2025-02-18

air crash, brains outlast brawn, Goonies 2, performative virtue dating, intactivism, "science is about what is true", age limits for social security, rethinking democracy, Italian home renovation

etc

• Several injured as plane crashes on landing in Toronto airport

  one passenger has been critically injured and seven others were also hurt. A superintendent with the Peel Region paramedic service says all of the other roughly 80 passengers and crew are accounted for and not believed to be injured at this time.

  • Delta Air Lines CRJ-900 Crashes in Toronto

  Details are just emerging, but an Endeavor Air CRJ-900, purportedly DL4819 from Minneapolis (MSP) to Toronto (YYZ) [registration N932XJ], is pictured flipped over on its back at YYZ. After a rough landing, it came to a rest flipped over.

  • Toronto's Pearson airport responding to emergency involving plane landing

  • One kid, two adults critically injured after airplane crash at Toronto Pearson

  One child and two adults are critically injured after a plane crash at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday afternoon. The incident involved a Delta Airlines plane arriving from Minneapolis. Images from the scene show the plane on its roof. Paramedics have said that up to eight people are injured. “Emergency teams are responding. All passengers and crew are accounted for,” a post from Pearson International Airport reads. Transportation Minister Anita Anand confirmed in a post on X that all 80 passengers onboard are accounted for.

  • Delta plane flips on landing at Toronto airport, injuring 8

  • Delta plane crash lands, flips over at Toronto Pearson Airport; 8 injured

Horseshit

• The Best Way to Cook Rice and Grains - NYT Cooking

  So how do I boil grains? Add grains to a saucepan or pot of lightly salted boiling water, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until they’re tender and chewy. They should be the texture of al dente pasta — not soft or mushy — and may also be split at the ends. Use the cook times that follow as a guide for some common grains, and start tasting five minutes before because grains vary greatly based on producer. Drain the grains through a sieve. For warm, fluffy grains, return the grains to the pot and cover to rest for a few minutes.

  • this is not new news; those who have not learned this through other means will welcome the information.

• The human mind is in a recession

  First, since the industrial revolution machines have been increasingly replacing human brawn and routine cognitive tasks. By 2030, the share of activities expected to be delivered predominantly by people will fall from about 50 per cent today to 33 per cent, according to the World Economic Forum’s latest Future of Jobs Report. That puts humanity’s comparative advantage in narrower areas of thinking. Second, we now live longer. State-defined retirement ages are less relevant in knowledge-driven economies. An individual’s cognitive skills are longer-term assets than physical strength.

• 'The Goonies 2': Sequel in the Works With Steven Spielberg

• Even Disney Is Worried About the High Cost of a Disney Vacation

• Quantum Computing Notes: Why Is It Always Ten Years Away? – Usenix

• When the Michelin Star Becomes a Restaurant's Curse

• Randomness as a Solution to Analysis Paralysis

• Growing Health Concern Regarding Gambling Addiction in the Age of Sportsbooks

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Microsoft cuts ties with USAID-funded "fact-checking" outfit NewsGuard

Musk

• Uber's CEO says no one wants to compete with Tesla or Elon Musk

• X blocks links to Signal

• Wall Street banks have sold almost all $12.5B of debt tied to Musk's X purchase

• Protesters demonstrate outside Tesla showrooms in US

• X blocking links to Signal, a secure messaging platform used by federal workers

Electric / Self Driving cars

• BMW's next-gen EVs depend on an unassuming black box called 'Heart of Joy'

• UK used electric vehicle sales hit record last year as prices fell

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Stories of Legacy: Your Black History Month Reading Guide

• As a White Man, Can I Date Women of Color to Advance My Antiracism? - The New York Times

  interracial dating as a sociopolitical strategy.

  Your devotion to self-improvement is impressive. Like a dish of quinoa and kale that you may once have forced down and now actively enjoy, a woman of color could, you think, raise your game, supplying something like antiracist roughage. You’d be using your erotic ecumenism to level up. Where your shallower classmates have hookups, your dates would be teach-ins. ‘‘Do the work,’’ the slogan urges, and you’re rolling up your sleeves.

  • I Can’t Believe This New York Times Headline Is Real – PJ Media

  You can’t make this stuff up. The Babylon Bee would struggle to do a better parody of a left-wing advice column. At this point, the left has become tough to satirize — not because it's beyond mockery but because reality keeps outpacing even the most absurd caricatures we could dream up.

• The “Intactivists” Campaigning Against the Cut | The New Yorker

  New York’s biggest foreskin fans take their anti-circumcision message to the streets.

  • mutilating the genitalia of children for any reason (excepting actual life threatening malformation) is probably bad. Once you're an adult you can whittle the bits as you like, by your own decision.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Breaking Heavy Textbooks in to Smaller Books for Easy Carrying

• This Time WITH ALL ATTRIBUTIONS – The Smallest Minority

  “Yeh, what exactly is the right wing beef with the DOE. I mean I know YOU failed out of Jr. HS. But are you all still holding a grudge over that?”

• Epistemology and Philosophy of Science - Cliff Hays

  When it comes down to it, science itself is not about who wins or who is perceived as “right,” it is solely about what is actually true (viz. replicable & corroborated).

• US Private School Tuition Nears $50k as Inflation Lifts Costs

• School phone bans do not improve grades or wellbeing, says UK study

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• The Paradox of Music Discovery, the Spotify Way

• TikTok's uncertain future in the US and the people who want to buy it

• Meta plans globe-spanning sub-sea internet cable

• Captain America: Brave New World is a mess — especially in ‘5D’ | Polygon

  Marvel’s new MCU installment Captain America: Brave New World was beset by production delays and big, story-shifting reshoots. The end result is kind of a mess. That mess was compounded during a “5D” screening of the movie I saw on Thursday night, which turned the traditional theatergoing experience into an event where I was caked with mud and nasally assaulted with perfume that would make Tom Haverford weep. It also may have permanently ruined a Uniqlo hoodie I kind of liked. Never heard of a 5D screening? The label is pure marketing. While 3D movies offer an immersive stereoscopic illusion of depth, and 4D(X) movies toss viewers around in sync with on-screen action, 5D amplifies the theater experience by adding falling leaves and confetti, strobing lights, and sprays of mud and water that require wearing face shields during viewings.

• Reddit mods are fighting to keep AI slop off subreddits. They could use help

• One Fix for Ailing Movie Theaters? Becoming Nonprofits

• Spotify is not as cheap as it seems

• CodeWeavers Hiring More Developers to Work on Wine and Valve's Proton

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Open-source code repository says 'far-right forces' are behind spam attacks

  The open-source code repository Codeberg has blamed the far right for a recent campaign of abuse and harassment across its systems. “Projects advocating tolerance and equal rights” were subjected to spam campaigns using abusive messages, which escalated to spam emails sent to users via Codeberg’s own automated systems. Codeberg says it stands strong “against hate and hatred” that endangers free software projects.

  • After the last 7 years, I'd be very surprised to find anyone of "right wing" opinions on any tech forum. They purge deviance since at least 2018.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• South Korea bans new DeepSeek AI downloads

Crypto con games

• Javier Milei risks impeachment after endorsing $107M Libra rug pull

  • Argentine President Milei Faces Impeachment Threat After Crypto Pump and Dump

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Broadcom reportedly investigates acquiring Intel's chip design biz

• JPMorgan’s ‘huge mistake’: ill-fated purchase of Frank heads to court

  JPMorgan Chase’s alleged close relationship with prosecutors will be a key focus in the defence strategy of a young entrepreneur, Charlie Javice, scheduled to stand trial this week over criminal charges she fraudulently induced the US bank to buy her company. Javice’s defence team maintains the lender essentially felt buyer’s remorse, and exploited the government to turn a commercial dispute into a criminal case. Javice, 31, was arrested two years ago on fraud charges over the $175mn sale to JPMorgan in 2021 of her company Frank, which supported students applying for financial aid.

• As Wall Street has chases Profits, Fire Depts have paid the Price

• Waste Management to Automate Thousands of Jobs

• Avg price of a dozen eggs has nearly doubled since last year

• Dutch pension fund ABP sells all Alphabet and Meta shares

• 'No one wants to pay $25 for breakfast': US restaurants cracking under inflation

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Bill to ban mRNA vaccines passes out of House committee

• (Jul 2023) Numberholders Age 100 or Older Who Did Not Have Death Information on the Numident

  In Tax Years 2016 through 2020, employers and individuals reported approximately $8.5 billion in wages, tips, and self- employment income using 139,211 SSNs assigned to individuals age 100 or older. SSA transferred these earnings to the Earnings Suspense File, primarily because personally identifiable information provided on the workers’ earnings reports did not match information in SSA enumeration records. Resolving these discrepancies will help improve the accuracy and completeness of the DMF and prevent future misuse of these SSNs. The Department of the Treasury operates the Do Not Pay portal as part of a Government-wide initiative to prevent and detect improper payments. SSA will begin sharing its full DMF with the Do Not Pay initiative in December 2023.

  • There is no 1875 epoch.

  Some people have claimed that the reason for this is that the Social Security Administration (SSA) uses an epoch in 1875 for storing dates, and these are just people with unknown years of birth stored as 0. I think the origin of these claims is this post.

  I don’t think this is true, for a few reasons.... I had found no evidence of 1875 ever being used as an epoch to start counting time from, in any context. I tried to find any case of this happening but I couldn’t find any. It’s definitely not a standard COBOL thing.

  • "This Might Be The Biggest Fraud In History" | ZeroHedge

  Musk posted a spreadsheet of Social Security Administration data showing "numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!" The data shows that 20.789 million Americans are collecting social security benefits over the age of 100. Drilling down into the age buckets, benefits are still being paid out to folks over 140!

  One X user pointed out that 2023 data showed the US population at around 334.9 million. However, Musk's data (likely from DOGE's 'Big Balls' analyst) shows 394 million names in the Social Security Administration database. Musk responded: "Yes, there are FAR more "eligible" social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history."

  • Millions in Social Security Database Ages 100-150

• National Science Foundation granted George Washington University $5 million to stop ‘misinformation.’

• "The impossibly rich lifestyle of DC liberals, funded by YOU the taxpayer, without your consent or approval."

Trump

• Trump Officially Ends Biden-Era War On American Appliances.

Democrats

• WATCH: Dem lawmakers answer USAID funding questions after bombshell report | Fox News

  Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said that while USAID funds "should never go to terrorist organizations," he added that "Elon Musk has a real credibility gap" and that "almost all the claims as it relates to efficiency have been proven false." According to an analysis by the Middle East Forum, a U.S. conservative think tank, the USAID and State Department have funneled at least $122 million to groups aligned with designated terrorists and their supporters. The think tank reported that among its top findings, USAID was found to have given more than $900,000 to a "Gaza-based terror charity" called Bayader Association for Environment and Development.

  Progressive Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, a member of "the Squad" of progressive lawmakers, said it is "perfectly reasonable" to look at specific USAID funding but that he opposes gutting the entire department. "When people ask about specific programs and parts of USAID or other federal programs, we should look into those. We can have oversight. We can look, we can go and edit the budget and say we don't want to spend on this, because this didn't work and we do want to spend on that." "The problem that we have right now happening in this country isn't just about USAID. It's not just about the Department of Education. It's that you have Elon Musk, a billionaire who makes billions of dollars off of the federal government, going and shutting down programs without a vote, without any transparency," Casar said.

Left Angst

• Dozens of Employees at US Digital Service Dismissed

• Doge-affiliated employee expected to seek access to IRS system

• Fight for America is a new game that re-enacts the storming of the Capitol

• The Erasing of American Science - The Atlantic

  The dismantling of USAID has halted clinical trials abroad, leaving participants with experimental drugs and devices still in their bodies. Last week, NIH announced that it would slash the amount its grants would pay for administrative costs—a move that has since been blocked by a federal judge but that would substantially hamper entire institutions from carrying out the day-to-day activities of research. The administration is reportedly planning to cut the budget for the National Science Foundation. Mass layoffs of federal workers have also begun, and two NIH scientists (who asked not to be identified for fear of professional repercussions) told me they participated in a meeting this morning in which it was announced that thousands of staff across the Department of Health and Human Services would be let go starting today. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has now become the head of that department, after two confirmation hearings in which he showed a lack of basic understanding of the U.S. health system and a flagrant disregard for data that support the safety and effectiveness of various lifesaving vaccines.

• Trump Fired, Then Unfired, National Nuclear Security Administration Employees

• Managers given 200 characters to justify not firing nuclear regulators

• Justice Dept asks Supreme Court to decide if ethics watchdog can remain fired

• Fight Back Against the Trump-Musk Coup | Indivisible

  Remember: Trump is not invincible. He has no mandate. His agenda is cruel, corrupt, chaotic, and deeply unpopular. And the longer it goes on, the harder it is to sustain in the face of real opposition. That’s our job now—to build that opposition. We need you to step up, speak out, and demand a real fight. Indivisible.org is a joint website of Indivisible Project and Indivisible Action. Indivisible Project is a registered 501(c)(4). Indivisible Action is a Hybrid Political Action Committee. They are separate organizations.

  • How much money is behind this and where did it come from?

• Krugman Says Trump Won Because Low-Income Voters Lack ‘Sophisticated Views’ on Economics.

• CBS’s Margaret Brennan Blames Free Speech for Nazism—And Gets Schooled.

• “Largest data breach in US history”: Three more lawsuits try to stop DOGE - Ars Technica

• Trump begins firings of FAA air traffic control staff just weeks after fatal DC plane crash

  The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees, upending staff on a busy air travel weekend and just weeks after a January fatal mid-air collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Probationary workers were targeted in late night emails Friday notifying them they had been fired, David Spero, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, said in a statement. The impacted workers include personnel hired for FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, one air traffic controller told the Associated Press. The air traffic controller was not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

  • not actual ATC staff, then; ancillary personnel who presumably haven't got the immense and baroque training and application process that ATC does.

  • Swalwell faces social media backlash for post tying Trump to Georgia small plane crash | Fox News

  Swalwell took to social media Monday morning to declare that Trump has had "more planes crash" in his first month in office than any other U.S. president. He then doubled down on the comment with a blunt statement to Fox News Digital. "Trump is President. President Trump is in charge of air safety. All crashes are Trump’s fault," he said. The lawmaker made his initial comment in reaction to a small private plane crash that took place this weekend in Covington, Georgia, which left two people dead.

  • FAA probationary workers fired by Trump administration, union says

  • Is Elon Musk Poised to Profit from New Layoffs at the FAA?

• Hundreds fired at aviation safety agency, union says

• Elon Musk's A.I.-Fuelled War on Human Agency

• The A.C.L.U. vs. Trump 2.0

• New Monarchy: A Rethinking of the Values of Democracy

  As I write this, it is evident that democratic systems are under attack from various actors, both within and outside those systems. In a sense, this is nothing new: corrupting powers have been present since the invention of democracy itself. It could even be argued that democracy was created in an attempt to contain the inevitability of systemic corruption. As such, the measure by which it should be judged is this: has it succeeded in the containment of said corruption? The unfortunate conclusion is that no, it has not.

  no system of government, including democracy, has ever been able to eliminate the de facto separation between an elite class and a common class. As such I believe it is both more intellectually honest to acknowledge the existence of an elite class, as well as more productive to safeguard both classes to prevent one from becoming more powerful than the other. To accomplish this, there will be two classes: the monarchs and the citizens. Both will have clearly separated privileges, constraints, and responsibilities.

• Musk's Doge Team Tries to Gain Access to Taxpayer Information

• IRS reportedly preparing to give DOGE access to taxpayer data

• Musk Team Seeks Access to IRS System with Taxpayers' Records

• How Elon Musk uses his X influence to target critics, federal workers - The Washington Post

  Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette works at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group focused on reducing bureaucratic waste. He also happens to be blind. So when he criticized Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service in testimony on Capitol Hill last week, Musk unleashed an online attack Hedtler-Gaudette described as “surreal” in its juvenile bigotry. First, Musk retweeted a post on X noting that the “blind director of watchdog group funded by George Soros testifies that he does not see widespread evidence of government waste” and added two laughing/crying emojis. The tweet garnered more than 21 million views, and sparked dozens of hateful messages to Hedtler-Gaudette’s account. The episode illustrates how Musk’s unparalleled online reach has given him a powerful tool to attack individuals who criticize DOGE, with one post able to spark hundreds of blistering responses from his followers.

• Washington Post backs out of 'Fire Elon Musk' ad order

  Common Cause learned Friday that the Post would not run the outside-the-paper ad criticizing Musk. “Is it because we’re critical of what’s happening with Elon Musk? Is it only OK to run things in the Post now that won’t anger the president or won’t have him calling Jeff Bezos asking why this was allowed?” she said, referring to the Post’s owner, who is also the founder of Amazon and the space company Blue Origin.

• Probationary employees fired across Dept of Energy, impacting grid improvement

• Cutting science funds has consequences for the economy, US tech competitiveness

• Elon Musk Threatens to Imprison Entire News Agency | The New Republic

  Elon Musk is pushing for a massive crackdown on free speech, by taking up the rusty rapier that is Donald Trump’s pitiable crusade against CBS’s 60 Minutes. Musk’s fascist threat to imprison journalists was a deflection written in response to a post from 60 Minutes that criticized his efforts to gut USAID.

• Net neutrality under Trump? Not so neutral

• Washington D.C. unemployment spikes Trump and Musk shrink government

  Since Trump has taken office, nearly 4,000 workers in the city have filed for unemployment insurance as part of a surge that began at the start of the new year, according to Labor Department figures not adjusted for seasonal factors. In all, just shy of 7,000 claims have been filed in the six weeks of the new year, or about 55% more than in the prior six-week period. Filings rose to 1,780 for the week ending Feb. 8, a 36% increase from the prior week and more than four times around the same period in 2024.

• '60 Minutes' Airs an All-Timer, and the Depths They Sink to Will Blow Your Mind – RedState

  In the same episode "60 Minutes" lauded anti-free speech laws in Germany under the guise of policing "disinformation," it turns out they lied about who Drye and Dubard were. It turns out both were not actual USAID employees by contracted consultants, with one being a speechwriter for Samantha Power, the politically appointed head of the agency during the Biden administration. So a major news outlet promoted laws that punish the spreading of "disinformation" and then proceeded to spread disinformation for partisan gain.

• Yosemite National Park is in chaos

  Yosemite National Park is in trouble. Hamstrung by President Donald Trump’s hiring freeze, hundreds of rescinded job offers and the threat of coming layoffs, the park is poised to enter its busiest months of the year severely short-staffed. Not only that, but the park’s day-use reservation system — created to protect park resources and improve the visitor experience by reducing crowding — appears unlikely to return this year.

• Elon Musk's Doge Wants to Be Notified About Any Requests for Oversight

• Mexico will wait for Google response on Gulf of Mexico before filing lawsuit

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Coast Guard left sensitive data vulnerable to adversaries under Trump-fired, DEI-focused commandant | Just The News

  Investigators noted that three of the vulnerabilities they uncovered on Coast Guard computers had been used by foreign adversaries to exploit computer systems in the past, illustrating the risk to Pentagon servers.

• New Generation of 'Unbeatable' Fake IDs Is Bedeviling Bouncers

• Police arrest apparent leader of cultlike 'Zizian' group linked to killings

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• NATO's new AI tool can flag ships with suspicious behavior

• Trump administration pressures Romania to lift restrictions on Tate brothers

• US drops website wording on not supporting Taiwan independence

World

• House prices plunge as council acts on second homes

• Defenceless Britain

• Bank of England Oracle Cloud bill balloons – if you print money, who's counting?

• Starmer's nuclear reactors won't be small, cheap or popular

• Italy’s Superbonus: The Dumbest Fiscal Policy in Recent Memory

  In MMT terms, Fraccaro and his team effectively created money as a tax credit, putting into practice MMT’s notion that a sovereign issuer’s currency is ultimately a tax IOU​. So what were the results? The “free renovation” scheme quickly spiraled out of control. Initially projected to cost €35 billion, the program ballooned to around €220 billion—about 12% of Italy’s GDP! Did it drive a surge in energy-efficient renovations? Hardly. Massive fraud ensued as builders and homeowners inflated renovation costs to siphon off government funds. Beyond that, surging demand ran headlong into resource constraints. Econ 101 again: in the short run, marginal cost curves slope upward.

• India to spend $62B to build 30 GW of nuclear power

• Could the EU overturn the German election results if the AfD does well?

• UN judge forced woman to work as slave, court told

• Meta Says It'll Tattle to Trump If EU Keeps Being Mean

• Census reveals high disability rates among gender-diverse Canadians

Israel

• Hamas linked to UNRWA, aid went straight to leaders, recordings reveal.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russian and American officials will hold talks on ending war without Kyiv

• European Leaders Meet in Paris as U.S. Pushes Ahead with Ukraine Plan

China

• It's not just AI. China's medicines are surprising the world, too

• Once, Americans led this field: Chinese sex doll manufacturer expects sales to jump in 2025

• China invites bids for lunar satellite to support crewed moon landing missionn

• Where China's Exports Begin: Inside the Vast Markets of Guangzhou

Health / Medicine

• Woman who had pioneering cancer treatment 18 years ago still in remission

• Water chlorination levels in US and EU likely increase cancer risk

• Global action needed to solve the medical oxygen crisis

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Worst avian flu crisis ever recorded spreads across Antarctica

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Atop the Oregon Cascades, team finds a buried aquifer

• In many countries, people breathe the cleanest air in centuries

• 'Like an underwater bushfire' images as heatwave bleaches Ningaloo

• Barbara Kingsolver on climate change: 'Words are what I have to offer'

• Antarctic Sea Ice Levels Five Standard Deviations Below the Mean

• Scented products cause indoor air pollution on par with car exhaust

• Reintroducing wolves to Scottish Highlands could help address climate emergency

• Bill Gates Is Playing Both Sides of the Climate Crisis