an elaborate desserthttps://t.co/xns2lKmoLu
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) January 10, 2026
A Disrupted Body Clock Is Linked to Higher Dementia Risk SciTech Daily
I met a lot of weird robots at CES — here are the most memorable TechCrunch
People Who Go Off GLP-1s Are Experiencing a Sudden and Terrible Hunger Futurism
From Noriega to Maduro: The Long US History of Kidnapping Foreign Leaders ScheerPost
🦌 🦏 Tiny 13kg deer takes on 1.7-tonne rhino at Wroclaw Zoo
A case of David vs Goliath at Wroclaw Zoo, as a tiny 13kg deer takes on a nearly two-tonne rhinoceros and appears to come out of the clash on top. pic.twitter.com/aKFpwP8VJd
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) January 9, 2026
COVID-19/Pandemics
COVID Levels Are “Very High” and “High” in These 13 States BestLife
Viruses Experts Are Watching in 2026 Tickernews
Climate/Environment
Australia declares state of disaster as bushfires rage Phys.org
‘Profound impacts’: record ocean heat is intensifying climate disasters, data shows The Guardian
As the Arctic warms up, the race to control the region is growing ever hotter The Conversation
South of the Border
Guerrillas and gangsters on the Venezuelan border UnHerd
A battered Cuba braces for aftershocks as US seizures of oil tankers linked to Venezuela surge AP
Mexico’s president downplays Trump’s threats Le Monde
Petro says Colombia cooperating with US ‘despite insults, threats’ Al Jazeera
China?
Chinese robotics firm AgiBot shipped over 5,100 humanoid robots in 2025, securing a 39 percent share of the global humanoid robot market. It ranked first in the world for both shipment volume and market share, according to an industry report by Omdia. #ChinaTech #AgiBot pic.twitter.com/8eDWcQKX0c
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) January 10, 2026
China’s ‘artificial sun’ breaks nuclear fusion limit thought to be impossible The IndependentI Came to CES to Check Out Energy and Solar Power Innovations and Found That China Is Running Laps Around Us PC Magazine
The end of China’s one-child policy, 10 years later Taipei Times
YJ-20: Meet the Chinese Missile Built to Break the US Navy The National Interest
India
Watched, scared and trapped in an Australian visa nightmare, Kiran is one of India’s ‘abandoned brides’ The Guardian
Trump’s 500% tariff pressure & global crude supply shock risks: Where does India’s oil security stand? Times of India
India moves toward major Rafale fighter procurement Defence Blog
Africa
South Africa’s strained ties with US face new test – war games with China, Iran and Russia BBC
Africa decides keeping Trump happy isn’t that important Politico
Ethiopia Breaks Ground on $12.5 Billion Mega-Airport to Redefine Africa Sri Lanka Guardian
European Disunion
The EU-Mercosur Trade Deal May Not Be the Big Win Some in Europe Think Foreign Policy
Trump is right. Europe is in crisis Al Jazeera
How can Europe prevent a Greenland grab? Financial Times
Old Blighty
Two-thirds of UK voters wrongly think immigration is rising, poll finds The Guardian
Israel v. Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iran
Israel has dropped more than 200,000 tons of explosives – this means that Israel has dropped ~100 kilograms of explosives on Gaza for every man, woman, and child.
Each red dot shows a bombed place in Gaza. (UN Satellite Centre, July 6th 2024)
This is what genocide looks like. pic.twitter.com/WUIkgTFpNI
— Mohamad Safa (@mhdksafa) January 7, 2026
Israel, Hamas ready to resume war in Gaza as Trump’s peace deal stalls: report NY Post
Israel moves to launch settlement project east of Jerusalem, issues 45-day notice Andolu Agency
Israel tapering off US military aid within the decade ‘in progress,’ Netanyahu announces Jerusalem Post
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine scrambles to repair ruined Kyiv power grid after latest Russian attack CBC
Russian oil depot fire after Ukrainian drone strike – as UN to meet over hypersonic missile attack Sky News
US and Ukraine plan to sign $800 billion deal at Davos The Kyiv Independent
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
ACLU Fights DOJ Overreach to Protect Voter Privacy and Sensitive Data ACLU.org
Worried about surveillance, states enact privacy laws and restrict license plate readers Stateline
Imperial Collapse Watch
Americans Aren’t Traumatized Enough by Gun Violence Fair Observer
Mobile homes already have huge utility bills. Congress may make it worse. Grist
Trump 2.0
Trump’s call for Collins ouster throws wrench into Maine Senate race The Hill
Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own Morality’ NY Times
Musk Matters
Musk’s SpaceX get green light to fire 7,500 new Starlink satellites into orbit Cryptopolitan
Musk says X outcry is ‘excuse for censorship’ BBC
Humanoid robots or human connection? What Elon Musk’s Optimus reveals about our AI ambitions The Conversation
Democrat Death Watch
Column: Apart from Trump derangement, what do Democrats stand for? Yakima Herald-Republic
Why Democrats keep losing support even as Trump falters badly Boulder Daily Camera
Immigration
Minnesota launching investigation into fatal shooting by US immigration agent Andolu Agency
JD Vance Says Americans Should Actually Thank ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good Truthout
Judge signals blocking Trump move to end protections for Latin American migrants The Hill
Protests against ICE spread across U.S. after shootings in Minneapolis and Portland PBS
Our No Longer Free Speech
New Texas A&M policy sparks free-speech fight after Plato readings pulled from course Austin American-Statesman
This Tribal News Agency Shows How to Defend a Free Press at the Grassroots Truthout
Mr. Market Is Moody
Gold Is Muscling Out Treasuries as a Foreign Reserve Asset Barron’s
The mounting economic challenges weakening the job market PBS
From housing to groceries to energy, Americans say the economy is doing poorly Scripps News
AI
Furious AI Users Say Their Prompts Are Being Plagiarized Futurism
Most devs don’t trust AI-generated code, but fail to check it anyway The Register
AI slop and brainrot content now make up 1 in 2 YouTube Shorts recommendations, study reveals Mashable
The Bezzle
Florida deregulated nursing schools. Scam colleges and failing students followed Orlando Sentinel
Treasury, IRS ramp up investigation into Minnesota fraud Michigan Now
Billions in healthcare fraud discovered in California, Minnesota ‘pales in comparison’: Dr Oz NY Post
Guillotine Watch
Rihanna’s $9000 dolce & gabbana crown headphones pic.twitter.com/veSB3Kk1wo
— Rogue Fashion (@rogue) March 27, 2025
Chanel has finally released their quilted Beats by Dre headphones. It’ll cost you a cool $5,000. pic.twitter.com/DwG5lmkKSj
— IAMFASHION (@IAMFASHlON) September 26, 2014
Antidote du jour (via)
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
I read the news today, oh boy
About an ICE man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to gasp
Another brawn shirted psychopath
He blew her mind out in a car
She didn’t notice that her rights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
Nobody had seen his face before
Everybody recorded it as if to keep score
I saw the video today, oh boy
The occupying army had started the war
A crowd of people turned away
But I just had to look
Another life they took
I’d love to have them turn on you
Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, I noticed the hour was late
Found my voice and petted my cat
Made up new lyrics in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream
I read the news today, oh boy
A few holes in Renee Good
And because the entry holes were rather small
They had to discount them all
Now we know nobody is going to take the fall
I’d love to have them turn on you
A Day in the Life, by the Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYeV7jLBXvA&list=RDUYeV7jLBXvA
I understand the original Beatles song was inspired by a newspaper report about a guy who committed suicide in his car. It cannot be too long before Trump starts spouting that Renee Good suicided herself.
Re: “Blew his mind out in a car”.
Not quite; the line “he didn’t notice that the lights had changed…” are key. The driver was the heir to the Guinness fortune, and he was driving a Lotus Elan, mostly fiberglass. Situational awareness, or lack thereof.
Scroll down …
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=140&t=1807882&i=6960
Renee Good had a big, black dog in the back of her car. It is a good thing that Kristi Noem wasn’t on the scene or she would have ran over to shoot the dog as well.
Thanks Wuk, this effort is particularly on point.
Agreed. Timely, and the perfect song choice. Wuk, you’d be an ace at “Name that Lyric.”
The path of Good’s car after she was shot, veering hard off to the right, supports the claim she was trying to avoid the officers. It does not support the narrative that he, to the car’s left, was in danger.
If you watch his feet in the slow-mo video on the TYT, you can’t see his front foot until she veers with the car to the right. It is only after she veers to the right, and you can see his foot, that he fires the first shot. The front of the car had cleared him, and the car was headed off. Any argument that he was in danger from the car at the time of the shot can be dispelled. He was to the side of the car, he fires into the windshield from the side of the car, and then it looks like he fires two more shots through the driver’s side window as the car drives away. Then there is his comment after the shooting, not exactly the words of a man in fear for his life.
Its a straight up assassination. We don’t even have to get into whether it is a lawful seizure, and resisting arrest–you are not entitled to use deadly force when someone unlawfully resists arrest. You can ask former Officer Chauvin of the Minneapolis PD.
Perfect, Wuk!
“The agent who shot Good was a member of a specially trained tactical unit within ICE, a senior Department of Homeland Security official told CBS News.”
So highly trained that he recklessly stuck his arm in a car that was not under his control and was so traumatized by that event, that months later he stood in front of another vehicle not under his control and chose to shoot someone dead rather than step farther to the side when she was clearly turning the car away from him.
lol! Yakima Herald
Somebody has to ask the questions.
The Dems need a reset to get away from making every issue life-or-death, especially the 80/20 or worse ones where they are on the losing end. That just turns off many long time base voters. They are kind of toxic and need some brand awareness lessons. Those start with some redefinition of who they represent and why. Otherwise, they will be reactive and stuck with TDS, waiting for more shoes to fall.
People are hungry for honest dialogue, authenticity and leadership, not posturing or performative BS. Call or write your Rep and Sen, and demand that.
Gold Is Muscling Out Treasuries as a Foreign Reserve Asset Barron’s
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Book tip:
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, by Liaquat Ahamed
Winner of the 2010 Pullitzer Prize for history…
Just the exact opposite in the tome is occurring right now, for those of you keeping score at home~
“As the Arctic warms up, the race to control the region is growing ever hotter”
Just waiting for Trump to announce that the US will be taking over the Arctic ocean and he will personally be administering its resources, especially the oil reserves. Just waiting for this prediction to happen in the next three years.
It’s the American Ocean !
“Artificial sun”, the last thing we need. Good news for the data center crowd, I guess. Also solves the sharks with ray guns problem.
From the Guardian piece on ocean heat,
“Global warming is ocean warming,” he said. “If you want to know how much the Earth has warmed or how fast we will warm into the future, the answer is in the oceans.”
That sounds correct to me.
I would say it’s not even second to last, beaten by “artificial intelligence”, “artificial meat”, and many other artificial things.
Please. Not “artificial”. “Optimized”.
“Fake”
From housing to groceries to energy, Americans say the economy is doing poorly Scripps News
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…as it goes in these times dept:
Now that i’m a randy sexagenarian I have to do it more frequently, and was in Smart & Final (supermarket & wholesale lot food service market-since 1871) in Visalia (146k pop), when the urge became omnipresent, practically sprinted towards the rest room in the back of the store that requires a 4 number code for entry, so very blocked, and another sprint to the front to find an employee, and there he is, ‘hey what’s the code for the bathroom?’ I plead, to low avail as he doesn’t trust me not to give out the combination to homeless lurking on the outside looking in every city in these not very united states, then escorts me to the promised land and keys in ****, but my moment had already passed.
Time for labs to get a PSA update. Symptoms often go together.
In other health news, don’t get the flu! Nasty bug that goes around a few times in offices, families and other gatherings. Take precautions.
I’m glad I invested in NyQuill (NYQ) stocks in particular, as i’m in the home stretch of this awful flu that has hit Tiny Town hard, by all accounts. I’ve been at it over a week and only got my appetite back a day ago. I’d prefer to jab myself with a GLP-1 instead if I wanted to lose weight.
You know that saying ‘he can pee like a racehorse!’, for me, its all that Lasix i’ve been taking.
If anyone’s wondering, the illustrative image for a hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile is a subsonic anti-ship cruise missile. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YJ-83
Archived version of How can Europe prevent a Greenland grab? (FT)
Thanks for the link. From the article “But the chances are slim of aligning EU capitals behind retaliation that many will regard as cutting off your nose to spite your face.”
Logic of paying off the bully. Strange the FT doesn’t understand the moral hazard when it is against the US.
However, some interesting ideas like threatening to kick the US out of military bases it needs for intel on Ukraine or treatment for injured US soldiers, or refusing to provide ice-breakers (killing Trump’s Arctic dreams).
Here is an idea, threaten to charge the US leader with genocide, so that Trump will be unable to go in person to pick up his nobel peace prize.
Oh, he would come in person, with the whole armada. Helicopters would fly in for the extraction of the Prize, and would hover while he is giving an acceptance speech.
I was watching a video, which of course I forgot to bookmark which pointed out that if it came to actual combat, the Nordic nations and Canada could inflict a huge amount of damage on US forces. They could not outright defeat the US but they could inflict a lot of pain.
The rationale? Those countries have cold weather troops. Cold weather fighting, well even surviving, is a specialized skill. Troops accustomed to fighting in 40℃ are going to be in a bit of shock fighting in -40℃ weather.
For that matter how long would it take to winterize equipment? From my own experience, at -40 to -50℃ lubricants start to congeal. Heaven knows what happens to hydrophilic fluids. I remember a heavy equipment operator in the Alberta oil patch telling me that you turned your diesel engine on in September or October and shut it down in April or so.
The Germans on the Eastern front in WWII, in winter, were fighting in comparatively tropical conditions.
The moment brigade-level US offensive forces are actually in peril, the moment the “enemy”‘s population centers are threatened with tactical nuclear strikes. Capitulation follows.
Regarding deer vs rhino
Jay Bruce was the official California State mountain lion hunter for about 30 years, and using hunting dogs dispatched 669 of them.
Any mountain lion could easily dispatch a dog in 2 swats flat, but there is something about dogs that freaks out much larger prey.
I asked my friend Molly how many black bears has diminutive Dachshund Gus treed in Mineral King in his storied career, and 2 bruins have been so captured on high by his vocal demands, and he is the only cur i’m aware of that took out an extended warranty on his vocal cords, a 9 inch high 2 & 1/2 feet long barking machine.
This video of Jay Bruce is from around a century ago with commentary added later by Jay.
I learned so much about mountain lions, and let me just say, that when they coined the word indefatigable, they had Jay in mind.
FD: A number of mountain lions were killed say 103 years ago in the video~
Jay Bruce-Lion Hunter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pagxtJB50Yc (40 minutes)
Dachshund Gus has competition.
I have never seen a rhino behaving playfully, quite a treat.
As to bears and cougars fearing dogs, let me speculate. There is a tendency, even among fierce predators, to avoid even non-lethal injury as they may result in infection and eventual death except when food, mating, or being cornered are involved. Even so, I once observed a group of coyotes drive a grizzly off a carcass. He got tired of getting nipped in the butt while going after others that were dancing tauntingly in front of him. Also, dogs, like their wolf forbearers are pack animals, so where there’s one there may be others. And finally, black bears tend to retreat in the face of possible aggression. According to Herrero they evolved in forested habitats and prefer going up a tree to avoid danger. Grizzlies on the other hand evolved in the open plains where, with nowhere to hide, aggression was the better means of survival.
Herrero’s book Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance is really worth reading for those who live in or intend to spend time in bear country.
If I were a cougar, say 30,000 years ago, one of my biggest fears would be to cross a canis lupus, knowing that a pack might be nearby, ready to support their own. Perhaps that explains the fear of human’s best friend.
The rhino and deer were obviously playing.
I think the rhino was non-verbally expressing the idea that it did not have any personal problem with the truculent faun.
I lead a sheltered life. No TV for example. No social media apps. For me doomscrolling is NC and a couple of specialist discussion forums. And since Snowden my web browsers are crippled so most web sites are broken one way or another. One breaking add-on is called Cookie AutoDelete which has all sorts of consequences including that when I go to youtube I get a blank page with a search field so I don’t see much that I don’t ask for. In this context I read
and wonder, what is brainrot? I want to see some brainrot on YouTube.
Well, that can be arranged. Mashable is quoting an article by Liam Curtis including what looks like some real research published by Kapwing, a maker of video production software tools. It includes a short text definition of brainrot but it just raises questions for me. Turns out Kapwing has a short tutorial video on the topic that I found quite helpful: How AI Brainrot Took Over The Internet (6 min). I remain a little unclear on the distinction between brainrot and Italian brainrot but maybe I don’t need to know.
What is the point of EU agricultural and labor standards if countries without them can simply sell their goods anyway? This deal is just regulation arbitrage, an officialdom stamp of approval for what was once called ‘smuggling’. Honestly, the PMC technocrats are increasingly morphing into mafia accountants.
In completely unrelated news, IDF hand grenades are being used to start fires in Patagonia forests soon to be prime farmland. This is getting really tiresome.
“Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’”
If I were a Greenlander, I wouldn’t worry about that. The Trump regime will never let the people there have American citizenship as that means representation in legal courts. You might find that in a year or two, they will ship in ICE agents to round up all the “illegals” living in American territory and shipping them to regions where they will feel at home – like Argentina or Somalia or maybe Nigeria.
Its all good being an American until they get hooked at the Club Igloo Inuit Casino
If I were a Greenlander
And you Greg Bovino
Would you marry me anyway
And move to Mendocino
If I were a Greenlander
And you Joseph Edlow
Will you restore my integrity
Can my mom and dad go
If I were a Greenlander
And you, Kristi Noem
Would you marry me anyway
Will you write me a love poem
It’s a hard day to laugh, but you managed to do it for me.
“And move to Mendocino”
Major LOL! Boy did I need that belly laugh, thanks!
Paraphrasing Edward I from Braveheart:
“The problem with Greenland is that it’s full of Greenlanders.”
I found this absurdly antidotal:
https://substack.com/@badspit/note/c-197987716?r=1nuy4
Lol! Think snow!
Dogs have attitude whereas cats love stealth. Clearly it’s a personality mismatch. Small dogs have even more attitude.
And re J.D.’s trash talk–Usha Vance seems like a nice person and should probably seek a more compatible mate.
If she were a nice person she wouldn’t have married JD. If she were a nice person, she wouldn’t be willing to do “missionary work” on his behalf.
From Wiki: In March 2025, she went on a visit to Greenland, which caused a diplomatic spat. Prime minister Mute Egede called the visit “a provocation”, and said she is not welcome in Greenland, noting that “until recently, we could trust the Americans, who were our allies and friends, and with whom we enjoyed working very closely, but that time is over.”
She’s not a nice person. She’s another DC sell-out, where it’s all about status and position. I confidently predict that America’s “Second Lady” will never divorce her “Second Man”. A woman with a conscience might. Not her.
Some dogs are stealthy enough to catch squirrels and rabbits but it’s not common. Most of them are rubbish hunters, noisy, crashing around like idiots, which can be useful to a human hunter (also to a herder) but not so much on their own.
The Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever is an interesting example. It’s job is in two parts. The first part is duck tolling: it goes to the water’s edge and plays around like a fool to attract the attention of ducks. The ducks need to evaluate the risk and to do so they sail towards the dog to investigate. The hunter shoots one or more of them and the dog does the retriever part. So the breed spec actually includes the attitude you mentioned, taunting (tolling) ducks. Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers are fashionable and expensive and the two I have known were lovely, wonderful dogs.
I thought this all so funny that I invented a related dog breed for Lucy. She’s really a Georgia Pound Mutt but if you ask me what she is I may tell you she’s a Prince Edward Island Goose Impersonating Retriever.
Seems unlikely to me that Usha is in fact a nice person given that she has had and continues to have choices. If she wants to be FLOTUS then sticking with Jimmy is surely her best bet.
The way I see it, there’s a mountain of evidence that jd is a horrible person. On the other hand, I know nothing of Usha and will refrain from judgement by association. Thinking that she hasn’t dropped jd means she supports his opinions is overlooking the complexities of a partnership, this even before being in the public eye is added to the mix. She may turn out to be awful as well, or maybe she’s trapped in a marriage with someone whom she is scared of. If you all want to speculate, how about “jd has probably threatened her with physical violence if she doesn’t toe the line”?
Classy. And that is sarcasm.
My father said that on the farm cats were mousers and dogs were ratters — no idea what breed.
re: Germany ROSA-LUXEMBURG-CONFERENCE
JUNGE WELT daily has several online items on this annual event
see their homepage
usually translatable via google
https://www.jungewelt.de/
For instance this piece
Main purpose: return
Reducing bureaucracy while simultaneously demanding a state-run war economy: Neoliberalism has many faces. Its starting point, however, is always the alleged inequality of people.
By Jörg Goldberg
https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/513281.neoliberalismus-hauptzweck-rendite.html
Re Rihanna’s headphones – might they be for stage use?
In-ear monitoring is common in music performance, headphones less so but they do get used. High end in-ear monitors can cost $3k. (Mine cost me $1200 about 10 years ago. There are less expensive options now; I’m currently using some that aren’t molded to my ears for about $60.)
So, these make sense to me as a stage device. The glitz is part of the show. Not sure where else they make any kind of sense at all.
Best…H
Very Bollywood. / ;)
You can get outstanding in-ear-monitors / earbuds for as little as $25 USD now.
I can’t imagine using over ear headphones for monitors on the stages I play. Scale that way up to Rihanna’s level and I just don’t see how that could work, especially assuming there’s some kind of dancing or movement going on as well.
Hairpins to hold the crown in place — works lots better with a crown — more anchor points as opposed to plain old headphones
Almost certainly not useful on stage as anything other than wardrobe. They make no sense for anything other than a status symbol.
Too cheap for a status symbol. It should have some diamonds and stuff.
Doesn’t he understand that discrimination against ethnic minorities is one of the most important European values there is?
We’ve got the Roma, the Russians and I ‘m sure there are a lot more.
There were a lot more. Now?
Trump: “Roma? You mean like the ancient guys with the legions?”
re: Germany BSW
After the local government coalition in the state of Brandenburg fell apart fingers of course are pointing at BSW instead of trying to understand what really is going on.
Therefore this quick summary of an interview with Fabio De Masi by BERLINER ZEITUNG
machine-translation
“Arranged weeks ago”
BSW CEO Fabio De Masi accuses Crumbach of lying and announces a change in BSW strategy.
Following the collapse of the coalition in Brandenburg, BSW leader Fabio De Masi accuses the Brandenburg SPD of deliberate deception. His party is to pursue a new strategy in the future.
https://archive.is/1aN83
It is obvious that all is part of a larger tacit understanding entrenched in elite FRG ideology.
In a way nothing has changed since the advent of the First International and the elite´s war against it.
“What does the future hold for BSW? Will they make it into parliament?”
>> 13 kg deer takes on 1.7 ton rhino
People who can’t understand body language: AFP who posted that.
How those posters can be trusted if they even can’t discriminate between fight and friendship?
Yep. Those two were playing, play fighting.
reminded me of one of the antidotes with a golden retriever, I think, and a kitten “attacking.”
Yes, clearly play with all that frisking around. They are having fun.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
Hospice care fraud has been a known issue, across the board, for years. The fact they are circling California just proves this is political retribution, not genuine interest in combating fraud.
Fraud is a serious issue and should be combatted, regardless of locale. No need to put the race card in play. A crime is a crime and the rest of us feel like chumps when it is not treated as such.
I remember watching a true crime show a few years ago. The case involved a Somali couple in America who had allegedly murdered their daughter because she had chosen the “wrong” boyfriend.
They were under investigation for her murder and consequently their communications were being monitored. Here’s what one of them said on tape (paraphrased): “I love America. It’s so easy to rip off.”
Of course this is not strictly the attitude of Somalis or any other immigrants for that matter. I am sure that many native-born Americans share the sentiment, including many corporate CEO’s.
The solution is to stop America from being “so easy to rip off”.
To be clear, hospice when it was done by the churches was a wonderful thing. A true gift and service to the community. I am old enough to remember those days as a physician and I remember the numbers of literal saints that went into all kinds of not so good places and situations to make those patients have the best passage possible. The churches are now long gone. Now, it is PE and big corps, and the stories are not at all infrequent of people being kept alive or offed early only on the whims of the profit motive. It has now reached the point that for the past decade or so, when hospice is involved, I insist on being the doctor of record. Absolutely no games can be played then. Hospice is now a blight on my profession and the fraud involved and the subsequent human suffering is just simply boggling to behold.
I cannot speak to day care and autism center fraud. I can speak to Medicare, Medicaid, NH, home health, and medical equipment fraud……and it is absolutely overwhelming. Nothing like this even remotely happened thirty years ago. You know as a provider that something is up when you get forms from distant states about things you never ordered. Especially on patients dead for 4 years, etc. And much to the chagrin of our entire bruhaha right now, I may be wrong, but I cannot recall ever in my life a single one of these coming from Minnesota. No, the states involved are almost always California, Florida, Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York. Those states accompany the vast majority – 95% of the obvious fraud I see.
A very simple first step would be the banning of ANY billing from anything but local companies or vendors. As in people I know personally and can deal with them to their face if needed. Just FYI, local fraud billing never happens…..it is always from distant states.
All those episodes where we read that people’s ID information has been stolen are really benefiting the fraudsters. They are really getting their money’s worth.
My 75 year old mom recently passed away after a brief stint at a comfort care home on hospice. It was a wonderful place specifically built to house those at the end of life – overlooking one of the beautiful Finger Lakes.
The last months in the hospital prior to the comfort care home were EXPENSIVE and UNNECESSARY. The surgeries and testing and and and was never necessary but the ‘team’ was always trying to get her ready for a discharge to rehab that was never in the cards anyway.
Finally my siblings and I put our collective feet down on behalf of mom and said NO MORE – she is ready to move to the next stage of existence because hospital bedridden is no life at all.
After she peacefully passed at the comfort care home in December, the final hospital bill arrived this week in the mail.
$19k after medicare – joke is on the hospital because there is no estate. The insurance company (MVP medicare) had paid well over $150k in hospital/medical charges in 2025 – the billed amount was over $450k.
Medical Billing = Wanna Bezzle
RIP Mom!
Sorry for your loss. My Mom went two years ago and I still dream about her. At least you will have decent memories of your Mom. She went peacefully and she knew that you and your siblings cared about her.
My Mom was in a similar situation, at least at the beginnings of it, and said “Enough” after the medicos tried to put her in the hospital for “treatment” that had been done on an outpatient basis and had finally lost effectiveness.
My sisters and I agreed and refused attempts to ‘force’ Mom into hospital treatment.
Mom spent her last years “at home” with Little Sister and her family and, from what I heard and saw, enjoyed being the live-in Grandmom.
Here’s to Saint Luigi and his Merry Band of Adjusters.
re: ‘This is what a cover-up looks like’: Fury as Trump administration kicks local investigators off Renee Nicole Good ICE shooting probe – Daily Mail
Yes, it looks like a cover-up. ‘Cover-up Kash’ – Patel’s new nickname.
Did anyone else look at the included photo of T. If it’s not doctored then T is wearing an American flag lapel pin, of course. Right below the flag pin he appears to be wearing a … wait for it… a Donald Trump lapel pin. “L’État, c’est moi.”
Can image Trump misquoting Louis XV of France, ‘avec moi, le déluge’.
From The Hill article
When not doing the Sun King Trump also like Patrick Swayze in Road House: “my way or the highway.” As the flabby Trump lacks Swayze’s intimidating physique he prefers to let the Dept of War perform his bouncer duties if his potty mouth isn’t enough.
Rire.
+ +
Thank heaven I hah put down my tea.
Not doctored:
Trump wears a new ‘Happy Trump’ lapel pin, but insists he’s never happy
This is the problem when AI slop is less weird than surreal reality.
– ‘Spineless Starmer is turning UK into military pygmy’: Farage blasts PM as Iran’s leader in exile pleads for British support and top brass warn of funding crisis’ – Daily Mail
LOL! I clicked on this story solely to determine who “Iran’s leader in exile” was in this story. Though I suspected, I thought surely even the Daily Mail would not refer to “crown prince Reza Pahlavi” as “leader in exile.” In what world, and in what sense, could he possibly be considered Iran’s “leader”? And by whom? David Rockefeller and Barbara Walters are dead, so …
Iran faces a lot of serious problems, and some complicated political divisions. But one way to unite the population would be to try and foist Reza Pahlavi onto the Iranians as “leader.” So I assume this is simply for the consumption of ignorant Westerners. On the other hand, I also assume that chaos and civil war would be just fine with Israel and US neocons, so who knows what these crazies have in mind.
I watched a few minute’s of CBS’s Face the Nation TV program this morning. The guest they had was all pro attack Iran to save the Iranians. He didn’t exactly say ‘we had to destroy the village to save it.’ I tuned out after only a few minutes of his gungho ‘save the Iranians.’
“They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace.” — translation Loeb Classical Library edition
-Tacitus
Pardon my spleen, but the guest was probably some fat-assed, self-satisfied, content, under-worked, over-paid ignoramus who knew nothing of the world outside of DC and was perfectly content with that.
I have come to the conclusion that gungho people like these are the real threat to world peace. They are the F. Scott Fitzgerald bored and prosperous and careless of the ’20s. Feeling safe in Fortress North America after eighty years of peace but tired of it, with too much money and too much leisure, now looking for some excitement, amusement, or entertainment so long as it’s only on television and does not disrupt their social calendars.
The bored, idle rich. Remember 1914 Europe? After so many years of peace, so many of them were eagerly clamoring for war. Well, they got it, and were quickly disabused of their taste for blood and guts.
Times have changed and so has warfare. North America is no longer a fortress. Osama Bin Laden proved that 25 years ago. But these TV idiots go on as if they are immune to attack or retaliation. Their ivory-towers are due for a suicide-bombing or a nuclear detonation.
Keaton Weiss hosting the Jimmy Dore show talking with journalist Caleb Maupin. utube, ~18+ minutes.
The BIG PROBLEM With Trump’s New “Red Line” With Iran! w/ Caleb Maupin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzrGk5z3a1Q
First three paragraphs , no problem.
Fourth, questionable.
As far as I know, OBL had nothing to do with the enabling event.
But he was labelled as the reason for what was enabled.
I consider anyone who gives any credence to to the official story of nineeleven, to be at best, a little credulous
Rowling had posted a doctored image in a tweet calling for ‘saving Iran’ (basically).
Apparently, the argument goes, if you claim to stand for human rights, you can not side with the govt of iran and must support the protestors.
Several others, naturally, added that those refusing to do so, despite agitating for human rights in palestine, are revealing their ‘hypocrisy’.
Of course, JK had not (at the time I read it) responded to any of the comments pointing out that she was guilty of the reverse.
>>>Why Democrats keep losing support even as Trump
because the Dem. activist base are an innumerate herd of cats who would play with shiny culture war things than dealing with finance, the MIC, anti-trust/oligopoly, health care.
and (elephant in the room) they have destroyed class solidarity by pushing defacto open borders which destroys the wages of the multi-identity bottom 51% (see the Morlock warehouse/logistics workers, abbotoirs, back-of-the-house service industry, etc.)
While the power base are a coordinated phalanx of scoundrels making bank on finance, MIC, monopoly/oligopoly and health industry. I still 100% blame these people for trump and I doubt they mind what he’s doing in the least, and also miga…the whole lot of them, because america is already great
Tegnost, I completely agree with you! These democrats are just fine with what Trump is doing!
As long as he gives them the Kennedy center back when he is done! Why would anyone think that Chuck Schumer or that pretend black guy that Pelosi installed in the house are going to do ANYTHING! eve to stop Trump? They are all on his side. They will benefit from everything he does.
they have great healthcare, lots of money, fancy dinners and extra frosting on their cake. Life is great for these corrupt grifters.The money is just rolling in and they are rolling in it!
That woman shot in the face in her car, didn’t even register on their radar. She will be mentioned come time for the fools to come to the polls and vote for their worthless, no good ———
The Democratic activist base….OR is it really the Democratic Power Base who pursues that?
I think the Democratic Party is losing support because they support little or nothing important to any of the different aspects of the base because what the base wants is antithetical to the wishes of the donor class. The base is not the herd of cats you describe. They aren’t distracted by the shiny culture war things, the Democratic power base only wishes they were. They were the ones waving those flags. Their support has largely come down to lesser of two evils for close to two decades. And their uselessness is destroying even that.
lmao, chicken or egg…
i prefer to see it as a form of emergent-systems survivorship bias, but reasonable arguments can be made for a number of explanations….
but where ever there is money, there will always be useful dolts!
What’s the use of complaining. The Dims and the Repubs have closed the doors that will allow us to vote for a third party. We need to work on opening those doors. If we keep voting for the “lesser of the two evils” we’ll get nowhere.
Virus to watch by Patrick Jackson, Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases, University of Virginia, and recipient of Pfizer funding, somehow neglects to mention covid19. It is unlikely he doesn’t know that COVID is currently killing orders of magnitude more than the viruses to watch (H5N1, etc.), and yet, not worth watching.
I think he is signaling the overall governmental virus funding priorities to watch rather than actual viruses to watch. Way to go team human!
IMO Corinne Machado should give her Nobel to Trump, publically.
Along with a statement along the lines of “However much I treasure this prize it truly belongs to another who was only denied it due to political pressure brought by extremists, Donald J Trump, the GREATEST American president in history.”
Trump rewards world class suckbutts…
She should not mention Julian Assange’s recently filed lawsuit against the Nobel committee.
Pascal: “This morning I woke up to the horrible news that my channel had been deleted by YouTube due to infringements on “Spam and deceptive practices”. After 16 hours, I got it back. Here is the story.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwXKbTpKiTA/
YouTube Deleted Neutrality Studies
We can’t get off the slop train
Google is unleashing Gemini AI features on Gmail. Users will have to opt out
Thanks, Jason.
Here’s a how-to for turning off Goog’s Gemini AI assistant in Gmail.
From ZDNet:
How to turn off Gemini in your Gmail, Photos, Chrome, and more – it’s easy to opt out of AI
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-turn-off-gemini-in-your-gmail-photos-chrome-and-more-its-easy-to-opt-out-of-ai/
Reports from Reddit that Google takes away spelling and spam filtering and other goodies if you opt out.
GOOD THING I KNOW HOW TO SPELL ONOMATOPOEIA!
According to Google, my entire writing style is wrong and worthy of simplification. Any email I write in Gmail is now just dotted underlines in blue, which provide a hint on how to homogenize my writing such that we’re all writing the same things in the same ways.
How truly repugnant.
If I want to write with too many words, and as stream of consciousness with too many commas, because I like asides, that is my right.
Individual expression on the Internet is heading to zero fast.
I have similar feelings about Microsoft Word and its insistence that all commas be removed.
I am currently caring for a Chihuahua-Corgi mix that is the bane of the local black bear population. Strangely, the dog seems to think rabbits and squirrels are beneath her, not worth the time, and will ignore these even if they’re within feet of her snout, but give her a bear and it’s game on– she’ll chase the sucker for a quarter-mile or more.
Deer? There was one who’d regularly emerge from the woods during her walks to greet her in a game I call “teasing the wolf”:
https://youtube.com/shorts/KtuWnafsNv0?si=nrgh7ir-t-fK_N_E
[Oops, meant as a reply to Wuk]
The Indian bride caught in Australian nightmare with visa problems.
Kathrine cannot have her Chinese-Uyghur husband get a US visa to visit her parents for Christmas in the US. They live and work in China and plan to remain there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf8N3aMDLj8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymcqUmA4Hg0
Dachshund vs. Wild Boar (59 seconds)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN0-vN1P66M
Anduril 🤡
https://x.com/A1Anduril/status/2009791792187625942
…
“When I was in Ukraine… there was this [Russian] attack helicopter wreck.”
“The pilot’s go-bag… it had 3 or 4 days of water, 3 or 4 days of food, his dress uniform with dress shoes, and 50 condoms.”
…
JD Vance Says Americans Should Actually Thank ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good
That’s going a little far, I would say Americans should actually ask that the ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good, if he goes down on a capital murder conviction, that his sentence be commuted to life for the benefit of his children, not that he offered the same mercy to his victim.
If I were a firearms instructor, I would play that video as a demonstration of the unlawful use of deadly force. I can’t believe the right is trying to sell this as the lawful exercise of deadly force.
Digressing, I also think that instead of masks, maybe the DOGE boys could save some money and buy up some white hoods for all these ICE Agents.
I think fusion energy is far from producing more energy than it uses. Of course progress is good but the dream is still a long way off.
This should surprise exactly no one. Anyone who has done a thorough review of code written by someone else knows that it takes the same or (easily) more effort than writing the same code from scratch.
Software is such that one misplaced character can render a huge body of code useless. CPUs are incredibly ruthless when it comes to mistakes, as any software engineer knows, and most of us have been reduced to tears at one time or another trying to understand why code we wrote ourselves isn’t doing what we expected. With time and experience, these incidents become less frequent, but LLMs are incapable of learning so (a) presumably they will stay at the novice stage forever, and (b) the rewards for pointing out their mistakes are exactly zero.
If the day comes when I am forced to use AI generated code in my work product, I will gleefully let the chips fall where they may rather than spending nights and weekends trying to cover up its plentiful errors.
MOA links this long interview which is very interesting
https://asiatimes.com/2026/01/stephen-bryen-russians-much-stronger-than-they-were-4-years-ago/
The end of China’s one-child policy, 10 years later. Taipei Times
That’s one piece of rabid anti-China propaganda I could have gone without. I’m happy to read counter arguments, and that’s why I went there, but I also trust the links to set aside such low level propaganda, to be honest.
so this happened:https://x.com/halalflow/status/2010143049922343044
omg.
It was really painful to watch, when they were taking her ohtaide.
https://archive.ph/iwuml
Full transcript of Trump’s 2hr NYT interview
Margaret Kimberly just retweeted this:
Jerome Powell On Threatened DOJ Action Against Fed (Fed via X)
re: Craig Murray Palestine Action court hearing Monday January 12th
“We have been allocated Court No 1 in the Court of Session. This has a large public gallery, and I hope those able to do so will turn up for the hearing. It starts at 9.30am on Monday morning and we are asking people to rally outside from 9am.
I realise that 9am on a Monday morning in a stormy Edinburgh January is not an attractive prospect, but I do believe it is important to show the judge that people really do care about these issues.
If we win, then there will be a full judicial review looking at the wider questions of genocide prevention and the right to take direct action, and the disproportionate effect of the proscription on freedom of speech and assembly.
For those who cannot be here in person the hearing will be livestreamed from 9.30am on Monday morning.”
Court of Session Tomorrow on Palestine Action
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2026/01/court-of-session-tomorrow-on-palestine-action/
Federal Prosecutors Open Investigation Into Fed Chair Powell (NY Times)
LOL, sure.