Any remaining respect I may have had for Jon Stewart just evaporated - after seeing him honoring a Neo-Nazi.

And, at all places, Disney World!

?

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/08/31/jon-stewart-pentagon-ukrainian-nazi-disney/

Jon Stewart and the Pentagon honor Ukrainian Nazi at Disney World

Alexander Rubinstein·August 31, 2022

Defense Department-sponsored “Warrior Games” featured liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarding a member of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion at Disney World. The Pentagon refused to tell The Grayzone whether US taxpayers funded the foreign competitors’ travel.

This August, during the Department of Defense’s annual Warrior Games at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarded a Ukrainian military veteran named Ihor Halushka the “Heart of the Team” award for “inspiring his team” with his “personal example.”

Halushka happens to have been a member of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has been armed by the US and integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard. The award-winning ultra-nationalist wore a sleeve over his left arm as he accepted the prize, presumably to cover up his tattoo of the Nazi Sonnenrad, or Black Sun.

 

Greenland ice sheet melting - declared irreversible.

Folks who continue to deny existence of climate change and the causes of global warming being uncontrolled/continual greenhouse gas emissions should no longer be listened to.

Especially after this -> https://phys.org/news/2022-08-greenland-ice-sheet-faster-irreversibly.html

A study published Aug. 29, 2022, demonstrates—for the first time—that Greenland's ice sheet is now so out of balance with prevailing Arctic climate that it no longer can sustain its current size. It is irreversibly committed to retreat by at least 59,000 square kilometers (22,780 square miles), an area considerably larger than Denmark, Greenland's protectorate state.

Even if all the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming ceased today, we find that Greenland's ice loss under current temperatures will raise global sea level by at least 10.8 inches (27.4 centimeters). That's more than current models forecast, and it's a highly conservative estimate. 

A sad week for the planet and human beings indeed.

As if I didn't have enough reasons to distrust corporations, here's one more.

Hmm, who could've predicted this? 

Hmm ... any human being who knows how to use their fucking brain.

Google employees frustrated after office Covid outbreaks, some call to modify vaccine policy

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/26/google-employees-frustrated-after-office-covid-outbreaks.html

 

This is the reason for the label - >   Corporations doing stupid things.

Protectors of the establishment and software - what could possibly go wrong for the public?

Violation of civil liberties.

Violence.

Death.

And no accountability whatsoever.

https://scheerpost.com/2022/08/26/defund-the-police-algorithms/

Norris was fortunate. As a civil rights attorney at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, he cleared up the situation relatively quickly. (The Walnut Creek Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.) But he saw how algorithms that capture and process plate numbers can lead to confrontations that can easily become deadly. He joined the campaign to ban Oakland police from using license-plate readers—not just because the machines are inaccurate but because they make policing more invasive. Algorithmic technology, he said, was one facet of an entrenched system of police surveillance. Plate readers were “just a different tool layered on to inequality and discrimination and driving while Black,” he told me.

Algorithms and artificial intelligence have dramatically expanded the ability of law-enforcement institutions to identify, track, and target individuals or groups. And civil rights activists say the new technologies erode privacy and due process. Community groups are beginning to understand the ramifications of AI for privacy, discrimination, and social movements and are pushing back. Across the country, a grassroots movement is emerging to resist the secrecy of police algorithms and to demand that lawmakers ban the most intrusive surveillance schemes.

Through facial-recognition programs, for instance, an officer can grab an image of a face from a surveillance video of a protest and then instantly cross-check it against a photo database. A “faceprint” can also be used in a “face analysis” to try to extrapolate demographic characteristics, such as gender, race, or even sexual orientation, according to vendor claims analyzed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Beyond just identifying an individual, face-tracking software can be used in tandem with other algorithmic technologies to trace the movements of a demonstrator as they travel home from a rally.

The technology is error-prone and often discriminatory. A recent study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that facial-recognition software misidentified Black and Asian faces 10 to 100 times more frequently than it did white faces.

 

2 long-play videos from the Grayzone I need to check out in more detail.

 

 

Once again - The US capitalist system is all about the illusion of democracy.

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/08/26/caitlin-johnstone-fbis-muting-of-hunter-biden-story/

As we’ve discussed previously, censorship by algorithm is becoming the preferred censorship method on large Silicon Valley platforms because it can be done to far more people with far less objection than outright de-platforming and bans.

BREAKING: Mark Zuckerberg tells Joe Rogan that Facebook algorithmically censored the Hunter Biden laptop story for 7 days based on a general request from the FBI to restrict election misinformation. pic.twitter.com/llTA7IqGa1

— Minds? (@minds) August 25, 2022

In addition to being censored across social media platforms, the Hunter Biden laptop story was first ignored and dismissed by the mainstream news media, then spun as a Russian disinformation operation. Those media outlets eventually came around to admitting that the leaked emails were probably authentic, and Hunter Biden tacitly authenticated them himself when he acknowledged that the information “could” have come from his laptop.

Nothing we know so far that came from that laptop was as scandalous as the unified front presented by the news media and Silicon Valley in reducing the political impact of an October surprise before a presidential election.

And now we know that the reason the world’s largest social media platform censored that particular story was because they were cautioned by the F.B.I. against allowing such information to circulate.

 

The key question to be asked, as Caitlin does -

 

How many of those other institutions suppressed that news story because they were told to by the F.B.I. or other government agencies?

 

What an embarrssment to WA state Pramila Jayapal is.

 

Let's see -

• No healthcare in the middle of a global pandemic.
• No real student debt relief.
• No end to the endless armed conflicts overseas by the military, or at home by the police.
• No codifying of abortion rights  -  for which the Democratic Party Brand has had close to 50 years to to.
  
• No actions of any kind to stop climate change, let alone even acknowledge that it's burning fossil fuels driven by unfettered capitalism.

Should I go on?

 

Hating a country or a nation - seems like it's harder and harder for imperial interests to market this, in this day and age.

For one thing  - not very many people who possess critical thinking skills like myself trust anything from the establishment  media.

For another, it's a lot harder to hate groups of  people in general when one can learn of their names.

Case in point -

https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/israel-attempting-put-down-palestinian-resistance-with-brutal-force-but-fails/

 

Still more things to do during the vacation.

But at least the main thing is done - I passed an exam and got a 'certification'.

Didn't pass by much, but fine.

All part of the process of staying relevant at work, and moving forward.

After all, a job is a job, but I do have responsibilities to take care of.

Some articles around the Internet that all seem to have something in common.

They all see the US capitalist system as the problem.

The Western Narrative on Russia & China

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/08/24/the-western-narrative-on-russia-china/

 

There is only one country whose self-declared fantasy is to be the world’s dominant power: the U.S.. It’s past time that the U.S. recognized the true sources of security: internal social cohesion and responsible cooperation with the rest of the world, rather than the illusion of hegemony. With such a revised foreign policy, the U.S. and its allies would avoid war with China and Russia, and enable the world to face its myriad environment, energy, food and social crises. 

 

The Progressive Industrial Complex and Our Fascist Future

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/24/the-progressive-industrial-complex-and-our-fascist-future/

 

Or we could see how the right is defining the situation for people in these and other countries, and how the visible elements of the left are generally talking about everything other than the central problem all of these societies face.  Because those visible elements of the left, or what people see when they’re looking for the left’s perspective on the situation, are represented by the leadership of entities such as the British Labor Party, the Socialist Party in France, the Democrats in the US, and the equivalents of these parties in India (the Congress Party) and Brazil (the Workers Party), etc.  And all of these parties, perhaps with the exception of the Brazilian example, have long ago embraced all of the excesses of capitalism, and the global model of “development” — producing ever-growing chasms of inequality — put forward by the World Bank and the neoliberal economists from the Chicago School.

Why don’t we hear from these Democratic leaders — since the DNC rigged the primaries and made sure Bernie wouldn’t get the nomination — about the division of wealth in this country, or how it keeps getting worse under capitalism, and how we need to radically redistribute it in order to even think about getting anywhere towards a decent, fair society?  For the same reasons you won’t hear the Republican leadership talk about this.  Because both parties are led by the rich, in the service of the rich, and the system of capitalism that keeps them rich.

 

 

 

If this can be confirmed, then I'd say it's both disgusting and dangerous.

Read it and judge for yourself  ->  https://bioclandestine.substack.com/p/russian-mil-accuses-us-of-staging?utm_source=email

Quote of the day - 08-19-2022.

 "Change will come, and can only come from committed people mobilizing in common cause as a powerful social movement. Together, we can transform the institutions of global society to distribute power and organize from the bottom up."

 

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/08/19/saving-earth/

If this is some new-fangled way to hide baby-wipes at Costco ...

Not sure it's working.

Another week vacation.

Amazing how in so many ways, having so much time off isn't as pleasant as it may seem.

For one thing - there's some work I have to do in support of my future.

For another, no road trips to the Coast due to the price of gas. And I certainly am not gonna fly to places like Canada and hand over medical data - no.

I'm sure the family will want Dad to drive them around to some places.

I will have a chance to spend some time on music. Got a few major decisions coming up in that area.

How crapitalism (current incarnation of the US capitalist system) functions - deflect and distract.

Case in point - Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).

If you say this to so-called 'liberals' they'll turn around and say something to the affect of, 'you're a Trump supporter!'.

Which only shows they don't care to understand what TDS is.

Let me tell you in a nutshell what TDS is -

It's reacting to the ugly person Donald Trump is, as opposed to responding to the ugly policies being pushed, and on who's behalf.

My view has always been however -'fascism' didn't start on January 20th, 2017 with Trump taking office.

Donald Trump isn't the problem. Donald Trump represents the symptoms of the problem.

It's the system itself that's the real problem.

Once you understand this, you realize that Biden, Trump, Obama, Dubya, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, etc., doesn't make a difference.

Nothing better illustrates this than this -

https://blackagendareport.com/trump-derangement-syndrome-returns

Worse than the silly Trump inspired derangement is the way that those who call themselves left or progressive have chosen to defend federal law enforcement and bad legislation like the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act is a relic from the earliest days of the cold war, and Woodrow Wilson’s infamous Palmer Raids which targeted the left for persecution and prosecution. Barack Obama used it more than all previous presidents combined in order to prosecute journalists who published what the state didn’t want us to know. As for the FBI, its Counter Intelligence Program, COINTELPRO, created dissension in the liberation movement, targeted individuals for prosecution, spied on Martin Luther King and told him to commit suicide, and killed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark among others. The FBI continues to use informants to entrap Black people in phony terror cases.

How is it an online survey serves as news?

How is it I missed this completely?

Got this in my Inbox ->

Demand that FDA regulate all genetically engineered animals!

The FDA just approved and deregulated a new GMO cow -- meaning it can enter the market without any required assessment or oversight to protect our health, environment, or animal welfare. This sets a dangerous precedent for other GMO animals to enter our food system with no regulation -- such as pigs and chickens, engineered to withstand crowded, polluting, and inhumane factory farms.

https://action.foe.org/page/43654/action/1?ea.tracking.id=Email&ea.url.id=1383022

After doing a little searching online, I found this ->

https://gmo.news/2022-03-24-fda-approves-genetically-engineered-cows-beef-production.html

GMO HAMBURGERS? FDA approves genetically engineered cows for beef production

While the world is distracted by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has quietly approved gene-edited (GMO) animals to enter the food market.

The FDA reportedly fast-tracked approval for genetically engineered cows to start producing transgenic beef for the American market. A company called Recombinetics modified cattle to make their coats shorter and slicker, which helps them to better withstand heat stress and gain more weight, thus producing more meat.

Brazil was going to allow a herd of Recombinetics’ gene-edited cattle to enter its food market back in 2019. However, that plan was scrapped after “unexpected DNA changes” were discovered.

As usual, long-term safety studies on the gene-edited cows and their meat have never been conducted. But when has a lack of science ever stopped the FDA from approving deadly new products from the biotechnology industry?

Thanks to FDA corruption, and a lack of input and protest from Americans, the world’s first gene-edited burgers could be hitting American dinner plates in as little as two short years.

“This is the FDA’s first low-risk determination for enforcement discretion for an IGA [intentional genomic alteration] in an animal for food use,” the FDA proudly announced.

 

 

 

 

An interesting view on music.

I'm fairly hard-pressed to disagree -> https://azpianonews.blogspot.com/2022/07/music-language-rhythm-melody-harmony-report.html

A gross, illegal, and horrific reminder that non-white males (especially black men) are viewed as utterly disposable in the US capitalist system.

Yeah  - next time some white (usually female) tries to poke fun at how 'dorky'  they are, remind them of this most recent form of racial and primarily gender-based torture and murder.

https://scheerpost.com/2022/08/12/new-research-finds-cia-used-black-americans-as-drugs-experiment-guinea-pigs/

Just as CIA researchers devalued the lives of Black Americans and prison inmates, so to have academics ever since, even if unconsciously. Contemporarily, Strauss notes, scholars remain intensely uninterested in how non-White individuals respond to mental health treatments. She points to a recent study that found over 80% of participants in modern psychedelic research studies are non-Hispanic White.

“Psychedelic research, psychology and academia as a whole are still White-dominated fields. In 2015, over 85% of psychologists in the U.S. were White, and less than 5% were Black. A Black psychologist, Dr. Monnica Williams, was the first to investigate the research abuses and ethical violations in MKULTRA,” Strauss tells MintPress. “I think the real question is, why didn’t anybody else investigate these glaring research injustices?”

Even more shockingly, while the morality of scientists and medical professionals using inhumane and illegal Nazi research continues to be hotly debated, no such concerns are apparent in respect of the highly unethical and fundamentally racist MKULTRA studies examined by Strauss and her team; they continue to be cited as legitimate academic work today.

Strauss hopes their paper will trigger a wider debate about the ways in which research abuses have impacted and continue to impact people of color and how mental health research can become more socially responsible and culturally competent.

 

However, this part of the article I strenuously disagree with: 

More generally, there is clearly a pressing need for an official MKULTRA truth and reconciliation committee.

No. There needs to be criminal investigation into wrongdoing that was done. And the current institution known as the CIA  should be made accountable for its past crimes.

When time passes without justice for the victims, so too does any responsibility.

 

Testing, testing, testing.

The wonderful world of testing a new light-rail system.

https://rem.info/en/news/2022-schedule-new-testing-sequence

Somehow I don't think the psuedo-left in Canada cares much about this.

We know the establishment and right-wing certainly don't:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/12/grbl-a12.html

And what do you think is the cause?

Why it's Canada's brand of capitalism:

A CP Rail worker speaking anonymously to the World Socialist Web Site recalled the company’s systematic drive to cut corners prior to the Field derailment in order to increase productivity as part of its precision scheduled railroading (PSR) system.

“Pre-departure brake testing, to my personal knowledge, was dire in terms of a lack of strict adherence to testing protocol,” he said. “The problem here is not that testing was insufficient in terms of what was being tested, it is because it was not being properly accomplished. After one particular incident in which I caught mechanical inspectors fudging a brake test, they apologized to me and explained that management only allowed them a minute and a half per car, which is nowhere near enough time to complete the process properly. CP came up with various mechanisms designed to circumvent proper testing, such as claiming certain trains bypassed the requirement when that was far from the truth. In addition, crews were lambasted and intimidated into noncompliance with testing requirements. I was once suspended for insisting that I complete the tests, which was viewed as me deliberately delaying a train—an utter fallacy.

“Railways are obsessed with cutting down dwell times in yards (the amount of time a train is stationary while en route for testing, crew change offs etc.), because this directly undermines the PSR model. This is the profit model that strangles any semblance of rail safety.”

 

Just in case you forgot - the upcoming Climate Catastrophe is still headed our way.

Hey! Get a load of all these media outlets that are in bed with the CIA.

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/08/09/establishment-daily-beast-rolling-stone-intelligence-ties/

The CIA’s consolidation of power over mainstream media and social media may be on the verge of accomplishing the agency’s ultimate ambition: after 70 years engineering coups d’états against the world’s democracies, the CIA, this year, may have finally achieved the ultimate triumph — the controlled demolition of American democracy and the obliteration of our Constitution.

Fucking ugly.

Idiot extrordinaire - Michael Smerconish.

Amazing what happens when you see a slightly larger picture.

https://shadowproof.com/2022/08/09/video-cnn-attempt-police-roger-waters/

 

 

 

Always remember - the biggest liars and propaganda-pushers are those that work for the rich and powerful (i.e. the establishment).

Here's a big one -> https://fair.org/home/npr-distorts-history-of-us-invasion-of-afghanistan/

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the US demanded that the Taliban immediately hand over Bin Laden. The Taliban responded by offering to put Bin Laden on trial if they were shown evidence of his involvement in the attacks. The US refused to share proof, rejecting any diplomatic option.

Bush announced, “There are no negotiations,” then proceeded to bomb Afghanistan, despite numerous warnings from both humanitarian organizations and anti-Taliban forces in the country that their actions would only hurt the Afghanistani people. Even after the bombs began to fall, the Taliban repeated their offers to give up Bin Laden—even dropping the requirement for actual evidence. The US continued its onslaught, initiating the 20-year odyssey of occupation that unraveled last year.

 

RIP Olivia Newton-John.

She was my childhood crush.

Every time one of her songs came on the radio, I was instantly transported to places in my mind where I wanted to meet her, got out with her, go on adventures (I was a kid; I may have had 'dirty' thoughts, but had no idea where to take them).

When I saw her - I inevitably wished we were in each other's lives.

I'll always remember her.

RIP iRobot.

It was an interesting idea.

Too bad it's now going to be fucked up by a terrible company.

Wonder if these things are related?

• Nancy Pelosi's husband just dumped his NVIDIA stock right before Congress is set to pass the 'CHIPS-plus' bill

Maybe he was so distraught over this, that's why he decided to go crashing his car while intoxicated? No, wait  ->  that happened in May.

And this- 

• https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/contact/asia/

 

We all she's mentally unfit for political office, just like Biden, Feinstein and others.

• Now we see the result - antagonizing a nuclear power.

 

That's the US capitalist system for you  -> or as the late Harry S Truman alledgedly aid =>

"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook"

 

 

 

 

 

This looks like something worth attending ->

 

Webinar with Roger Waters

Sponsors:
Project for the Study of American Militarism,
World BEYOND War,
Women Against Military Madness,
CODE PINK,
Veterans For Peace,
Andy Worthington,
Mondoweiss,
Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste,
Antiwar.com,
RootsAction.org,
Canadian BDS Coalition,
UNAC,
Twin Cities Assange Defense,
Canadian Foreign Policy Institute.

Hmm ... doesn't this seem just a TAD suspicious?

Despite being 'vaccinated'  - the President of the United States gets COVID.

Despite getting treated - the President of the United States gets COVID.

Of course vaccines and treatments aren't perfect. But given that both the above was developed by the same corporation Pfizer, and -

Not being mentioned in the media is the financial bonanza the pandemic has been for the drug companies that managed to edge out their competitors in the burgeoning field of vaccine development. Pfizer recently reported its single largest quarterly sales in its history, bringing in $27.7 billion in revenues, of which $8.8 billion came from their COVID-19 vaccines and $8.1 billion from Paxlovid, beating Wall Street’s estimates.

 Seems like quite the conflict-of-interest. Seems also somewhat criminal.