Full stop ... System Reboot ... now

The picture says it all and again ... it's all about the oil.

Revelations from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in a series of remarkably unguarded interviews with Vanity Fair caused quite a stir today. Among the key tidbits were Wiles directly contradicting the official administration line when she said that Trump’s real goal in striking alleged drug boats in the Caribbean is indeed regime change in Venezuela, not the so-called “war on drugs”. 

Update.

The blockade on oil tankers coming in and out of Venezuela is the latest development in Donald Trump’s monthslong campaign against Nicolás Maduro.

Last Wednesday, the US seized the Skipper oil tanker that was traveling across the Caribbean carrying Venezuelan crude. The tanker was thought to be loaded with about 2m barrels of Venezuela’s heavy crude, according to the New York Times. The Venezuelan government accused the US of “blatant theft” and described the seizure as “an act of international piracy”, further heightening tensions between the two countries.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon said it had carried out strikes on three boats it accused of trafficking drugs in the Pacific Ocean, killing eight people. Since 2 September, at least 95 people have been killed in more than 20 separate strikes, most off the coast of Venezuela.

Several lawmakers have called on the administration to release video footage showing a 2 September attack, but defense secretary Pete Hegseth has refused to do so, calling the video “top secret” and claiming that releasing the video to the public violates “longstanding Department of War policy.”

Experts have also debated whether the air campaign is legal.

Vanity Fair - Photographer Christopher Anderson.

The crew Wiles put together sans Pentagon Pete and some significant others.

Can we say Viet Nam???

This combination of pictures shows US President Donald Trump and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro [File: by Jim Watson and Federico Parra/AFP]

Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

“For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” Trump said.

“Therefore, today, I am ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela,” he said.

Amendment 25 now.

Bayeux Tapestry

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry showing a medieval dining scene involving
Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Wikimedia Commons CC By 4.0

The Bayeux Tapestry, 770 lbs of propaganda for the ages, was mealtime reading entertainment for the monks dining in St. Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, England back in the day if history proves out to be true as the tapestry itself is a wonder to behold without question. :) 

A portion of the Bayeux Tapestry showing King Harold riding to his residence, Bosham.
The full tapestry depicts the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. © The Society of Antiquaries of London

Finding the loo applies :)

A team of archeologists in the United Kingdom believe that they have found the lost residence of Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. The home is shown in the 1,000 year-old Bayeux Tapestry and was uncovered through a combination of new surveys and a reinterpretation of evidence from earlier digs. The findings were recently published in The Antiquaries Journal.

“The Norman Conquest saw a new ruling class supplant an English aristocracy that has left little in the way of physical remains, which makes the discovery at Bosham hugely significant,” Oliver Creighton, a study co-author and archeologist at the University of Exeter, said in a statement. “We have found an Anglo-Saxon show-home.”

As for reading the paper ... 

Scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting Bishop Odo rallying Duke William's army
during the Battle of Hastings in 1066

Whether it’s the morning paper, the games on the back of a cereal box, or just scrolling through social media, there is something nice about reading with a meal. For the monks living in St. Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, England, one of the most famous (and phallic) tapestries in the world may have been their equivalent to the back of the cereal box. New research recently published in the journal Historical Research claims that the 1,000-year-old Bayeux Tapestry may have served as mealtime reading.

What is the Bayeux Tapestry?

At 224 feet long and roughly 770 pounds, the Bayeux Tapestry is a large piece of medieval embroidery. It depicts the events surrounding and leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, when William the II of Normandy, France, invaded England. The Bayeux Tapestry culminates in William II’s victory, taking the throne from Harold II. Harold ruled for only nine months before he was killed in the battle and is considered the last Anglo-Saxon king of England.

Read the history as fascinating says it all. To see the tapestry in it's glory, click here. :)

The horse is equipped. :)

Section 8 or Amendment 25, take your pick ...

US actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Reiner, attend the Kennedy Center Honors gala at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, in 2023 [File: AFP]

A terrific actor and director, Rob Reiner and his wife will be missed.

Now for the certifiable. 

If president bone spurs was in the service, Section 8 i.e. service members judged mentally unfit for service, applies. As for the presidency, Amendment 25  i.e. addresses issues related to presidential succession and disability works for me.

In a social media post on Monday, United States President Donald Trump appeared to blame the death of Rob Reiner, a comedy giant who embraced progressive political causes, on his criticisms of Trump and his presidency.

Trump’s post on his Truth Social platform states that Reiner’s death was “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME”.

The Republican president added that Reiner was “known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness”.

Let them eat cake ...

Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times

The flies on the rotten and left over food says it all as the spirit of Louis IV lives on in the
guise of the billionaires and civilization's paying the price.

Billionaires had a great thing going. The ruling in the 2010 Citizens United case, among others, invited the super rich to exert all the influence on policy and politics that their money could buy — and then enjoy all the wealth that influence secured for them in return. Thanks to ever-more-obliging tax policies, the billionaire class grew absurdly rich over the years that followed. In the last five years alone, the wealthiest 20 Americans increased their net worth from $1.3 trillion to $3 trillion, Forbes reported.

And they did it in many cases without the rest of us even having a clue. It took the investigative reporter Jane Mayer five years of relentless digging to figure out how the Koch brothers gained a chokehold on the Republican Party. The title of her 2016 book, “Dark Money,” became synonymous with a particularly effective form of influence that was all but untraceable. The billionaires could have kept on like that forever. All they had to do was keep their mouths closed.

But Nooooo ...

Elon Musk bragged about his support for President Trump, to whose campaign and allied groups he donated more than $250 million. He loudly attempted to buy votes in Pennsylvania. Then he leveraged it all into a cruel and chaotic effort to dismantle federal agencies. Marc Andreessen’s tech-heavy venture capital firm publicly pledged $100 million to target lawmakers who attempt to regulate artificial intelligence; Mr. Andreessen then mocked the pope for suggesting some ethical guardrails around the technology. Bill Ackman announced that he and his pals were prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat Zohran Mamdani, and urged Mr. Trump to call in the National Guard if that effort failed and Mr. Mamdani’s mayoralty met his worst expectations.

Portrait of Louis XIV, 1701 Hyacinthe Rigaud

Think 88 years later in France. 1789 & THE REVOLUTION. 

Marie-Antoinette  - Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty 

Let them eat cake ... 

Date of death - 16 October 1793 at the Place de la Révolution. Execution by guillotine

Is there a message here? I thought so.

What part of no don't you understand?

Law enforcement officers head into the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus after reports of an active shooter, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2023 in Las Vegas. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP, File)

What part of no don't you understand in terms of licensing guns? Incredible! It's easier to get a gun vs a driver's license. WTF!!! Between the supremes and the not understanding of the the 2nd Amendment in terms of people owning weapons boggles the mind. As said so many time before, you can't fix stupid.

A shooting Saturday at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, left two people dead and at least eight other critically injured. Authorities were still searching for a suspect in the hours afterward.

Here is a look at other deadly shootings on U.S. college campuses in recent decades:

KENTUCKY STATE UNIVERSITY: December 2025, 1 dead

UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY: September 2025, 1 dead

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY: April 2025, 2 dead

UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS: December 2023, 3 dead

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY: February 2023, 3 dead

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: November 2022, 3 dead

NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: October 2015, 1 dead

UMPQUA COMMUNITY COLLEGE: October 2015, 9 dead

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA: May 2014, 6 dead

SANTA MONICA COLLEGE: June 2013, 6 dead

OIKOS UNIVERSITY: April 2012, 7 dead

NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY: February 2008, 5 dead

VIRGINIA TECH: April 2007, 32 dead

WTF!!! Again, what part of no don't you understand?

Lastly, we haven't even discussed elementary, middle or high school atrocities, have we?

The Library of Babel

Freepik/Robert E.

Existence is infinite, it goes on to forever, something with no end. The one author who understood this one essential was Borges, who, IMHO, channelled the Greek Myths as in every one of his short stories,
as per the myths, there's aways a catch. :)

The Library of Babel

The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries. In the center of each gallery is a ventilation shaft, bounded by a low r,ailing. From any hexagon one can see the floors above and below-one after another, endlessly. The arrangement of the galleries is always the same: Twenty bookshelves, five to each side, line four of the hexagon's six sides; the height of the bookshelves, floor to ceiling, is hardly greater than the height of a normal librarian. One of the hexagon's free sides opens onto a narrow sort of vestibule, which in turn opens onto another gallery, identical to the first-identical in fact to all. To the left and right of the vestibule are two tiny compartments. One is for sleeping, upright; the other, for satisfying one's physical necessities. Through this space, too, there passes a spiral staircase, which winds upward and downward into the remotest distance. In the vestibule there is a mirror, which faithfully duplicates appearances. Men often infer from this mirror that the Library is not infinite-if it were, what need would there be for that illusory replication? I prefer to dream that burnished surfaces are a figuration and promise of the infinite ... . Light is provided by certain spherical fruits that bear the name "bulbs." There are two of these bulbs in each hexagon, set crosswise. The light they give is insufficient, and unceasing. 

The Garden of Forking Paths

Freepik & Robert E. 

Quantum lives here along with many worlds, strangeness and the problem with infinite choice.

Jorge Luis Borges

You no doubt wish to see the garden?”

I recognized the name of one of our consuls and I replied, disconcerted, “The garden?”

“The garden of forking paths.”

“Before unearthing this letter, I had questioned myself about the ways in which a book can be infinite. I could think of nothing other than a cyclic volume, a circular one. A book whose last page was identical with the first, a book which had the possibility of continuing indefinitely. I remembered too that night which is at the middle of the Thousand and One Nights when Scheherazade (through a magical oversight of the copyist) begins to relate word for word the story of the Thousand and One Nights, establishing the risk of coming once again to the night when she must repeat it, and thus on to infinity. I imagined as well a Platonic hereditary work. transmitted from father to son, in which each new individual adds a chapter or corrects with pious care the pages of his elders. These conjectures diverted me; but none seemed to correspond, not even remotely, to the contradictory chapters of Ts’ui Pên. In the midst of this perplexity, I received from Oxford the manuscript you have examined. I lingered, naturally, on the sentence: I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths. Almost instantly, I understood: ‘the garden of forking paths’ was the chaotic novel; the phrase ‘the various futures (not to all)’ suggested to me the forking in time, not in space.  A broad rereading of the work confirmed the theory. In all fictional works, each time a man is confronted with several alternatives, he chooses one and eliminates the others; in the fiction of Ts’ui Pên, he chooses— simultaneously—all of them. He creates, in this way, diverse futures, diverse times which themselves also proliferate and fork. Here, then, is the explanation of the novel’s contradictions. 

Freepik & Robert E.

The Aleph

Another World - 1947 M.C. Escher

Just finished The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges.

Jorge Luis Borges

Upon reading Borges' The Aleph, Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker comes to mind as
both connect to the vagaries of quantum without question. 

First Edition

How, then, can I translate into words the limitless Aleph, which my floundering mind can scarcely encompass? Mystics, faced with the same. problem, fall back on symbols: to signify the godhead, one Persian speaks of a bird that somehow is all birds; Alanus de Insulis, of a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere; Ezekiel, of a four-faced angel who at one and the same time moves east and west, north and south. (Not in vain do I recall these inconceivable analogies; they bear some relation to the Aleph.)

Hand with Reflecting Sphere 

 

I want to add two final observations: one, on the nature of the Aleph; the other, on its name. As is well known, the Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its use for the strange sphere in my story may not be accidental. For the Kabbala, the letter stands for the En Soph, the pure and boundless godhead; it is also said that it takes the shape of a man pointing to both heaven and earth, in order to show that the lower world is the map and mirror of the higher; for Cantor’s Mengenlehre, it is the symbol of transfinite numbers, of which any part is as great as the whole.

It seems, to Borges, the connect to reality involves brownian motion, the meander and the random walk as all three provide viable avenues enabling one to explore an existence we will never fully understand. 

Simulation of the Brownian motion of a large particle, analogous to a dust particle,
that collides with a large set of smaller particles, analogous to molecules of a gas,
which move with different velocities in different random directions.

Glen Canyon, US - Christian Mehlführer

Five eight-step random walks from a central point.
Some paths appear shorter than eight steps where
the route has doubled back on itself.

Good for cleaning and disinfecting ...

Sen. Ron Johnson speaks during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing titled "How the Corruption of Science Has Impacted Public Perception and Policies Regarding Vaccines."
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

You can't fix stupid, rev XXX or, I am not a scientist nor a doctor but will support findings
no doc or scientist will support.

To whit.

For years, Sen. Ron Johnson has been spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation about COVID-19 and the safety of vaccines.

He’s promoted disproven treatments for COVID-19 and claimed, without evidence, that athletes are “dropping dead on the field” after getting the COVID-19 vaccination. Now the Wisconsin politician is endorsing a book by a discredited doctor promoting an unproven and dangerous treatment for autism and a host of ailments: chlorine dioxide, a chemical used for disinfecting and bleaching. 

The book is “The War on Chlorine Dioxide: The Medicine that Could End Medicine” by Dr. Pierre Kory, a critical care specialist who practiced in Wisconsin hospitals before losing his medical certification for statements advocating using an antiparasite medication to treat COVID-19. The action, he’s said, makes him unemployable, even though he still has a license.

Kory has said there’s a globally coordinated campaign by public health agencies, the drug industry and the media to suppress evidence of the medicinal wonders of chlorine dioxide. His book, according to its website, contends that the “remarkable molecule” works “to treat everything from cancer and malaria to autism and COVID.”

The book jacket features a prominent blurb from Johnson calling the doctor’s treatise: “A gripping tale of corruption and courage that will open eyes and prompt serious questions.” 

Chlorine dioxide is a chemical compound that has a range of applications, including as a disinfectant and deodorizer. Food processing plants apply it to sanitize surfaces and equipment. Hospitals use it to sterilize medical devices, and some municipalities use low levels to treat public water supplies. Paper mills rely on it to whiten wood pulp. Safety experts advise those who handle it to work in well-ventilated spaces and to wear protective gloves.

The FDA warns against purchasing or drinking Chlorine Dioxide but it's being touted for prevention and treatment of coronavirus disease.

Chlorine dioxide solution is a diluted version of sodium chlorite. When citric acid is added, the mixture becomes chlorine dioxide a powerful bleaching agent. Both sodium chlorite and chlorine dioxide are the active ingredients in disinfectants and have additional industry uses. They are not meant to be ingested.

Chlorine dioxide kits are sold online under various names: Miracle Mineral Solution, Miracle Mineral Supplement, Master Mineral Solution, Water Purification Solution and Chlorine Dioxide Protocol.
They are often referred to as MMS.

Cargo Cult Science

Brilliant, funny, honest and demanding, Richard Feynman's statement rings evermore true in the age of bloviation and AI slop. To whit ... It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are.
If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

This also applies to Cargo Cult Science and AI in ways boggling the mind.

The final chapter, "Cargo Cult Science", was adapted from Feynman's 1974 commencement address at the California Institute of Technology,[3] in which he cautioned graduates not to minimize the weaknesses of their research in the pursuit of a preferred conclusion. He drew an analogy to the cargo cult phenomenon in the South Pacific Ocean in which, as he understood it, islanders built a mock airstrip to cause airplanes loaded with imported goods to land. The cargo cult islanders carved headphones from wood and wore them while sitting in handmade lashed-up control towers. They waved landing signals to conjure the cargo planes out of the sky.[4]: 1h43m 

Similarly, he argued, adopting the appearances of scientific investigation without a self-critical attitude will fail to produce reliable results. Feynman used the term "cargo cult" to describe situations where people focus on superficial aspects of a process without understanding the underlying principles.[2]: 338 

Sound familiar? :)

When you have deceit ...

OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane.Photo-illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty Images

OpenAI has allegedly become more guarded about publishing research that highlights the potentially negative impact that AI could have on the economy, four people familiar with the matter tell WIRED.

The perceived pullback has contributed to the departure of at least two employees on OpenAI’s economic research team in recent months, according to the same four people, who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity. 

One of these employees, Tom Cunningham, left the company entirely in September after concluding it had become difficult to publish high-quality research, WIRED has learned. In a parting message shared internally, Cunningham wrote that the team faced a growing tension between conducting rigorous analysis and functioning as a de facto advocacy arm for OpenAI, according to sources familiar with the situation.

When you have deceit, you have nothing and this has been the case with OpenAI with Sam Altman as CEO. Lying, weaseling and incompetency rules, something shameful as the tech OpenAI created is legit to the nth degree. This is what's happening with capitalism in general because when not controlled, society suffers. In the end, losing one's soul is not optional as eventually, the chickens come home to roost. 

GS ...

Window View

The future awaits ...

Diagonal

The Sound

The used car salesman speaks ...

President JD Vance in Peachtree City, Ga., on Aug. 21.Megan Varner / Getty Images file

Peter Thiel's creation is hedging on presidential aspirations, thus possibly compromising the most important resource on his becoming president in 2028, money.

WASHINGTON — A high-stakes challenge to campaign finance restrictions being heard by the Supreme Court on Tuesday has the potential to fizzle because of Vice President JD Vance's reluctance to reveal whether he will run for office in 2028.

That, at least, is what one of the lawyers will tell the justices during the oral argument, which concerns limits on how much party committees can spend in coordination with candidates.

The Supreme Court's conservative majority has long been skeptical of campaign finance restrictions on free speech grounds, and Republicans have often brought challenges against them.

Vance, who was among those challenging the spending limits in the case before the court this week, has been equivocal about his plans in various public remarks, most recently in an interview with NBC News last week.

Roman Martinez, whom the court appointed to defend the restrictions when the Trump administration announced it would not do so, says the case is moot, meaning it should be dismissed and the current restrictions should remain in place.

One of Martinez's key arguments, outlined in court papers, is that Vance, who originally challenged the regulations when he was a Senate candidate, no longer has a stake in the case because he is not currently a candidate, nor has he announced any intention to be one in the future.

"Vice President's Vance's claim is now moot because he has repeatedly stated that he has no concrete plan in place to run for any particular office in 2028," Martinez said in an email.

Don't worry, this 1990 Yugo's a gem.

Yugo Ciao in Kragujevac

Thinking about summer :)

Tiny wild daisy

Reaching out ...

Lilly

Just resting

A touch of yellow

Woosley Hall - Thinking Xmas :)

Woosley Hall - A treasure for the ages. The glee club Xmas concert awaits:)

A ceiling for the ages

Organ - Bach would approve

Details. Details, Details :)

I think I've seen enough ...

Pete Hegseth Official portrait, 2025

A house GOP representative finally spoke the truth about Hegseth and it's about time. 

Don Bacon doubles down on Hegseth criticism: ‘I think I’ve seen enough’

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) took his criticism of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth a step further Friday, claiming the Pentagon chief’s recent decisions have “ruined his credibility.”

“I’ve been on the record already,” he told Politico’s Dasha Burns, who also hosts “Ceasefire” on C-SPAN. “After Signalgate, I think I’ve seen enough. What I really wanted to see was someone take responsibility — own to a mistake.”

“And then when he blamed the media or the, you know, the journalist for the story, it just — it ruined his credibility,” he added.

The Nebraska Republican noted that Hegseth “had some issues” going into confirmation hearings, after President Trump tapped him to lead the Pentagon. But, once he was confirmed, Bacon continued, he wanted to give the former Fox News host “a fair chance.”

“But I — what I’ve seen is what I call just poor decision-making,” the lawmaker, who will retire at the end of the term, told Burns.

His remarks come after a watchdog report released earlier this week found that Hegseth endangered the troops and violated department policy by using his personal cell phone to send classified information about a pending strike on Houthi targets in Yemen through the Signal app.

It's time for Hegseth to go, now.