Apr 22, 2025
Tech Update
Turns out that Open A.I. hallucinates, and the more recent iterations hallucinate more frequently than the older versions.
Bot traffic on the intertoobz is now greater than human-generated content and interaction.
Daddy State Awareness Guide
4. They change the meaning of words to suit their needs.
a) if it's false but it works in my favor, then it's true
b) if it's true but it works against me, then it's false
Welcome To Coin-Operated Government
And now, a word from the Trump administration’s sponsors
The pay-to-play takeover of the Easter Egg Roll could be just the beginning.
There is apparently no American institution, no matter how benign, that Donald Trump can’t degrade. Now, he has done it to the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.
Monday’s version of the event looked much like all the others since the tradition began in 1878 — except this one was sold to the highest bidders. The news release from the first lady’s office listed no fewer than 11 activities at the egg roll with corporate sponsors trying to curry favor with the president.
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The cryptocurrency company GALA hosted a digital egg hunt. Betty Crocker Dessert Decorating parent Signature Brands hosted the cookie-decorating station, and another Signature Brands company, PAAS, ran the egg-coloring activity. While alarm bells were sounding on Wall Street during another bloody Monday, the New York Stock Exchange hosted a “Ringing of the Bell Photo Opportunity” at the egg roll. The National Confectioners Association handled “Easter Candy Distribution.” The Toy Association operated the “Play Garden.” The International Fresh Produce Association also had a role in the roll.
Then there were the big three: Google’s YouTube sponsoring the Bunny Hop Stage (where the Marine Band was to perform); Meta hosting an “AI-Powered Experience and Photo Opportunity”; and Amazon providing the “Reading Nook” and photo-op. (Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
Trump gazed upon this assemblage of corporate courtiers from a White House balcony and announced that “We’re going to honor Jesus Christ very powerfully.”
Among those listed as readers at the Reading Nook was Jennifer Hegseth, wife of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The first lady’s announcement did not specify Jennifer Hegseth’s choice of readings, but she could have selected the Signal group chat, reportedly shared with her and others by her husband, detailing U.S. attacks in Yemen — including F/A-18 flight plans. Proposed sponsor for that reading: Boeing.
Also on the list for the nook was Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, who could have read to kids about his plan to keep Ukraine out of NATO and to carve it up among allied forces “like what happened with Berlin” after World War II. Proposed sponsor: The Russian Embassy.
Another featured reader: Kristi Noem, who could have chosen news accounts of her recent visit to an El Salvador prison, where the Homeland Security secretary made a video while migrants deported without due process were forced to stand behind her as a backdrop, shirtless and with heads shaved. Proposed sponsor: The American Barber Association. (Noem is particularly in need of financial support after having her handbag, containing $3,000, her passport and her security badge, stolen at a D.C. restaurant on Sunday night.)
If you’re appalled by the pay-to-play takeover of the egg roll, I have bad news. The U.S. government is going to need a lot more corporate sponsorship if Trump continues to operate his presidency as though it were sponsored by the American Pyrotechnics Association.
The IRS is now on its fifth commissioner in just 90 days, after the most recent one lasted only 72 hours. Because of personnel chaos (Trump plans to cut IRS staff in half), and the agency’s sharing of confidential taxpayer information, experts predict a wave of noncompliance — and a revenue shortfall so huge the Treasury Department will have to be sponsored by the American Bankruptcy Institute.
The obvious solution to this shortfall: Selling sponsorships for government assets and functions. As a side benefit, it will also be an act of truth in labeling.
Benjamin Netanyahu already dominates Trump’s Mideast policy; make him pay for a sponsorship. Same for El Salvador’s authoritarian ruler, Nayib Bukele, who apparently has the last word on U.S. deportation policy. The National Coal Council appears to be running the Environmental Protection Agency, banks have triumphed over a decimated Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the cryptocurrency industry has overrun the Securities and Exchange Commission. They should at least pay for naming rights to their trophies.
The Elon Musk Department of Defense is poised to give SpaceX a huge contract to build a missile defense system — the latest way the Trump pal stands to profit from the government he is dismantling. Likewise, the Peter Thiel Department of Homeland Security has been sending funds to a company owned by the major Republican donor, thanks to lobbying by Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski; other Thiel businesses are poised to reap even more.
Perhaps the Social Security Administration could enlist the National Funeral Directors Association as a sponsor of its efforts to reclassify living people as dead.
It’s hard to know which group would be the best sponsor of the various crises Trump is setting in motion: cutting back on food and infant formula safety; decimating the Education Department and student-loan forgiveness; setting off a trade war and causing markets to plunge.
For gambling with our safety, the American Gaming Association?
For risking economic ruin, the American Preppers Network?
For my (dwindling) money, there is one industry group that deserves naming rights above all others. The Trump administration resembles nothing so much as the National Demolition Association.
Lose Him
A defiant Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took aim at “leakers” during a Tuesday interview on Fox News amid a deepening controversy stemming from his use of Signal, an encrypted but unclassified messaging application, to disseminate sensitive information, as well as from a staffing upheaval at the Pentagon. Hegseth said those at the Defense Department who are aiding the “hoax press” are trying to “sabotage” President Donald Trump’s agenda. Trump said Monday that Hegseth was “doing a great job.” Hegseth’s future is certain to be a topic when White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt holds a briefing for reporters Tuesday afternoon.
Yeah, right. Cuz the real problem isn't that Hegseth blabbed secret information practically out in the open - twice. The real problem is that he needs us to think it's all about the leakers.
It cannot be that they just don't hear what they say.
A Lesson
When people behave irrationally,
it's because their hope is being fed,
or their fear is being stoked.
The great misunderstanding about Machiavelli is that he was advocating in favor of shitty behavior (which is what assholes like Trump internalize in order to justify being totally without scruples).
The truth is that Machiavelli was just writing down his observations of the human condition.
It's not that we should abandon our principles if we want to survive &/or succeed, it's simply that people will abandon those principles under certain circumstances.
He who deceives, will always find those
who allow themselves to be deceived.
Overheard
Don't tell me what you believe.
Show me how you treat people,
and I'll know what you believe.
Apr 21, 2025
Today's BlueSky
"Kennedy’s disgust with and devaluation of autistic people fits neatly into a eugenic logic that views health as virtue, and sees illness, or difference, as a kind of moral lapse which should be subject to punishment or censure."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 21, 2025 at 12:06 PM
[image or embed]
The 5th
No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
- It doesn't say "citizen"
- It doesn't say "except for undocumented migrants"
- It doesn't say "white people"
- It doesn't say "unless some jagoff on social media decides he gets to make shit up"
Fifth Amendment
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
What is it you're having a hard time understanding? Assuming, of course, you've actually read the damned thing. And, of course, assuming you can actually fucking read.
Call It What You Want
... but it's prophecy, not science.
BKjr is doing what conspiracy fantasists always do. ie: He starts with his own pet conclusion, and then sets about fixing the "evidence" around it.
Alrighty Then
But c'mon - Hegseth thinks this is one big frat party.
Now all we need is a few Republican Senators who can get their heads outa their asses long enough to pressure Trump into nominating better people.
Exclusive: The White House is looking to replace Pete Hegseth as defense secretary
The White House has begun the process of looking for a new secretary of defense, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
This comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continues to find himself mired in controversy. NPR has also confirmed with the same official that Hegseth shared details ahead of last month's Yemen strikes with his wife and brother in a Signal chat on his personal phone, minutes after being updated by a senior U.S. military official. The news of the second Signal group chat about the mission was first reported by The New York Times.
In March, Hegseth shared details about action against Houthi targets in Yemen in a Signal chat with top White House officials that accidentally included a journalist.
Days after the Signal leak, the Pentagon warned the app was the target of hackers
In the last few weeks, four senior advisers to Hegseth have left abruptly, some accused of leaking. They have all released public statements suggesting infighting within the department of defense.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied that there's an effort to replace Hegseth, posting on X that President Trump "stands strongly" behind him.
Exclusive: The White House is looking to replace Pete Hegseth as defense secretary
The White House has begun the process of looking for a new secretary of defense, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
This comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continues to find himself mired in controversy. NPR has also confirmed with the same official that Hegseth shared details ahead of last month's Yemen strikes with his wife and brother in a Signal chat on his personal phone, minutes after being updated by a senior U.S. military official. The news of the second Signal group chat about the mission was first reported by The New York Times.
In March, Hegseth shared details about action against Houthi targets in Yemen in a Signal chat with top White House officials that accidentally included a journalist.
Days after the Signal leak, the Pentagon warned the app was the target of hackers
In the last few weeks, four senior advisers to Hegseth have left abruptly, some accused of leaking. They have all released public statements suggesting infighting within the department of defense.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied that there's an effort to replace Hegseth, posting on X that President Trump "stands strongly" behind him.
Error-Filled
DOGE is trying to eliminate errors by introducing error into its process.
DOGE is trying to provide transparency by making their results less transparent.
There can be no better example of Newspeak than the bullshit Trump and Elmo are spewing all day every day.
The good news is that Elmo is being ushered out, with the potential for him to choose between accepting his role as fall guy, or paying an exorbitant amount to Trump for the privilege of having everybody but Trump slag him as the fall guy.
A Dead Christian
I have little use for Popes, or for any church leader for that matter.
I will say that Francis seemed like an OK guy, and that he tried pretty hard to reconcile the Catholic church's hardass bronze age bullshit with the real world as we understand it today.
But leave it to MAGA to take a decent guy and shit-talk him before he's even cold in ground.
A TweeXt
It is truly a sad testament to just how fucked up this MAGA Regime is that somebody felt the need to write a community note explaining that the chiron is a just a joke.
We have to pull out of this skid.
A Tune
what language shall I borrow
to mourn the wasted years
the days are short and fewer now
and many are the fears
the house of endless mirrors
rebound my miseries
the calculated loop is thus:
it feeds thy fears to thee
upside down and backwards
but familiar all the same
these waters have been charted
we've already forgot
the dead navigators name
the new regime rolled in on
the tanks the last one left
and it weren't good vibes
just a futile disguise
and existential threats
the comedians were crying
and embraced like long lost brothers
and turned into snakes
and ate their tails in their tanks
as they interviewed each other
and the sycophants do stretches
and acrobatic feats
with logic measured
against the treasure
promised them by kings
oh you with bookshelf backgrounds
behind your talking heads
is there a tome behind
your lying eyes
to explain away the dead
what language shall I borrow
to mourn the wasted years
the days are short
and fewer now
and many are the fears
A Revoltin' Development
Maybe Xi sent them to Ukraine to observe the Russians, and learn how not to fight a 21st-century war.
But China has a lot more guys to waste, so maybe they're just looking at how the Russians are doing it, and that way they can boost their estimates as to the number of wasteable people they'll need to storm the beaches of Taiwan.
A former Western intelligence official told Reuters that approximately 200 Chinese soldiers are fighting for Russia in Ukraine. Two current U.S. officials, speaking anonymously, confirm that there are more than a hundred of them.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky put the number at 155. His forces have recently captured two of them.
Reuters reports that the U.S. government believes these soldiers are mercenaries and apparently have no “direct link” with the Chinese government. Whether this view is correct or not, Washington and other governments should impose severe costs upon China for permitting its nationals to enter the battle against Ukraine.
As an initial matter, China’s regime is in fact sending soldiers to that Eastern European country. Reuters reports that “Chinese military officers have, with Beijing’s approval, been touring close to Russia’s frontlines to draw lessons and tactics from the war.” The former Western intelligence official told the news service that these officers “are absolutely there under approval.”
“The Communist Party craves first-hand experience of the battlefield in Ukraine to inform its People’s Liberation Army for its future wars,” Richard Fisher of the Washington, D.C. area-based International Assessment and Strategy Center told me late last week. “For the PLA, the Ukraine battlefield offers the most livid and brutal evolution of the revolutionary and see-saw battle between unmanned weapons and electronic warfare defenses arrayed against them.”
“If the PLA can grasp and expand on the lessons of the Ukraine battlefield, it can vastly increase its chances of a rapid blitzkrieg victory in Taiwan,” says Fisher.
It is also likely that the Chinese officers are doing more than observing and reporting back to China. They may also be giving advice to their Russian counterparts. China, after all, has been backing Russia’s war effort from the beginning.
China almost certainly greenlighted the invasion with its 5,300-word joint statement issued by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Feb. 4, 2022, just 20 days before the Russian attack. Putin might have invaded earlier, but he evidently acceded to Chinese wishes and waited until after the end of the Beijing Winter Olympics to hit the former Soviet republic.
China has during the war supported Putin almost across the board. For instance, Beijing has purchased Russian oil sanctioned by the United Kingdom, U.S. and the European Union, opened its financial and banking systems to Russia’s institutions under sanction, provided military intelligence and diplomatic and propaganda support and sold both dual-use items and, according to some sources, weapons.
Given Beijing’s support to both Moscow and Pyongyang, it is unlikely that North Korea could have joined the war on Russia’s side without China’s approval.
With regard to the mercenaries, Beijing probably both knew and approved of their participation in the war.
“It is unlikely that these soldiers would have been permitted to travel to Russia without the full consent of the Xi regime,” Charles Burton of the Sinopsis think tank told me.
“Xi runs a near-total surveillance state and pays special attention to the interactions of its nationals with close partners such as Russia,” Burton, also a former Canadian diplomat stationed in Beijing, said. “A couple hundred military-age Chinese men leaving the country to fight in a foreign war is certainly something Beijing would know about.”
There are, for instance, bound to be Ministry of State Security agents monitoring visa applications for Russia.
The presence of Chinese soldiers in Ukraine is reminiscent of the “Chinese People’s Volunteers” who went to fight United Nations troops in North Korea beginning in 1950.
“China sending in an initial small cohort to join the Russians is consistent with Chinese Communist strategy to initially create plausible deniability and then a veneer of legitimacy for a gradual build-up of those at the front lines,” says Burton. “This will almost certainly be accompanied by the gradual introduction of sophisticated Chinese offensive weaponry,” he added.
Burton is also concerned that Russia, indebted to China because of the support in Ukraine, will not be able to say no when China demands that Moscow send forces to help it invade Taiwan or another neighbor.
The Chinese and Russian militaries regularly hold joint drills in East Asia. Therefore, the Pentagon should assume that these two powers, along with North Korea, will fight together during the next war.
So China probably sees great advantage in Chinese troops, even if just mercenaries, fighting in Ukraine.
The U.S. and other countries have imposed almost no costs on China for its extensive support for the Russian war effort. We should not be surprised, therefore, that Beijing now thinks it can, with impunity, send soldiers to fight in Europe.
Tell Us The Truth
Begin by explaining that the roots of civilization trace back to Egypt, a hub of advanced knowledge encompassing science, mathematics, philosophy, religion, and architecture. Emphasize that the earliest Egyptians were people of African descent, a fact that stands in stark contrast to the portrayals seen in Hollywood films.
Clarify that Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas and highlight that Mansa Musa of Mali was recognized as one of the wealthiest individuals in history. Inform them that Black Egyptians were pioneers of global exploration, having reached Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania long before others.
Illustrate that the concept of the meter was conceived in Egypt, derived from the measurement of a single drop of water, while the values of pi (approximately 3.14) and numerous geometric principles often attributed to Pythagoras and Thales originated there as well. Furthermore, the contributions of Imhotep, a remarkable scholar, have been largely overlooked in historical accounts.
Reinforce the notion that humanity’s ancestral origins were uncovered in Africa, and acknowledge that many groundbreaking inventions throughout history involved the contributions of Black individuals who have often been neglected in the narrative.
Encourage them to understand that Africa possessed written languages long before the arrival of ships and missionaries. Stress that unity is crucial for our survival and resurgence, asserting that concrete was invented in Egypt, not by later builders.
Apr 20, 2025
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