Geico Lizards

A week or so ago, Matt Taibbi wrote an article entitled 'Farewell to Volodymyr Zelensky, the GEICO Lizard of the New World Order'. It's a good article, but I got distracted by something else. The GEICO Lizard. And I started to see that cute little lizard in other oligarch/politician faces. Like Elon Musk.

The Geico Lizard: from this biography of the lizard! and here's another article about the lizard's origin and subsequent 'life'.

Not Surprised...

I can't say I'm all that surprised about the revelations Jeffery Sachs and Matt Taibbi have brought forward about the US's interest and involvement in the ending of Communist Russia and the development of whatever Russia is now. I will admit to be depressed by such revelations, because it just confirms how idiotic our leaders are.

Remember the fall of the Soviet Union? Everything was going to be hunky dory, supposedly, and every country, including Russia, was going to turn to capitalism and prosper - or so we were told. And TPTB sent people, like Sachs, to do that for countries like Poland. But Russia? Naw. It seems that TPTB always wanted Russia, the former Soviet Union, to fail, to remain our enemy. Our military industrial complex needs it. And so TPTB set that up to happen. Sachs details some of that in his article 'A True Shock? Economist Jeffrey Sachs Reveals Secret at Heart of U.S.-Russian Relations'. The sub-title of the article says it all: 'The U.S. was advised toward a "Marshall Plan" to help rebuild post-Soviet Russia as a democracy, but a key witness says the Cold War never ended, because we didn't want it to'.

Taibbi and Sachs discussed all this recently on Counter Points - 'Jeffrey Sachs, Taibbi: How The West DESTROYED Russia' (the discussion is 50 or so minutes long):

18 July Open Thread - 'Eh'

I didn't and don't have much reaction to the attempted assassination of Trump. Mostly my reaction is, 'eh'. I'm upset about the man who died protecting his family. And the possible screwups, that's bothersome too. What really upsets me is what the shooting revealed, once again, about America. Our country is founded, and built, by violence and the guns that reflect that. RJ Eskow expressed exactly what I've been feeling, but couldn't describe very well, is his article 'One Nation Under Fire: Trump Resurgent'.

Eskow talks about how most Americans are 'under the gun', 'under the gun' of economic hardship as well as random shootings and so on, and about how America was founded in violence and how the wars America has fought in the last 75 years have all been driven by political violence, one way or another. I can't disagree; he's right.

From 2012, but it fits. An editorial cartoon from Cleveland.com.

AI? I'm Not Impressed

Matt Taibbi has recently written a couple of articles about AI which made me pay attention. The first started with talking about how Google's AI tool, Gemini, made images which were wrong, but racially diverse! Like everyone, Taibbi thought something like, 'Yea this is bad, but it won't affect me...' Until it did. Right away. He stopped examining the issues with Gemini's images and asked Gemini a question about himself. And it gave him a list of a few things he supposedly did which he actually never did. It mixed up true statements and writings with things it had, apparently, made up. It credited him with articles he never wrote; articles which no-one ever wrote because they didn't exist. And that is both maddening and scary for everyone.

This make me laugh in a rueful way: from https://chappatte.com/en/images/ai-and-future-work

Taibbi's second article, about AI and the website Naked Capitalism hit me even harder. I realized that I had recently experienced some of the same AI mistakes, although I hadn't understood at the time that those mistakes were the result of AI.

A Couple of Thoughts about 9/11

Enhydra Lutris' Post on Monday, 9/11, covered so much of history that happened on that day through the ages. I found the post very informative and learned a lot. It was great! And really showed how our own 9/11 isn't that important in the long run of history, even if it's important, in varying ways, to many of us who see it as a horrid attack, the loss of more of our freedom, a government manipulated spectacle and excuse, and more.

Yep - From: https://xenianwallpaper.blogspot.com/2020/12/9-11-political-cartoon-he-identified.html

The Disinformation War

One of the current events-heists-rigamarole-stunts-etc being pulled on Americans is the war on disinformation (or information) - whatever disinformation (or information) is. I say that, because disinformation seems to vary in meaning depending upon whatever political entity is speaking. I've certainly learned a lot about how to detect and disregard disinformation (of all sorts and kinds) from the people here at Caucus 99% who bring such disinformation to our attention and discuss it, for which I'm very grateful.