toucana

The J6 committee also claimed in its summary report on Monday that a Trump-backed attorney urged a key witness to mislead the committee when giving evidence to them. CNN has since claimed that Stefan Passantino - the top ethics attorney in the Trump White House - was the lawyer who allegedly advised his then client Cassidy Hutchinson to tell the committee she did not remember key details. Before giving testimony Cassidy Hutchinson dropped Passantino and got a new lawyer. https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/jan-6-committee-final-report/index.html Passantino and his law firm Elections LLC were being funded by a PAC (political action committee) called ‘Trump Save America’. By Tuesday, Passantino’s biography had been removed from the website of a mid-western law firm where was a partner, and he is now said to be on ‘a leave of absence’. Given that lawyers, especially jurists, are supposed to avoid ethical conflicts of interest like this, it’s unlikely to be the end of this particular matter.

Yours for only $99 ! The exclusive NFT - (Non-Fungible Trump)

This is a recent video posted by a computer repair YT channel I follow. What intrigued me was the nature of the problem. Basically a computer gamer tried to improve the performance of an Asus laptop by applying liquid metal to the motherboard - instead of the thermal paste normally used on heatsinks. And it left me wondering - Did they sleep through the class about metal being an excellent conductor of electricty - or what ? Kudos to the repair guy for getting this one running again ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-mClhyaJng

Extending easy loans to people with bad credit records has been likened to handing your credit card to a heroin addict - it’s unlikely to end well. The most compelling example in recent history is the Subprime mortgage crisis which very nearly wrecked the world banking system in 2008. It began in the USA when the Bush administration dismantled statutory financial controls on the housing market. Lenders embarked on a highly predatory campaign of selling ARM (adjustable rate mortgages) to low income ‘Subprime’ customers - quite often without any form of background check, and using automated ‘No questions asked’ underwriting systems. The lenders offset their financial liabilities by setting up parallel companies with separate books, and rolled the debts up into financial products called CLO (collateralised loan obligations) sold as bond issues with superficially highly attractive returns of up to 26% p.a. which were subject to only minimal appraisal by credit rating agencies - who were paid by the vendors to provide AAA+ ratings. The gigantic flaw in this scheme was that it depended entirely on massive sums of money coming from the Subprime borrowers at the bottom of the heap, who were now being leveraged by the rapidly rising interest rates on their ‘adjustable rate mortgages’ (which only ever went up - not down). Many of these mortgage holders went into default. Without this income, the CLO bond issues began to fail catastrophically, and their failure in turn started to pull down the big monoline insurers who normally underwrite bond issues of this type. Within a very short time, major banks and institutions went into a global panic, and they stopped lending money to each other, because none of them knew how badly each other was compromised by these bad debts. Several of them such as Lehman Bothers and Bear Stearns went bankrupt and collapsed altogether in 2008. And that is the problem - Where does the bad debt go ? It is completely reckless to issue cheap loans to deadbeats, and just assume that someone else will pay them off when they default.

There are several recent articles about Chinese dissidents in the southern provinces successfully using Cantonese slang idioms to confuse and defeat Chinese state censorship on Weibo. https://qz.com/china-censors-stumped-by-cantonese-1849496778 Cantonese which is spoken by up to a 100 million people in the south of China is usually incomprehensible to Mandarin speakers in spoken form - apart from anything else Cantonese has a 9 tone pitch phoneme system - as opposed to the 4 tones normally found in Mandarin. It is possible to write Cantonese in standard Chinese script forms that Mandarin speakers can read relatively easily, but it only works if the Cantonese speaker makes a conscious effort to use standard simplified script forms, and avoids the use of obscure idioms and dialect vocabulary and grammar. The dissidents protesting against prolonged lockdowns and other forms of repression have taken to using complex and archaic scripts form for many words - quite a few of which haven’t been in common use in Mandarin since the Ming dynasty in the 17th century. The famous 18th century Kangxi dictionary (康熙字典) for example lists over 47,000 script forms, as opposed to the 8,000 or so characters that a a literate Mandarin speaker would normally be familiar with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwckaHxOWXs

TFG calls for the "termination of the Constitution", and his immediate reinstatement as POTUS.

The Thirteenth Floor is a special favourite - as noted by TheVat it was based on a German TV series called World on A Wire. If you enjoy VR based SciFi theme films, then you might also enjoy Avalon (2001) which is Japanese/Polish collaboration directed by Marmoru Oshii - who is probably better known for his original animated version of Ghost in The Shell (1995). Avalon was made on location in Poland with a Polish speaking cast and crew. A stand alone sequel called Asssault Girls set in the same world was released in 2009

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) who was born when his mother went into premature labour after being told of the Spanish Armada, lived in era when men of learning habitually wrote and even *thought* in classical Latin. The Latin phrase bellum omnium contra omnes was a motif rendered by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan as “warre of everyone against everyone”. In the earlier work De Cive (1642) he wrote: ostendo primo conditionem hominum extra societatem civilem, quam conditionem appellare liceat statum naturæ, aliam non esse quam bellum omnium contra omnes; atque in eo bello jus esse omnibus in omnia. "I demonstrate, in the first place, that the state of men without civil society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing else but a mere war of all against all; and in that war all men have equal right unto all things." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellum_omnium_contra_omnes

DJT is clearly having an atomic scale meltdown about his stolen 'Electron':

Given that this entire thread originally began with a discussion of 'Hammer Violence', it's probably worth revisiting the Young Turks video segment about the epic troll perpetrated by the Good Liars team at the NRA conference 5 months ago:

'Low Tide' - (Barry Blitt)

Here in Blighty, they'd also be spending the next two years of their life in jail for the criminal offence of possessing a firearm and ammunition. Ditto for Russia, China (PRC), N. Korea, and a whole host of other countries too. I feel that Americans as a whole simply do not grasp how atypical ((and quite how deranged) their attitudes towards firearms and gun violence really are. It seems to come as a perpetual surprise to them to discover that their rates of firearm related homicides are generally 25 time higher than anywhere else in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States

John Toebbe and his wife were both jailed yesterday. He received a 19 year sentence for attempting to sell US nuclear submarine secrets to a foreign power, but his wife Diana received a 22 year sentence - far longer than the 3 year sentence originally proposed in a plea deal. https://news.sky.com/story/right-out-of-the-movies-couple-who-tried-to-sell-us-nuclear-submarine-secrets-to-foreign-country-are-jailed-12743447 District Judge Gina Groh who sentenced them in Charleston West Virginia on Wednesday, took strong exception to the fact that Diana Toebbe covertly attempted to write two letters to her husband while both of them were in jail, which urged him to exonerate her. The letters were intercepted by the authorities. The propulsion system data which the Toebbe couple attmpted to sell was classified only at the lower Confidential level (not at Secret or Top Secret levels). Prosecutors did not disclose which country the accused tried to sell their secrets to, though some sources suggest it was the Braziian navy.

The Meidas Touch news site recently produced a viral super-cut video after Fox anchor Laura Ingraham asked "Which Republican official or candidate has ever condoned or encouraged any form of violent physical assault ? Can you start naming them ? I can't think of any". The video was featured by Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC last night as her sign off to the 'The 11th Hour".

The Conservative Party MPs at Westminster are elected by and held accountable to the voters in their respective constituencies (and by the electorate at large). The constituency party members on the other hand are accountable to absolutely no one whatsoever - and yet they are in the position of being able to have the decisive say in selecting who will become the next PM, absent any form of wider plebiscite. This might matter less is quite so many of this 0.37% segment of the population didn't largely consist of golf club Brexiteers and casual racists - like the caller 'Gerry' in this video clip below who phoned in to LBC radio host Sangita Myska's show yesterday and who wanted to complain that Rishi Sunak (former chancellor and leadership front-runner) can't really be 'British' because he is brown skinned.

The most recent information I can find is a Guardian article which says the active fee-paying membership of the UK Conservative party is currently around 200.000 people. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/08/tory-members-over-60-white-male-choice-of-leader The World Population Review site indicates that the UK population is around 67,522.166 The number of these over 18 years old is somewhat less than 54 million. https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/united-kingdom-population That means the active membership of the UK Conservative party represents around 0.37% of the adult population of Britain. The Guardian article notes that ”More than half are aged over 60, and they tend to be male residents of southern England. They are overwhelmingly white – at 97%”

As Britain prepares to select its third PM in just over 6 weeks, attention is being drawn to the curious nature of UK Conservative Party membership rules, and the critical role that members play in selecting a new PM. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/21/2130404/-How-did-the-UK-get-Truss-the-UK-may-be-able-to-blame-us-or-someone-else If a British PM voluntarily steps down from office, it does not trigger a general election. Instead a two-part internal leadership election process begins. First, a slate of candidates is chosen in a ballot by Conservative Party MPs at Westminster. The final selection is then settled by a vote of ordinary members of the Conservative party in the UK - right ? Wrong ! As these two websites make clear: https://www.conservatives.com/members/membership-faqs#accordion-ce4b514d78-item-6f9020ca8c https://www.twocitiesconservatives.org.uk/join-clwca-and-conservative-party-online You *don’t* need to be resident in the UK to join the Conservative Party, and you don’t even need to be eligible to vote in the UK in order to do so. For the sum of £25, it would seem that anyone, anywhere, can acquire - “All the benefits of party membership, including participation in the Conservative Policy Forum, attendance at party conferences, and a vote in the election of the party leader”. - Who then automatically becomes the new PM. Reassuring isn’t it ?

A frank discussion between Xi Jinping and Putin about the latest Russian mishaps in Ukraine would probably also provide some pause for serious thought by Xi about any future Chinese plans vis-a-vis Taiwan. The recent imbroglio over Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, and the US navy’s subsequent despatch of warships through the Taiwan straits would have brought home to the PRC that the US is quite serious about meeting its stated committment to supporting Taiwan in the event of a military attack by China. The patent superiority of American high-tech weapons systems supplied to Ukraine such as the HIMAR artillery rockets, SAM air defences, and the anti-ship missiles that sank the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet will all be a potent reality check on China’s more hawkish generals. Taiwan itself is a formidably difficult target to invade. During WW2 the US military chiefs made a decision at the Honolulu planning conference in 1944 to bypass Formosa (as it was then known) completely, and to invade the island fortress of Okinawa instead, which led to the largest and bloodiest amphibious operation of the Pacific war. The invasion of this much smaller garrison island led to over 40,000 US casualties, including the 4-star General Buckner who was the commander. (He was killed by shrapnel from a Japanese artillery shell while inspecting the clean-up operations). It should be noted that Okinawa has an area of just 463 sq.mi. Taiwan by contrast has an area of 13,976 sq. mi. The cost benefit value of attacking Taiwan was too high to contemplate in 1945, and remains so today.

A recent MSNBC segment called ‘The New Dark Ages’ looks into the recent banning of 54 Mathematics textbooks from schools by the Florida Department of Education, a sanction subsequently endorsed by Florida governor Ron de Santis at a press conference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrJXammBAFE The Maths textbooks in question, many of which are for K-5 grade elementary students, were banned by the Florida authorities because they allegedly incorporate “prohibited topics and strategies” including references to CRT (Critical Race Theory) - which is usually taught as a college level subject. Journalist Judd Legum who is the founder of the online Public Information Newsletter obtained copies of eight of these banned tetxbooks, but his researchers could only find one example of any passing reference to race in any of these banned textbooks - it appears in a set of marginalia about notable mathematicians in history.

An interesting drone video of a Russian tank ‘regrouping’ after the sudden breakthrough by Ukraine army forces during their latest offensive in the Kharkiv Oblast area which led to the capture of the cities of Kupiansk and Izium within the last 48 hours. The video shows the fleeing tank shedding Russian soldiers into the road as it swerves wildly around abandoned vehicles, before crashing into a tree at high speed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWfV12XnTH0

Déjà vu ?

Frank Figliuzzi. a former FBI assistant director of counter-intelligence has pointed out that a subpoena shown in the unredacted version of the MAL search warrant refers to Secret/ FRD documents https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoZlYov0clI The FRD cryptonym means ‘Formerly Restricted Data’, which is somewhat misleading - the real point is that US intelligence material held on a foreign power’s civilian atomic energy research program can be reclassified as Secret/FRD if that program is suddenly shifted onto a military footing for the purposes of producing nuclear weapons - because it is now secret military information. This suggests that the subject of the TS-SCI document in question is an aspiring nuclear power in the process of converting civilian atomic research programs into military ones - Basically that means either Iran or North Korea.

Agreed, and one of the most pernicious aspects of the delay is that this particular district judge has taken it upon herself to enjoin the entire federal criminal investigation which the document seizure was part of, thereby halting it in its tracks - an action which is wholly unprecedented on the part of a low ranking Article III district judge, and which has been condemned out of hand by a very wide spectrum of senior lawyers, including former AG William Barr. Allowing the DNI to continue its evaluation of the security compromise in these circumstances is meaningless, because they need to work in tandem with DoJ criminal investigators in order to do so - if for example they need to establish the exact chain of custody of a top secret document, or if they need to test it for fingerprints, how can they do so without forensic access to the contraband ?

According to a new Washington Post report, the FBI search team recovered a top secret document containing details of the nuclear weapons systems of an un-named foreign country from Mar-a-Lago during the August 8th search. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/06/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-documents-nuclear-weapons-report Documents of this type are so highly classified that only the president and a tiny handful of senior advisors are ever read-in on them. They represent the results of many millions of dollars, and years of espionage effort (and lives) invested in obtaiining such closely guarded information. News of this find has probably been leaked to the WP by DoJ officials to underline quite how ludicrous Florida judge Aileen Cannon’s recent ruling in favour of appointing a Special Master to review the Mar-a-Lago documents truly is. Who could possibly be appointed to the role of sorting through boxes to separate Trump’s random bricolage of bed-socks, narcissistic press clippings, and Twitter rants from TS-SCI/SAP nuclear secrets that only three or four people in government are permitted to read ?

The US astronomer and astrophysicist Frank Drake (1930-2022) has passed away aged 92. Born in Chicago Illinois, he trained at Cornell, and then in graduate school at Harvard, specialising in radio astronomy. He worked at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank West Virginia, and at the Jet propulsion Laboratory Pasadena California. Drake became one of the founders of the SETI program (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) and is best known for writing the Arecibo message sent to the globular cluster M13 in 1974, and also for creating the famous Drake Equation in 1961 which sets out to estimate the likely number of communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy. —> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVCYjtsxvns