This morning while I was getting ready to spend some time on the net before heading outside to do some planting of some bulbs I had a thought (OK, I do have them sometimes). The new CAF rules will force the US to go EV. I think that some states will also start imposing higher taxes and fees on gas in the name of climate change. And, will impose higher taxes and fees on licensing of ICE vehicles, also in the name of climate change. Now, I am going outside to work in my yard.
The ball-and-stick models, the orbit-around-a-nucleus-models, “shell filling”, “bonds”, all these metaphors which I hope don’t impede deeper understanding but I suspect probably do. Mostly to avoid talking about math. I don’t have a better solution, I admit. Maybe it’s better to have several incompatible models presented at once to emphasize that reality is like all of the models in some ways but not identical with them.
I’ll never forget, in college, when a student walked into a microscopy lab asking to be shown “peptide bonds”, very upset to learn that they are a metaphor and you can’t see them.
Shirehome, I’m sure that’s coming especially in blue states fairly soon.
I wish someone would show publicly to these politicians the relatively simple calculation of the needed electrical generation to handle EVs. Just take the average number of miles driven/year in the US; factor in efficiency of ICE to get the total energy needed which should be about the same for EVs: overcoming road friction, electronics, etc. Then using EV efficiency to get the needed kWh to charge all those EVs. For conversion to 100% EVs, the country would need to increase it’s generation by about 50%. How is that going to happen?? Not with solar or wind, that’s for sure.
Of course facts never really seem to matter in these situations. I mean, California is already experiencing generation problems, and Germany is just now realizing what happens as they tried to go all solar and wind. Sigh…..
As Scotty said to Kirk: “I canna change the laws of physics!”
Frederick,
Yeah, I used to like how in senior QM class I asked the majors who had taken chem about all those funny pictures of figure 8s, and donuts etc that chemistry uses for bonding orbitals. Then as we worked through the QM atoms, they realized those were electron densities for different atomic states. What still amazes me is that chemists, especially the bio and organic chemists, do what they do without having to do the QM math. They have developed an efficient shorthand for putting together atoms into molecules
Carbon-based structure isn’t the only thing all life on Earth has in common. It’s all also either RNA- or DNA-based, using a common 3-unit genetic code (with a quibble for the U/T switch). The 3 units that spell a particular amino acid in a bacterium spell that same amino acid in you, in a Sequoia, or in a mushroom. Amino acids are the building blocks for proteins. That tricky business with A matching T/U and C matching G, making a reversible template, is the same in all living creatures on Earth.
As far as we can tell, life occurred only once on Earth, and every living creature on this planet is descended from whatever early form it took, some billions of years ago. There’s way too much loose talk about what “life must look like.” We have only the one example here. We have no idea if it happened anywhere else or what it might be like if it did.
So I was glad to see the narrator point out that we have little idea what molecular structures might prove both stable and flexible enough to support metabolism and reproduction under different conditions, such as temperature and pressure. I believe the current thinking, however, is that Earth life originated in deep undersea vents under conditions of extreme pressure and temperature–not that conditions elsewhere in the universe might not be far more extreme. What it seems to take is an energy gradient and some raw materials. How that morphs into metabolizing entities that can reproduce themselves, let alone via the extremely complicated RNA/DNA structure, we have basically no clue at present.
Not guilty due to the source
==
You actually have to have a history of manifest skill and also integrity before people take you as an authority.
Banned Lizard:
You hate Zelensky so much that you are willing to link to the unreliable Sy Hersh? Not sure what point you’re trying to make.
the creature in alien, was supposedly silicon based, so was the horta in the star trek episode,
thats a rather conservative number, something like 0.4 percent of our expenditures in ukraine, what could we have done with 400 million dollars in fuel, might we need if if we have to go to war with China, as if Milley cares about that,
in point of fact, is anything they tell us on the record true, from milley from austin from garland, from fauci, from walensky from jha, from mayorkas from burns,
Here in NC, “purple” but with a Republican-controlled legislature, tax increases on EVs are being planned, in the form of increased annual registration fees and a special fee on purchase, to fill the hole in the DOT budget causes by the loss of gas tax revenue. Special fees will apply also to hybrid vehicles.
Summary Q: do liberals simplify life to a cartoon and thereby put way too much emphasis on individuals as hero figures?
—–
Just read the latest by Matt Taibbi about Musk and the files.
For someone who seems to really get it sometimes, he seems dumb as a rock on the big picture at other times.
Musk is far more consistent of free speech than his critics (or even Taibbi) seem capable of understanding, but whether he is or not is completely irrelevant to the important issues of free speech for society. Musk ultimately doesn’t matter. He deserves to be in the American citizenship hall of fame for his decision to open the Twitter files no matter what else he ever does, but there is no need for him to be free of sin to acknowledge the benefits of what he did or the importance of the issue of free speech.
I wonder if, in Taibbi’s case, this is some mental tic that comes with being a liberal — way too much focus on individuals. [We see this with Trump, too. Liberals seem to have this bizarre idea that killing Trump will make all the grassroots, populist anger at their Big Brother criminality simply disappear in a poof.]
[and in a different, but kind of related note, I see this in sports where the star is the complete focus and the rest of the team irrelevant. Brent Musberger was the all-time worst at this, but we see it everywhere. Maybe some people are simply incapable of seeing complexity and have to reduce everything to a cartoon featuring heroes and villains.
The worst is in football which is the ultimate team game. Quarterbacks are important, yes. But games are actually won by the big fellas upfront. When one team is winning the battle upfront on both sides of the ball, they win at least 90% of the time. The only QB in history to consistently win a majority of games with a bad offensive line, awful special teams and a terrible defense was Peyton Manning. To listen to the sports media, QBs are the only players that matter.]
Update to Bob Lee’s murder in San Francisco on April 4: the police just arrested a suspect– a fellow tech worker who knew Lee, not the psycho rando that initial reports implied. “A fellow tech worker was arrested Thursday in the slaying of Cash App founder Bob Lee on the streets of San Francisco, according to local reports. . . . The suspect is said to have been driving through the city with Lee when they had some kind of confrontation, which resulted in the tech mogul exiting the vehicle, according to Mission Local’s sources. Their altercation continued and Lee was fatally stabbed by the suspect on a quiet street, according to the outlet, citing police sources. The knife used was also reportedly recovered from the scene, which was close to the hotel where Lee was staying.”
From what I have gathered, SETI is looking for intelligent life “out there” (wouldn’t want it to be closer in and “here,” with all of the messy and dangerous complications that might bring, so they haven’t been focusing on that) apparently expecting that such life will be communicating using the level of technology which we are currently using, and on a particular wavelength of that technology that we “think” might be the likely one.
It seems to me that they are thinking inside a very circumscribed “box.”
Say, there are civilizations of intelligent and space faring aliens “out there,” some of which are ancient, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years older that ours, and with technology hundreds of thousands of years more advanced, or even, say, only a couple of thousand years more advanced than ours.
Do we really think that they would be using our technology, and communicating on our chosen wavelengths?
Then, there is the question of identifying intelligent “life.”
We have only our one example of what life looks like.
Why should we think that any life which evolved in a myriad of other possible star systems and under other conditions—and possibly very radically different conditions–which led to, for instance, very different sensory systems and ways of communicating, to extremely different physical appearance, ways and rates of moving, and radically different mind-sets and motives–would even be recognizable by us as intelligent life?
Then, of course there is the question of what such aliens motives might be (comradery, intellectual curiosity, some sort of duty, good ol’ exploitation?), in deciding to communicate or to not communicate with us.
Moreover, if such posited aliens decided to communicate–how, given a radically different evolutionary history, sensory apparatus, mind-set, and communication regime, would they try to do so?
Imagine if all life on earth had developed based on sulphur chemistry or the chemistry of some other element.
We then would be watching a video explaining why this had to be so.
Why should we think that any life which evolved in a myriad of other possible star systems and under other conditions—and possibly very radically different conditions–which led to, for instance, very different sensory systems and ways of communicating, to extremely different physical appearance, ways and rates of moving, and radically different mind-sets and motives–would even be recognizable by us as intelligent life?
Of course we shouldn’t assume anything. But that said, we have to start somewhere. We know that life evolved here on Earth. So starting from that point, we can infer things about what might be needed for similar life to evolve elsewhere. So only looking for more specific signals is about narrowing down the potential search space rather than expanding it. It’s a function of how to best spend out limited investigative resources.
There’s nothing wrong with speculating about myriad possibilities, potential alternate biochemistries or paradigms that may also lead to the evolution of complex life. But when it comes to investing time, money, and energy into research, you often have to be a bit more parsimonious.
PA+Cat:
Nina Moneni is bilingual in Farsi. Sad.
PA+Cat:
Nima Moneni is bilingual in Farsi. Sad.
Spelled his name incorrectly (the suspect in the Bob Lee stabbing.)
RFKjr mooted for Trump Veep?
I only worry about his enviro-wackiness….
BUT OUTSIDERS UNITED? This plan’s got legs (We’ll know in one year):
Points made by H. A. Goodman, a columnist at The Hill:
Trump and RFK Jr. on the same ticket is “probably not likely” but,
1. RFK Jr., based on articles he has authored, and Trump have similar foreign policy views. For example, they both oppose “never-ending military conflicts”.
2. Many Trump supporters will gravitate towards RFK Jr. because of his anti-covid vax viewpoints.
3. Trump and RFK Jr. both speak their minds and aren’t afraid of the media.
4. RFK’s economic policies are similar to Trumps, based on his interviews and writings. Under Trump we had record high household income and record low poverty, which RFK Jr. supports.
5. RFK Jr. is the closest thing to Trump in the Democrat Party. If he were Trump’s VP, a lot of independents would vote for the Trump/Kennedy ticket.
6.JFK, RFK’s Jr.’s uncle, did not “worship” intelligence agencies, the opposite is true.
THIS could refresh the Trump brand and appeal to the Indy vote in ways DeSantis cannot.
Frederick at the top…”show me them Peptide bonds” LOL! Yeah, offer ‘em ‘probability clouds’ and today they’ll think you’re making an IT insider joke. Lols!
physics pguy goes inside with, What “ pamazes me is that chemists, especially the bio and organic chemists, do what they do without having to do the QM math. They have developed an efficient shorthand for putting together atoms into molecules” — to me, that’s a wowser perspective on organic chemistry-world.
Could you illustrate for us?
a moon like io is rich in sulphur for instance, (remember outland) but it’s unlikely you would have life in that manor, not impossible,
*rfk allegedly wanted to break up the cia, and give the covert capacity to the joint chief, of course he didn’t know about northwood,
Good video. Thanks for posting. You have a knack for finding interesting science videos.
I was fortunate to have a spectacular college astronomy professor. A truly great teacher who did a great lecture on why it has to be carbon.
The best thing he ever did, maybe the best thing I’ve ever seen any college professor do, was organize a wonderful debate. That was our “class” one day. He had colleagues in the astronomy department who were split on the question, “Are we alone in the galaxy?”
So two professors and two graduate students (on each team – a team of four) had it out with our professor moderating. It was so much fun. I went in thinking the poor bastards arguing we are alone had no chance. There are billions and billions of stars in the Milky Way. How could anyone think we are alone? I was 19 by the way – and knew just about everything.
The “we are alone” guys had the other team on their heals from the start using the logic and reasoning of the Fermi Paradox, which I had never heard of. There is obviously no definitive answer, but I think it’s safe to say almost everyone in the class went in with my bias, and walked out thinking “we are alone” won the debate.
Loved that class and it sparked a lifelong passion for astronomy.
You hate Zelensky so much that you are willing to link to the unreliable Sy Hersh? Not sure what point you’re trying to make.
“Hate” is a little strong. I don’t hate Michael Cohen either, but my view of the two is similar. To elaborate, here’s another item from Sy:
“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me.
Let’s stipulate the diesel rumor as probably untrue, but what if it isn’t? Imaginative fellow, Sy Hersh. We hope his knowledgeable intel source is not Harvey the Rabbit, but with or without Zelensky’s high heels, we’ve got grifty entertainment value. We can bemoan Clown World or enjoy it. I choose the latter.
@TJ:Could you illustrate for us?
The periodic table is a great start. The rows and columns of the table classify similar solutions to the Schroedinger equation for each atom.
Silicon is right underneath carbon on the periodic table, which means these elements have similar chemical properties, Both can bind with up to four other atoms at once.
Which is why some speculate there might be life based on silicon instead of carbon.
I’ve also found it interesting that hemoglobin and chlorophyll have close to the same chemical structure except where hemoglobin has iron, chlorophyll has magnesium.
The Twitter poll question was,
“Knowing what you know now, do you think that the U.S. military would fire on their own people if ordered to.”
To see how bad things have gotten, take a look at this poll result below.
Iraqveteran8888, a veteran of the Iraq war who works in a gun shop and who is an 2nd Amendment advocate, put up this poll on Twitter, asking the question, “Knowing what you know now, do you think that the U.S. military would fire on their own people if ordered to.”
A total of 51,923 people took this April 2023 poll and, of them, 77.4% said “yes.”
According to this video the same question was also asked some 2 months ago with virtually identical results.
P.S.—It used to be routinely reported that the military was the one US institution in which people had their highest remaining confidence.
If this poll is any indication, that may no longer be the case.
I’ve been following the Steven Van Zandt brouhaha. Van Zandt is Springsteen’s E Street Band guitarist. He also played Silvio on “The Sopranos.”
On Easter Sunday, Van Zandt, in a response to the trans shooting and Republican opposition to more gun control, essentially dropped the genocide bomb:
__________________________
Outrageous doesn’t begin to describe the actions of those Republican White Supremicist [sic] scumbag cowards that need guns to feel like real me. Gen Z, Gen Y and Gen X will unite and exterminate these cockroaches once and for all.
–Steven Van Zandt
__________________________
Later he deleted the tweet because he didn’t want to spend any more time defending himself from “Foxsucking scumbag Russian bots and MAGOTT cockroaches.” What he really meant was “Exterminate [them] at the ballot box.”
Well, OK then!
Van Zandt also explained that he was a “peace-loving hippie.” Sticks out a mile away.
I don’t imagine readers here care about Van Zandt and I don’t either, but I was curious as to whether the controversy would be picked up by the MSM.
No need for a spoiler alert.
The DEMOCRATS’ ongoing Great Black Whale hunt of Justice Clarence Thomas is getting close to ethic’s challenged paydirt.
It appears that billionaire Harlan Crow bought the home of his mother and late brother, who co-owned — and she continues to live there. Thus, constituting grounds for Dem Senate hearings into the matter.
The “company belonging to Texas billionaire Crow, who has showered Thomas with lavish trips and odd yet pricey gifts, bought a series of properties right next to each other in Savannah, Georgia, including a single-story home and two lots, according to ProPublica. It’s the first known direct financial transaction between Thomas and Crow.
“The company bought the properties from co-owners Thomas, his mother and his late brother’s family for $133,363, according to a tax document and deed from October 2014 the outlet obtained. The justice’s elderly mother lived at the property, and continued to do so under Crow’s ownership. Soon after the purchase was finalized contractors went to work on tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of improvements, including a carport, a fixed roof and a new fence and gates…”
The HARPOON has been deployed! But will it find its mark?
@Banned Lizard
Not guilty due to the source:
Hersh: Zelenskyy And His Entourage Embezzled $400 Million In Fuel Purchases
Correct.
Though more specifically: NOT GUILTY DUE TO THERE BEING FUCKALL EVIDENCE ACTUALLY PRESENTED IN THE SOURCE. This is essentially Hersh quite literally going “SOURCE: TRUST ME BRO.”
Well, I’m sorry Banned Lizard, but nobody sane should trust Hersh. Especially on our side of the political spectrum. And the only real reason YOU’RE doing so is because it flatters your preconceived notions and fits into a narrative you find charming.
But this is also a man who quite literally claimed Jens Stoltenberg the child was a CIA Asset even as he helped his Marxtard Sister protest the US War in Vietnam, and who has repeatedly lied about monumentally basic things.
The IRONY behind this is that at least some of the accusations are things I’d be willing to believe. It should surprise absolutely nobody beyond the terminally naive that Ukraine has huge amounts of corruption (as does Russia. That includes unethical if not outright illegal trading between Ukrainian bigwigs and Russian ones in spite of the nature of the war. Poroshenko (Zelenskyy’s predecessor and rival) correctly got into a lot of flak over what were at a minimum unethical business contacts with Russia and he was just the more egregious. It would not surprise me at all if Zelenzkyy were party to similar corruption.
But here’s the damn thing:
A: I’m going to need a hell of a lot more ACTUAL EVIDENCE than Literally Nothing.
B: I’m sure as fuck not going to trust Literally Nothing from an incompetent, morally bankrupt, far-leftist genocidal totalitarian simp like Seymour Hersh, who has already gotten exposed and roundly mocked for carrying water for Putin, Assad, and the Pakistani Junta before and who has not only lied in the past, but lied in egregiously stupid fashion that indicates he isn’t even informed enough to know what a believable lie would look like to the informed.
Again, this is a man who claimed that Jens Stoltenberg was recruited into the CIA due to being an “anti-Communist Hardliner” in the Vietnam War, in spite of being 16 at the time the war ended and having a family actively involved in left-wing, anti-US politics at the itme.
“Hate” is a little strong. I don’t hate Michael Cohen either, but my view of the two is similar. To elaborate, here’s another item from Sy:
TRADING WITH THE ENEMY
I’m sorry Banned, but do you want to make yourself look Goddamn STUPID?!?!
Because that’s what you are accomplishing.
And again: I say this as someone who has NEVER had a particularly rosy view of Ukrainian politics, who has NEVER had an overly rosy view of Zelenskyy,, who would be prepared to believe accusations of this nature with actual evidence, and who frankly does not have their calculations or stance on the Ukrainian War influenced hugely by a rosy view of Ukrainian politics or its future, any more than I think support against Imperial Japanese, Fascist Italian, Soviet, or Nazi German aggression should have hinged on the moral or ethical purity of the racist military Junta of Poland, the comically corrupt quasi-Fascist nightmare of the Chinese KMT (let alone literally Mao in Yenan), the slave-owning absolute monarchy of Ethiopia, or the tinpot dictatorship of Zogist Albania.
Neo and a host of others have already pointed out how it is utterly stupid and terminally naive to trust Hersh, ESPECIALLY when he is speaking about “Anonymous Sources.” Many others have also pointed out how Hersh is remarkably stupid for a man of his prominence and qualifications, which means that not only when he lies he often doesn’t even know how ludicrous those lies make him out to be. That along with his far leftist credentials and views and willingness to engage in literal blood libel against US (not the “Uniparty”, or the “Globalists”, or the “NeoCons” but average Conservatives) makes trusting him even more baffling.
But you seriously want to play this game, Banned Lizard?
Ok, I’ll play your and Hersh’s game.
So I’m going to read through his “Source” and finesse what it says. But unlike you, I am going to treat Hersh with the lack of benefit of the doubt he deserves, which is why when he relies on a conveniently unnamed “Anonymous Source” i will replace it with “SOURCE: I MADE IT THE F_CK UP”, and I will call out things that are transparently wrong.
Shall we begin?
Ok, let’s.
Amid rampant corruption in Kiev
Firstly Hersh: It’s Kyiv, not Kiev. A little sensitivity?
Secondly: Yes, corruption is rampant in Ukraine (though not moreso than in Russia, as we have obviously seen). That’s a concern, especially in terms of aid and efficiency. But it’s hardly a reason to do it.
and as US troops gather at the Ukrainian border,
Gee, why the Farq would US troops be doing that? It boggles the mind. Let us consider, perhaps, a few reasons…..
Another important context is that – to state the blindingly obvious – Russia is not a free country. It has been imposing widening censorship on the public and its own leadership. This is important because it means that these threats from VIPs in the Russian Government had to be supported or at least tolerated by Putin and the other grandees in power of Russia.
And that includes threats to neutral nations like Moldova, threats to NATO, and a host of others.
Now, if Hersh was interested in being HONEST for a change, he’d acknowledge these things. He’d also acknowledge that deploying US troops to the Ukrainian Border was a natural response to threats like these from the Kremlin, and also served as a buffer to prevent the (fantasy) threat of Polish aggression on Ukraine by imposing a foreign bufffer.
But as should be blindingly obvious, Hersh is fundamentally not interested in being honest.
does the Biden administration have an endgame to the conflict?
As much as I thoroughly hate Biden, IT IS NOT PRIMARILY HIS JOB OR THAT OF ANY US GOVERNMENT TO HAVE AN ENDGAME TO THE CONFLICT. None of them STARTED the war in Ukraine (even tortured victim-blaming bullshit by trying to claim “US Interference” or “Euromaidan” prompted the Kremlin’s invasion fall flat when I point to things like Kyrgyzstan) .
It is primarily the RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT’S JOB to come up with an endgame to this conflict, one way or another. THEY ARE, AFTER ALL, THE SIDE THAT INITIATED THIS WAR more than twice over. The Ukrainian Government has a secondary concern, but ultimately responsibility lies with the Kremlin.
The Ukraine government, headed by Volodymyr Zelensky, has been using American taxpayers’ funds to pay dearly for the vitally needed diesel fuel that is keeping the Ukrainian army on the move in its war with Russia. It is unknown how much the Zelensky government is paying per gallon for the fuel, but the Pentagon was paying as much as $400 per gallon to transport gasoline from a port in Pakistan, via truck or parachute, into Afghanistan during the decades-long American war there.
Ok, while I’m distrustful of Hersh on everything none of this is in particular dispute in terms of the core argument.
What also is unknown is that Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, “although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine.”
SOURCE: I MADE IT THE F_CK UP.
Because that is basically what this amounts to. Hersh does not even DEIGN to link us to any of these supposed estimates. Probably because he can’t.
Which means we have literally no reason to believe what he writes here.
“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.
Now, let’s make a quick edit to this drek and see if it makes any different.
“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” the sock puppet I had draped over my left hand told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.
When phrased in this way, it is obviously absurd and thoroughly laughable. But the thing is, it was ALREADY absurd and laughable. There is no source. There is no proof. There is literally no reason to believe this statement came from anybody outside of Hersh’s head, let alone anybody who is remotely honest or credible.
Whether or not you BELIEVE the accusation reflects reality is completely irrelevant. The fact remains that knowledge is NOT just about knowing what you know, it’s knowing HOW YOU CAN PROVE what you know.
And Hersh has no way of proving what he claims to know that he is willing to share with Us, the Audience. Who on the right he has repeatedly lied about, smeared, blood libeled, and heinously misused.
It is quite literally “Source: Trust Me Bruh” when said by one of the least trustworthy of people this side of Obama, Putin, Xi, and Shrillary.
Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks. Many of those companies are in Poland and Czechia, but others are thought to exist in the Persian Gulf and Israel. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are others in places like the Cayman Islands and Panama, and there are lots of Americans involved,” an American expert on international trade told me.
A couple things here.
Firstly: This is another giant “Trust Me Bro, I have Sources I won’t Deign To Link Or Actually Identify” piece from the same idiot who didn’t know how old Stoltenberg was when the Vietnam War ended.
Secondly: Even if it were true it is remarkably banal in comparison to accusations of trading with the enemy. In a high intensity war, one of the great issues is getting enough material from supporters, whether one’s direct allies or not. As such, shell companies – while dubious and hard to account for – are a useful and even quasi-legitimate political and diplomatic tool to fuel weapons and other resources to the war effort from neutrals or even enemy countries who (for whatever reason) do not want to be easily identified as supporting your side. And this is useful for sustaining actual resistance.
In short: If you had to have Ukrainian Oligarchs engaging in corruption at all, THIS IS HOW YOU WOULD WANT THEM TO BE DOING IT IN TERMS OF THE WAR EFFORT, because it doesn’t significantly hurt the US but benefits themselves and their causes. It’s at this that I’ll note that many people noted things like Japanese businessmen in the 1930s finding out that some of the business deals they engaged in actually helped the KMT resistance on China get the ammo needed to kill their attacking countrymen in the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy.
EDIT: And because unlike the clown that wrote this I care about actually providing sources,
* After 1937 China kept appealing to the United States to “do something” to force Japan to leave China, and cried for economic support and arms. But there was no Chinese declaration of war upon Japan until after Pearl Harbor and after the United States had declared war. A formal declaration would have embarrassed the great Chinese commercial interests, trading secretly with the enemy. I remember- with what anger a young Japanese friend at Osaka (in 1939) told me he had just discovered correspondence within his firm disclosing an important private arrangement whereby certain Chinese firms exported pig-bristles to Japan by way of Foochow in exchange for shipment of small arms and ammunition to the Chinese. My friend’s brother had just been killed on the China front. – George H Kerr, Formosa Betrayed Chapter 2
I realize that in many ways this isn’t MUCH better than Hersh’s anonymous sources, but at least I am willing to put a name and link to where I got the allegation from, and Kerr’s achievements and offices are not subject to serious dispute.
The issue of corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in a meeting last January in Kiev with CIA Director William Burns. His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was out of a 1950s mob movie.
Again:
The issue of corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in a meeting last January in Kiev with CIA Director William Burns. His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by the sock puppet on my left hand, was out of a 1950s mob movie.
Source: I made It The Hell Up.
I’m not even going to criticize you too much for why you’re believing the sock puppet Hersh puts on his hands, Banned Lizard.
But I am going to criticize why you’re believing them when they’re unwilling to provide any evidence or sources we can actually evaluate for ourselves.
The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed,
Ok: Literally Who?
No please. Please Mr. Hersh and your loyal sock puppets (who I am told are very well informed, very used to getting direct knowledge, and I am sure are created from the finest of cotton). Tell us LITERALLY WHO “the Senior Generals and Government Officials in Kyiv” are who were angry about this.
so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because “he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.”
Yeah, anybody actually believe this BS? Especially that it would be stated so bluntly in an actual, formal meeting?
No.
This is very obviously Hersh lying through his teeth and putting words into Burns’s mouth.
Which is important because if Hersh didn’t do that, HE WOULD HAVE LITERALLY NO IDENTIFIED SOURCES CITED IN THIS ENTIRE MISBEGOTTEN ARTICLE.
Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government.
Firstly: Only 35? That’s better than I expected. Or the CIA isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
Secondly: Please, name names. Name and Shame. It worked for the Panama Papers (Which actually did more to hole Poroshenko and others). And if freaking hackdivists online can do better than you, Hersh, then there is a problem.
Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me.
Ok, this should be easy to note. IDENTIFY THE PEOPLE HE DISMISSED.
Name and Shame. Basic. Goddamn. Journalistic Ethics. Even the much degraded sham show of leftist activist journalism can manage it.
It’s also not like most dismissals at this level in the Ukrainian Government are UNKNOWN or NOT REPORTED ABOUT.
Protip: When the Goddamn Guardian and NPR are doing better journalism than you are, THAT’S A BAD SIGN.
It’s PARTICULARLY bad when their “journalism” amounts to basically translating press releases from the Ukrainian Government and adding in some cheap commentary.
But they can name some names, and link to sources.
Why can’t Hersh?
I think the answer is quite clear. Hersh is peddling accusations that are calculated to be
A: Inflammatory.
B: Vague.
And
C: (Most Importantly) DELIBERATELY HARD TO EVALUATE AND FALSIFY.
If he came out and stated that Burns put forth a list of Gonchar Oligarkov, Igor Kleptovskoy, and Sasha Embezeldeev to Zelenskyy, and later Zelenskyy fired Kleptovskoy and Embezeldeev, THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING HE COULD LINK TO PROVE HE ISN’T LYING.
Or at a MINIMUM it would be a specific accusation with specific people WHOM WE COULD EXAMINE FOR OURSELVES to see if they were actually fired (or subjected to things that might debatably fit for it, such as “retiring to spend time with their family”). It is something that even the MSM outlets – who are BY NO MEANS paragons of journalistic integrity or skill – can do.
But this scumbag isn’t doing that. This means that Hersh is quite literally behaving WORSE than the likes of the Grauniad, BBC, and NPR. Why?
Well, I think we know why.
And you wonder WHY I remorselessly slag you for buying this abject nonsense, Banned Lizard?
Hersh is utter scum. He is a psychopathic liar, far-left nutjob, and totalitarian and genocidal shill. What’s more, he is incredibly arrogant and incredibly stupid. In many ways, he could fit as a blueprint or even exaggeration of the typical MSM journalist of whom a certain fantasy writer noted “they know literally nothing.” Albeit for different reasons.
What’s worse though is that I find him akin to a pedophile. Someone intentionally preying upon the trust, naivety, and lack of experience and knowledge of others in order to victimize them. Which is why I palpably hate him and people like him.
And why I feel confident in concluding he victimized you, Banned Lizard.
There is Literally No Reason to believe ANYTHING Hersh wrote in this article is true.
No Dates. No names (beyond very very basic high level figures). No accountability. No links. Nothing. He has Nothing.
Indeed, he actually has less than nothing, given his track record.
And you actually believe him?
Literally Why?
I think we know why. Because there’s pretty much only one reason why you WOULD believe something this null. It fits the biases and conclusions you already drew beforehand, from other sources. Sources that MIGHT fit with what Hersh is accusing and indeed do a better job of substantiating… well… Anything than Hersh does.
But there’s literally nothing of substance in this paper TO believe.
and doing little else. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me.
The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because “he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.”
Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government. Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list and doing little else. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me.
Let’s stipulate the diesel rumor as probably untrue, but what if it isn’t?
No, let’s go further. Let’s stipulate that LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THIS ARTICLE IS PROBABLY UNTRUE. because there is LITERALLY NO REASON to believe otherwise. Because on an objective level, Hersh provides LITERALLY NO REASON to believe him incorporated into this article. I would know. I checked. I went through it piece by piece.
And while there is nothing quite as laugh out loud and stupid as claiming Jens Stoltenberg was a CIA super agent at the age of 15-16 (at the oldest) and Hersh is referring to very basic and well documented public methods of getting around official limitations and getting kickbacks, there’s also nothing of inherent substance here. No links to actual VIPs by name, or them getting dismissed or anything. No dates to help outline it.
There is NOTHING here.
Which is why I am not prepared to care the slightest about “but what if it isn’t?”
It isn’t MY job to give Hersh the benefit of the doubt when he’s made it abundantly clear he wants me and mine dead. It is up to HERSH to provide evidence and sources for his claims of such power that I am COMPELLED by their nature to grant that he is right, or at least that he is on to something.
HERSH OBJECTIVELY FAILED TO DO SO.
As such I dismiss this entire article and every echo chamber dependent on it WITH PREJUDICE and will remorsely hammer why you believed such transparently sophist, dishonest “reporting.”
Imaginative fellow, Sy Hersh.
Indeed, he is. But imaginative doesn’t mean GOOD or COMPETENT. Because Hersh hasn’t been either for a long, long time.
Claiming that Jens Stoltenberg was a CIA Agent at the age of 15-16 while simultaneously partaking in his family’s anti-American, Marxist leaning politics is the kind of fever dream I’d expect to see written on a Fan Fiction site, in “Real Person Fiction/RPF” (and if you don’t know what that is, you should be grateful). Indeed, in all due likelihood it IS actually Real Person Fiction.
That requires a certain deranged level of creativity, it is true.
But it doesn’t require any kind of honesty or competence. And indeed even on the off chance that Hersh didn’t invent it completely on his own it still says nothing good about him because it means he relied on an anonymous source that was so depravedly “creative” while simultaneously not bothering to do basic biotch fact checking on the matter.
We hope his knowledgeable intel source is not Harvey the Rabbit, but with or without Zelensky’s high heels, we’ve got grifty entertainment value. We can bemoan Clown World or enjoy it. I choose the latter.
The problem, Oh Banned Lizard, is that you were not presenting this pile of unverifiable garbage by a psychopathic liar as such. You were at most doing so ironically, with the “Not guilty due to the source” tongue in cheek statement. And as far as grifty entertainment value goes this isn’t anywhere near Hersh’s best like his Nordstream Writing or Assad Apologia.
And as far as comparing Zelenskyy to Cohen, it doesn’t help there because it provides nothing to evaluate beyond Hersh’s “Trust Me Bro” going all the way down.
Turtler,
Is your disgust with Hersh related to his writing about the My Lai massacre? I was pretty angry toward him at the time.
I have to admit I haven’t read the Hersh piece, which I normally would do before commenting on it.
I agree this is probably sour grapes from someone who Zelensky has fired for dipping into the American kitty– and there are plenty of guys with a grudge against Zelensky.
But back to the Nord Stream pipeline. Here’s President Trump’s take on the bombing in his interview with Carlson. I would assume Trump still has sources inside the government, and he’s not relying completely on Hersh’s reporting.
Tucker asks Trump who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline
Read my posts about Hersh to get an idea of the stuff the guy has tried to pull for about 50 years. This one, for instance. For more information, read this article. There’s tons of information out there on Hersh’s long long history of lies. My Lai is one of the few stories he apparently got right.
Turtler:
SOURCE: I MADE IT THE F_CK UP.
Thank you for that sparkly gem. I suppose Sy may be culturally relevant, but with serious caveats.
as much as $400 per gallon
Hmmm . . . . . . that seems a mite excessive on its face. Now if it were saffron being quoted, rather than mere gasoline . . . .
@Brian E
Is your disgust with Hersh related to his writing about the My Lai massacre? I was pretty angry toward him at the time.
Honestly My Lai is pretty much the only halfway honorable thing Hersh has done in his misbegotten life, and as we are now learning it was largely not due to his actions. My Lai was a grotesque action and a shame on American honor, and I welcome disinfecting sunlight and punishment for those who did it (Calley in particular should have had it worse).
Which is why I note how his motives for reporting on My Lai were very obviously not fundamental moral outrage against what Calley did, since he has cozied up to people who (hard as it is) are objectively far worse than even the murderous, abusive brute responsible for My Lai.
I have to admit I haven’t read the Hersh piece, which I normally would do before commenting on it.
If you read my post, you have read “the Hersh piece”, albeit chopped up in my usual fashion and interspaced with my shouting and cursing. That is literally all there is to the piece. Every word, every scratch, every punctuation mark. There are no links to present, there are no sources (outside of Burns), there is nothing.
I agree this is probably sour grapes from someone who Zelensky has fired for dipping into the American kitty– and there are plenty of guys with a grudge against Zelensky.
Honestly I think the issue is much more foundational. Hersh has been an anti-American shill for a long time and has been quite close to Putin and his allies. So he’s prepared to regurgitate a lot.
I utterly despise Hersh and I’m not about to start, BUT my emotional sentiment does not override the fact that even he is at least theoretically capable of reporting the truth and linking to a source or sources (even valid ones). And I am more than willing to give credit when I find an accusation credible or at least I cannot dismiss it out of hand.
And like I said: I am MORE than prepared to believe Zelenskyy has engaged in corruption, and that the CIA and others have had to lean on him to whittle down on corruption. I may be idealistic and a hawk, but I am not staggeringly stupid (at least in this sense). And as I pointed out (through the likes of NPR and the Grauniad!!!) high level firings of Ukrainian officials for corruption allegations are not unheard of or unreported even in outlets that want to paint the Ukrainian loyalist cause better than I do.
Which makes Hersh’s decision to embrace “I have no sources I care to name or link and you must trust me” and deliberately obscurantist style very, Very damning in my opinion.
But back to the Nord Stream pipeline. Here’s President Trump’s take on the bombing in his interview with Carlson. I would assume Trump still has sources inside the government, and he’s not relying completely on Hersh’s reporting.
Tucker asks Trump who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline
I’ll check, and I’d have to see. I admit that increasingly as time goes on I do increasingly think that Nordstream was done “by us” or at least somebody or some organization broadly on our side, since I figure that if the Swedes had evidence it was an accident (or even that it wasn’t but that they wanted to cool tensions) they would say so, and also that if the Russians had done so (and they weren’t afraid of inflaming tensions more by accusing the Russians or some faction thereof of doing a false flag in their home waters) they would say so. But however it happened or from whom, I can be very sure that it wasn’t done like Hersh said.
@Banned Lizard
Thank you for that sparkly gem.
To be fair I don’t exactly deserve credit for it, since it is based on an old internet meme that was recently twisted (by adding the profanity) by a certain Japanese game developer.
I suppose Sy may be culturally relevant, but with serious caveats.
Perhaps, but I’m on the whole even less generous. Especially since I am at the point where I am taking all sources even more hesitantly.
we discover about 80% of the news is wrong either by omission, commission or addition, there was a viral outbreak but it came from artificial means, funded by various government, and vital and inexpensive protocols were denied, thats just one example,
if you want examples of Russian degradation of forces thats available in the data release, other less than congratulatory data is in there, apparently they lied about the airborne surveilllance, repeatedly,
Re: SETI
All across the galaxy should be civilizations broadcasting information we can see. Even if every current civilization except ours is thousands or tens of thousands of years old, their light speed spectrum broadcasts will reach here proportionally to the distant of origin.
If a civilization interferes with its star or planets, then those changes can be seen. Will we recognize them? I don’t know. But I do know if you’re not looking, you won’t see it.
That means, for instance, if anytime in the last 100 years Delta Pavonis (2O light years away) started broadcasting on any spectrum we’re reading, then we can tell. If Delta’s civilization suddenly transcended 5 years ago to become god-like, fifteen years of broadcasts will still reach us prior to its stopping.
The galaxy should be filled with signs, portents, and signals of other civilizations.
But it’s not.
A claim that we are the only civilization that uses the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit information is highly unlikely to be true and assumes the universe is other than our science says it is.
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This morning while I was getting ready to spend some time on the net before heading outside to do some planting of some bulbs I had a thought (OK, I do have them sometimes). The new CAF rules will force the US to go EV. I think that some states will also start imposing higher taxes and fees on gas in the name of climate change. And, will impose higher taxes and fees on licensing of ICE vehicles, also in the name of climate change. Now, I am going outside to work in my yard.
The ball-and-stick models, the orbit-around-a-nucleus-models, “shell filling”, “bonds”, all these metaphors which I hope don’t impede deeper understanding but I suspect probably do. Mostly to avoid talking about math. I don’t have a better solution, I admit. Maybe it’s better to have several incompatible models presented at once to emphasize that reality is like all of the models in some ways but not identical with them.
I’ll never forget, in college, when a student walked into a microscopy lab asking to be shown “peptide bonds”, very upset to learn that they are a metaphor and you can’t see them.
Shirehome, I’m sure that’s coming especially in blue states fairly soon.
I wish someone would show publicly to these politicians the relatively simple calculation of the needed electrical generation to handle EVs. Just take the average number of miles driven/year in the US; factor in efficiency of ICE to get the total energy needed which should be about the same for EVs: overcoming road friction, electronics, etc. Then using EV efficiency to get the needed kWh to charge all those EVs. For conversion to 100% EVs, the country would need to increase it’s generation by about 50%. How is that going to happen?? Not with solar or wind, that’s for sure.
Of course facts never really seem to matter in these situations. I mean, California is already experiencing generation problems, and Germany is just now realizing what happens as they tried to go all solar and wind. Sigh…..
As Scotty said to Kirk: “I canna change the laws of physics!”
Frederick,
Yeah, I used to like how in senior QM class I asked the majors who had taken chem about all those funny pictures of figure 8s, and donuts etc that chemistry uses for bonding orbitals. Then as we worked through the QM atoms, they realized those were electron densities for different atomic states. What still amazes me is that chemists, especially the bio and organic chemists, do what they do without having to do the QM math. They have developed an efficient shorthand for putting together atoms into molecules
Carbon-based structure isn’t the only thing all life on Earth has in common. It’s all also either RNA- or DNA-based, using a common 3-unit genetic code (with a quibble for the U/T switch). The 3 units that spell a particular amino acid in a bacterium spell that same amino acid in you, in a Sequoia, or in a mushroom. Amino acids are the building blocks for proteins. That tricky business with A matching T/U and C matching G, making a reversible template, is the same in all living creatures on Earth.
As far as we can tell, life occurred only once on Earth, and every living creature on this planet is descended from whatever early form it took, some billions of years ago. There’s way too much loose talk about what “life must look like.” We have only the one example here. We have no idea if it happened anywhere else or what it might be like if it did.
So I was glad to see the narrator point out that we have little idea what molecular structures might prove both stable and flexible enough to support metabolism and reproduction under different conditions, such as temperature and pressure. I believe the current thinking, however, is that Earth life originated in deep undersea vents under conditions of extreme pressure and temperature–not that conditions elsewhere in the universe might not be far more extreme. What it seems to take is an energy gradient and some raw materials. How that morphs into metabolizing entities that can reproduce themselves, let alone via the extremely complicated RNA/DNA structure, we have basically no clue at present.
Not guilty due to the source:
Hersh: Zelenskyy And His Entourage Embezzled $400 Million In Fuel Purchases
Not guilty due to the source
==
You actually have to have a history of manifest skill and also integrity before people take you as an authority.
Banned Lizard:
You hate Zelensky so much that you are willing to link to the unreliable Sy Hersh? Not sure what point you’re trying to make.
the creature in alien, was supposedly silicon based, so was the horta in the star trek episode,
thats a rather conservative number, something like 0.4 percent of our expenditures in ukraine, what could we have done with 400 million dollars in fuel, might we need if if we have to go to war with China, as if Milley cares about that,
in point of fact, is anything they tell us on the record true, from milley from austin from garland, from fauci, from walensky from jha, from mayorkas from burns,
Here in NC, “purple” but with a Republican-controlled legislature, tax increases on EVs are being planned, in the form of increased annual registration fees and a special fee on purchase, to fill the hole in the DOT budget causes by the loss of gas tax revenue. Special fees will apply also to hybrid vehicles.
Summary Q: do liberals simplify life to a cartoon and thereby put way too much emphasis on individuals as hero figures?
—–
Just read the latest by Matt Taibbi about Musk and the files.
For someone who seems to really get it sometimes, he seems dumb as a rock on the big picture at other times.
Musk is far more consistent of free speech than his critics (or even Taibbi) seem capable of understanding, but whether he is or not is completely irrelevant to the important issues of free speech for society. Musk ultimately doesn’t matter. He deserves to be in the American citizenship hall of fame for his decision to open the Twitter files no matter what else he ever does, but there is no need for him to be free of sin to acknowledge the benefits of what he did or the importance of the issue of free speech.
I wonder if, in Taibbi’s case, this is some mental tic that comes with being a liberal — way too much focus on individuals. [We see this with Trump, too. Liberals seem to have this bizarre idea that killing Trump will make all the grassroots, populist anger at their Big Brother criminality simply disappear in a poof.]
[and in a different, but kind of related note, I see this in sports where the star is the complete focus and the rest of the team irrelevant. Brent Musberger was the all-time worst at this, but we see it everywhere. Maybe some people are simply incapable of seeing complexity and have to reduce everything to a cartoon featuring heroes and villains.
The worst is in football which is the ultimate team game. Quarterbacks are important, yes. But games are actually won by the big fellas upfront. When one team is winning the battle upfront on both sides of the ball, they win at least 90% of the time. The only QB in history to consistently win a majority of games with a bad offensive line, awful special teams and a terrible defense was Peyton Manning. To listen to the sports media, QBs are the only players that matter.]
Update to Bob Lee’s murder in San Francisco on April 4: the police just arrested a suspect– a fellow tech worker who knew Lee, not the psycho rando that initial reports implied. “A fellow tech worker was arrested Thursday in the slaying of Cash App founder Bob Lee on the streets of San Francisco, according to local reports. . . . The suspect is said to have been driving through the city with Lee when they had some kind of confrontation, which resulted in the tech mogul exiting the vehicle, according to Mission Local’s sources. Their altercation continued and Lee was fatally stabbed by the suspect on a quiet street, according to the outlet, citing police sources. The knife used was also reportedly recovered from the scene, which was close to the hotel where Lee was staying.”
The motive for the killing is presently unknown.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/13/arrest-made-in-murder-of-cash-app-founder-bob-lee/
From what I have gathered, SETI is looking for intelligent life “out there” (wouldn’t want it to be closer in and “here,” with all of the messy and dangerous complications that might bring, so they haven’t been focusing on that) apparently expecting that such life will be communicating using the level of technology which we are currently using, and on a particular wavelength of that technology that we “think” might be the likely one.
It seems to me that they are thinking inside a very circumscribed “box.”
Say, there are civilizations of intelligent and space faring aliens “out there,” some of which are ancient, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years older that ours, and with technology hundreds of thousands of years more advanced, or even, say, only a couple of thousand years more advanced than ours.
Do we really think that they would be using our technology, and communicating on our chosen wavelengths?
Then, there is the question of identifying intelligent “life.”
We have only our one example of what life looks like.
Why should we think that any life which evolved in a myriad of other possible star systems and under other conditions—and possibly very radically different conditions–which led to, for instance, very different sensory systems and ways of communicating, to extremely different physical appearance, ways and rates of moving, and radically different mind-sets and motives–would even be recognizable by us as intelligent life?
Then, of course there is the question of what such aliens motives might be (comradery, intellectual curiosity, some sort of duty, good ol’ exploitation?), in deciding to communicate or to not communicate with us.
Moreover, if such posited aliens decided to communicate–how, given a radically different evolutionary history, sensory apparatus, mind-set, and communication regime, would they try to do so?
Imagine if all life on earth had developed based on sulphur chemistry or the chemistry of some other element.
We then would be watching a video explaining why this had to be so.
Why should we think that any life which evolved in a myriad of other possible star systems and under other conditions—and possibly very radically different conditions–which led to, for instance, very different sensory systems and ways of communicating, to extremely different physical appearance, ways and rates of moving, and radically different mind-sets and motives–would even be recognizable by us as intelligent life?
Of course we shouldn’t assume anything. But that said, we have to start somewhere. We know that life evolved here on Earth. So starting from that point, we can infer things about what might be needed for similar life to evolve elsewhere. So only looking for more specific signals is about narrowing down the potential search space rather than expanding it. It’s a function of how to best spend out limited investigative resources.
There’s nothing wrong with speculating about myriad possibilities, potential alternate biochemistries or paradigms that may also lead to the evolution of complex life. But when it comes to investing time, money, and energy into research, you often have to be a bit more parsimonious.
PA+Cat:
Nina Moneni is bilingual in Farsi. Sad.
PA+Cat:
Nima Moneni is bilingual in Farsi. Sad.
Spelled his name incorrectly (the suspect in the Bob Lee stabbing.)
RFKjr mooted for Trump Veep?
I only worry about his enviro-wackiness….
BUT OUTSIDERS UNITED? This plan’s got legs (We’ll know in one year):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiY-H1RQ58k
Points made by H. A. Goodman, a columnist at The Hill:
Trump and RFK Jr. on the same ticket is “probably not likely” but,
1. RFK Jr., based on articles he has authored, and Trump have similar foreign policy views. For example, they both oppose “never-ending military conflicts”.
2. Many Trump supporters will gravitate towards RFK Jr. because of his anti-covid vax viewpoints.
3. Trump and RFK Jr. both speak their minds and aren’t afraid of the media.
4. RFK’s economic policies are similar to Trumps, based on his interviews and writings. Under Trump we had record high household income and record low poverty, which RFK Jr. supports.
5. RFK Jr. is the closest thing to Trump in the Democrat Party. If he were Trump’s VP, a lot of independents would vote for the Trump/Kennedy ticket.
6.JFK, RFK’s Jr.’s uncle, did not “worship” intelligence agencies, the opposite is true.
THIS could refresh the Trump brand and appeal to the Indy vote in ways DeSantis cannot.
Frederick at the top…”show me them Peptide bonds” LOL! Yeah, offer ‘em ‘probability clouds’ and today they’ll think you’re making an IT insider joke. Lols!
physics pguy goes inside with, What “ pamazes me is that chemists, especially the bio and organic chemists, do what they do without having to do the QM math. They have developed an efficient shorthand for putting together atoms into molecules” — to me, that’s a wowser perspective on organic chemistry-world.
Could you illustrate for us?
a moon like io is rich in sulphur for instance, (remember outland) but it’s unlikely you would have life in that manor, not impossible,
*rfk allegedly wanted to break up the cia, and give the covert capacity to the joint chief, of course he didn’t know about northwood,
Good video. Thanks for posting. You have a knack for finding interesting science videos.
I was fortunate to have a spectacular college astronomy professor. A truly great teacher who did a great lecture on why it has to be carbon.
The best thing he ever did, maybe the best thing I’ve ever seen any college professor do, was organize a wonderful debate. That was our “class” one day. He had colleagues in the astronomy department who were split on the question, “Are we alone in the galaxy?”
So two professors and two graduate students (on each team – a team of four) had it out with our professor moderating. It was so much fun. I went in thinking the poor bastards arguing we are alone had no chance. There are billions and billions of stars in the Milky Way. How could anyone think we are alone? I was 19 by the way – and knew just about everything.
The “we are alone” guys had the other team on their heals from the start using the logic and reasoning of the Fermi Paradox, which I had never heard of. There is obviously no definitive answer, but I think it’s safe to say almost everyone in the class went in with my bias, and walked out thinking “we are alone” won the debate.
Loved that class and it sparked a lifelong passion for astronomy.
You hate Zelensky so much that you are willing to link to the unreliable Sy Hersh? Not sure what point you’re trying to make.
“Hate” is a little strong. I don’t hate Michael Cohen either, but my view of the two is similar. To elaborate, here’s another item from Sy:
TRADING WITH THE ENEMY
“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me.
Let’s stipulate the diesel rumor as probably untrue, but what if it isn’t? Imaginative fellow, Sy Hersh. We hope his knowledgeable intel source is not Harvey the Rabbit, but with or without Zelensky’s high heels, we’ve got grifty entertainment value. We can bemoan Clown World or enjoy it. I choose the latter.
@TJ:Could you illustrate for us?
The periodic table is a great start. The rows and columns of the table classify similar solutions to the Schroedinger equation for each atom.
Silicon is right underneath carbon on the periodic table, which means these elements have similar chemical properties, Both can bind with up to four other atoms at once.
Which is why some speculate there might be life based on silicon instead of carbon.
I’ve also found it interesting that hemoglobin and chlorophyll have close to the same chemical structure except where hemoglobin has iron, chlorophyll has magnesium.
The Twitter poll question was,
“Knowing what you know now, do you think that the U.S. military would fire on their own people if ordered to.”
To see how bad things have gotten, take a look at this poll result below.
Iraqveteran8888, a veteran of the Iraq war who works in a gun shop and who is an 2nd Amendment advocate, put up this poll on Twitter, asking the question, “Knowing what you know now, do you think that the U.S. military would fire on their own people if ordered to.”
A total of 51,923 people took this April 2023 poll and, of them, 77.4% said “yes.”
According to this video the same question was also asked some 2 months ago with virtually identical results.
* See https://twitter.com/Iraqveteran8888
P.S.—It used to be routinely reported that the military was the one US institution in which people had their highest remaining confidence.
If this poll is any indication, that may no longer be the case.
I’ve been following the Steven Van Zandt brouhaha. Van Zandt is Springsteen’s E Street Band guitarist. He also played Silvio on “The Sopranos.”
On Easter Sunday, Van Zandt, in a response to the trans shooting and Republican opposition to more gun control, essentially dropped the genocide bomb:
__________________________
Outrageous doesn’t begin to describe the actions of those Republican White Supremicist [sic] scumbag cowards that need guns to feel like real me. Gen Z, Gen Y and Gen X will unite and exterminate these cockroaches once and for all.
–Steven Van Zandt
__________________________
Later he deleted the tweet because he didn’t want to spend any more time defending himself from “Foxsucking scumbag Russian bots and MAGOTT cockroaches.” What he really meant was “Exterminate [them] at the ballot box.”
Well, OK then!
Van Zandt also explained that he was a “peace-loving hippie.” Sticks out a mile away.
I don’t imagine readers here care about Van Zandt and I don’t either, but I was curious as to whether the controversy would be picked up by the MSM.
No need for a spoiler alert.
The DEMOCRATS’ ongoing Great Black Whale hunt of Justice Clarence Thomas is getting close to ethic’s challenged paydirt.
It appears that billionaire Harlan Crow bought the home of his mother and late brother, who co-owned — and she continues to live there. Thus, constituting grounds for Dem Senate hearings into the matter.
The “company belonging to Texas billionaire Crow, who has showered Thomas with lavish trips and odd yet pricey gifts, bought a series of properties right next to each other in Savannah, Georgia, including a single-story home and two lots, according to ProPublica. It’s the first known direct financial transaction between Thomas and Crow.
“The company bought the properties from co-owners Thomas, his mother and his late brother’s family for $133,363, according to a tax document and deed from October 2014 the outlet obtained. The justice’s elderly mother lived at the property, and continued to do so under Crow’s ownership. Soon after the purchase was finalized contractors went to work on tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of improvements, including a carport, a fixed roof and a new fence and gates…”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11970619/Billionaire-Republican-megadonor-Harlan-Crow-bought-133-363-HOUSE-Clarence-Thomas.html
The HARPOON has been deployed! But will it find its mark?
@Banned Lizard
Correct.
Though more specifically: NOT GUILTY DUE TO THERE BEING FUCKALL EVIDENCE ACTUALLY PRESENTED IN THE SOURCE. This is essentially Hersh quite literally going “SOURCE: TRUST ME BRO.”
Well, I’m sorry Banned Lizard, but nobody sane should trust Hersh. Especially on our side of the political spectrum. And the only real reason YOU’RE doing so is because it flatters your preconceived notions and fits into a narrative you find charming.
But this is also a man who quite literally claimed Jens Stoltenberg the child was a CIA Asset even as he helped his Marxtard Sister protest the US War in Vietnam, and who has repeatedly lied about monumentally basic things.
The IRONY behind this is that at least some of the accusations are things I’d be willing to believe. It should surprise absolutely nobody beyond the terminally naive that Ukraine has huge amounts of corruption (as does Russia. That includes unethical if not outright illegal trading between Ukrainian bigwigs and Russian ones in spite of the nature of the war. Poroshenko (Zelenskyy’s predecessor and rival) correctly got into a lot of flak over what were at a minimum unethical business contacts with Russia and he was just the more egregious. It would not surprise me at all if Zelenzkyy were party to similar corruption.
But here’s the damn thing:
A: I’m going to need a hell of a lot more ACTUAL EVIDENCE than Literally Nothing.
B: I’m sure as fuck not going to trust Literally Nothing from an incompetent, morally bankrupt, far-leftist genocidal totalitarian simp like Seymour Hersh, who has already gotten exposed and roundly mocked for carrying water for Putin, Assad, and the Pakistani Junta before and who has not only lied in the past, but lied in egregiously stupid fashion that indicates he isn’t even informed enough to know what a believable lie would look like to the informed.
Again, this is a man who claimed that Jens Stoltenberg was recruited into the CIA due to being an “anti-Communist Hardliner” in the Vietnam War, in spite of being 16 at the time the war ended and having a family actively involved in left-wing, anti-US politics at the itme.
I’m sorry Banned, but do you want to make yourself look Goddamn STUPID?!?!
Because that’s what you are accomplishing.
And again: I say this as someone who has NEVER had a particularly rosy view of Ukrainian politics, who has NEVER had an overly rosy view of Zelenskyy,, who would be prepared to believe accusations of this nature with actual evidence, and who frankly does not have their calculations or stance on the Ukrainian War influenced hugely by a rosy view of Ukrainian politics or its future, any more than I think support against Imperial Japanese, Fascist Italian, Soviet, or Nazi German aggression should have hinged on the moral or ethical purity of the racist military Junta of Poland, the comically corrupt quasi-Fascist nightmare of the Chinese KMT (let alone literally Mao in Yenan), the slave-owning absolute monarchy of Ethiopia, or the tinpot dictatorship of Zogist Albania.
Neo and a host of others have already pointed out how it is utterly stupid and terminally naive to trust Hersh, ESPECIALLY when he is speaking about “Anonymous Sources.” Many others have also pointed out how Hersh is remarkably stupid for a man of his prominence and qualifications, which means that not only when he lies he often doesn’t even know how ludicrous those lies make him out to be. That along with his far leftist credentials and views and willingness to engage in literal blood libel against US (not the “Uniparty”, or the “Globalists”, or the “NeoCons” but average Conservatives) makes trusting him even more baffling.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2023/02/09/i-learned-long-ago-not-to-trust-anything-seymour-hersh-king-of-the-anonymous-source-writes/
https://www.thenewneo.com/2023/02/11/seymour-hersh-and-the-pipeline-again/
https://www.thenewneo.com/2015/05/11/seymour-hersh-obama-and-the-bin-laden-raid-liars-liars-pants-on-fire/
https://www.thenewneo.com/2007/04/10/only-the-shadow-sy-hersh-knows-or-doesnt-know-or-something-like-that/
https://www.thenewneo.com/2006/04/10/only-shadow-knows-seymour-hersh-on/
But you seriously want to play this game, Banned Lizard?
Ok, I’ll play your and Hersh’s game.
So I’m going to read through his “Source” and finesse what it says. But unlike you, I am going to treat Hersh with the lack of benefit of the doubt he deserves, which is why when he relies on a conveniently unnamed “Anonymous Source” i will replace it with “SOURCE: I MADE IT THE F_CK UP”, and I will call out things that are transparently wrong.
Shall we begin?
Ok, let’s.
Firstly Hersh: It’s Kyiv, not Kiev. A little sensitivity?
Secondly: Yes, corruption is rampant in Ukraine (though not moreso than in Russia, as we have obviously seen). That’s a concern, especially in terms of aid and efficiency. But it’s hardly a reason to do it.
Gee, why the Farq would US troops be doing that? It boggles the mind. Let us consider, perhaps, a few reasons…..
https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-says-western-weapons-ukraine-legitimate-targets-russian-military-2022-04-25/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10647215/Russia-warns-SMASH-Poland-tries-intervene-Ukraine-war.html
https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88585
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2022/10/1/ukraine-blog-3 (Yes, it’s the Al Qaeda propaganda rag Al Jazeera, but they have previously been quite fond of Kadyrov).
https://www.rferl.org/a/moldova-coup-kremlin-warning-peskov/32279751.html
And I could go on.
Another important context is that – to state the blindingly obvious – Russia is not a free country. It has been imposing widening censorship on the public and its own leadership. This is important because it means that these threats from VIPs in the Russian Government had to be supported or at least tolerated by Putin and the other grandees in power of Russia.
And that includes threats to neutral nations like Moldova, threats to NATO, and a host of others.
Now, if Hersh was interested in being HONEST for a change, he’d acknowledge these things. He’d also acknowledge that deploying US troops to the Ukrainian Border was a natural response to threats like these from the Kremlin, and also served as a buffer to prevent the (fantasy) threat of Polish aggression on Ukraine by imposing a foreign bufffer.
But as should be blindingly obvious, Hersh is fundamentally not interested in being honest.
As much as I thoroughly hate Biden, IT IS NOT PRIMARILY HIS JOB OR THAT OF ANY US GOVERNMENT TO HAVE AN ENDGAME TO THE CONFLICT. None of them STARTED the war in Ukraine (even tortured victim-blaming bullshit by trying to claim “US Interference” or “Euromaidan” prompted the Kremlin’s invasion fall flat when I point to things like Kyrgyzstan) .
It is primarily the RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT’S JOB to come up with an endgame to this conflict, one way or another. THEY ARE, AFTER ALL, THE SIDE THAT INITIATED THIS WAR more than twice over. The Ukrainian Government has a secondary concern, but ultimately responsibility lies with the Kremlin.
Ok, while I’m distrustful of Hersh on everything none of this is in particular dispute in terms of the core argument.
SOURCE: I MADE IT THE F_CK UP.
Because that is basically what this amounts to. Hersh does not even DEIGN to link us to any of these supposed estimates. Probably because he can’t.
Which means we have literally no reason to believe what he writes here.
Now, let’s make a quick edit to this drek and see if it makes any different.
When phrased in this way, it is obviously absurd and thoroughly laughable. But the thing is, it was ALREADY absurd and laughable. There is no source. There is no proof. There is literally no reason to believe this statement came from anybody outside of Hersh’s head, let alone anybody who is remotely honest or credible.
Whether or not you BELIEVE the accusation reflects reality is completely irrelevant. The fact remains that knowledge is NOT just about knowing what you know, it’s knowing HOW YOU CAN PROVE what you know.
And Hersh has no way of proving what he claims to know that he is willing to share with Us, the Audience. Who on the right he has repeatedly lied about, smeared, blood libeled, and heinously misused.
It is quite literally “Source: Trust Me Bruh” when said by one of the least trustworthy of people this side of Obama, Putin, Xi, and Shrillary.
A couple things here.
Firstly: This is another giant “Trust Me Bro, I have Sources I won’t Deign To Link Or Actually Identify” piece from the same idiot who didn’t know how old Stoltenberg was when the Vietnam War ended.
Secondly: Even if it were true it is remarkably banal in comparison to accusations of trading with the enemy. In a high intensity war, one of the great issues is getting enough material from supporters, whether one’s direct allies or not. As such, shell companies – while dubious and hard to account for – are a useful and even quasi-legitimate political and diplomatic tool to fuel weapons and other resources to the war effort from neutrals or even enemy countries who (for whatever reason) do not want to be easily identified as supporting your side. And this is useful for sustaining actual resistance.
In short: If you had to have Ukrainian Oligarchs engaging in corruption at all, THIS IS HOW YOU WOULD WANT THEM TO BE DOING IT IN TERMS OF THE WAR EFFORT, because it doesn’t significantly hurt the US but benefits themselves and their causes. It’s at this that I’ll note that many people noted things like Japanese businessmen in the 1930s finding out that some of the business deals they engaged in actually helped the KMT resistance on China get the ammo needed to kill their attacking countrymen in the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy.
EDIT: And because unlike the clown that wrote this I care about actually providing sources,
http://www.pinyin.info/books/formosabetrayed/chap02.html
http://www.pinyin.info/books/formosabetrayed/
http://www.tzengs.com/FormosaBetrayed_GerogeHKerr.pdf
I realize that in many ways this isn’t MUCH better than Hersh’s anonymous sources, but at least I am willing to put a name and link to where I got the allegation from, and Kerr’s achievements and offices are not subject to serious dispute.
Again:
Source: I made It The Hell Up.
I’m not even going to criticize you too much for why you’re believing the sock puppet Hersh puts on his hands, Banned Lizard.
But I am going to criticize why you’re believing them when they’re unwilling to provide any evidence or sources we can actually evaluate for ourselves.
Ok: Literally Who?
No please. Please Mr. Hersh and your loyal sock puppets (who I am told are very well informed, very used to getting direct knowledge, and I am sure are created from the finest of cotton). Tell us LITERALLY WHO “the Senior Generals and Government Officials in Kyiv” are who were angry about this.
Yeah, anybody actually believe this BS? Especially that it would be stated so bluntly in an actual, formal meeting?
No.
This is very obviously Hersh lying through his teeth and putting words into Burns’s mouth.
Which is important because if Hersh didn’t do that, HE WOULD HAVE LITERALLY NO IDENTIFIED SOURCES CITED IN THIS ENTIRE MISBEGOTTEN ARTICLE.
Firstly: Only 35? That’s better than I expected. Or the CIA isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
Secondly: Please, name names. Name and Shame. It worked for the Panama Papers (Which actually did more to hole Poroshenko and others). And if freaking hackdivists online can do better than you, Hersh, then there is a problem.
Ok, this should be easy to note. IDENTIFY THE PEOPLE HE DISMISSED.
Name and Shame. Basic. Goddamn. Journalistic Ethics. Even the much degraded sham show of leftist activist journalism can manage it.
It’s also not like most dismissals at this level in the Ukrainian Government are UNKNOWN or NOT REPORTED ABOUT.
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/25/1151270414/several-ukrainian-officials-have-been-dismissed-in-a-large-government-shakeup
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/24/zelenskiy-anti-corruption-drive-15-ukrainian-officials-exit
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2023/01/24/senior-ukrainian-officials-fired-over-corruption-allegations-amid-eu-membership-push/
Protip: When the Goddamn Guardian and NPR are doing better journalism than you are, THAT’S A BAD SIGN.
It’s PARTICULARLY bad when their “journalism” amounts to basically translating press releases from the Ukrainian Government and adding in some cheap commentary.
But they can name some names, and link to sources.
Why can’t Hersh?
I think the answer is quite clear. Hersh is peddling accusations that are calculated to be
A: Inflammatory.
B: Vague.
And
C: (Most Importantly) DELIBERATELY HARD TO EVALUATE AND FALSIFY.
If he came out and stated that Burns put forth a list of Gonchar Oligarkov, Igor Kleptovskoy, and Sasha Embezeldeev to Zelenskyy, and later Zelenskyy fired Kleptovskoy and Embezeldeev, THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING HE COULD LINK TO PROVE HE ISN’T LYING.
Or at a MINIMUM it would be a specific accusation with specific people WHOM WE COULD EXAMINE FOR OURSELVES to see if they were actually fired (or subjected to things that might debatably fit for it, such as “retiring to spend time with their family”). It is something that even the MSM outlets – who are BY NO MEANS paragons of journalistic integrity or skill – can do.
But this scumbag isn’t doing that. This means that Hersh is quite literally behaving WORSE than the likes of the Grauniad, BBC, and NPR. Why?
Well, I think we know why.
And you wonder WHY I remorselessly slag you for buying this abject nonsense, Banned Lizard?
Hersh is utter scum. He is a psychopathic liar, far-left nutjob, and totalitarian and genocidal shill. What’s more, he is incredibly arrogant and incredibly stupid. In many ways, he could fit as a blueprint or even exaggeration of the typical MSM journalist of whom a certain fantasy writer noted “they know literally nothing.” Albeit for different reasons.
What’s worse though is that I find him akin to a pedophile. Someone intentionally preying upon the trust, naivety, and lack of experience and knowledge of others in order to victimize them. Which is why I palpably hate him and people like him.
And why I feel confident in concluding he victimized you, Banned Lizard.
There is Literally No Reason to believe ANYTHING Hersh wrote in this article is true.
No Dates. No names (beyond very very basic high level figures). No accountability. No links. Nothing. He has Nothing.
Indeed, he actually has less than nothing, given his track record.
And you actually believe him?
Literally Why?
I think we know why. Because there’s pretty much only one reason why you WOULD believe something this null. It fits the biases and conclusions you already drew beforehand, from other sources. Sources that MIGHT fit with what Hersh is accusing and indeed do a better job of substantiating… well… Anything than Hersh does.
But there’s literally nothing of substance in this paper TO believe.
and doing little else. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me.
The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because “he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.”
Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government. Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list and doing little else. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me.
No, let’s go further. Let’s stipulate that LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THIS ARTICLE IS PROBABLY UNTRUE. because there is LITERALLY NO REASON to believe otherwise. Because on an objective level, Hersh provides LITERALLY NO REASON to believe him incorporated into this article. I would know. I checked. I went through it piece by piece.
And while there is nothing quite as laugh out loud and stupid as claiming Jens Stoltenberg was a CIA super agent at the age of 15-16 (at the oldest) and Hersh is referring to very basic and well documented public methods of getting around official limitations and getting kickbacks, there’s also nothing of inherent substance here. No links to actual VIPs by name, or them getting dismissed or anything. No dates to help outline it.
There is NOTHING here.
Which is why I am not prepared to care the slightest about “but what if it isn’t?”
It isn’t MY job to give Hersh the benefit of the doubt when he’s made it abundantly clear he wants me and mine dead. It is up to HERSH to provide evidence and sources for his claims of such power that I am COMPELLED by their nature to grant that he is right, or at least that he is on to something.
HERSH OBJECTIVELY FAILED TO DO SO.
As such I dismiss this entire article and every echo chamber dependent on it WITH PREJUDICE and will remorsely hammer why you believed such transparently sophist, dishonest “reporting.”
Indeed, he is. But imaginative doesn’t mean GOOD or COMPETENT. Because Hersh hasn’t been either for a long, long time.
Claiming that Jens Stoltenberg was a CIA Agent at the age of 15-16 while simultaneously partaking in his family’s anti-American, Marxist leaning politics is the kind of fever dream I’d expect to see written on a Fan Fiction site, in “Real Person Fiction/RPF” (and if you don’t know what that is, you should be grateful). Indeed, in all due likelihood it IS actually Real Person Fiction.
That requires a certain deranged level of creativity, it is true.
But it doesn’t require any kind of honesty or competence. And indeed even on the off chance that Hersh didn’t invent it completely on his own it still says nothing good about him because it means he relied on an anonymous source that was so depravedly “creative” while simultaneously not bothering to do basic biotch fact checking on the matter.
The problem, Oh Banned Lizard, is that you were not presenting this pile of unverifiable garbage by a psychopathic liar as such. You were at most doing so ironically, with the “Not guilty due to the source” tongue in cheek statement. And as far as grifty entertainment value goes this isn’t anywhere near Hersh’s best like his Nordstream Writing or Assad Apologia.
And as far as comparing Zelenskyy to Cohen, it doesn’t help there because it provides nothing to evaluate beyond Hersh’s “Trust Me Bro” going all the way down.
Turtler,
Is your disgust with Hersh related to his writing about the My Lai massacre? I was pretty angry toward him at the time.
I have to admit I haven’t read the Hersh piece, which I normally would do before commenting on it.
I agree this is probably sour grapes from someone who Zelensky has fired for dipping into the American kitty– and there are plenty of guys with a grudge against Zelensky.
But back to the Nord Stream pipeline. Here’s President Trump’s take on the bombing in his interview with Carlson. I would assume Trump still has sources inside the government, and he’s not relying completely on Hersh’s reporting.
Tucker asks Trump who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ktEFFrtq5I
Brian E:
Read my posts about Hersh to get an idea of the stuff the guy has tried to pull for about 50 years. This one, for instance. For more information, read this article. There’s tons of information out there on Hersh’s long long history of lies. My Lai is one of the few stories he apparently got right.
Turtler:
SOURCE: I MADE IT THE F_CK UP.
Thank you for that sparkly gem. I suppose Sy may be culturally relevant, but with serious caveats.
Hmmm . . . . . . that seems a mite excessive on its face. Now if it were saffron being quoted, rather than mere gasoline . . . .
@Brian E
Honestly My Lai is pretty much the only halfway honorable thing Hersh has done in his misbegotten life, and as we are now learning it was largely not due to his actions. My Lai was a grotesque action and a shame on American honor, and I welcome disinfecting sunlight and punishment for those who did it (Calley in particular should have had it worse).
Which is why I note how his motives for reporting on My Lai were very obviously not fundamental moral outrage against what Calley did, since he has cozied up to people who (hard as it is) are objectively far worse than even the murderous, abusive brute responsible for My Lai.
If you read my post, you have read “the Hersh piece”, albeit chopped up in my usual fashion and interspaced with my shouting and cursing. That is literally all there is to the piece. Every word, every scratch, every punctuation mark. There are no links to present, there are no sources (outside of Burns), there is nothing.
Honestly I think the issue is much more foundational. Hersh has been an anti-American shill for a long time and has been quite close to Putin and his allies. So he’s prepared to regurgitate a lot.
I utterly despise Hersh and I’m not about to start, BUT my emotional sentiment does not override the fact that even he is at least theoretically capable of reporting the truth and linking to a source or sources (even valid ones). And I am more than willing to give credit when I find an accusation credible or at least I cannot dismiss it out of hand.
And like I said: I am MORE than prepared to believe Zelenskyy has engaged in corruption, and that the CIA and others have had to lean on him to whittle down on corruption. I may be idealistic and a hawk, but I am not staggeringly stupid (at least in this sense). And as I pointed out (through the likes of NPR and the Grauniad!!!) high level firings of Ukrainian officials for corruption allegations are not unheard of or unreported even in outlets that want to paint the Ukrainian loyalist cause better than I do.
Which makes Hersh’s decision to embrace “I have no sources I care to name or link and you must trust me” and deliberately obscurantist style very, Very damning in my opinion.
I’ll check, and I’d have to see. I admit that increasingly as time goes on I do increasingly think that Nordstream was done “by us” or at least somebody or some organization broadly on our side, since I figure that if the Swedes had evidence it was an accident (or even that it wasn’t but that they wanted to cool tensions) they would say so, and also that if the Russians had done so (and they weren’t afraid of inflaming tensions more by accusing the Russians or some faction thereof of doing a false flag in their home waters) they would say so. But however it happened or from whom, I can be very sure that it wasn’t done like Hersh said.
@Banned Lizard
To be fair I don’t exactly deserve credit for it, since it is based on an old internet meme that was recently twisted (by adding the profanity) by a certain Japanese game developer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOVbAmknKUk&ab_channel=Forgottnwiththyme
Perhaps, but I’m on the whole even less generous. Especially since I am at the point where I am taking all sources even more hesitantly.
we discover about 80% of the news is wrong either by omission, commission or addition, there was a viral outbreak but it came from artificial means, funded by various government, and vital and inexpensive protocols were denied, thats just one example,
if you want examples of Russian degradation of forces thats available in the data release, other less than congratulatory data is in there, apparently they lied about the airborne surveilllance, repeatedly,
Re: SETI
All across the galaxy should be civilizations broadcasting information we can see. Even if every current civilization except ours is thousands or tens of thousands of years old, their light speed spectrum broadcasts will reach here proportionally to the distant of origin.
If a civilization interferes with its star or planets, then those changes can be seen. Will we recognize them? I don’t know. But I do know if you’re not looking, you won’t see it.
That means, for instance, if anytime in the last 100 years Delta Pavonis (2O light years away) started broadcasting on any spectrum we’re reading, then we can tell. If Delta’s civilization suddenly transcended 5 years ago to become god-like, fifteen years of broadcasts will still reach us prior to its stopping.
The galaxy should be filled with signs, portents, and signals of other civilizations.
But it’s not.
A claim that we are the only civilization that uses the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit information is highly unlikely to be true and assumes the universe is other than our science says it is.