Must see interview with Sy Hersh, investigative reporter. [SPOILER: He does NOT talk about the infamous tape about Seth Rich.]

'Propaganda organization': White Helmets 'engage in anti-Assad activities' – author Sy Hersh
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Sy has a new book out called "Reporter" A Mamoir" which is mostly autobiographical about his career as a reporter, with references to his My Lai massacre reporting, his start with the Chicago papers as a crime reporter, and later experiences.

Very interesting comments on My Lai, on the Syrian war and the chemical attack incidents. He has pretty much nothing to say about the British Skripal incident except that he's been told by people in the US that Skripal was reporting to one of Brit intelligence agencies on Russian Mafia activity in Europe - which he says pretty much indicates who might have wanted to poison Skripal.

What I notice these days is the incredibly wide divide between Trump/Anti-Trump people which also has the ever growing #Qanon vs. #Resist subgroups. These groups live with radically different perceptions of history and current events, totally different realities. Then toss in S.3274 - Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act which allows the government to fund propaganda pieces by our media, Citizens United, and social media I expect this will only get worse.

"The center may provide grants to or contract with specified entities to:support local independent media to refute foreign disinformation and manipulation in their communities," https://www.congress.gov/bi...

NYT has a very slick piece using a virtual crime scene "proving" Assad's chemical weapon use in Ghouta that cost a pretty penny and they are even paying to have it promoted as an ad:

https://www.nytimes.com/int...

On the #resist side many believe we are in a full fledged nazi fascist government where Trump has taken control using "over 1200 EO's" . When I pointed one person to the University of California's .edu Presidential Site showing the 77 EO's they called it a fake news site. I guess I should have pointed them to the Federal Register but then that probably would be "government controlled". It is difficult to have any kind of fact based discussion.

This reminds me of the Nika riots in Constantinople between the Blues and the Greens. I can't imagine how a rural/suburban vs. urban center civil war could play out but I can imagine a descent into intergroup riots with groups using social media for "flash mobs" and people adopting symbols like Maga hats/Pussyhats for group identification altho it would more likely be US flags/patches with a Q on them vs. Antifa flags.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Broadstroking I see is that the one group is far more reason/logic/thinking based emphasizing the bigger picture, timelines, and patterns with a very broad variety of beliefs from pragmatic to downright loony and the other is heavily emotion based with a strong groupthink/conformity, no deeper thinking into policies, complexities, or facts, and a timeline constrained to the current moment and current reaction.

Those of us that believe in evidence based reasoning are going to have to hunker down and go along for the ride. It feels like a new dark ages is upon us here in the USA.

As awful an idea as it is I also wonder if the government will someday be forced to control news in order to create social order as our media is mostly based on drama, fear, politics, propaganda, and division. My quiet news refuge these days is China's Xinhua news feed on Twitter. No politics, just news from around the world on a variety of topics with the occasional feel good story.

https://twitter.com/XHNews

If social order can only be had at the cost you describe then it is not worth it.

I tend to agree but history shows that the future doesn't always go to the best and brightest of people, ideas, or cultures.

Perhaps AI tutors, imagine every child with the AI equivalent of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates in their pocket to be their friend and mentor. If we can get far more people educated in critical thinking we might get out of this mess someday.

I thought I WAS your friend and mentor.

The science fiction writer Frederic Pohl 'imagined' an AI 'personal' and individual psychiatrist for people, Seigfrid von Shrink, in his book "Gateway."

For Sigfrid et. al.: http://www.technovelgy.com/...

Those of us that believe in evidence based reasoning are going ...

Cynicism alert: It surely would be diabolically plausible the "Assad Regime" challenged US established red lines with Russia having its back. Or, for that mattter, semi irony alert: the US led liberal world order. Considering Wikipedia's historical collection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Nah. Trump runs his own foreign policy.

The NYT (or rather, the folks using the NYT as a mouthpiece) live in mortal terror that their side may lose in Syria.

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...
Translation:
As rain darkens the mountain,
One mistakes a mule for a horse.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Thank you, FarNorthSolitude.

Kinda funny watching British press deal with the world cup. Originally they warned that it would be dangerous going to Russia. The consequence is that there are 50,000 fans for Columbia in Russia vs. 6,000 fans for England. Things like "Reports have already come out about how there will be "Soviet style" drunk tanks where English fans who have had too much to drink will be stripped down and forced to sober up." Imagine hordes of naked football fans drunk and naked in Soviet drunk tanks. Headlines like "Why Russia 2018 Could Be the Most Dangerous World Cup of All Time" and "'It's too DANGEROUS' - England fans STAY AWAY from Russia World Cup after fears for safety". "I’ve followed England around the world, but Russia is too risky" Blah, blah, blah.

Now they are saying - "Fears of hooligan attacks and security issues have proved completely unfounded with fans from all nations made to feel welcome amid a party atmosphere in the host cities."

Spoiler ..... Now England is in the quarterfinals, the World Cup is going smoothly with fans having a great time. If I get 3 wishes: I hope this puts a gigantic hole in the British press constant demonization of Russia (which is similar to the demonization of Germany that went on for decades before WWI), I hope they get a large backlash from the fans missing out on their teams successes, and I hope it is England vs. Russia in the final. And I'll be rooting for some karma to get delivered :-)

I believe that the Borg still wants to install Hillary into the oval office. I think that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is going to make that plan more difficult. Perhaps they will offer her the VP spot on Hillary's ticket. Given Hillary's health, perhaps Ocasio-Cortez should take them up on it.

Per the Constitution the Prez and VP must be at least 35 to hold office. AOC won't turn that age until less than a month before the 2024 election and therefore is ineligible for nomination in 2020.. HRC is already long past her sell-by date and considering the fact that she'll be 77 on election day 2024 and apparently not in the best of health now, and considering the Democratic Party is in the death-spiraling grip of the Iron Law of Institutions, she'd be a marginal candidate even if she were somehow nominated.

https://rationalwiki.org/wi...

can you imagine a second Trump vs Hilliary, and the democrats once again run on trump is literally Hitler.

i would pay to see that.

Thank you for setting me straight on that age rule.

The voters of the district are about to get many years worth of enlightenment as they realize the trade "up" for social justice they made by voting in this great herspanic representative who, as a member of the junior most class in congress, and a member of the party not in the majority, can't bring home a single percentage of the billion in earmarked funds Crowley brought to NYC over the past decades he was in office. I'm sure there is a very active local business person/non-community organizer who can garner more than 7% of the registered voters in the democratic primary two years from now.

Happy World UFO Day!

World UFO Day 2018: Exploring The 'Roswell Incident' And The Possibility of Alien Life https://www.news18.com/news...

This 5 minute visually appealing video from NBC News is very well put together. A mini-science documentary. Has a great digression on research hinting at octopi as potential aliens. Or are they renegades from the future?
It’s UFO Day! Here’s What We Know So Far https://www.youtube.com/wat...

That's about on a par with what I expect from NBC News...i.e., pathetic.

Journalist John Keel pretty much destroyed the "alien UFO" hypothesis back in the late 1960's and early 1970's, but apparently no one has gotten the memo for the last forty years...

My theory remains the same: That a protohuman species on this planet developed intelligence before we conventional humans did, developed technology up to nanotechnology, then leapfrogged to superhuman intelligence exactly as we are predicted to over the next fifty years or so. They just did it thousands of years before we did. And they're still around - but so far advanced at this point as to have no point of contact with us, other than floating around the planet doing whatever it is they do these days, with us oblivious except for the odd "sighting".

This theory eliminates all the issues with beating the FTL space travel limit and other physics problems, as well as explaining why humans have a long history of being aware of odd phenomena we've never explained.

Such an advanced race of beings still must have had, and continue to have, some sort of metabolism. Where are all their waste products; excrement, used up broken tools, waste heat etc.?

The only advanced civilization known to us is the Western Diocletian one, which of necessity is predicated for its existence on large populations. An analogous advanced civilization must have produced billions of metric tons of rubbish, much of it such unperishables as plastics, ceramics, styrofoam etc.

No such garbage dumps have been discovered any where on Earth's land masses.

Nanotechnology would eliminate all waste products of any kind, recycling them back into their chemical components.

A posthuman species of the type I envisage would require only five things to exist: 1) A source of matter; 2) an energy source; 3) nanomass; 4) computing power; and 5) knowledgebases. Whatever devices they require would be produced on demand and recycled when no longer needed with nothing wasted except perhaps some heat.

You must never have studied physics and engineering.

A living being will have to produce heat, whose signature could be detected by infrared cameras from space. There is nowhere to hide, they would have to produce large amounts of heat.

As for nanites, some active or dormant ones have to have been discovered by now; having, in fact, spread all over the Earth as well as its atmosphere. Additionally, where are the locations of their production? They cannot be self replicating machines since per Shanmon's Theorem, Random Noise will degrade the fidelity of their reproduction over a few generations.

Posthuman? More like Unhuman, what happens to sex in this unhuman future? [It is worse than a Protestant's vision of Life in Heaven. No sex and no stakes.]

I guess I should have been clearer that these links were for fun and amusement, and NOT to be taken seriously. Except for the octopi ;)

im sorry valissa , the roswell incident has been inflated beyond reality and it is the domain of US Ufology hucksters and liars. The more sensational the better for them. Meanwhile the real serious research are dry and boring as one have to browse thru case files from APRO , NICAP , MUFON. Yes those old case files are the best way to study ufology , as Dr Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee found out.

Theres plenty of UFO cases in the world, for example the highly documented and photographed incident at Colares Brazil by Brazillian Intelligence unit.

anything Roswell are tainted by lies and fantasies of hucksters , and US military should have plenty of documented cases by their own members and photographs of real UAP in their files.

Read the case of Bethune Gander sighting where a US navy plane encounter a giant disc pacing it near Newfoundland. Multiple witness case and Documented (FOIA doc available publicly)

so again , why the constant focus on roswell nonsense? plenty of interesting case out there.. read up Trancas Case in Argentina , Iroquois Canadian destroyer encounter , and many more

I thought like you until I went to the museum in Roswell, NM.

i dont mean the roswell incident didnt happen , all im saying is that its been blown out of proportion by the fame seeker and hucksters. and they kept making the tale longer and longer every year. And while,i believe the roswell crash happenned, it is not extra terrestrial.

theres plenty of credible UFO cases in the world , and the lunatic fringe of US ufology only focus on roswell or underground alien bases or alien working with USG and all nonsensical stories.

Theres no single evidence that UFO/UAP is alien in origin , it is still unclear if it is extra teresstriao or extra dimensiomal.

What do you make of this over at emptywheel? She felt threatened, both web site and personally by someone allegedly working for the Russians, and went to the FBI. Threatened to the point she invited FBI in to sweep her house while she was not present.

https://www.emptywheel.net/...

Sounds like she needs a vacation somewhere warm, sunny and with rum drinks.

Virginia certainly has had plenty of warm and sunny recently.
Best wishes to you on Independence Day, and thanks for SST's contributions.

I should have added Palm Trees and a blue lagoon to the prescription for her. She sat a couple pews away from me and Gareth Porter the whole week of the Geoffrey Sterling trial farce. I would leave Virginia but I am too old now.

Lefty

This is likely what happens when one is all in on the Russian collusion conspiracy Then it is possible that you see Russians on every corner. I used to read Marcy frequently when she was painting a big tag on the deceit of our government around mass surveillance and the misuse of the Patriot Act. TDS has destroyed her principles as she champions the extra-legal activities of our law enforcement and intelligence in the service of their preferred political outcomes.

Perhaps the Donald will ask Putin to send over a few Cossacks to teach crowd control. I would love to see a few mounted Cossacks breaking up a deployed Antifa unit.

Another dangerously naif person, dreaming up a mechanical solution to politics

https://www.nature.com/arti...

Too hot in Ottawa to do anything but sit on the floor in front of the open refrigerator.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

What happened to my post

I deleted it. Why? I didn't like it.

One to amuse

If you see me sitting at a window looking out
Glass of gin touch of lime
A hour glass of liquid time
Searching for words to rhyme
Spare me no thought i commit no crime.
Words have thoughts all of there own
They speak to me when I am all alone
If i smile for no reason laugh out aloud
Tis the crime of rhyme no vowels allowed.

Is this the one you were bitching about. I moderate the comments and I am not on-line 24/7.

Your work?