Week 32

The Lever: "As war with Iran drove oil prices higher, Trump gave politically connected oil companies — not taxpayers — the chance to cash in on publicly owned oil."

F24: "US appeals court halts construction of Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom project.. The court added that a president cannot fundamentally reshape the White House without congressional approval."

The Guardian: "US to shut five consulates.. State department informs Congress of planned closures in Canada, Grenada, Japan, Indonesia and Cameroon"

The New Arab: "BDS hails end of 'Tech Zionism' experiment in Malaysia as Network School ordered to close.. The tech community, founded by US entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan, came under investigation earlier this month after social media users raised concerns about the alleged presence of participants from Israel – a country with no formal diplomatic ties to Malaysia."

"@ShadowJonathan@tech.lgbt

Apparently google trains or indexes their AI on your PRIVATE Google Drive Documents:

(TLDR; Indie dev had their audience ask Google highly specific questions about future content of their game, and it spat out an exact name of an upcoming enemy type. Furthermore it listed scrapped ideas and ideas that only existed in their private Google Docs.)"

"@jonny@neuromatch.social

Uber driver had a reason for being vegetarian I hadn't heard before: 'if you add up all the hamburgers people eat, there aren't enough cows for that, so meat must be fake'"

"@ethanschoonover@mastodon.social

[H]and editing an rss feed and, honestly, so satisfying. the web is really mostly still just text folks. reclaim it."

A lot of these lifestyle tubers seem to be loaded. Staying at a 5-star hotel during a quick transit trip in Istanbul? 3 bedroom apartment rental in Greece for a "lifestyle change" adventure? Side vacations in Montenegro? Daem.

TAC: "Tucker Carlson Releases 10-Point Manifesto for America.. State of the Union: The influential commentator is expected to announce the formation of a new political party."

Al-Monitor: "'A claim to be tested': Can Saudi Arabia-Turkey-Pakistan defense pact deter Iran?.. The pact commits the three countries to collective defense, bringing together NATO's second-largest army, the Muslim world's only nuclear power and the guardian of Islam's holiest sites."

Hogg: "I got kicked out of the DNC for daring to challenge old, corrupt, and asleep-at-the-wheel Democrats in safe blue districts. Now, [Leaders We Deserve's] first incumbent challenger.. has defeated Rep. Shri Thanedar. LFG!!!"

WaPo: 'Donavan McKinney wins Democratic nomination for U.S. House in Michigan's 13th Congressional District. #APRaceCall at 9:55 a.m. EDT.'

"El-Sayed's Win Isn't Just Historic—It Proved Something Many Thought Impossible.. He was outspent 11 to 1. His opponents deployed more than $60 million in outside spending against him—including AIPAC money, corporate PAC money, and a coordinated, grotesque anti-Muslim disinformation campaign designed specifically to disqualify a brown Muslim man from seeking public office. He won anyway."

David Hogg: "To the young people that turned away from Dems in 2024: There is a growing movement across the country to build a better political system that actually represents you not AIPAC or the corporations that have fucked us our entire lives. But we can only win if you vote."

Roarty: "Democrats will remember 2026 as the year their party’s establishment lost its once total control of the primaries — outmaneuvered and overwhelmed by a progressive insurgency... Michigan is the latest example, but far from the only one."

"@mike_k@mstdn.social

Jetbrains [programming tool / environment] calls coding without an AI 'classic mode'"

Who gives a shit

Le Monde: "Nolan's Odyssey is probably one of the most faithful cinematic adaptations of the Homeric text"

"GeofCox@climatejustice.social

.. Thomas Piketty has analysed what actually happened when most western economies had very high marginal tax rates (eg. 90%). He calls it 'predistribution' - obviously, people stopped asking for astronomical salaries, or dividends. What's the point ? Instead, companies reinvested profit - and this is one of the reasons economic growth, wage growth, training programmes, etc were all higher in the period between the war and the 1980s, when marginal tax was highest - and, far from the 'trickle down' expectations of the neoliberals, all these declined once tax was cut."

Lyndon LaRouche, The Ugly Truth About Milton Friedman: "[1980] Friedman cites his 'free market' predecessors to be Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill. Every one of these individuals was a senior official of the British East India Company, which was conducting the aboveboard opium trade as the world's biggest business. Smith drew up the plans for Company's plan for expansion into the great Chinese market, Ricardo sat on its board of directors, Bentham published the Company's official history, and Mill was chief of East India Company intelligence during the first Opium War."

The Lever: "The fight between Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens is about far more than one Senate seat. It's a battle over who controls the Democratic Party—and whose interests it serves."

IC: "Stevens Posts Bizarre, Racist Rant Against El-Sayed as He Surges Ahead in Polls.. The Stevens campaign has already faced scrutiny over some of her backers’ racist and Islamophobic messaging"

The 20% is making art for itself.. Sam poyot, sam slushayet as the Russians say, "he sings himself he listens himself", similar Anatolian proverb kendi çalıp kendi oynuyor. In US the expression would be the person is sucking his own cock.

The next phase of MCU will be the "mutant saga"? Oh my.. That means they will be taking the "persecuted by the government" angle to a whole new level. Just watch.

The movie is doing well.. But what does that mean? The creators of this stuff should not feel too proud of their psyop, when you run the numbers their reach is at maximum 20% of the population (there is the 1%, the 10% and the 20%, right?). The affluent, well-to-do, people with some money are watching, if the box office goes higher it is the same group re-watching. That means manipulative Holywood masters are not reaching the poor, people saddled with debt, who can't afford $500 emergency payment, who can't afford to go see a movie. Which means whatever is coming for you finally comes, what needs to happen does happen, there will be no Spider-Man to save you. Your little psyops are useless.

If I'm a citizen in a country and there is an individual there who can throw around trucks, yes, I would want my government to be able to kick his ass. There is nothing "evil" about that, in the same way if "special", "gifted" billionaires want to reroute rivers, pollute the air, burn the atmosphere and develop monopoly power I would want the government to be able to say no.

The new Spider-Man had some anti-government (indirectly pro-corporate) messaging; when the Marry Jane character made a negative comment about corporations the situation was made light of, the criticism did not stick. Same character went off on government, it went unanswered. Moreever the main plot of the movie turns a branch of government into an evil force. Cops were fine, naturally pictured as mostly helpless (because they are a public institution, an inventive -enterpreneur-like?- "gifted" teenage kid will always best them). This other gov org however was bad, bad, bad.. They capture and torture "gifted", "special" characters (through them we are feeling sorry for other "special" people in society, enterpreneurs, business people perhaps? who can also alter fates of others like these gifted people), hell they even develop weapons against Spider-Man in case one day he goes berserk (which he did btw). Generally the technique was same old, same old, the usual corporate Holywood... They will badmouth, create an aura of suspicion around government always, because the rich people who fund their movies are afraid being taxed at higher rates one day, by that same government.

The Bobs - Psycho Killer

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"@jonny@neuromatch.social

you know how much programming costs me now? ZERO DOLLARS AND ZERO CENTS."

#TheOnion

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The Guardian: "Stronger EU borders needed after Ceuta crisis, von der Leyen says"

Politico: "AIPAC front and center in Bell-Bush rematch.. The rematch between Rep. Wesley Bell and Cori Bush puts the U.S.-Israel relationship under scrutiny."

CNBC: "[JP PM] Takaichi’s fiscal push could lift growth — and Japan’s already-rising interest bill"

The government pushed for this (kansei shuntō) starting with Kishida continuing the current PM, bcz they want higher wages, previous scheme only helped large corporations and the rich (low rates forever). That was fine for some, but people did not have money to spend, econ stagnated, rates remained low. Japan wants to change things, tired of status quo, but of course there are side effects to any change.

Reuters: "[03/23] Japanese companies have agreed to raise wages by more than 5% for a third consecutive year, ​early results from annual labour talks showed on Monday, reflecting sustained gains ‌in pay that policymakers see as key to fostering durable economic growth."

The carry-trade angle is old news, circa 2024

The origin of the recent Yen crisis seems to be Japan's public debt, at 230% of its GDP. When more spending was announced the markets freaked out thinking that Japan would not be able to service the debt, Yen fell. Higher BOJ rates can strenghten a currency during normal times, but with excessive debt that begs the question "can they repay with even higher rates?". Caught between rock and a hard place investors flee. US intervened because they fear falling Yen and rising Japanese bond rates would cause a sell-off on its Treasuries, raising their borrowing rates.

"The light-water reactor problem" is not unique to Hungary or Romania. LWR tech is the most widely used nuclear technology on the planet, and it was popularized, like many other bad approaches, by the United States, then copied by others around the world. The pattern should sound familiar, battery electric tech spread in a similar way.

Nuclear reactors should not need a large body of water to cool. Alternatives exist.

This is what you get for betting on a stupid technology

DW: "Dry Danube River threatens nuclear power in Romania, Hungary.. Hungary's Paks nuclear power plant was operating at about 10% of capacity because of a lack of cooling riverwater. In Romania, the military blew up a rock outcrop in a bid to improve water flow to the Cernavoda plant."

"@glyph@mastodon.social

Really wondering if these Thought Leaders who are now — at this late moment, now that the KOSPI is tanking and Nadella is saying that trusting OpenAI will annihilate your business — are coming around to the idea that maybe LLMs aren’t really all that useful, will give any credit to the people who have been saying it for years..

[W]hat I substantively want is for e.g. Squawk Box to be replaced entirely with a show that is just Ed Zitron and Michael Burry reviewing spreadsheets line by line"

Osenilo: "[Quantum] Nonlocality: A Bug, Not a Feature?.. Have you ever wondered why quantum mechanics is so 'weird'? Particles that are simultaneously here and there.. instantaneous communication between photons across any distance. That’s called quantum nonlocality, and popular science articles sell it as an established fact.

But what if I told you that all this 'nonlocality' might be nothing more than a mistake in how we count coincidences?..

In a scientific paper that is soon to be published, we build a classical local model where:

• Each photon has a hidden property — its polarisation orientation,

• Delays are computed using ordinary optical laws,

• Detectors are threshold integrators,

• The coincidence window is simply a time interval.

And guess what? This model reproduces the famous quantum correlation curve almost perfectly (error margin 0.06)...

All the 'magic' is created by the coincidence window...

If this is true, then:

• Quantum nonlocality ceases to be an experimental fact. It becomes an artefact of the methodology.

• We can build intuitive, 'magic‑free' models — photons do not communicate faster than light; they simply have real properties that we haven’t yet learned to measure properly.

• Many philosophical conclusions about the 'unreality' of the world turn out to be premature.

And most importantly: this can be tested right now, by re‑analysing old experimental data. No new setups are needed — we just need to look at the arrival time of each photon inside the window"

But these are unpleasant thoughts... Let's talk about UFOs.

This is the same Black Bill Clinton DOJ which happily worked with Epstein to provide Rothschilds, through him, a settlement "after some U.S. patrons of its banks hid assets in Switzerland #Forbes". You got money, you get helped via Epstein. You don't got money, you are just a guy, a grunt writing a memoir, the MIC, the private complex, the surface state tries to bury you.

Bissonnette said in an interview his book included no such material. Obama DOJ simply went after him because he revealed some embarrassing details that contradicted the official narrative.

The Guardian: "[2016] Matt Bissonnette, whose book No Easy Day included firsthand account of Osama bin Laden’s killing, ruled to have violated non-disclosure agreements.. The book triggered a justice department investigation into claims it contained classified material."

Another example of the "racial hierarchy" - the new (black) Captain America needed a sidekick (the new Falcon), they picked a Hispanic for that

Black Panther: Wokeanda Forever was eye-wateringly woke. But its creators probably did not have any other choice. Black Panther is such an iconic role for black people, after Chadwick Boseman died, they could not simply replace him, not right away. His passing had to be mourned, within the movie, which meant the mother, the sister, the all-female guard had to be on the forefront, they had to mourn while advancing the movie's plot, with the sister being the heroin, the mother the new queen, so on. Basically a lot of wah-men.

But what made the movie offensively Woke was the "racial hierarchy" they created. The creators needed an enemy, they picked an Hispanic man for that, he was beaten by Wokeanda's lightweight female Black Panther. I've seen more than a few comments by chicos being unhappy about that bcz they were cucked.

"The Last 5 Engines You Can Still Rebuild in Your Garage'

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There it is.

"The name 'tamarind' comes directly from the Persian phrase Tamar-i-Hindi, meaning "Indian date." Introduced through Indian trade, tamarind became a staple souring agent across southern Iran, integrated into fish stews, chutneys (torshi), and meat marinades where northern cooks would typically use sumac or verjuice (ghooreh)."

I detect some Indian cuisine influence in Persian cooking.. eg Fesenjan

"@jalefkowit@hachyderm.io

The Algorithm has noticed that I am getting older. And it’s pretty sure that’s all about me it needs to know"

"Everything AI Does When You Ask It to Start a Lemonade Stand"

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"Google kills AlphaFold — so much for AI curing cancer"

Persian influence in TR (and vica versa) is much larger than any other migratory peoples, including the Turks who represented only 10% of the inflow and were quickly assimilated away. Anatolia is not, and has never been culturally (and genetically) Turkish in its majority. The 1923 historical narrative is based on a lie.

Thakker: "New Poll Shows Swing District Voters Prefer 'Outsiders' to Boring Centrists .. New polling of 18 toss-up U.S. House districts, shared exclusively with Zeteo.. shows that independent voters and even self-proclaimed moderates are largely not looking for the archetypical 'moderate' candidate, and are not even particularly dissuaded when alternative candidates they may support are labeled by opponents as too far left."

Ryan Grim: "After endorsing El-Sayed, 314 Action is pouring huge money into a race where AIPAC has bundled heavily. Matt Klein in MN02 also has DMFI support."

"MIT professor Ted Postol says Patriot air defense systems achieved only a 2–3% success rate and questions claims about their effectiveness."