caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

Happy Friday everyone. Hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

Just like with the Brandt's Cormorants I posted last week, it's also breeding season for the Brown Pelican.

From All About Birds https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Brown_Pelican/overview
The Brown Pelican is a comically elegant bird with an oversized bill, sinuous neck, and big, dark body. Squadrons glide above the surf along southern and western coasts, rising and falling in a graceful echo of the waves. They feed by plunge-diving from high up, using the force of impact to stun small fish before scooping them up. They are fairly common today—an excellent example of a species’ recovery from pesticide pollution that once placed them at the brink of extinction.

Pelicans incubate their eggs with the skin of their feet, essentially standing on the eggs to keep them warm. In the mid-twentieth century the pesticide DDT caused pelicans to lay thinner eggs that cracked under the weight of incubating parents. After nearly disappearing from North America in the 1960s and 1970s, Brown Pelicans made a full comeback thanks to pesticide regulations.

The term artificial intelligence (AI) is being bandied about with regularity nowadays, especially in regards to chatbots, with ChatGPT being the most prolific. Hopefully this piece will help explain the concept of AI in context of its current applications and what that may portend for the future. Included, at the end, I'll let my mind run wild in a thought experiment regarding AI's potential abuse.

Scott Ritter tells it in his usual manner but this time he takes no prisoners calling quite a few well known leaders "War Criminals"

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-z8PFXV2v8]

If you are pressed for time start at about the 15 minute mark but it is worth watching the whole video.

A recent Gallup poll shows that 72% of Pakistanis view the U.S. as an enemy, rather than an ally. This past year has proven their mistrust of America to be sound and logical.

It started last February, when then Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan signed a huge trade deal with Russia.

Who Did This When We Were Young?

Another young business founder, Charlie Javice, is in the news as she's being sued for JP Morgan for essentially lying about her business, Frank. This comes right after the Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX, crap. Which was just a bit after the Elizabeth Holmes and her failed Theranos business, scandal. These three entrepreneurs seem to have several things in common, and I'm wondering if other business founding scammers, especially from our younger years, had the same things in common too. What do you think?

how the war on Ukraine is going to end.

Apparently the "alternative" media still haven't let go of Seymour Hersh's story of how the US allegedly took out the Nord Stream pipeline. Today's Democracy Now has an interview of Seymour Hersh:

It's likely that you were already familiar with the fact that the CIA worked directly with drug traffickers in the Contras in the 80's and 90's. It's possible that you were aware that the CIA has not stopped smuggling cocaine into America.