Sunday, March 29, 2026
Saturday, March 28, 2026
Roald Dahl
His works for children include James and the Giant Peach; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Matilda; Fantastic Mr Fox; The BFG;
Dahl made repeated antisemitic comments throughout his life,[101] and ultimately stated he was antisemitic in his late life.[102] In August 1983, Dahl reviewed Australian author Tony Clifton's God Cried, a picture book about the siege of West Beirut by the Israeli army during the 1982 Lebanon War.[103] The article, in which Dahl stated the Jews had never "switched so rapidly from much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers", appeared in the Literary Review and was the subject of media comment and criticism at the time.[104] Dahl wrote that Clifton's book would make readers "violently anti-Israeli", at the time saying, "I am not anti-Semitic. I am anti-Israel."[105] In 1990, Dahl spoke again on the Lebanon invasion, stating "they killed 22,000 civilians when they bombed Beirut. It was very much hushed up in the newspapers because they are primarily Jewish-owned. I'm certainly anti-Israeli and I've become antisemitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism. I think they should see both sides. It's the same old thing: we all know about Jews and the rest of it. There aren't any non-Jewish publishers anywhere, they control the media—jolly clever thing to do".[106] His comments invoked responses from Jewish colleagues and friends, with the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin, stating, "I thought he might say anything. Could have been pro-Arab or pro-Jew. There was no consistent line. He was a man who followed whims, which meant he would blow up in one direction, so to speak",[105] while Amelia Foster, Jewish director of the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden, said, "He had a childish reaction to what was going on in Israel. Dahl wanted to provoke, as he always provoked at dinner."[107] As a consequence of his comments, in 2014, the Royal Mint decided not to produce a coin to commemorate the centenary of Dahl's birth.[108] In 2020, Dahl's family published a statement on the official Roald Dahl website apologising for his antisemitism.[109]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl
Dahl made repeated antisemitic comments throughout his life,[101] and ultimately stated he was antisemitic in his late life.[102] In August 1983, Dahl reviewed Australian author Tony Clifton's God Cried, a picture book about the siege of West Beirut by the Israeli army during the 1982 Lebanon War.[103] The article, in which Dahl stated the Jews had never "switched so rapidly from much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers", appeared in the Literary Review and was the subject of media comment and criticism at the time.[104] Dahl wrote that Clifton's book would make readers "violently anti-Israeli", at the time saying, "I am not anti-Semitic. I am anti-Israel."[105] In 1990, Dahl spoke again on the Lebanon invasion, stating "they killed 22,000 civilians when they bombed Beirut. It was very much hushed up in the newspapers because they are primarily Jewish-owned. I'm certainly anti-Israeli and I've become antisemitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism. I think they should see both sides. It's the same old thing: we all know about Jews and the rest of it. There aren't any non-Jewish publishers anywhere, they control the media—jolly clever thing to do".[106] His comments invoked responses from Jewish colleagues and friends, with the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin, stating, "I thought he might say anything. Could have been pro-Arab or pro-Jew. There was no consistent line. He was a man who followed whims, which meant he would blow up in one direction, so to speak",[105] while Amelia Foster, Jewish director of the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden, said, "He had a childish reaction to what was going on in Israel. Dahl wanted to provoke, as he always provoked at dinner."[107] As a consequence of his comments, in 2014, the Royal Mint decided not to produce a coin to commemorate the centenary of Dahl's birth.[108] In 2020, Dahl's family published a statement on the official Roald Dahl website apologising for his antisemitism.[109]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl
Friday, March 27, 2026
Thursday, March 26, 2026
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Why Marxism Is Incoherent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UEJKhrt-aM
Political theories often obscure what is really going on. At its core, the issue comes down to whether individuals or the government should make decisions—and, consequently, whether individuals or the government should pay for services. When the government pays for a service, it reduces individual choice.
For example, if the government provided refrigerators, you might not like the ones it offers. However, your taxes would still go toward funding those refrigerators, regardless of whether you choose to buy a different one. This argument can be applied to education, yet few people believe that education should be entirely private.
A case can be made for many public services. Likewise, some burdens are easier to manage when they are shared collectively.
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Iran’s Decentralized Mosaic Defense, Antifragile Against War of Aggression: Example for Humanity
@john2001plus
0 seconds ago
Delusional. Iran has supported terror against America and Israel for decades based upon false apocalyptic beliefs. The murderous Mullahs are getting payback.
The only acceptable result is to establish a secular democracy.
0 seconds ago
Delusional. Iran has supported terror against America and Israel for decades based upon false apocalyptic beliefs. The murderous Mullahs are getting payback.
The only acceptable result is to establish a secular democracy.
Saturday, March 21, 2026
Diego Garcia
Iran sent two missiles toward Diego Garcia. It is a joint British and American military base in the Indian Ocean, 2500 miles from Iran. Reportedly, Iran's missiles only have a range of 2000 miles. The news speculates that Iran has more missile capability than we thought.
One missile failed and the other was shot down.
Friday, March 20, 2026
Thursday, March 19, 2026
The nation is accelerating its self-assassination
Thomas Jefferson said spending money to be repaid by posterity is "swindling futurity on a large scale." There is, however, no injustice in borrowing from the future to fund public goods — those from which all citizens, present and future, will benefit. Such goods — physical (roads, dams, harbors, defense) and intellectual (education, scientific research) — are the infrastructure enabling society's dynamism. The swindle that has become normal is perpetrated by generations in power funding their consumption of government goods by burdening — borrowing from — future generations.
This practice stores up risk. The higher the national debt as a percentage of GDP, the less leeway government has to respond to recessions or other economic shocks. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says the government entered the last two recessions with the national debt at 35 percent and 80 percent of GDP, respectively. Today it is 100 percent.
If we have banished the business cycle, relax. If not … "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself," said the physicist Richard Feynman, "and you are the easiest person to fool."
This practice stores up risk. The higher the national debt as a percentage of GDP, the less leeway government has to respond to recessions or other economic shocks. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says the government entered the last two recessions with the national debt at 35 percent and 80 percent of GDP, respectively. Today it is 100 percent.
If we have banished the business cycle, relax. If not … "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself," said the physicist Richard Feynman, "and you are the easiest person to fool."
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Sunday, March 15, 2026
Friday, March 13, 2026
Thursday, March 12, 2026
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Jesus’s Last Supper In America
Although I don't agree with the politcal message, the video is very amusing.
This reminds me of a joke I heard a long time ago:
A Cardinal rushes in to see the Pope. He says, "I have good news and bad news." The Pope asks, "What is the good news?" The Cardinal says, "Jesus has returned to Earth and is on the phone for you!!". The Pope says, "Wonderful!! What is the bad news?" The Cardinal syas, "He is calling from Salt Lake City!".
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Monday, March 9, 2026
Sunday, March 8, 2026
Saturday, March 7, 2026
My Comment on Facebook.
In response to...
John Coffey
Paranoid. I'm sorry, but every anti-vax person I have talked to is a conspiracy-theorist. Some of these are my closest friends, but they believe things like, "Bill Gates wants to kill us all.", and "Billionaires want to kill 90% of the human race." I would like to say that I have no idea where they get these ideas, but I have some ideas: First, I see many people online who fan the flames of paranoia. Second, almost 60 years ago, one of the Rockefeller's said that he would like to see the population decrease. I've seen some twisted logic that tries to apply this to all billionaires, like they want to commit mass extermination. As if Bill Gates wants the same things as the Rockefellers. Finally, there is a great resentment toward wealth: Someone commented to me that people in the medical field live in mansions so they can't be trusted. The argument is that the medical field is not interested in our welfare but only in profit.
I am repeatedly told that you have to "read between the lines" to get to the real truth. The problem with that idea is that it is open to wild interpretations not based on evidence.
Friday, March 6, 2026
George Washington discusses Shays’ Rebellion
Of Shays' Rebellion, Washington wrote, "if three years ago any person had told me that at this day, I should see such a formidable rebellion against the laws & constitutions of our own making as now appears I should have thought him a bedlamite - a fit subject for a mad house." He wrote that if the government "shrinks, or is unable to enforce its laws . . . anarchy & confusion must prevail."
Washington did not wish to attend the Philadelphia Convention because he doubted what might be accomplished. He admitted that "powers are wanting" in government but wondered how such powers would be derived. He commented on Knox's plan for building a central national government, calling it "energetic, and I dare say, in every point of view is more desirable than the present one."
Washington did not wish to attend the Philadelphia Convention because he doubted what might be accomplished. He admitted that "powers are wanting" in government but wondered how such powers would be derived. He commented on Knox's plan for building a central national government, calling it "energetic, and I dare say, in every point of view is more desirable than the present one."
Shay's rebellion is often cited as the reason that we have the government we do.
Thursday, March 5, 2026
This Seems Strangely Topical
This seems to be the opposite of the Objectivist argument, which is that you shouldn't hurt other people because you invite retaliation. No matter how powerful you think that you are, even if you are the supreme dictator, others could rise up and depose you.
It seems self-evident that you can only oppose evil with force. This runs the risk of becoming evil yourself.
Contrary to the images we see in movies, heroes don't win wars, armies do. Wars are won by the cooperation of a vast number of people working together. Having an orderly society mostly free from evil works the same way. It takes force to maintain order. The power to impose order comes from a great many people cooperating. Societies are built on cooperation.
For this reason, I believe in the rule of law. A good society is one that has just laws. Bad societies either have bad laws or don't follow the rule of law. Corruption can destroy a society from within.
Mark 48 torpedo
Mk-48 and Mk-48 ADCAP torpedoes can be guided from a submarine by wires attached to the torpedo. They can also use their own active or passive sensors to execute programmed target search, acquisition, and attack procedures. The torpedo is designed to detonate under the keel of a surface ship, breaking the keel and destroying its structural integrity. In the event of a miss, it can circle back for another attempt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_48_torpedo
The news reports that this was used to sink an Iranian ship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_48_torpedo
The news reports that this was used to sink an Iranian ship.
Fwd: Minesota autism treatment up 34000% in 7 years
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Larry
Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Monday, March 2, 2026
I wrote this 7 years ago
I see a danger to the future existence of the human race, and it is the kind of thing that people should think about and prepare for now. Sometime in the next 50 years machines will be smarter than people. There are major technical hurdles to overcome, such as the inevitable end of Moore's Law, which probably means that it is not right around the corner or even within the next couple of decades, but it will happen, and easily within this century. And if for some reason it does happen within the next couple of decades then that means the results will be upon us that much sooner.
We can predict what will happen next and follow it to its logical conclusion, which is a future without people.
We can predict what will happen next and follow it to its logical conclusion, which is a future without people.
As machines become smarter, people will become increasingly reliant on technology. We can see that already with smartphones, which have only been with us for barely over a decade. Eventually machines will do all the heavy mental work, which will make our lives easier, but also make us more dependent.
And since we will be so dependent on the machines, we will start incorporating them into us. This will evolve over time until we are no longer purely human, but human machine hybrids. Perhaps when your biological brain dies, the machine part of you will be able to continue with all your memories intact. Maybe it would have an artificial body or maybe it would exist in a virtual world. It is likely that some would prefer to live in a virtual world where they can do more things than they could in the real world. Taken to the eventual extreme, our descendants would no longer bother with biological bodies and prefer to exist as machine intelligences either in the real world or in virtual ones.
The evolutionary pressure will be against purely biological people. Having machines incorporated into you will make you more productive, competitive, and increase your quality of life.
The future I describe might be long distant, but if it is not the future we want for the human race then we should start thinking about it now. Maybe we could have a Pure Human movement that would prohibit the merging of machine intelligence with human intelligence? This could be roughly analogous to the current legal ban on human cloning, because we very likely have the technology right now to clone humans, but countries ban it because they are uneasy about the implications of where that might take us.
However, we might not be able to prevent it. Linking machines with human intelligence is likely to happen in such small steps that we will easily adjust to it. It is sort of happening already with our dependence on computers. It could also start as a series of military applications where having the most effective soldiers determines who wins the wars. And once the genie is out of the bottle, we will never get it back in.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
P.S. Seven years later, I think that energy consumption and cost might become limiting factors in machine intelligence, at least in the short run.
The laws of physics won't allow us to make chips much smaller, and I just saw an article saying that it might be physically impossible to run a processor at 10 GHz. Right now, in theory, the only way to get more computing power is to have more processors, unless we invent a new technology like optical processors. However, upscaling requires more energy consumption and more cooling.
Sunday, March 1, 2026
Cops Shot An Innocent Schoolteacher 5X's and COVERED It Up
Federal officers have a right to protect themselves. However, in this case they don't seem to have been under threat.
On the morning of October 4, 2025, Marimar Martinez, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen and school teacher, was driving in her neighborhood of Brighton Park, Chicago when she observed federal immigration agents patrolling the area. She followed them in her car while honking her horn and shouting "la migra" to warn neighbors about the presence of immigration officers. While she was driving alongside a white Chevy Tahoe driven by Border Patrol agents, the two vehicles made contact. Martinez alleges that the Border Patrol vehicle sideswiped her, while government prosecutors later claimed that Martinez had attempted to "ram" the Border Patrol vehicle. A Border Patrol agent, identified in court filings as Charles Exum, then shot Martinez five times.[3][4][5]
...
The released evidence appeared to contradict key elements of the government narrative. In the bodycam footage, Exum appeared to turn the steering wheel of his vehicle to the left, toward Martinez, immediately prior to their collision. He initiated the turn toward Martinez after another agent in the vehicle said "it's time to get aggressive." The recording ran counter to the government claim that Martinez attempted to "ram" the agents. It appeared to support Martinez's claim that the Border Patrol agents swerved toward her vehicle.[11] Exum was subsequently put on administrative leave.
I don't trust Wikipedia to tell us the whole story.
The body cam shooting doesn't show us what happened with the cars, or what precipitated the incident, but it appears to show the agent turning into her car. It is possible that she tried to box in the government vehicle.
Officers are aware that they are being filmed, so it would be reasonable to think that they feel justified in their actions.
This incident has to be evaluated independently and it is not a reflection on other border enforcement actions.
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