Bill Cara

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john tindall

You can never drink too much Cabernet as long as you are walking 5000+ steps per day.

goldbug58

Trying to survive this God-blamed heat wave; hit 102 yesterday they said it feels like 110 and I believe it

Bill Cara

Shooting the messenger does not allow one to escape accountability.

When the President of the United States explodes in an “F* Bomb” tirade, literally screaming into the cameras, calling the US media “scum” and “fake news,” enough is enough. Opinion pieces as follows will now haunt the man until there are worldwide demands for a US regime change.

Voices: Trump’s refusal to accept unwelcome reality is his greatest weakness of all

Opinion by Sean O’Grady

“Fake news!” It’s been a while since we last heard that phrase from Donald Trump – this time, in response to a leak from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) that Operation Midnight Hammer had not, after all, “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear drive.

Trump is not happy and has said as much. On the White House lawn he told reporters that: “CNN is scum and so is MSDNC [his favorite insult for MSNBC, referencing the Democrat National Committee]. And frankly, the networks aren’t much better. It’s all fake news!”

Even more touchy than usual, he also threw in an F-bomb, a little bunker buster of his own about the Iranians and the Israelis. On social media, he went full caps lock: “FAKE NEWS CNN, TOGETHER WITH THE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES, HAVE TEAMED UP IN AN ATTEMPT TO DEMEAN ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY. THE NUCLEAR SITES IN IRAN ARE COMPLETELY DESTROYED! BOTH THE TIMES AND CNN ARE GETTING SLAMMED BY THE PUBLIC!”

All very shouty, all very Trumpian, as if he were back on the campaign trail. He’s always been like that, like Humpty-Dumpty up on his wall, claiming that the truth is whatever he wants it to be, and that also happens to be what the public wants it to be – except here, of course, some 56 per cent of Americans disagreed with the bombing raids. It ain’t enough for him to just claim the obvious success of the raids, which did damage the Iranian facilities, even if they haven’t been “completely destroyed”, or just to refuse to comment on leaks. The White House released a tetchy statement that the DIA’s assessment was “flat-out wrong” and had been leaked by “a low-level loser in the intelligence community”.

For Trump, everything is personal, and nothing is ever dignified. The anger is palpable, the tantrum real, and yet another sign that this personality isn’t able to cope with alleged facts. He is one of those strange people who tries to make the world as he would wish it to be rather than accept it for what it is. Not unlike the now resurgent false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election, or that foreign countries pay tariffs, his seeming refusal to accommodate reality is doing vast damage to the fabric of American life, not least because he’s created a cult following who are prepared to take his every word as gospel. For them, the world is whatever Trump would like it to be.

Common sense dares not intrude in such circumstances, and certainly not in this administration. Question Trump, as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard inadvertently did the other day, and you’re bawled out or fired. Gabbard stated to Congress that Iran wasn’t that near to making a nuclear bomb, and found herself publicly upbraided by the president. It would not be surprising that some public-spirited DIA official knew how Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would react to the news about the alleged partial success of the mission, and suppress and deny it. The American public needs to know, and the president needs to be confronted with it, even when his first reaction is to shoot the messenger.

But common sense does tell us Operation Midnight Hammer wasn’t a complete success, nor could it ever be. The Iranians knew it was coming, or might be, and the known nuclear sites had already been bombarded by the Israelis. The prudent thing in such circumstances would be to move whatever can be moved to safer and more secret places.

There were satellite images of long queues of lorries at the mountain site of Fordo, maybe waiting to extract those 400 kilograms of precious enhanced uranium. That material may well have escaped total destruction. And the know-how and expertise embedded in the brains of the Iranian scientists and technicians have also mostly escaped the American and Israeli attacks.

There is no complete military solution to the Iranian nuclear threat that could ever be achieved militarily. It could be done by encouraging a counter-revolution in Tehran and installing a more friendly government, as the Israelis wish, but regime change doesn’t seem that inevitable, at least not imminently, and it would require further US intervention, which Trump has widely ruled out.

Operation Midnight Hammer was a success, but not the solution to the problem, as it could never be. Trump knows this, which is why he initiated the negotiations with the Iranians a few months ago. His instinct for a new deal was correct, even if things stalled and were then wrecked by the Israeli bombing attacks. Trump is so cantankerous and so vain that he seems unable to enjoy his victories for what they are and constantly has to exaggerate them, gold plate them – quite literally, in the case of the Oval Office – and make claims for them that are so extreme they can never be true in the real world. Everything has to be complete, total, 100 per cent, utter, and anyone who contests that is a liar and a traitor.

He is ridiculously insecure and disconcertingly haunted by his rivals, the Clintons, Barack

Obama, who has won the Nobel Peace Prize that Trump so longs for, and Joe Biden, who did beat him in 2020. He prefers to live in a fantasy world and parades the cynical royal fawning he gets from Sir Keir Starmer and NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, as genuine love and respect. He’s a man-child, and a dangerous one. We knew all that, of course, but he’s just reminded us about it yet again. We’ve got the best part of four years of this, you know.

squarpeg1

Sort of reminiscent of George Bushs “mission accomplished” speech. I think Trumps action were largely supported, but he should have just come out and said “we gave it our best shot and are waiting on military assessment”.. It is just not possible for him to be “normal”. I wouldn’t pass blame on not being able to blow up a mountain. It’s the lies that I have a problem with.

Kyle

Cheers!!!! Good to see that you’re not too busy to Piss-on-Trump.

His comments were Funny-as-Hell AND there’s even a MEME … Enjoy!!! …

Trump’s rant has become a meme on social media.

https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1937870897660019033

Deneve83

This is why a lean model like Deepseek provides will win in the end. If a LLM doesn’t fune tune its experience to the user, then you are essentially the “product” being harvested to further train the algorithm.

I predict a future where corporations will have their own, finely-tuned LLMs and we will start to see Balkanization and paywalls erected in the future.

Right now, we are in the wild west. With I’d say 95% of the population blissfully unaware of productivity and knowledge management features at their disposal.

Bill Cara

I do think DeepSeek is a superior service.

As I noted earlier today, the majority of my time now is creating my own LLM.

jimg

Oil is holding above $73/barrel, but there haven’t been any implications for supplies of oil related to this slugfest between Israel and Iran. Trump’s strategy for global peace seems to be taken from the pages of a boarding school headmaster: letting them fight it out. When they finally get sick of it, they’ll stop.

Oil prices were predictably responsive to Trump’s decision to wait for two weeks. In Bloomberg’s “Most Read” news feed, there is only one item on Iran and the war, which is #11 of 40: “[Iran] is rapidly exporting oil, filling storage tanks at Kharg Island, and sending as much crude as possible to the global market.” What the article does not say is, the world is giving them a golf clap for doing it. OPEC and Russian ships are loading and exporting as usual.

https://x.com/CraigTaylorViz/status/1935683595278127322

Last edited 5 days ago by jimg
goldbug58

Calculator exercise! US debt 37 Trillion; gold allegedly held by the US Treasury stated at 8000 tons; that’s roughly 247,210,000 troy oz; multiply by 3400 = 840 Billion. Approximately 2.2% of total debt held in gold.

Using money supply M2 = 21.5 Trillion (Mar 2025) yields a 3.9% coverage. Total bank reserves of 3.35 Trillion added in lowers it to 3.4%.

Gold price needs to be about 3x higher than where it is now, call it 9500 USD, to provide a “standard” 10% reserve in gold to back the US money supply.

goldbug58

Fed speak today and Trump couldn’t resist another attack on Jay Powell. He actually called the man “a stupid person”. And is asking for a 250 basis point cut! It would be comical if it wasn’t so ridiculous. The man understands nothing of economics.

In other news, his BBB is now estimated to add additional Trillions to the debt.

A NYC comptroller and mayoral candidate was kind of brutally manhandled and cuffed at a Manhattan court. He said “I just want to see the judicial warrant”, and as they cuffed him “You can’t arrest a US citizen just for standing here”. Charges later dropped.

jimg

Victor Davis Hanson Interviews David Mamet

“The Disenlightenment
Politics, Horror, and Entertainment”

Mamet’s concept of the Open City and Hansen’s perspective on Trump vs. Iran

First 5 min is commercials
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg2oEuBHcK4

goldbug58

Trump calls for Iran’s unconditional surrender.

goldbug58

Trump via Truth Social: “We now have complete control of the skies over Iran. Iran has good sky trackers (in other words, radar systems), but it doesn’t compare to American made and manufactured “stuff”. Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA”.

So he’s basically admitting they we participated in this attack, however indirectly. ‘We’ now have control of the skies…’ uh that’s an admission of a US-Israeli war coalition.

squarpeg1

Well that is obvious, I mean we have been Israel’s arms dealer and greatest supporter from day one. I don’t actually have an issue with that. I don’t think we can plausibly deny it. The real issue comes when our friend and customer starts doing some unhinged and down right bad stuff. I wish it wasn’t so, I think Netanyahu has probably done more to generate anti-Israel and anti-Semitic feelings than just about anyone else in history, aside from Hitler. I just wish we had put more pressure on them to stop all the needless killing. Not sure it would have worked but perhaps we could have at least loudly condemned these actions.

jimg

Doomberg: Latest commentary on Israel/Iran war: A Catastrophic Miscalculation

China will not allow Iran to be defeated

Iran’s Hypersonic Missiles & Israel’s Weak Spots

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/israel-to-lose-against-iran-oil-alert-doomberg/id1509863714?i=1000713105282

Last edited 8 days ago by jimg
squarpeg1

I don’t have time at the moment to listen to this but will try to at some point. Personally I can’t see an outcome favoring Iran. I think this is going to go pretty quickly. Just think what happens when you lose control of the air space over your country to an enemy. Your basically done. Israel is going to just continue to destroy all relevant military targets. I think the Iranian white flag will be raised before China would even have the chance to assist.

goldbug58

My gut feel is a China/Russia coalition eventually goes to war with America.

What did I read yesterday. Something about an Israeli operation “Samson” and a plan to nuke EU capitals if the EU agrees to the two-state solution Israel + Palestine.

Pakistan later came out with a statement that they would nuke Israel if Israel first nuked Iran.

Sabre-rattling maybe, but when a sovereign nation starts bandying the nuke word around, it’s concerning.

squarpeg1

Forgetting for a moment Russia, which appears completely impotent. Based on their performance over the last few years and their depleted military. However, I do believe we would lose to China in a war. Certainly without assistance from many others. Which is why I am deeply concerned about this current administration and how they seem set on flushing our alliances down the toilet. We need every friend we can get. The statement that Israel would nuke EU capitals is so ridiculous it doesn’t warrant trying to rebuff the comment. Talk of a country Nuking others is really off the chart. The consequences of such an action can not even be calculated. I think Russia understands that, as does North Korea and Israel. It would be the end of their administration and society as they know it.

jimg

Bret Weinstein speaks with Neil Oliver on the subject of the fatigue and despondency stemming from ongoing global crises, the shift from production to consumption, and the complexities of the COVID pandemic, emphasizing the need for diverse perspectives and a deeper understanding of complex systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT0ny_q1Q2c

jimg

 The interview with Sachs is two hours but one of the most insightful

Jeffrey Sachs on how to save the United States from getting sucked into utterly catastrophic wars with Iran and Russia.

https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1932872615519048051

jimg
goldbug58

US Congressman Melissa Hortman (D-Minn) and husband shot dead in their home. Senator John Hoffmann and his wife also shot multiple times at their home also in Minnesota (so far both have survived).

It’s getting very bad, extremely bad.

Anti-Trump protests taking place across America today.

goldbug58

This is what any American can expect (and worse) if they stand up and challenge the ruling class. It only got media attention because the man is a US Senator.

goldbug58

Israel just launched a preemptive strike on Tehran !!!

goldbug58

A reported 22 Billion taken in from tariffs so far. That’s approximately 3% of govt spending. This is not going to work. Plus cutting taxes.

jimg

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, medical researcher, and transplant surgeon. He is the inventor of the drug Abraxane, which is used for lung, breast, and pancreatic cancer

On the current epidemic of fast growing cancers and emerging cancers in children that have never been seen before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgZaT-OriO8

goldbug58

Bloomberg reports Treasury Secretary Bessent being considered as successor to Fed’s Jay Powell.

jimg

Larry Fink concerned about workers?

“It’s time for the second draft of globalisationCapital markets need to be better attuned to individual countries’ goals and the interests of workers”

Financial Times: jimghttps://archive.is/sGytK#selection-1535.0-1545.10