The book I ordered - > https://nomiprins.com/permanent-distortion/
2022-11-30
Another reminder folks: The Democratic 'Brand' doesn't serve the interests of the public, any more than the Republican one does.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/11/29/workers-furious-over-biden-move-to-preempt-rail-strike/
The thing is, the key to responding to this lies in their actions. The corporations know full well that the power really lies in the labor unions.
Another November. Another year of getting practically nothing.
It's become a trend at my job these days.
I work and work and work. I deliver and deliver and deliver.
Apart from a 'hearty' thanks, and a 'we're working on your career path options', it's pretty much the same.
A merit increase smaller than the inflation rate.
The company reports massive profits, but the bonus is smaller than last year.
Can't wait to see how little the stock is.
I'm put in the position (once again) of - I should be thankful I have a job and all that. True. It's also true that I've all the passion for my job of a contractual obligation.
However, that should not excuse a company from not being accountable to those who meet their commitments and achieve their deliverables and more.
2022-11-29
2022-11-28
A dubious and insidious view of what goes into our food, without us really knowing.
https://livingnongmo.org/2021/11/02/is-synbio-vanilla-natural-heck-no/
Oh and as an aside, there's this gem that suggests 'white' would not exist were it not for 'black' -
How a slave created an industry
For centuries, horticulturists and naturalists tried to coax vanilla vines into productivity. The breakthrough finally came when a slave in the French colony of Bourbon developed the hand pollination technique still used today. Le geste d’Edmond, or “Edmond’s gesture,” was fundamental to the lucrative natural vanilla market, but Edmond himself never benefited from it. Because he was a young Black slave, his innovation was doubted, derided and ultimately appropriated.
The modern vanilla market is centered in the region where Edmond lived, where a subtle flavor once harvested by Indigenous peoples, taken by colonizers and finally brought into production by a slave still flourishes.
A sick house.
Too many people sick.
Coughs, aches, pains, sneezing, hacking, whining, you name it.
Of course, some aren't allowed to get sick, lest they want to ensure a roof stays over everyone's heads.
Such is life being a Dad.
2022-11-24
Need another reminder that Canada's Trudeau is a racist bigot?
Thank you Margaret Kimberley from BAR (https://blackagendareport.com/xi-jinping-justin-trudeau-and-white-supremacist-ideology)-
Trudeau thought that the same man who snatched up two Canadians to teach him a lesson wouldn’t pay attention when protocol was breached. He found out otherwise when Xi confronted him publicly and said through an interpreter, “Everything we discussed has been leaked to the papers. That is not appropriate. And that’s not the way the conversation was conducted.” Trudeau was taken by surprise and engaged in platitudes “about free and open dialogue” but he walked away looking stunned.
They still don’t get it. China is on the verge of becoming the world’s leading economy and Biden thinking that he can destroy their microchip industry or send American politicians to Taiwan won’t change that fact. Every action they take to hurt China only hurts themselves. Their foolish gambit in Ukraine brought China and Russia closer together and led other nations into their orbit and away from the western nations. The poles have shifted whether Biden or Trudeau or their friends like it or not.
2022-11-23
Who the fuck knew indeed.
I sure didn't -
The Pilgrim Plague Of Leptospirosis
Among the first Wampanoag man to greet Pilgrims in 1620 was Tisquantum, whom settlers called Squanto. He had been abducted in 1614 and was educated in London only to return to his native Patuxet in 1619 and find it ravaged. Tisquantum himself would die within a year of meeting the Pilgrims — while mysteriously bleeding from the nose.
2022-11-22
Another reason not to trust AI.
A nugget of reason from someone who went to the same school as I did -
Using AI to drive risk assessments would, she says, simply transfer biases from humans to human-created algorithms. Bad data in leads to bad data out. “Proponents of using AI in this way are shifting responsibility to the designers of the algorithm.”
Chugh points out that AI is already being considered for use in some Canadian courts. As a member of the Board of Governors of the Law Commission of Ontario, she admits to reservations about the ways the commission has considered the use of AI for matters like administrative court proceedings or by police as investigative tools.
One of the principal issues Chugh identifies with an overreliance on AI for risk assessments and other considerations is the absence of subjective discretion and deference. These, she notes, are key pillars of an independent judiciary. Laws and statutes provide parameters within which judges can operate and leave them some leeway while they consider relevant factors like individual histories and circumstances.
2022-11-21
The Call Of Duty is the call for death.
Not hyperbole:
https://popularresistance.org/call-of-duty-is-a-government-psyop-these-documents-prove-it/
Video games are a massive business and a huge center of soft power and ideology. The medium makes for particularly persuasive propaganda because children and adolescents consume them, often for weeks or months on end, and because they are light entertainment. Because of this, users do not have their guards up like if they were listening to a politician speaking. Their power is often overlooked by scholars and journalists because of the supposed frivolity of the medium. But it is the very notion that these are unimportant sources of fun that makes their message all the more potent.
The Call of Duty franchise is particularly egregious, not only in its messaging, but because who the messengers are. Increasingly, the games appear to be little more than American propaganda masquerading as fun first-person shooters. For gamers, the point is to enjoy its fast-paced entertainment. But for those involved in their production, the goal is not just making money; it is about serving the imperial war machine.
Conveniently left out of all of this is - is that these types of efforts are typically targeted towards men, and no one else.
2022-11-18
11 years, 3 months prison for Elizabeth Holmes.
Frankly why wait until 04-27-2023?
Oh yeah because if it was a non-white man, he'd not be allowed such a delay to bond with his newborn child.
How much do you want to bet the moment her 2nd child is born, she's gonna try and have a 3rd one?
How much do you also wanna bet Sunny Balwani will end up in prison before she does?
People who whine and complain about the media moguls of today, conveniently forget - this is how crapitalism works.
It's how this system has functioned all along.
https://fair.org/home/musks-money-is-playing-old-games-with-new-media/
... consider for a minute that Musk, the CEO of Tesla, is the world’s richest person, while No. 2 is Jeff Bezos of Amazon, who also owns the Washington Post. Like Musk, Bezos is another rich, corporate boss who wants to influence the public discussion through control of a major media outlet. It’s unclear how much editorial sway he has, but FAIR (10/3/17) has pointed out the Post‘s factchecker (10/2/17) defending Bezos against Sen. Bernie Sanders’ accusation that Bezos has a lot of money. The Columbia Journalism Review (9/27/22) speculates that Bezos has at least passively influenced the direction of the Post‘s news and opinion sections. Musk and Bezos are two sides of the same coin here.
Or consider when the late Republican mega-donor and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson bought the Las Vegas Review-Journal for $140 million, prompting columnist Jon Ralston (New York Times, 1/2/16) to say, “I find it hard to believe that he would have so dramatically overpaid for that paper without having some agenda in mind.” Under Adelson, the paper (11/7/16, 10/3/20) endorsed Donald Trump for president twice. Adelson, who was an ardent conservative Zionist, also set up a free Israeli newspaper, Israel Hayom, that until recently “served as an unofficial mouthpiece” for Benjamin Netanyahu (AP, 1/12/21).
Moguls use their money to advance their politics, both through campaign contributions and through media acquisitions. In addition to Musk’s recent endorsement of Republican candidates, his interest in conservatism grew after the presidential election of Donald Trump. “Starting in 2017, Musk’s donations began to skew much more heavily toward Republicans than Democrats, spending nearly seven times more on GOP campaigns,” Business Insider (6/15/22) reported, adding that Musk “accepted positions on two of Trump’s White House councils.” He cheered on a coup in Bolivia (Jalopnik, 10/19/20) and is outspokenly hostile to unions (NPR, 3/3/22).
2022-11-15
No Evidence for Psychiatry’s Depression Claims, Report Three 2022 Research Reviews
The Stacked Deck against Scientific Realities Denting Brain-Defect Mythology
(1) Pharmaceutical companies.
(2) Mainstream Media.
(3) Drug prescribers and psychiatrist “thought leaders.”
(4) Mental illness institutions such as the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and so-called “patient advocacy” groups such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) have received funding from Big Pharma.
(5) Researchers who are funded to do biochemical-electrical research.
(6) Those atop the societal hierarchy who obviously prefer retaining the social-economic-political status quo, and who know that if a population believes its emotional suffering is caused not by social-economic-political variables but instead by neurobiological defects, this belief system can be a more powerful and less expensive way of maintaining the status quo than a heavily armed police force.
2022-11-14
2022-11-11
An oldie but a goodie .... ALEC returns!
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/11/secrets-of-an-att-scandal/
Gotta thank Bill Clinton for that Telecommunications Act of 1996 -
Digging deeper, the most hidden “secret” of the AT&T Illinois bribery scandal involved a 2017 state legislature vote regarding what is known as “Carrier of Last Resort” (COLR), that “terminated AT&T Illinois’ costly obligation to provide landline telephone services to all Illinois residents.” Still more hidden, the secret involved the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), one of the most important groups influencing telecom policy. It promotes itself as a “nonpartisan individual membership organization of state legislators that favors federalism and conservative public policy solutions.”
2022-11-08
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