Land & Sea Journal

Monthly Edition

February 2026

World

US strikes another alleged drug-trafficking boat in Eastern Pacific (apnews.com)

...

Colombia is producing it's own firearms at Indumil, giving it autonomy from Israel (Galin). Petro cut off buying arms from Israel as a reaction to Israel's actions in Gaza. Petro also halted buying guns from US after Trump's negative comments about Petro and Colombia. Indumil expects to do 80k units per year, but the expense of this raises doubts.

How Thailand Went From Asian Leader to Laggard (youtube.com)

Not a lot of innovation. GDP 2% since 2021. Neighbors more like 5%. Capital flight (net flight since 2022 or 2023). Highest income inequality (a few hundred people hold most of the power, Bangkok thrived while other regions did agriculture), and when money and power sit with the same small group of people, they resist changes that could shake up their monopolies and redistribute wealth. Thai household debt is high.

Tourism accounts for 1/5 of economy. Also manufacturing, food. Connects supply chain between China and SE Asia. Thailand produces less engineers, data scientists, skilled workers than other SEA countries, and has lower English proficiency. Thailand produces tech products like chips, but is using old tech to do so, and doesn't have any new products. Workforce percentage is shrinking since 2019.

Low certainty in government because there are coups etc. Constitution changes frequently.

...

Armed man shot and killed at Mar-a-Lago was never interested in politics or guns, cousin says (apnews.com)

Some 21 year old young man was shot at Trump's Mar-a-lago. He had driven 8 hours or so to get there, and his family (he lived with his mother in a trailer court) had reported him missing. His cousin said he was not at all violent or interested in guns ever. His homestate, NC, they do hunting a lot, but when he would go with people, he wouldn't even pick up a gun. He had recently started an online shop to sell pen drawings of gold courses, buildings and Roman architecture. He worked at a groundskeeper at a golf club. His family is all strong Trump supporters, but he wasn't interested in politics.

'Martin walked up to the secure perimeter at Mar-a-Lago early Sunday and went through a gate when it opened for employees to leave, a U.S. Secret Service spokesperson said Monday. Martin dropped a gas can and raised a shotgun at two Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy who then opened fire "to neutralize the threat," said Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.' AP reported.

It isn't known where he got the shotgun.

...

Bogotá impulsa contenedores soterrados para mejorar la limpieza urbana | Medio ambiente (youtube.com)

For a while, it seemed like some cities were removing garbage cans so that they wouldn't have to clean them.

'The totalitarian surveillance state is already here, it has been since 9/11 and the Patriot Act, and they are manufacturing a crisis to present their solution: Palantir, kill chains based on machine decision-making, predictive policing, hidden scoring systems. A total control society designed to remove human autonomy by putting a policeman in every person's mind (and cybernetic extensions such as smartphones), fear of reprisal for even psychological rebellion. Surveil, prosecute, and exterminate.' Daliwali

Powering National Renewal and Reinvigorating the Grid (youtube.com)

*

VENEZUELA
We haven't heard about Maduro in the news since the day of his capture and the initial appearance at court a couple days later. He simply hasn't appeared in the news.

Apparently he's at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) Brooklyn. His next court date is March 17.

Venezuelans didn't migrate back. They're basically not expecting any change, since the VP became president, they released a dozen or a hundred political prisoners (302 reportedly, while 1000 remain), and US companies took greater control of Venezuelan oil production (now president Dacy Rodriguez signed a bill to allow foreig companies to take full operational control of oil projects), and after US took greater control of Venezuelan oil, the US government (Treasury) eased sanctions on Venezuela, and Venezuela will pay US 30 to 50m barrels of oil), and not much else, it seems. There is no US presense in Venezuela, and no security guarantees for Venezuelans. Not sure if maybe the current Venezuelan admin would be too afraid of US to persecute civil dissent now? The Venezuelan military is still loyal to the government there.

Venezuelans are fairly satisfied about the removal of Maduro, perhaps, and aren't really upset about the way it happened, and aren't sorry about the Venezuelan or Cuban soldiers killed in the attack. As for the Cubans, they may stand as evidence that Maduro wasn't even supported enough by his own people to trust an army made up of them, and the mercenary Cuban soldiers could possibly be seen as an anti Venezuelan (pro Venezuelan regime) force. They probably expect no real change. They probably would like there to have been more change in Venezuela.

Food is more secure in Venezuela, reportedly, because of the lifting of US sanctions. There is heavy police presense and the people don't dare speak openly or on social media, as before.

Is the word for Venezuelan government 'compliance'?

The Caracas Stock Exchange (ICB), which went up like 100% or 30% after the capture (not sure, have seen various figures, with some confusion because of the maybe 500% or 1000% inflation of their currency in a year), the country's $150b debt led to maybe 10% or so selling off in the later weeks of January.

Reportedly, Cúcuta has transformed from a migration hub to a militarized zone. Since Maduro's capture, thousands of ELN/FARC/etc guerillas have fled to Colombia.

MADURO
Argentina requests extradition of Maduro from the US on crimes against humanity charges (apnews.com)

'The case, filed in Buenos Aires in 2023 by human rights organizations representing the victims, relies on the principle of universal jurisdiction, a legal concept that allows for the prosecution in Argentina of anyone from any country who commits crimes like genocide or terrorism anywhere in the world.'

Special ReportJun 22 strikes on Iran

LIVE: US & Israel strike Iran | BBC News (youtube.com)

At this point, is the US parking naval boats near your country an attack?

Regime change would require boots on the ground. What extent of change can be achieved purely with air strikes?

Trump encouraged Iranians to seize the government, so that might be the only possibility.

Almost no internet in Iran.

America & Israel Begin Missile Strikes on Iran! Over 30 Targets Hit (youtube.com)

Carney backs U.S. action against Iranian nuclear program (youtube.com)

UK stated they were not involved.

France said they were not advised.

"Maximum Pressure Kineticism." "Donroe Doctrine." "Decision advantage." "Law enforcement veneer ('arrest opreations', 'international policing'). "Lethal agility" instead of "nation-building", correlations with "Shock and Awe" (noted by CSIS). Colby School "strategy of denial", "limited but decisive force". ... Space force surveillance with cyber-disruption, disrupting radar, extreme focus on bunkers and command centers over civilian infrastructure. Quick results without "forever war" baggage (Venezuela attack cost $1.5b). Rejects messaging (messaging like Obama and Clinton did with non important targets), goes straight for weapons and people of consequence. Removal or displacement instead of deterrence and degradation. Higher risk tolerance (than Clinton and Obama). Legal framework of criminal indictments (within the US only) and self-defense justifications rather than UN resolutions or war powers. Friday nights.

Fire the government from above (Iran). Or come take the keys (Venezuela).

...

US strikes another alleged drug-trafficking boat in Eastern Pacific (apnews.com)

...

Colombia is producing it's own firearms at Indumil, giving it autonomy from Israel (Galin). Petro cut off buying arms from Israel as a reaction to Israel's actions in Gaza. Petro also halted buying guns from US after Trump's negative comments about Petro and Colombia. Indumil expects to do 80k units per year, but the expense of this raises doubts.

How Thailand Went From Asian Leader to Laggard (youtube.com)

Not a lot of innovation. GDP 2% since 2021. Neighbors more like 5%. Capital flight (net flight since 2022 or 2023). Highest income inequality (a few hundred people hold most of the power, Bangkok thrived while other regions did agriculture), and when money and power sit with the same small group of people, they resist changes that could shake up their monopolies and redistribute wealth. Thai household debt is high.

Tourism accounts for 1/5 of economy. Also manufacturing, food. Connects supply chain between China and SE Asia. Thailand produces less engineers, data scientists, skilled workers than other SEA countries, and has lower English proficiency. Thailand produces tech products like chips, but is using old tech to do so, and doesn't have any new products. Workforce percentage is shrinking since 2019.

Low certainty in government because there are coups etc. Constitution changes frequently.

...

Armed man shot and killed at Mar-a-Lago was never interested in politics or guns, cousin says (apnews.com)

Some 21 year old young man was shot at Trump's Mar-a-lago. He had driven 8 hours or so to get there, and his family (he lived with his mother in a trailer court) had reported him missing. His cousin said he was not at all violent or interested in guns ever. His homestate, NC, they do hunting a lot, but when he would go with people, he wouldn't even pick up a gun. He had recently started an online shop to sell pen drawings of gold courses, buildings and Roman architecture. He worked at a groundskeeper at a golf club. His family is all strong Trump supporters, but he wasn't interested in politics.

‘Martin walked up to the secure perimeter at Mar-a-Lago early Sunday and went through a gate when it opened for employees to leave, a U.S. Secret Service spokesperson said Monday. Martin dropped a gas can and raised a shotgun at two Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy who then opened fire “to neutralize the threat,” said Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.’ AP reported.

It isn't known where he got the shotgun.

...

Bogotá impulsa contenedores soterrados para mejorar la limpieza urbana | Medio ambiente (youtube.com)

For a while, it seemed like some cities were removing garbage cans so that they wouldn't have to clean them.

'The totalitarian surveillance state is already here, it has been since 9/11 and the Patriot Act, and they are manufacturing a crisis to present their solution: Palantir, kill chains based on machine decision-making, predictive policing, hidden scoring systems. A total control society designed to remove human autonomy by putting a policeman in every person's mind (and cybernetic extensions such as smartphones), fear of reprisal for even psychological rebellion. Surveil, prosecute, and exterminate.' Daliwali

LIVE: US & Israel strike Iran | BBC News (youtube.com)

At this point, is the US parking naval boats near your country an attack?

Regime change would require boots on the ground. What extent of change can be achieved purely with air strikes?

Trump encouraged Iranians to seize the government, so that might be the only possibility.

Almost no internet in Iran.

America & Israel Begin Missile Strikes on Iran! Over 30 Targets Hit (youtube.com)

Carney backs U.S. action against Iranian nuclear program (youtube.com)

UK stated they were not involved.

France said they were not advised.

"Maximum Pressure Kineticism." "Donroe Doctrine." “Decision advantage.” “Law enforcement veneer ('arrest opreations', ‘international policing’). “Lethal agility” instead of “nation-building”, correlations with “Shock and Awe” (noted by CSIS). Colby School “strategy of denial”, “limited but decisive force". ... Space force surveillance with cyber-disruption, disrupting radar, extreme focus on bunkers and command centers over civilian infrastructure. Quick results without “forever war” baggage (Venezuela attack cost $1.5b). Rejects messaging (messaging like Obama and Clinton did with non important targets), goes straight for weapons and people of consequence. Removal or displacement instead of deterrence and degradation. Higher risk tolerance (than Clinton and Obama). Legal framework of criminal indictments (within the US only) and self-defense justifications rather than UN resolutions or war powers. Friday nights.

Fire the government from above (Iran). Or come take the keys (Venezuela).

...

Special ReportOlympics in Milan Cortina

Winter Olympics 2026 guide: All you need to know about the Milan Cortina Games (apnews.com)

The most spread out Olympics (Milan, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Verona). 16 sports. The locations require half a days travel on busses and trains to commute. 'The 2026 Milan-Cortina-Bormio-Livigno-Tesero-Predazzo-Anterselva-Verona Winter Olympics’. The events are like 2 or 3 disciplines in each of 6 spots. Only the ice rink sports are in Milan. The snow and sled sports are spread out in the other 5 locations. (The 2030 games will also be held at a collection of locations in the French alps, and the 2028 Summer Games in LA will have softball and canoe slalom in Oklahoma.)

A few Russians, vetted by a board for not having published any statements in favor of Russia's war in Ukraine. Only one Russian lady's skater, Adeliia Petrosian (Аделия Тиграновна Петросян), three time Russian national champion, from Sambo70.

New event, ski mountaineering. Other, traditional sports have new team events.

Prices for hosting the Olypics started rising after Barcelona 1992, which improved the local economy broadly, based on the tourism and spending that happened around it. News of the economic effect caused bidding wars for subsequent Olympics, but that reduced the number of countries willing to bid. The events have increased in number, adding cost. This year, there will be 3500 at a winter games of 116 events (within 16 sports). Also, climate changes alter whether a location is suitable for a winter games, as temperature has risen steadily since the year 1900 in all former Winter Olympics spots.

The two celebrity sort of presenters/commentators/guests are Martha Stewart and Snoop Dog.

«Метод Тутберидзе» 1 серия (фрагменты об Аделии Петросян) ENG SUB (youtube.com)

‘I came to Eteri Georgievna after probably one of my most disasterous competitions, Moscow Championship 2019, after which I realized something had to change. Either I retire or I try to move forward somewhere else. My mom suggested to try CSKA, or to go to Eteri Georgievna. Mom said, ’You know, if she doesn't take you, that's it.' Now when I rewatch myself, I'm surprised they took me, because my jumps were so inconsistent. Not only was I not doing quads, my triples were just terrible, especially combinations. My technique wasn't like everyone else's in this team. I don't know what Eteri Georgievna saw in me. But it's been 5 years now.'

‘Our leader is Adeliya Petrosian.’

...

Will Snowboard Big Air eventually just not be wanted at the Olympics, because it's progressed to a natural outcome where you have to do a certain number of rotations to medal, so everyone just hucks a basic spin? It's a couple hours of guys just hucking a constant spin.

15 years ago the same happened in womens FS, where only the girl who did the quad would win, and is still that way, but still a lot of people compete who don't do quads (just they don't win, even if they are better skaters).

Protests erupt against Milano-Cortina Olympics, agitators fire flares, smoke bombs at police (youtube.com)

...

At least on the Canadian CBC broadcast of the Olympics, basically every segment between sports coverage was about ‘and women ...' even if there was nothing particular to say about women in the segment, and most commenting (all?) was women, pairs of women commentators, and not because they were good at it. Exhausting feminism on Canadian media.

Over a week after the start of the Olympics. No one watches. They turn it on sometimes. Some people have a sport the like. But it's a dud. The reason is the braodcaster, NBC. It's super boring to watch. They mostly show the more boring events, there are no athlete stories, there are no former champions who are interviewed or comment. The commentators are all young women who know little about sport, listening to them you can picture them reading the athlete's Wikipedia page. They say just a few things over and over, ‘positive’ things and very generic. NBC's commentators are not at the games, but are rather in a tiny room with just a desk in it in the States.

From the Olympic Comittee's perspective it's surprising they allow this. People are not going to be excited to watch the Olympics next time, because this time the Olympics seem so boring.

Part of the problem is streaming. 20 years ago (or 10?), people had cable tv, so they had like 3 or 5 or whatever options for watching. Now cable only has CBC in Canada, or NBC in the states (I guess). If you pay for extra, you get TSN and SportsNet. It would be good to take a more exciting approach to covering the Games. Like split or multiple screens, lots of special commentators, athlete profiles, coverage of home town locations and training vignetes, scenes of the athletes in other dress, like if they're models or do some other skill or job.

Another problem is the events. There are 16 sports, fine. Half of these a person maybe wants to watch. But some of these (not the most exciting ones), they have tons of divisions. It might be better to limit the top tier events to like 2 or 3 per sport, unless there is real demand (like figure skating events there are like 5 events but people want to watch all 5).

Politics

German authorities have arrested five over exports to Russian defense companies | DW News (youtube.com)

In 2025, the administration took a 10% equity stake in Intel and has negotiated similar "revenue-sharing" or equity arrangements with lithium and rare-earth metal companies.

Through the CHIPS and Science Act, the U.S. is essentially picking "winners" by providing billions in subsidies to specific semiconductor firms to ensure they survive and outcompete foreign rivals (specifically China).

US government offers tax breaks and market access as part of deals that focus trade toward those companies, not to everyone.

Discussion of a sovereign wealth fund. Discussion of government funds payed into accounts for children.

One argument is that USA can't compete with China, because China uses state power to dominate industries, unless USA government also intervenes. Supply chain also.

USA currently is more of a hybrid state capitalist government, where the executive just steers private companies.

Why millennials now prefer Harper over Trudeau

Abacus Data polling firm. The people who like him most are Millenials, the voters who came out in droves to elect Trudeau and give him a majority. Voter reform, legalizing marijuana, were Trudeau's success mandates. 50% like Harper and 30% like Trudeau now.

What to know about the removal of Peru's president — yet again — and what's to come (apnews.com)

‘A clause in Peru’s constitution enables legislators to remove presidents who are found to be “morally incapable” of conducting their duties. This clause has given legislators great leverage over Peru’s executive branch, which has also struggled in recent years to build congressional majorities. ... Peru has had seven presidents over the past decade — with only two of those elected by a popular vote. The others have been vice presidents who have stepped in for deposed presidents, and members of Congress who have been selected by their peers to lead the South American nation.’

To avoid state takeovers, Texas districts are spending millions to outsource struggling schools (youtube.com)

‘There was a lot of urgency.’ An 1882 Partnership. Third Futures (Colorado based) brings in their own staff, and their staff are apparently paid much higher. The money goes out of state though, out of Texas. There's no library, there's no athletics during the day, no band. Those are all after school activities. ‘It is highly structured.’ Students are told to be quiet as they're walked single file from class to class. Are they there to socialize, or are they there to learn? Better test schools. Do test schools mean ‘little to nothing?’ When Edessa, Texas did the same program, grades improved during Third Future's residency, but when they left the school's ‘grade’ went back down to a ‘D’.

Why Public Schools Are Going Broke In The U.S. (youtube.com)

Public school enrollment has been down for 5 years, and they need fewer teachers and staff, but teachers have added staff since the pandemic, and the pandemic required staff for its added services. Cali has people leaving the state, which is a shift because Cali has historically been net inflation in. That means kindergartens need less teachers, but high schools aren't affected yet. ... Schools don't want to cut salaries or reduce staff yet, but they have less students, so they take a gap between funding (usually state and local dollars, plus some pandemic money printing ‘relief funds') and expenses. During pandemic funding, schools could put off addressing their unsustainable spending, but when funding stopped their administration became apparent. ... In Texas, since 2014, staffing is up 16%, and enrollment is up 6%. ... US in genereral has seen a steady decline in enrollment since 2014. ... 90% of school expenditures are for personnel.. .. A lot of the new hires are not teachers but rather are like counsellors and ‘support staff’ for students.

Convicted Chinese spy tied to Los Angeles County mayor (youtube.com)

She wouldn't comment on the man she once referred to as her boyfriend and fiance. Mayor Wang, but she has not been accused of any wrongdoing in this and is not under investigation. She later contradicted her own statement, it seems, saying, ‘Whoever want to say he's my fiance, please prove it.'

She doesn't even speak good English.

CBS reported that Wang tracked the locaiton of the leader of Taiwan when she (the leader) was in town in 2023, ‘giving them real time updates about what she was doing and where she was.’

Commenter. ‘The only thing that surprises me is the fact CBSLA actually covered this.’ Response. ‘CBS is under new leadership and is no longer pushing leftist propaganda or hiding their dirt.’

...

El Mencho: Mexico shuts down as wave of violence sweeps country | DW News (youtube.com)

People we know in PV said they are staying in their homes. The cartel is stopping vehicles, pulling people out of them, and torcihng the vehicles. No people are being injured.

Could you even find a person who would say this might improve peace and security in Jalisco or in Mexico? or is the question just, who will be the next boss? or will it fragment?

Images published from the area show cars and some buildings smouldering and dark smoke trails in the air.

El Mencho was ‘by far’ the most wanted man for Mexican police, reported.

...

Are Trump's followers ones who are ‘cultist followers blindly listen to whatever he says’? Someone wrote that.

Senate committee recommends removing broad immigration powers from border bill (youtube.com)

Daliwali on Venezuela, ‘ The same old playbook of destablization in Latin America still works, what will follow is a drawn out looting and ransacking of the country to benefit the American empire.’

Thomas Massie, '“Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs, weapons of mass destruction, that did not exist. Now it’s the same playbook, except we’re told that drugs are the WMDs.”

“James Madison warned us that in no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature—not the executive.”

“The framers understood a simple truth: to the extent that war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves.”

Special ReportICE

ICE agents are in 5 Canadian cities. We asked what they do (youtube.com)

Anyone want to go out and make a wild guess that it's ‘act outside of the law’?

ICE have offices in 5 canadian cities. ICE has more than 90 offices in 50 countries, according to its website. A mandate to identify and stop crime before it reaches the US.

Reportedly, it's a different division of ICE than the one in the news. But what's the real difference? Is ICE a paramilitary for the White House? Is it acting with impunity? Is it a public safety concern?

Canadian man detained in ICE processing centre reveals grim realities (youtube.com)

A US permanent resident, working in oil and gas, flagged when returning from a business trip in Mexico, four months in ICE detention and counting. The reason was the man had a misdemeanor charge from high school for drugs, 20 years ago.

‘I don’t drink water from here without boiling it first.' Has to sleep on a floor without blankets, called ‘the ICE box’. 2 days with a bottle of water and a frozen waffle.

‘The worse they make it, the more likely [the incarcerated] is going to say, “Well, if I have to stay in here and fight this for 90 more days or I can't self deport and get out of here, then I'm going to self deport.”'

He said he was disillusioned from the idea ICE was going after the worst of the worst, because the people he's seen in detention with him are not like that.

The family is filing for unlawful detention.

...

‘While the riots are going on in Los Angeles about the ICE raids, a lot of people are in support of the police, National Guard, Marines deployed there. They need to manufacture approval for the totalitarian surveillance state, as long as they use their power against marginalized communities which are despised by greater society.’ Daliwali

Hawaiʻi can't control ICE. Here's what lawmakers want to do instead (apnews.com)

They really want something to work, so they're simultaneously doing 25 bills (instead of one omnibus) aimed at limiting the force the Federal government and its agencies have over the state's will. ‘As bills were amended or lost momentum, others could pick up some of the pieces that fell by the wayside.’ Last year, state lawmakers were forced to go ’in a direction they weren't willing to go.' Half the bills have not succeeded, but the other half carry the bulk of what those ones also carried.

‘One would generally prohibit law enforcement officers from wearing masks [amended so they could but only when doing undercover operations], another would bar police officers from stopping people to ask them about their immigration status and protect the right for the public to record police activities, and one would require state and county police agencies to advise people in custody of their rights before they are interviewed by federal immigration agents.’ Also ‘one to prohibit local law enforcement officers from helping federal agents exceed their authority or suppress First Amendment activity, such as protesting during ICE sweeps.’ Also, ‘local officials and police officers cannot stop federal agents from making arrests that are supported by judicial warrants. But various proposed bills would prohibit them from participating in enforcing civil violations of immigration law, which they are not required by law or authorized to do.’ Also, to ‘prevent local officials from cooperating with most enforcement around state-funded facilities such as schools, social service agencies and health services.’Also one ‘aimed at barring state or local law enforcement agencies from entering agreements with federal authorities that would allow them to join in immigration enforcement.’

“We had a year to see what this Trump administration was going to do, and it was clear that our more wait-and-see attitude wasn’t really going to work,” state Sen. Karl Rhoads said.

Several (immigration) bills introduced last year went no where, but this year similar bills have been passed. They have been urged along by advocates, including ACLU.

“It has become abundantly clear that the Department of Homeland Security is no longer an agency that abides by constitutional norms,” said Liza Ryan Gill, (Hawaiʻi Coalition for Immigrant Rights). “If Immigration and Customs Enforcement comes with a judicial warrant, there is nothing we can pass or do that can stop them from executing that warrant. This package of bills is meant to protect Hawaiʻi from being dragged down into the unconstitutional actions of a rogue agency.”

“Minnesota was a pretty crystallizing event,” said Rhoads, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

...

Economics

USD is down like 10% in a year.

Gold is now the largest share of holdings of central banks, no longer the USD.

Anthropic AI Tool Sparks Stocks Selloff (youtube.com)

Co'work tools.

Tech sector (median software companies) are revising expectations down, relative to broader market most since 2009. Daily Chartbook

These companies that provide SAAS were raising fees every year, and now their tech guys are like we can just build what we want.

Revenue still going up 20% a year. Market thinks it's not sustainable. Crowdstrike. cyber.

...

Housing, starting to become a buyers market. Average discount for listings is 8%. In 2022 people were paying 10% above.

Energy (led by oil and gas equipment), materials (metals and mining), aerospace, staples, tech hardware, top performing sectors over January. The opposite of the year before.

Economía en 2026; Mucho gasto y poco rendimiento (youtube.com)

Mexico.

...

DDR4 Scarcity: Manufacturers have mostly stopped making DDR4 to focus on the newer DDR5. Since the T480s requires DDR4, you are fighting over a shrinking supply of "legacy" parts.

RAM for a laptop costs as much or more than the laptop itself, if you want to have like 32gb or more. 32 GB of RAM costs between $160 and $245.

Analyzable case of how improved tech can actually increase costs (inflationary tech advancements).

... Alphabet Bets Big on 100 Years of Debt (youtube.com)
Planned too big to fail?

Canadian entrepreneurs look to Mexico to boost business (youtube.com)

Forcasted 20% GDP growth for the US.

Everything the tech sector is doing is disrupting their own industry. ‘Microsoft is both a hyperscaler benefitting from Ai and a disruptee.’ Josh Brown. They have no choice, if one of them goes into this capex experiment, they all have to. J Carlson. ‘We might end up like Blackberry if we don’t make the turn to whatever the next thing is.' Unlike NY and the investing community maybe, Silicon Valley and the West Coast isn't focussing on beating their numbers this Q, but instead they'd rather go big. ‘They’ve all said that.' Except Apple. While capex has gone almost parabolic for Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta, Apple's capex has maintained at around the same 5% as always. Apple said users are not going to have 2 devices, users are going to just use their phone. Apple may launch agentic (Gemeni powered) Siri this year, later than other companies but Apple usage isn't down, and that Siri will be able to do things across the apps on a user's phone.

Other global markets are outperforming US markets. S&P is down 8% versus other country's markets since Jan 1.

Over 5 years, Japanese stocks and international small caps are beating US stocks. No one knows. Name one company in the international small cap index. JB.

Lots of other countries, like the US, their top 10 companies make up most of the index, and some even more extreme, like South Korea where it's just like a couple companies, and SKorea's stock market is way outperforming other countries'.

...

Global Liquidity Has Peaked – What Happens Next for Gold & Financial Markets? | Michael Howell (youtube.com)

Is this the reason for the gold surge?

‘What you need to look at is debt to liquidity, because liquidity is used to roll over debt (debt is never paid back. Debt is only rolled). You need balance sheet capacity to refinance your debt. If the debt liquidity ratio is too high you get a financial crisis. If it’s too low you may get an asset bubble.' Japan got this during Abenomics, they monetized and printed money and the debt liquidity level came down. China is now printing lots of Yuan to bring down their debt to liquidity ratio. He said.

Hedge Fund Billionaire Chris Hohn’s TCI Profited By A Record $18.9 Billion In 2025 (youtube.com)

'“Hedge funds made $543 billion for their investors in 2025, the highest ever dollar gains generated by the group,” he said. “A combination of record high assets under management, strong equity and bond markets, and sizeable macro trading opportunities all contributed to this strong performance.”

‘The top firms continued to do the best. “In 2025, the top 20 managers have generated 41 percent of the gains made by all hedge fund managers. Yet they only represented 16.6 percent of the assets under management,” Sopher said. “The money weighted return of the top 20 in 2025 was 15.7 percent — far better than the rest of the hedge fund universe.” For comparison, the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index returned 12.6 percent last year.’

Why New Balance sales are soaring while Nike falls (youtube.com)

A couple years ago, Nike wanted to go soly DTC, selling directly from Nike stores or from online, and they took their shoes out of Footlocker and others, which left shelf space there (and where customers liked to go) and NB and others filled that spot. NB at that time also invested in innovation. They capitalized on trends, the 90s trend, shoes that look like parents would wear. They also partnered with major designers. NB is private, so we get an update only once a year and it's not detailed, on how the company is performing. They don't need to hedge or raise capital. NB wants to build on DTC, too, but seems to want to keep wholesaling.

‘The consumer is not loyal.’ They'll move to a brand that is providing what they're wanting.

Commenters also seem to say that materials and quality on Nike went down. That was my experience too, but I didn't shop much.

But some guessed that it was just because NB is currently trendy with young women, which adds to their continued popularity as an actually used running shoe.

...

Citrini AI Report Co-Author Talks 'Scare-Trade' Selloff & Disruption (youtube.com)

This is the most read, subscribed to, economics/investing substack, which often researches macro themes. However, the market didn't sell off, not even the tech sector, by the close of day (he refers to a larger than expected selloff immediately after the publishing of the article, or maybe it was yesterday, which was red).

The writer's firm, he's a Lotus CIO, was short some of the names. They also own semis long.

They're bearish on intermediation companies for food delivery, software, payment processing, private credit, real estate. Bullish on semis and things upstream of semis (data centers). Brands, status goods that have moats.

Job market weak for white collar. Haven't generated (non government spending based) white collar jobs in 3 years in US.

Commenter. 'This is not a research paper. This type of prediction can't call research.' Reply. ‘They are selling a narrative.’

MFS Creditors Warn of £930 Million Shortfall From Double Pledges (youtube.com)

Bridging loans, to finance it they borrow large amounts from traditional loaners on Wall Street, and then they have to service these loans. But allegation is that come money went to other bank accounts instead, maybe $200m.

Fraud is surfacing to the top, people pushed into corners of finance to get that extra return.

Where is Raja? How did this go down? What precipitated the event exactly? Who else is involved?

...

Hedge funds are degrossing, just taking less risk.

...

The ability to make things may exceed the ability to consume, for the first time. What does that mean for economy? Friedburg.

Diplomacy & IR

France to revoke US envoy's government access after summons no-show • FRANCE 24 English (youtube.com)

The US State Department's counterterrorism buereau tweeted that ‘Deranque was killed by left-wing militants, should concern us all. VIolent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in [the] death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety.' The US embassy in France retweeted it.

The French Foreign Ministry responded with, ‘In light of this apparent failure to grasp the basic requirements of the ambassadorial mission... the minister has requested that [the US ambassador to France, Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner] no longer be allowed direct access to members of the French government.’

Commenter. 'I'm no clairvoyant, but I see more tariffs and another Trump tantrum in France's future.' Another. ‘Only the US would send out a criminal to be ambassador!’

Quite a lot of comments in favor of France, seeing the move as France standing up for itself, something it seems people feel countries haven't been doing as much as they could have been, as well as Americans apologizing for what their government was doing and saying they haven't forgotten history, as well as general dislike for Kushner. The word ‘Quislings’ was mentioned.

...

Law

Pricing Like This Should Be Illegal (youtube.com)

Best buy. $439.99. Save $290. Comp value $729.99.

It might be an idea to legally require stores to offer a product at a price for a certain amount of time (a couple days?) in order to be able to say they ‘reduced’ the price.

You protested AI surveillance cameras & Austin wrote a law because of it! (youtube.com)

Rossman.

These types of laws are usually written with exemptions and carve outs in them, and they just use those exemptions and carve outs any time they want to do the thing, so the (protective) law doesn't actually have any effect. Bulldoze.

This law says that such 'exigent circumstances' can't be just for mere convenience, standard city goals, routine law enforcement. So they can't just declare an emergency and use the surveillance all the time. And when the actual emergency stops, the right to surveil stops, and they have to not share any of the data, and delete it. There's a ban on data harvesting.

German activist Maja T. goes on hunger strike in Hungary (dw.com)

'In June 2024, T. was extradited [unlawfully in EU, some say] from Germany to Hungary and has been in solitary confinement in a Budapest prison ever since.' 'The public prosecutor's office accuses the prisoner from Jena, in Germany's eastern state of Thuringia, of assaulting and seriously injuring several people in Budapest in February 2023. '

'At the start of the criminal proceedings, T. was led into the courtroom in handcuffs and shackles, and on a leash. The public prosecutor's office offered T. the opportunity to enter a guilty plea and accept 14 years in prison without further proceedings. However, T. declined and instead made a six-page statement containing clear criticism of Hungary: "It is a state that quite openly marginalizes and separates people because of their sexuality or gender. I am accused by a European state because I am an anti-fascist."'

Major retailer asks man to sign confidentiality agreement for refund (youtube.com)

Lowe's.

The NDA would have said he couldn't talk to the media (who he was talking to in this story), he couldn't talk to neighbors, post on any social media, or any public forum.

Lowe's responded to the news journalists by saying they don't require customers to sign NDAs, instead they gave him a form called a ‘release of all claims.’ Lowe's said the release of all claims form is voluntary, so you don't have to sign it to get a refund. The journalists say show Lowe's their story to help you not have to sign it.

‘They want to be able to resolve it and then keep it quiet afterwards,' a interviewee said.

The agreement, if you sign it, is legally binding.

...

DC sues ‘slumlord’ family operating real-estate empire, citing RICO (youtube.com)

Because the property owner ‘deceived lenders and let properties fall into disrepair,’ OAC alleges. But also that the property owner is running an enterprize/ponzi scheme with their (the family's?) 70 properties and defaulted the district $16m in housing programs.

But the OAC rep said ‘ponzi like scheme,’ the landlords ‘use falsified documents to trick lenders into giving them large loans to purchase primarily rent controlled properties under the guise of profitable redevelopment. They then rent these properties to tenants who receive housing subsidies, while allowing the properties to fall into disrepair. ... And while allowing so many apartments to become uninhabitable, they have decreased the overall housing supply.'

The lawsuit seeks to ban the family from owning any properties in DC, as well as pay back restitutions.

...

Supreme Court rules the Postal Service can't be sued, even when mail is intentionally not delivered (apnews.com)

Was part of the finding that the USPS would be a target for countless lawsuits if this one went through?

The woman in the suit, a landlord, alleges the particular postal worker didn't like that she was a black owner of multiple properties and didn't deliver her mail and her tenants' for that reason.

She sued USPS only after filing dozens of complaints with postal officials. 1946 Federal Tort Claims Act.

Woman Lies, Innocent Man Arrested, 47 DAYS in Jail - LAWSUIT (youtube.com)

She put out her message, a warning to parents out there that there are people out there wanting to do this, after saying this man tried to kitnap her child and she had to tear her child out of his hands.

The lawyer said she's filed claims like this in the past, so it might not be her first lie. She's part of a class action alleging a Lyft driver tried to rape her, says the lawyer.

There is Walmart security camera footage.

He was actually there to buy medication. He asked the woman if she knew where the medication is located. She was driving on a skooter thing with her kids on it and one started to fall off and he grabbed the kid and kept it on the bike and then she told the guy where she thought the medicatin might be. After he finds the medication, he later walks by her and showed her and says thanks or something, and he leaves the store. Later, she called 911, the police arrived and talked to her, and they even walked the video footage, but they went after the man, arresting him 2 days later with a warrant, arrested him on the side of the road at gunpoint, having him lay face down on the cement of the road to cuff him, and put him in jail until a court found him innocent. During the trial, the prosecutor ‘couldn’t get the video to play.'

After his arrest, the story was on the TV news and she ‘told her story' to America. She said she played a ‘terrifying game of tug of war’ for like 10 seconds trying to get her baby. He had no bond, just kept in jail, because the charges were seious and he had ties outside the country. The police report says they watched the video footage before arresting him, and that the police said the footage supports the woman's claim.

Crime: being a male who interacts with a female in North America? Why do so many males just leave North America? Also, what is the state of justice in America right now, where claims of rape and of child abduction result in punishment for innocent people, as well as permanent and serious damage to their reps. The man could afford the best lawyer, so what if he couldn't? The prosecution wouldn't give the defense the video, and she had to subpoena it from Walmart directly, and she released it to the public and the public was outraged.

‘Frankly they should be in prison for what they did to this man. That’s how outrageous it is.'

Commenter. ‘The prosecutor who presented to Grand jury needs to be disbarred. The detective and police department along with the lying woman needs to be sued. The woman also needs some jail time.’

Are civil rights lawyers one of the main stars of our era?

...

Former NASA Engineer files lawsuit against HPD and women after sex assault charges dropped (youtube.com)

He's suing the city of Houston and the women who made the allegations. ‘Egregious miscarriage of justice.’ All kinds of authorities publicly spoke against him and his behaviour, meanwhile, according to his lawyer, as soon as a new DA took office they got a bunch of evidence that exhonerated him, which the old DA had been sitting on. They allege the police failed to turn over evidence to his defense that could help him prove his innocence, as well as ignoring contraditctory statements in the witness allegations. He claims the woman also created a group chat and conspired to get him proescuted.

He wants compensation for damage to his rep, future career prospects, and emotional distress. ‘The last few years of my life have been scarred by a justice department that was meant to protect me, turned against me.’

Commenter. 'His name is public. The womens' names are in the complaint. Why weren't their names in the story? Did KPRC try to reach them or their attornies for comment.'

US moves to legally control tanker and 2M barrels of oil seized off Venezuela's coast in December (apnews.com)

Is it ‘international piracy’?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9doso4EYNI
The events happened in 2018. SWAT raided the wrong address, and there were kids aged 4, 8, 11, and 13 in the house and the mother was forced outside in T-shirt and underwear while SWAT did its search. SWAT had a warrant but it was not a no-knock warrant so officers had to announce themselves before entry, which are considered to be more dangerous warrants. There was a civil trial first. They wanted the mayor to testify but the judge said he didn't have to, which some people see as a conspiracy to protect colleages from responsbility. The city had already been found to have not done anything for 50% of all misconduct complaints (ie they get a complaint and don't even investigate it).

Is it enough that ‘it’s an easy mistake to make' getting the wrong house?

Taxpayers pay. Everyone feels less secure and less confident in their police and their mayor, right?

...

Civil Rights

Media Exclusion Zone during Vancouver decampment 'unlawful,' report finds (youtube.com)

April 2023 tent city, news media kept out of area, traffic cameras shut down. VPD ordered it while they cleared out a homeless encampment. The police spokesperson said ‘reporters were there’ and that they put in a pool camera, but not in a way that's not industry standard, was put in by the police themselves, and was only put in half an hour after the operation started, countered the Human Rights Commissioner.

Presidente Bukele Explota por Periodista Chilena que Preguntó por Derechos de los Pandilleros (youtube.com)

Spain Social Media Ban: a ProSurveillance Trojan for Censorship
Spain Social Media Ban: a ProSurveillance Trojan for Censorship
'Yeah there's no real privacy here in Spain. You have to give out your NI (identity) number frequently. Deliveries for example (some)' ... To receive your $5 dongle from Amazon.

Houston-area districts confirm A.I. monitoring tools on student devices as privacy questions grow
Houston-area districts confirm A.I. monitoring tools on student devices as privacy questions grow

Hong Kong ex-publisher Jimmy Lai's sentence raises international outcry as China defends it (apnews.com)

'China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters at a daily briefing that Lai is a Chinese citizen, calling him a major planner and participant in a series of anti-China destabilizing activities in Hong Kong. Lin said the judicial cases are purely Hong Kong’s internal affairs, urging “relevant countries” to avoid interfering in those or in China’s internal affairs. Beijing’s office in Hong Kong affairs said Lai’s sentence reflected Hong Kong’s determination in safeguarding national security.'

Toronto Police scandal reveals: Your personal info is not safe with the cops (youtube.com)

Police have data on people, and they use it to sell to criminals so criminals can do crime on those, and use it to find women to try to have relationships with, spy on exes and their families, misusing Covid19 portals' data.

This is why you don't want to allow carding (stopping citizens who are not doing anything criminally suspicious and demanding they give info or their card), the guy argues.

If any police office has info to your data, it's likely they all have access.
Major retailer asks man to sign confidentiality agreement for refund (youtube.com)

Some Colorado residents carrying additional ID amid federal immigration enforcement (youtube.com)

Latinos carrying their passport, because they get challenged regularly or questioned about their citizenship.

The expert said what people are regularly seeing is ICE agents ‘just bulldozing through those protections [that Americans don’t need to carry or show ID to police] around reasonable suspicion and probable cause, to just handcuff people and sweep them away.'

‘You feel angry. You feel disappointed.’

...

'Farm Bill' threatens First Amendment rights, critics say (youtube.com)

Florida Farm Bill. Financially punish anyone who criticizes or speaks about (including journalists) agricultural companies. 'If you post about a (agricultural) product, that you don't like it, it absolutely could open you up to liability.' In a lawsuit, the companies would be able to recover attorney fees if they are sued, but if the defendent (regular person or journalist) wins, he has to cover his own costs.

Texas teen accused in race-based bullying case awarded $3.2M in damages by jury (youtube.com)

A 13 year old black student made claims that a white student did degrading things to him (including illegal acts outside any consideration of racism), and BLM groups got involved and called it race based bullying. Upon investigation things didn't seem to add up, the white student was never charged. The white student brought a civil suit against the mother of the black student. Intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy.

At the time, the 13 year old felt scared and little, and like no one would listen to him. Now he feels like people will help him. But he said, shaking his head, ‘No I don’t feel that my reputation's been restored. I don't know when it will. I don't know if it ever will. But the people heard me, and they fought for me, and all we can try to do is get it restored now.'

They did do (potentially considered) degrading things to the black student, but it was a group of friends and the black student fell asleep first and they'd said whoever falls asleep gets pranked. No racism in it. There is video of the black student drinking the urine/apple juice drink but afterwards laughing it off and the group continued as friends. One of the friends videoed it, too, and the black student didn't know about the video, it seems ... After a video game argument, one of the students shared the video which was reshared many times and made its way to the black student's mother, who went to the school and wanted the white student expelled.

The black student's mother appeared on Good Morning America and other shows, hundreds of people marched to the white student's house to demonstrate.

The father of the white student wanted to get his voice out there, but in a way that wouldn't be ‘trial by social media.’ In the trial, the lawyer of the white student's family had the chance to 'go step by step with the jury through the process of what really happened, what the investigation shows, the actual facts, and then how those facts were spun for publicity and profit by [the mother of the black student and their lawyer].

In order for the white student's family to win their case, the jury had to find that the black student's mother and their lawyer ‘took facts that were not true and cast in false light, and did it for a reason in order to cause him severe emotional distress.’

The mother of the black student made a statement pointing out that the case doesn't involve slander or defamation of character, and that she will appeal.

The white student's family's lawyer commented that the reason defamation wasn't in the trial was that Texas' short statute of limitations ruled it out but that it was part of the events. He said that the black student's camp continued to push a false narrative of racism that they know did not exist.

Macron Says “Free Speech Is Pure B****t” on Hate Speech and Public Order in New Delhi | APT (youtube.com)

His point was, ‘You are for free speech. Ok, where is the role of ’free algorhythm'?' He wants a transparent road for how speech is arranged and presented, but he also does make anti-free speech statements. He said ‘I want, by the way, to have sort of public order. I want to avoid racist speech, hate speech.’

He made a comment also about wanting platforms to include multiple languages (not just English and Chinese), because that is the best way to avoid hegemony of ideology and ethnocentrism (my words) .

Freedom.gov: US Website to Bypass UK & EU Online Safety Laws (youtube.com)

Some US states have also tried bringing in ‘age verificiation’ de anonymizing internet usage.

Governments usually enforce internet rules, he notes. Yeah, so if they do that around 99% of the time, what do you think you should look for in this action which might not be the superficial part?

Various internets for various countries.

Department of War CTO on X (x.com)

Lethalitymaxxing, the US government against enemies of the state, both domestic and foreign? Daliwali

‘National, provincial, and even local governments are hostile, belligerent organizations that are humiliating and impoverishing their own people. ’

‘There has been a lot of uproar about DHS tracking dissidents and critics of ICE, Discord requiring ID verification, but none about how bullshit the existing NSA surveillance programs are.’ Daliwali
Russia opens criminal investigation against Telegram app founder Pavel Durov (apnews.com) on charges of “aiding terrorism.”

“A sad spectacle of a state afraid of its own people,” Durov commented.

‘The move triggered a rare wave of public outcry, including widespread criticism from pro-Kremlin military bloggers, who warned that Telegram was widely used by Russian troops fighting in Ukraine and restricting its service would derail military communications.’

Slotkin: This should send a chill down your spine... (youtube.com)

Sen Slotkin channel.

It seems Anthropic wanted to have 2 conditions, that their tech not be used to make weapons that have no human oversight, and that it not be used to mass surveil Americans, and she says Hegseth got angry at this. She asked, Why wouldn’t Hegseth be like fine, we're never going to use this for mass surveillance of Americans? Why wouldn't he be fine with that?

He would give no answers about whether the government can or is surveilling Americans. He ‘deferred.’ He just said that he couldn't speak to those questions, ‘in this particular forum.’

...

Toronto man's credit card frozen after paying off balance

He paid off his large balance all in one go (even though the amount was only 80% of his credit limit on that card), and that was suspicious for the bank, so they froze his credit, wihle he was on vacation in Portugal. CIBC bank. He only travels with one card. It was frozen for 14 days. He also uses that card for preapproved regular payments, which would also not go through.

He found out when he tried to pay $5 for something. He had to log in and discover for himself. He called them.

He's spoken to CIBC five times 'and their response is “Tough luck.”’

Shortly after the news reported on it, the card was reactivated.

He said he'll be taking some action when he gets back, he said. Will he, though, because all Canadian banks are bad and have been for a long time, if you go on any online forum and read what people have to say you'll see this.

...

Private member's bill to abolish B.C.'s Human Rights Code shut down (youtube.com)

‘Repeal the Human Rights Code that the Left is using to punish and profit from anyone who doesn’t adopt their views.' Armstrong stated, citing the $750k fine levied against a BC school board trustee for making comments about gender identity. BC premier Eby called out Conservatives for voting for the bill. Conservatives said that even though they voted for the bill it doesn't mean they agree with it (which, maybe, because it's traditional for everyone to vote for a bill on first reading regardless).

That line, ‘Repeal the Human Rights Code that the Left is using to punish and profit from anyone who doesn’t adopt their views,' does that rhyme with historical tyrannies?

...

Attorney general announces indictment against 30 more people who protested at a Minnesota church (apnews.com)

“YOU CANNOT ATTACK A HOUSE OF WORSHIP. If you do so, you cannot hide from us — we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you,” she wrote in the post. “This Department of Justice STANDS for Christians and all Americans of faith.”

‘In total, 39 people have been charged over the church protest and all are charged with conspiracy against religious freedom and interfering with the right of religious freedom.’

License plate readers hidden along roadways across San Diego, Imperial Counties (youtube.com)

Disguised as trailers or construction barrels, cones. Not known which federal agency is operating them. Border areas. State-owned roads.

The talk is about privacy concerns and also that the device placement bypasses state laws which protect state residents from the federal government by prohibiting that local law enforcement share that data with the federals. They can't control what they do with the data, but they can (other than this) control what happens on state property.

CBP and DEI puchased ones that fit these designs, so locals can only guess that's whose they are.

Journalism

Volusia man arrested for fraud, theft crimes he did not commit (youtube.com)

Journalists did weeks of digging to uncover the reciepts that proved his innocence.

The warrants the police had were for the man, with his photo. For using stolen credit cards at hotels.

The place he worked (and punched his timecard the day of the hotel stay) fired him after his arrest. But HR did supply investigators with his timecard showing he had punched in.

The actual fraudster tried to use the cards again or something, and was banned by Universal Studios for trespassing, and police came and gave him his ban, and there is bodycam footage showing the man is not Burges. The journalists requested this bodycam footage and received it after 2 months. Burges's timecard showed he checked in that day too.

‘... they didn’t do no kind of investigation, and just charged me, because it looks so like me.'

The police chief said facial recognition AI wasn't used in this.

The same day the news agency received the body cam footage from the city, the state attorney's office filed a no information notice in Burges's case.

Burges said he felt hopeless before he shared his story with the news agency, WESH2 Investigates.

...

News Literacy Week: Rebuilding trust in the age of AI

AI dominates SM.

This news agency does real interviews, but uses an AI to write web articles, and uses a real editor to check those articles. It puts a note at the bottom of the article saying it was written by AI. They double check. They also run their scripts (articles) through a scripts articles guidelines AI to make sure it looks fair and unbiased.

...

‘ICE Chasing’ Teen Brothers Risk Their Lives To Expose Agents | 10 News+

Been teargassed and peppersprayed like 7 times. They offer up their video footage free for anyone who wants it.

‘ICE observers.’

Videoed an ICE agent walking up and pepperspraying the face of a man who was already pinned down by several other ICE agents. Videoed an US citizen torn out of her car and carried away.

A lot of ICE aren't even wearing body cams, and when they are, the cameras aren't rolling, and when they're rolling the video doesn't get released. Citizens persistently videoing them breaks the narrative they want to put out.

...

The Biggest Threat to Journalism? Journalists.

Who dis shill?

Only a fourth of Americans only have even a bare shred of trust in media? Do you think that's because of journalists or because of corporations who own all the newspapers, even local ones?

How Jeff Bezos Broke The Washington Post

‘Destroying trust is the currency of autocrats.’

This month, WP closed the Sports department, reduced International and Metro (laid off a reporter in the middle of a war zone. ("We will continue to have a strategic overseas presence in close to a dozen locations.'), cut the books department, closed the dialy news show (The Post Reports).

Cut staff by 1/3 (after already a few staff reductions recently also).

The WP is expected, by the masses, to expertly monitor people in power. It's importance isn't limited to the city. It's one of 2 large news publishers in Washington.

When Bezos bought, he seemed to many like he wanted to be a serious champion of the paper. He increased staff, and hired engineers for the digital side of the WP.

He took a stand against Trump personal attacks in Trump 1.0, and this increased WP subs and WP even was profitable for 2 years. In 2014 Bezos declined to go through with a planned endoresement of Kamala Harris, and 250k people cancelled WP subscriptions. During the Trump campaign Bezos maintained his standard donations to both parties, but after Trump won Amazon donated $1m to Trump (the January 20 2025 inauguration) plus $1m in kind by streaming the ceremony on Prime Video. Bezos was one of many (most?) tech leaders who fell in line and congratulated Trump publicly and met with Trump do discuss deregulation and the economy. Amazon also bought the Melania Trump documentary at a price above market rate.

‘We need to have a newspaper that doesn’t sully itself with presidential endorsement.' Bezos also cut some opinions from the Opinions of WP, ‘We will cover other issues besides personal liberties and free markets but we will not be running any opinions that are in opposition to those.’ It became clear, the reporter says, within months, that he was shifting the Opinion more to the Right. The WP shifted to a powerful force of contraint on any administration to the WP being perceived to have fallen in line with political whims. ‘Bezos knows that digital industries tend to focus around one big winner. Amazon.com is the perfect example of this.’ We went from having many small shops everywhere to one giant that dominates the retail business and 'doesn’t allow much else to thrive outside of it in a lot of cases.'

In February 2026 Wp laid off 30% of its workforce.

Is this a stellar example of why CEOs/owners of large companies shouldn't be allowed to buy newspapers? Outside of a monopoly (Amazon's legally unrecognized monopoly or effective whatever close to it), companies would all be too small for this to be worthwhile, but for a company that big, it would make financial sense even to buy WP for a few hundred million dollars. In 2013, Amazon made $74b gross and $274m net (last year it net $78b).

Every contract the government allows or denies a company as big as Amazon is worth the negotiating value of newspaper like the WP and the editorial cooperation with the current Federal administration or many state or local admin.

At the time, $250m was 1% of Bezos' net worth and is 0.1% of his current net worth. $250m inflation adjusted for today would be $340m (but official inflation is lower than real, many believe).

...

Berkshire opened a position in NYT, after exiting newspaper companies in 2020. But he had said that NYT and WSJ had a digital moat.

NYT's digital subscription revenue is up 14% in the most recent Quarter, and digital advertising up 25%.

The main argument is ‘trusted source’ in a AI generated news environment, and licencing real information to Microsoft et al to train their LLM services. This is high margin revenue if it comes from only a few sources.

...

Information

Google is killing authentic websites & I made it worse (youtube.com)

When Google deranks the best companies (Luis Rossman's computer repair shop) for whatever reason (whether just political, things specific to website, whatever), even though they have higher reviews earned over several years with a large staff which they've increased their salary of), it means that people start bringing Rossman lower quality jobs, like they bring Rossman (ranked 100 now instead of in the top 10) the computer or disk after they already took it to the number 6 ranked, less competent, shop has already done an attempt to fix it which just made it worse or currupted it more or whatever, so overall the entire repair market is worse, and the products people have are worse.

But anyway, Rossman redid his website, and it went down to like 100 rank. He asked Gemeni why, and Gemeni suggested using sterile, computer shop speak terms and phrases, instead of the regular language he's perfected over 20 years of doing business or whatever. He made those changes and the website rose steadily, within weeks, to top 10. He had Gemeni reword each page and those pages started ranking way better.

Now his website reads as the opposite of all the honest statements, based on experience with choices about tech repairs, and it ranks much better. In other words, what will be in the top 10 of Google, or will rank at all, will be insincere, keyword termy, information that can be produced by a chatbot instead of an experienced person. And information that is not true or honest, but says a certain set of algorhythmically approved things. Just do CTRL C and CTRL V, don't write your own content. Something organic can't rank.

‘The thing that made the most difference was just sitting there and typing ‘How would you reword this so that Google likes it?’' Not changing the code, making it faster, etc.

Same with taking his voice and turning it into a Gemeni voice that Google likes.

Google is taking away the incentive structure to be authentic, it seems.

Discussion in many places has been replaced by reddit and Twitter.

He also said he regularly searched for and read some website abot Space. But recently he can hear the AI generated end dashes and things while he reads the new content. The videos have 500k or 1m views, the channels are doing great. People are using the AI stuff because it works.

Need another internet. Not end the current one, which is owned by Google. Have a Gemeni created website there, but have a real website on the other internet. Have real videos on the other internet, and make AI versions automatically generated to post on the Google internet.

For sure, content on Google internet will get worse and more streamlined to be compliant with AI approval, and no one will make anything they actually value. That will open up a massive space for a better internet to compete.

He expressed some shame that in the past, he modified what he wanted to say to be more successful. That he realized he had a principle, and gave up that principle because he had to chose between firing 6 staff or editing his website to be somethign he's sort of ashamed of, he's chosing the latter. He's giving up principles in one area to not have to fire people. ‘Who is going to chose to lose out on business?’ ‘I hate doing this. It makes me sick to my stomach, to change my wording choices, to placate an algorhythm. I want to have my voice come through. If you want to do business, great, if you don’t they don't.'

...

DOJ Epstein files dump fuels 'broader political schism surrounding elites vs. the people' - Analyst (youtube.com)

Daily Mail: Epstein's 'sex empire' was 'honeytrap' directed by the KGB • FRANCE 24 English (youtube.com)
France24.

Government says it's fixing redactions in Epstein-related files that may have had victim information (apnews.com)

Epstein files: AI photos circulate of Zohran Mamdani’s mother at party • FRANCE 24 English (youtube.com)

Clintons reverse course, agree to testify in House Epstein inquiry | Elizabeth Vargas Reports (youtube.com)

The dark side of the 2016 Challenge (youtube.com)

Clintons finalize agreement to testify in House Epstein probe, bowing to threat of contempt vote (youtube.com)

Rep. Lieu Says Epstein files Have Allegations of Trump Raping & Threatening to Kill Children (youtube.com)
CSPAN. No other headlines or statements (allegations by others) on this topic for the day.

Epstein Files Claim Adolf Hitler Lived in Shelter Funded by Wealthy Families in Vienna | APT (youtube.com)
APT

Did this billionaire lie about getting s*xually assa*lted? (feat. @AnaPsychology ) (youtube.com)
Autobiography.

RCMP, media, government all lying about horrific BC shooting: Ezra Levant (youtube.com)

It seems that in Canada there's generally a few days of censorship by government/police when there's this type of event. Been that way for years. It goes as far as giving false information, it seems.

At police press conference. ‘We identify the suspect as they chose to be identified in public and in social media. I can say that Jesse was born as a biological male who ... approximately 6 years ago began to transition to female....’

The issue is that the government warning message pushed out to people's phones (emergency message service you can't turn off in Canada) warned of a ‘female’ shooter. So how are people supposed to be on the lookout? Some other information agencies said ‘female identifying’ which is more descriptive.

Manifestos are frequently covered up by police, reportedly and seemingly.

How are companies using sponsored ads to divert customers from local businesses? (youtube.com)

There's a local company called Waterloo Appliance Services, a legit long time company. But someone else outbids them for the Google search term ‘Waterloo appliance service’ and they put ‘same day service’ on their ad, and everyone searches and clicks this, but the website just diverts to another company that charges a bigger fee and doesn't even fix the appliances, reportedly.

Google's ad business is so profitable they won't change (fix) this issue, the expert said. The best way for the legit company to fix this is to either pay more money to get the top ad rank or to change their name.

...

Epstein Files Special: Prince Andrew Arrested, Global Network, Mythology, Reid Hoffman Files (youtube.com)

The Epstein economy/industry is talked about here. That news and bloggers are incentivized to publish the opposite of journalism for clicks. That $1b has been paid to purported victims who are ‘allowed to just reimagine things that happened to them 20 years before, as an adult, not as a child, and call themselves a sex trafficking victim, and then they can secure a couple million dollars tax free from JPM and the media will hail them as these brave survivors without doing a single thing to check the veracity of any of their claims.’ The redactions could be to protect disruption of the Epstein industry. ... Government propaganda unthinkingly regurgitaded, that there are 1000 or thousands of victims, based on July 6 FBI DOJ memo. The revelations 'reveal that this number is a fraud' and includes a total number of possible victims and their family members. ‘The government deceiving the public about it.’

At another point he talks about how someone wrote a book making accusations, which was the basis for the beginning of the news cycle (like 10 years ago and still ongoing), a book which later had to be like withdrawn or admitted as not factual by her (the writer's) lawyers, and there were all kinds of settlements paid by people who may not have even done anything but just didn't want the negative publicity (and you can see why).

He likens the news story and the hysteria to the 80's Satanic Sex scare which imprisoned regular men and women, which was also based on nothing more than some unchallenged claims and took over the whole nation. I wrote a paper about this in college, actually, and also likened these things to the Salem (and other) witch trials. (Later in the video, David Sacks also mentions the comparison with Salem witch trials.) Will this be the same? People in general, even intelligent ones, will just hear something, believe it is true, partially because they're overexcited by the sexual content, commit to it with statements and also with their enjoyment of the theme, and then not admit the contradictory facts until they are forced to do so, after which they'll try to never talk of it again, and since they are 98% of the population, this will be effective. He uses the same word, ‘moral hysteria.’ ‘Witch hunts.’ ‘Feeding frenzy.’

When Epstein died, Michael Tracy says, libel laws no longer applied, so all kinds of people came out to make any kind of claims they wanted. Epstein's estate was supposed to be around $600m, and an organization was set up to (non adversarially, ie no argument, and confidentially) evaluate claims and pay money. Then there were other funds set up by banks who were accused of not showing enough due dillegence when Epstein withdrew his money or something. JPM paid $290m (lawyers got 30%, not a contingency fee, but rather a judge approved payment to the attorneys) and Deutche Bank was $80m. Add that to the Epstein $120m.

‘Speculation has replaced fact’ and people ‘just end up believing things that are totally false' because they just sort of ‘ambiently absorb’ retold stories.

‘People think a lot of dumb things. Like, is there any evidence at all that would tie Reid Hoffman to some kind of c**** s** c****? No. So if people think that’s being covered up, they should be disabused of that fallacious notion, rather than countenancing the notion and allowing the mass hysteria proliferating unhindered.'

‘What are we talking about here? Ultimately, we’re like in this other domain of like, who can establish the most damning guilt by association even though nobody can spell out what the guilt is supposed to be tied to.'

Tracy also described what a lot of people have said over recent years, ‘What is trafficing?’ it can mean anything nowadays and basically means nothing, like ‘terrorism' (he didn't mention tihs).'Trafficking is an incredibly nebulous concept. It's very much open to the whims and discretion of prosecutors who seek to fit some fact pattern to a desire to prosecute somebody for some sort of sexually related offense. If it involves simply the movement from point A to point B. So if adult women consentually flew on an airplane to go visit a luxury island in the Caribbean and over the course of that visit maybe they engage in some consentual ... act, and then 20 years later they can retroactively classify it as trafficking and that will entitle them to millions of dollars in tax free settlement money, are we going to take at face value that that constututes trafficking? Because I don't.'

It can also not be used as the ‘number one political battering ram against your enemies.’ Democrats are using it to undercut Trump, almost like the new Russiagate. Also International, ravaging Norway, UAE, UK royals, political figures forced to resign just for having emailed with the guy.

Tracy said he was facinated with ‘just how people come to believe such mythological things.’ And ‘the journalistic malfeasance.’ Without any ‘counterveiling point of view.’

‘It’s probably the most explosive thing to tell the mass public, in terms of what it might incite particular people with a particular mental instability to do, and that's just one of the potentially detrimental effects of all of this, that I think it should be rationally countered to the maximum extent possible, and I think we're going to be beset with this issue for the forseeable future. ... We should be cognizant of the real world ramifications, intead of just speaking of it in the abstract...'

‘The mob does not like being accused of being a mob,’ commented Sacks. ‘And their defence mechanism seems to be to accuse anyone who points out some of these problems in the logic of basically somehow being involved...'

...

PA florist says sponsored ad used her business name without permission (youtube.com)

They heard from customers who had done a Google search for her business had got a Google result that looks like Scentiment's Floral, because that is the big blue name displayed in the result (she has a screenshot), but that is for the domain for Burkittsfloral, a competitor in the area, linked to Bloomex.

The expert advises to go below the sponsored results to get real results. However, seems pretty fair to say regular people aren't going to do that, especially since Google is known to provide best results and the top result looked like what they would be looking for.

Meta-Smartness: Infinite Advantage in a World of Cheap Intelligence (youtube.com)

Problem identifying and communication to an AI. How to not scale wrong, since AI scales mistakes. Epistemic discipline, verification, sceptical. Execution, managing other people and fears, translating into outcomes. Quality, refined, curation, avoidance of low quality high output. Systems built around AI, not just use of AI, turning AI into production of results. Overcoming political, logical constraints in audience.

‘Ask for assumptions explicitly’ before starting. Verify and plan what can be done in the period of work.

...
Thomson Reuters reports CoCounsel has 1 million users, shares soar (youtube.com)
An AI platform for feduciaries, model agnostic (rn it's Claude). They also made their own Thompson model.

He says the results are feduciary grade, not the unacceptable 95% correct that most models do.

...

BREAKING: Hillary Clinton Said She Was Asked About UFOs, Pizzagate During Epstein Probe Testimony (youtube.com)

First time Hillary has been interesting in the news in years? She comes across here as a normal person in America, basically, which was refreshing sort of, and which may show that people are at their best when they're on the defensive and when a powerful authority is unjustly against them.

She said it was ‘disappointing they wouldn’t hold a public hearing so I wouldn't have to be out here characterizing it for you, you could have seen it for yourself. We had asked for that. ...'

However, when a reporter asked if she'd do her own public hearing, she said, ‘Oh, I’m not going to do it again. They had a chance to do it in public, and I wish they'd done it in public.' And there went any sympathy anyone might have had with her for the first 5 minutes of her podium? Same old Hillary.

She said they'd agreed upon rules for the hearing but one member violated the rules, which suggests ‘they might violate other of our agreements.’

She said they asked him repetitively the same questions, and she had to just give the same answer over and over. No Republican member asked any Epstein/Maxwell questions of any other person they'd deposed, Hillary said.

What about Bill Clinton, photos, etc, a reporter asked. She said the chronology ended before 2008.

...

Technology

notepad++ situation is crazy

TikTok: Known for "collecting everything." This includes keystroke patterns, biometrics (face/voiceprints), and even drafts you never post. Following its 2026 ownership shift to a US-led venture (Oracle/Silver Lake), it has updated terms to collect more precise location and financial info.

UpScrolled: Markets itself on Privacy by Design. They claim a "No Data Selling" policy and do not build shadow profiles or train AI on your content. Their revenue model is intended to be community/creator-driven rather than an "attention-for-ads" auction.

Ruse?

Issam Hijazi (Founder & CEO): A Palestinian-Australian technologist, Hijazi is the singular face of the company. He is currently the person accountable for the app's "no censorship" policy and the technical infrastructure. He has recently faced public scrutiny for the app's "light" moderation, which critics say has allowed nudity and hate speech to proliferate during its 1,500% growth spike in early 2026.

Recursive Methods Pty Ltd: This is the Australian-based parent company that owns the app. As an Australian entity, it is legally accountable to the eSafety Commissioner in Australia, which has some of the world's strictest laws regarding the removal of "abhorrent violent material."

Anthropic's Claude helped Pentagon raid Caracas and seize Maduro, US media report • FRANCE 24 (youtube.com)

WSJ. Claude used with Palantir.

Say it's part of company policy it won't be used for violance. Then sign a huge contract with the military. ‘What did they think that it was going to be used for?’

Mass surveillance, particularly of Americans, and making autonomous weapons.

‘It's Anthropic that's used in classified missions because of its deal with Palantir.'And it's also Anthropic that's pushing back against the demands of the military. Anyone believe that's sincere?

A few days before the story broke a top guy at Anthropic resigned, with a message that a warning that ‘the world is in peril.’

This type of event will show us where the AI companies really stand, when they're forced to act.

Anthropic CEO says AI company 'cannot in good conscience accede' to Pentagon's demands • FRANCE 24 (youtube.com)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK6ry4Nmhok
Step one, Pentagon gives outlandish $$ contract to AI company, with an understanding the company is still making its own decisions and can have restrictions on use of its tools. Step 2, demand the company give the Pentagon unrestricted use of company technology for military use or else lose the contract plus threaten designating the company as a supply chain risk (government blacklist) or even throw the Defense Protection Act (used before during Covid, energy supplies, medical supplies) at the company.

Commenter. 'Anthropic has restricted its AI from being used for fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance. Mass domestic surveillance is illegal. Domestic surveillance has to be specific and authorized by a court. Not sure why they would object to the UAVs using AI. Many of them are already fully autonomous without AI. The AI just permits more complex functioning. Anthropic's technology is already deeply embedded in classified defense infrastructure so I wonder what safety guardrails Hegseth wants them to remove?.'

...

'Furthermore, I think that LLMs will do far more harm than good, because it will be used for the total surveillance of society, crushing dissent, and killing people. Companies like Palantir already do so, and aren't even afraid of admitting it (I Worked At Palantir: The Tech Company Reshaping Reality (youtube.com) It will also be used to defer human decisions to a machine, which reinforces the idea that humans serve the machine, not the other way around...' Daliwali

Trump Tells US Agencies to Stop Using Anthropic's Tech (youtube.com)

Sam Altman: Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.
Sam Altman: Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.

Timeline today for Sam Altman at OpenAI:

Sam Altman aims to 'help de-escalate' tensions with Pentagon as OpenAI employees voice support for Anthropic

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told staffers late Thursday that he would like the company “try to help de-escalate things” between rival Anthropic and the Department of Defense.

“We have long believed that AI should not be used for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons, and that humans should remain in the loop for high-stakes automated decisions,” Altman wrote in a memo that was viewed by CNBC. “These are our main red lines.”

Trump admin blacklists Anthropic as AI firm refuses Pentagon demands

President Donald Trump said Friday that he was ordering every U.S. government agency to “immediately cease” using technology from the artificial intelligence company Anthropic.

Quotes from Hegseth’s x post:

I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security.

Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.

Quotes from Anthropic statement:

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth shared on X that he is directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk.

We believe this designation would both be legally unsound and set a dangerous precedent for any American company that negotiates with the government.

No amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. We will challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.

OpenAI Reaches Agreement With Pentagon to Deploy AI Models

OpenAI said it has reached an agreement with the US Department of War to deploy its models in their classified network.

OpenAI ssssssnags deal

Health

Tennessee lawmakers push for constitutional right to grow food at home (youtube.com)

43% of Americans are growing their own food to eat?

They want to create an amendment, not just pass a law, in Tennessee. Tennessee did a similar thing with the right to hunt and fish. Some places have tried (and succeeded) preventing people from growing food on their lawns.

Lots of comments about HOAs.

‘We dont need permission from the govt to grow our own food. HOAs should be shut down’ ... Reply. ‘They should, they are unconstitutional’

‘To heck with the right to grow. Just ban HOAs, that is the real problem’

...

Canadians may soon see cloned meat on grocery shelves (youtube.com)

About 100% of comments are strongly against this, so how is is possible the government allows it?

Apparently, it's not even required to be labelled.

It appears the ‘consumers we found are OK with the idea’ by this news organization contrast starkly with the comments.

Human Interest

Crime

Missouri City sues state to withhold photos from 13 Investigates (youtube.com)

Missouri police department suing state of Texas to keep photos hidden about a water leak in the department's evidence room that destroyed case evidence in 2024. The destroyed evidence was then thrown out without proper procedure.

The police answered by saying they wouldn't show photos because it would violate the privacy and constitutional guarantees of the people involved in any cases the photos would show. The journalists asked why the police couldn't just blur the sensitive information?

They've submitted several public records requests and Missouri ‘fought’ them on several, reported.

The journalists did get photos of the room, anyway.

Residents only found out because of the news, weeks after it happened, because that's when the news found out. The leak was caused by a humidifier.

One employee was fired, one suspended, and another retired.

...

RCMP warning of circulating email scam (youtube.com)

The email appears to be from the RCMP and says ‘you have committed crimes, viewed prohibited websites and shared nude images of minors (punishalbe by imprisonment for 5 to 15 years or payment of a mandatory fixed fine).’

There is also grammar and language problems.

This same issue causing problems everywhere.

The RCMP says do not reply. The email address is very similar to the RCMP's real address, only difference is a hyphen.

...

Frank Stronach accuser admits she lied on the stand at sex assault trial (youtube.com)

Billionaire business mogul, alleged a rape happened in 1983 (the man is now 93). The defense says the crown may have improperly coached complainants before they took the stand. The judge said she was surprised.

The woman had given pretty hardcore testimony about what the man had done to her. Even though even in that testimony she said she didn't do or say anything to stop the encounter.

Usually, complainants don't suddenly say they lied in their testimony.

The woman said she should have just said she didn't know when the prosecution asked her questions, but she ‘tried to answer the questions.’ The defnse said though that she probably knows exactly how things happened but was embarassed by the sexual encounter, and has regret.'

Commenter. ‘When the moneys there, sometime you lie, i guess.’ Not sure which side this was about, though.

...

Father and daughter mistakenly caught up in human trafficking investigation (youtube.com)

A father and daughter went to a coffee shop. Some other customers were suspicious of their relationship and called police. The city police shared the video all over SM, asking people to help them find the pair, and it was seen by 10's fo thousands of people, reported. Police questioned them about human trafficking.

The father seems to be no better than the strangers, as he was fine and even commended the actions of those who reported and shared his image.

The young man who called it in was smiling when he talked to these reporters talking about what he did. ‘Just to be safe than sorry...’

Hysterical citizenry primed by the media? unhinged by respect for other people.

...

Special ReportRomance Scams

Romance scam playbook uncovered as Valentine’s Day approaches (youtube.com)

Women are talking about this daily too. The Chinese have referred to this type of interaction as ‘pig butchering’ because the scammer fattens up the target with affection.

Here is a text version of the whiteboard.

Company Mission Statement

As a staff of this Company our work is mainly Find Customers From dating App's or Social media and Build Relation and Build Trust with them.

PART 1 TAKES PLACE IN THE ORIGINAL DATING APP OR SM

Step 1 - Find Customers

Dating App’s
Face Book - IG
Matrimony

Step 2 - Filtering [filtering for good targets]

Age above 40+
Profession
Photo’s, Cars, House

PART 2 TAKES PLACE IN A PRIVATE MESSAGING APP

Day 1 (there is only this one day in the dating app)

Greeting's
Understand Basic details each other
Must ask these questions:
What are you looking for
How long are you using this [app]
Are you met any one Before here. [this question is not asked often by non scammers]
How the app treating you.

Phase 2: [isolate the target]

Move to WhatsApp (convince target to leave the SM you met her on and go to a private app. This is important because, since these apps aren't allowed to scan the messages (even if they secretly do), they will avoid build in scam detection filters that dating apps might have. Scammers will get banned if their behaviour triggers algorhythmic detection for scam or spam behavior.) The scammer will not want to video chat and will have reasons like being shy, military restrictions, government restrictions, etc, but with current AI filters to appear like other people the scammer may be willing to video chat]

Day 1

Hobbies, Interest
Education.
Must ask client’s photo

Day 2

Family
Profession
ask about day

Day 3

About Relationship
childhood Experience
Emotional stories [the hook] [forced intimacy, trigger instinct to reciprocate personal information, which scammer will use later to manipulate the target]
Past Relationship
Financial Issues
Family Matters

Day 4

Normal chat
Build Relationship
Future plan

Day 5

Give First hint about Trade [to spark curiousity in the target]
I am going to Collect some Financial Data
I have some market analysis & Trading
Send Graph and profit chart pic

Day 6

Build a Relationship strong
Discuss about Financial
Do a trade & Send profit chart [social proof, make it appear safe and lucrative]
Create a story about profit
Normal push

Day 7

Normal chat
Make More Trust
Talk more about Financial things & Their Benefit's
Share profit chart
Talk about Importance of Money in life

Final Stage

Hard Push [after target trusts scammer emotionally] [pressure to ‘test’ the investing platform with a small amount like $1000 and then target will see ‘profit’ and will be pushed to invest a larger amount}
FINISH

Culture

Should parents be more worried about sports betting? | BBC Global (youtube.com)

Adbusters is forcussing on “The Re-enchantment: Birth of a New Mythology”, targetting GenZ, past "dry politics" and into "mythic struggle." They're pushing Digital Detox and breaking algorhythmic chains of Silicon Valley, and psychic breaks from Northern (American) dominance of latin america. They frame the Mexican Yankees Out and Colombian's recent protests as a part of this.

Mending the vestiges of jihadism (csmonitor.com)

Still 50k prisoners in camps in Syria include 8000 from other countries. Reports that Middle East attitudes have shifted, towards separation of faith and politics, and to democracy (‘as dignity, prioritizing social and economic outcomes over procedural features such as elections') over autocracy.

'“True religious leaders are not spokespeople for power. Rather, they are guardians of virtue and justice, and advocates of dialogue and peace.”'

... Bill banning schools from teaching about gender theory, sexual orientation passes Iowa House subc... (youtube.com)

The Cybernetic Loop of Cognitive Warfare (youtube.com)

One of the few videos I'd recommend everyone watch, and watch slowly, with pausing and reading. Anyone who uses any social media.

It targets your (emotional) state and cognitive capacity. He details a five phase loop in wihch the tools you would normally use to protect against manipulation are disabled.

First, the system measures you, your vulnerabilities, how you handle uncertainty, which emotions override your thinking, what matters to you most. SM ‘knows you’. What makes you break.

Mild content is pushed away, to map your boundaries (your defenses).

Once your vulnerabilities are known, the system system selects the right script for your state.

This is why counterarguments fail. You're attacking the message with your counterargument, but their attack was never about the message. It was about triggering a specific emotional state that bypasses your analytical mind. ‘You’re playing chess while the system's playing neuroscience.'

'The controller doesn't create the states. It just traps you inside them.'

Then there's the Rewiring Stage. ‘First step, destroy your confidence in your own perception.’ (Is this why SM don't seem to mind fakenews?) People who doubts everything they see will grab onto anything that promises certainty. Includes Gaslighting, Firehose of Falsehood, and Cognitive Dissonance (introducing conflicting information that demands resolution becaues it is stressful). ‘A disoriented mind doesn’t seek truth. It seeks relief.'

The there's the Re-encoding Phase, with Framing, where information is presented in specific perspective that inevitably leads to the desired conclusion. It also has a Big Lie (so big no person thinks anyone would lie about something so significant, or is too big to process), and constant repition. Authorities and avatars enforce this. Part of the new code involves Appeal to Prejudice (so it seems intuitive), Oversimplification, Rationalization (with logical sounding excuses), and Foot in the Door trival requests which lead to dangerous demands.

Phase 4 is the Output, the trap springing shut. The person becomes a Golem, a weaponized asset. The person doesn't need convincing anymore, he is set about convincing himself. Once he makes a SM post or confronts a neighbor unpleasantly, the Sunk Cost Fallacy becomes real. The moral inversion completes, ‘This action was necessary. They deserved it. I’m brave for doing it. You're not defending the action. You're defending yourself through the action.'

At this stage the person polices his own thoughts, does work to enforce the ideas internally. ‘Pre-emptively self correct. Punish your own doubt. The surveillance is inside you now. The system doesn’t need to watch you anymore.'

‘Each phase disabled the tool you’d need to resist the next one.' ‘By the end, escape feels impossible.’

‘The system loses power when you see the control layer.’ ‘Keep diverse sources available. Keep the cost of verification low. Keep dissent socially tolerable. Not because you need to hear both sides, but you need to preserve exit routes from controlled gradients.’ ‘Deny action under pressure. ... Manipulated action requires urgency to bypass reflection' so wait 48 hours. ‘Awareness is the first layer of defense. You don’t need to be invulnerable. You just need to see when you're being played.'

The current era seems digested now, at least by some outliers and to a degree even by the commons.

...

'The support of ICE by "conservative" 2A types has got me to understand that most people don't actually believe in anything, even the words coming out of their mouths. If ICE can go door-to-door in search of illegal aliens, the ATF can search you for illegal firearms (yes that should be an oxymoron given the 2A says that right to bear arms should not be infringed). The DEA can search you for illegal substances, or the FBI can search all your digital storage for child abuse content they they themselves planted. They invent the crime, they make the rules because they were the first to break them.' Daliwali

Fake Concern as a Humiliation Ritual (youtube.com)

How concern (true or fake) is weaponized, particularly in humiliation rituals and gangstalking. Within controlling systems and relationships. Using concern to reduce another person's feeling of safety or status within a system. Monitoring (socially) and pressure, usually covert, to make the person look less credible and be more controlled. These are hiding and controlling techniques.

The concern is the prextext, like a landlord ‘smelling gas’ in your apartment. They can break down the door, they don't need to wait for your consent or wait for the fire department. There is an intrusion but it's justified because there is a concern. Humiliation rituals are used to gain access to you.

At work, you disagree with someone more powerful than you or just anothe employee who is aligned with the powerful people, or maybe you disclose privately or secretly some problem you or someone has, and your boss asks you, ‘Oh, are you OK?’ in front of everybody (or maybe privately but documented?). ‘You don’t usually sound this way. Are you out of it or angry?' Is there something in question about your safety (not just physical but emotional)? It makes you look like you don't have good judgement at that time. You are less credible. Each time they do it to you, it adds to the narative that ‘Uh oh, this person really needs help.' Maybe they need to share your private details. Maybe they need to monitor you, or at least watch you for other things. It makes you look like the problem. It makes you the problem.

It can be at church (where addresses and names are just published and handed out, there aren't the same privacy boundaries as commonly are found at work) or in the home. What if you do counselling or just talk to someone about addiction. Or maybe someone say you one day and you looked a mess.

It makes the scapegoat look less credible.

It may be not that they want to control you specifically, but the person might just want to throw his weight around and you're available.

...

Small, approachable actions are the key to a nonprofit push for greater civic engagement among Gen Z (apnews.com)

‘activities such as calling elected representatives, volunteering locally or hosting public conversations with neighbors of differing backgrounds’

‘The effort counters popular narratives that members of Generation Z, born roughly between 1997 and 2012, are unengaged or resigned.’

“Gen Z wants to do it fast, they want to do it authentic, they want to do it right now,” Sirangelo told The Associated Press last month. “They don’t have time -- no patience for institutions or signing up.” ... 'The biggest barriers to civic participation, according to C&S, are that young people don’t know where to begin and don’t believe they can make a difference.' ... ‘But Vinnakota emphasized that these actions can’t come from the “top down” and that older leaders must let their younger counterparts’ ideas percolate.’

“This is a generation that actually sees the problems and actually wants to try to solve them,” Vinnakota said. “And we need to create the means, the tools and provide the capacity for them to do it.”

‘The intent, whether it’s in the classroom or at work, is to bring interested young people together in-person — not remotely — and show them that their peers share a desire to deepen their community commitments.’

“Civic actions that don’t take a lot of effort initially but start to build something that we call agency,” Vinnakota said, “and start to get the flywheel moving. That’s what this is about. How can you create the spark?”

...

Products

↑ Back to top