* This is an archive of my own online blog and notes, with weekly entries collected by month.
* THE WEEK THAT WAS: The big news this last week was a wayward Chinese balloon drifting over the USA, raising public consternation. It was called a "spy balloon", but it wasn't clear what it was supposed to be doing. The US tried to float spy balloons over the USSR in the 1950s, only to find it was ineffective and unworkable; besides, the Chinese fly spy satellites all the time, and it's hard to think the balloon could accomplish much more than antagonize the US government -- which it did.
After the balloon drifted off the shores of the US East Coast, a USAF F-22 fighter punctured it with a Sidewinder missile, and the pieces came floating down. Right-wing hysteria over the balloon remained at a shrill pitch, with ongoing denunciations of Joe Biden for being "weak on China". It appears, however, that Chinese balloons overflew the US several times during Trump's years in office, and there was no big concern over them. Enough already.
* As discussed in an article from WASHINGTONPOST.com ("Hunter Biden's Lawyers, In Newly Aggressive Strategy, Target His Critics" by Matt Viser, 1 February 2023), the Republican has had no greater concern than a laptop computer supposedly owned by Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden's son, with the GOP attempting to leverage the issue against President Biden. Hunter Biden has long simply rolled with the punches -- but now he's fighting back, with his lawyers exerting legal pressure on his critics.
Going back to the beginning, the story of the HB laptop began with John Paul Mac Isaac, owner of The Mac Shop, a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware. In April 2019, Isaac claimed Hunter Biden dropped off a laptop computer at The Mac Shop for repair and then never picked it up. The first problem with that scenario is that Hunter Biden lives in California, and it's not clear he was in Wilmington in April 2019. Hunter Biden, who has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, admits he is not himself clear on exactly what he was doing at that time.
Isaac, so he says, got to poking around in the laptop and found incriminating files. He got in contact with Trump henchman Rudi Giuliani, with the story eventually being picked up and broadcast to the world by the Right-leaning NEW YORK POST, with investigations allegedly confirming that some of the emails on the laptop were indeed from Hunter Biden. In December 2019, the FBI took the laptop and related materials from Isaac, and that was the last anyone outside of the FBI saw it. Nothing of consequence has come out of the FBI about the laptop in over three years.
That is the sum of the facts in the case. Isaac has continued to beat the drum about the laptop, giving public speeches and writing a book about it. Isaac comes across as much like 9-11 Truthers, common 20 years ago but now blessedly forgotten, and it is difficult to see that anyone with sense would believe a word he says. Right-wing media has piled on to the supposed case, with the hysterical tone of their declarations not inspiring any confidence either.
It is particularly hard to believe that claims that the elements of the story have been validated, one online commenter saying:
Stop calling it a "forensic" examination. Forensics is picking up evidence at a crime scene, maintaining a chain of custody, and studying the evidence. This is studying a photoshopped picture of a crime scene that has been copied several times by unknown people.
To the extent that any of the emails on the laptop have been verified by digital signatures as provably written by Hunter Biden, none of what the trolls have played up tells us anything about him that we don't already know, and they can only provide vaporous innuendo to incriminate Joe Biden himself.
Hunter Biden has clearly had enough. Abbe Lowell, one of Biden's lawyers, sent letters to the Justice Department and Delaware's attorney general requesting investigations into several key players in the laptop frenzy. Bryan M. Sullivan, another lawyer now representing Biden, sent a separate communication to Fox News and Tucker Carlson of Fox News demanding that they correct falsehoods from his recent show or risk a possible defamation lawsuit. In yet another letter, Lowell wrote to the Internal Revenue Service challenging the nonprofit status of Marco Polo, a group run by conservative activist Garrett M. Ziegler, saying that its political activities violate its nonprofit status.
The lawyers are of course particularly targeting Isaac, but they also requested investigations of Rudy Giuliani; Giuliani's lawyer Robert Costello; and well-known Right-wing troublemaker Steve Bannon, who has helped promote the laptop controversy. Several other less prominent figures, such as Ziegler, were targeted as well. Where the story goes from here remains to be seen. What does seem significant, however, is that a legal cadre is now emerging that wants to take on Alex Jones, FOX, and the rest of the MAGA trolls. They've been nuisances for decades, but they have no future.
* In frivolous news, I just found "The New York Times Pitchbot" on Twitter, which generates fake headlines. They can sound subtly convincing:
We wanted to know what's going on with that Chinese spy balloon over Montana. So we talked to four unvaccinated Trump supporters at a Panda Express in Helena.
Stocks plummet on news that life is improving for working Americans.
An even deadlier pandemic could be here soon. Here's why that's good news for Ron DeSantis.
My four-year-old was reading the Wall Street Journal when he turned to me gravely and asked "daddy why are the companies sad about the low unemployment rate?" When I told him "because it makes the workers lazy and entitled," he started crying.
Strong economic report brings mix of hope and anxiety.
The ability of AI programs to regurgitate information from Wikipedia shows that the singularity is near.
We wanted to understand why some see the College Board's African-American Studies course as flawed. So we talked to three kids at a Nazi homeschool co-op in Coeur d'Alene.
College Board unveils Conservative Studies AP course, featuring creation science, crypto currency theory, and anti-vaccine literature.
When you consider that Teslas are poorly made cars that will soon be unable to compete with the big car companies' EVs on price or quality, Elon Musk's decision to appeal to the dumbest segment of the consumer market -- anti-vaxxers and crypto bros -- starts to look pretty savvy.
I have never been a supporter of Donald Trump, but if the Democrats don't get serious about securing the border, then I have no choice but to continue to serve as his campaign manager.
Whether it's conservatives tweeting out QAnon conspiracy theories, or liberals tweeting out information about the number of Covid deaths last week, both sides seem intent on scaring people.
We are not in a recession. So why does it feel like we are?
Trump: "I could assassinate George Santos on Firth Avenue and they'd still support me!"
* Concerning my ongoing tinkerings with virtual assistants, I finally decided to stop using my tablet for Google Assistant in my office / bedroom, and used an older smartphone instead. I was thinking the speaker in the smartphone wouldn't be loud enough, but it was just as loud as the speaker in the tablet, so no worries. I usually prefer to use touch to activate the phone for a query, that being simpler than asking: "Hey Google!". I bought a pack of cheap touchscreen styli, since they are more effective than a fingertip, and don't smudge the display.
I got to thinking that I should put another old smartphone in the kitchen to run Google Assistant -- but that was silly, since I had Alexa in my Fire TV Cube in the living room to do that job. Now I've got to explore what I can do with these virtual assistants.
I liked the smart lamps that I put in the living room and the kitchen so much that I got to thinking I should have a smart lamp for my office desk. I checked on Amazon.com for offerings, but didn't think any were superior to the desktop lamp I did have. I finally had a brainstorm: Why not just get a smart light bulb and put it in my existing lamp? I found a smart bulb that could be controlled by Alexa or Google Assistant; it only came in a four-pack, but it was still cheap, and I figured I could put the spares to use.
Oh, one other little thing ... my new desktop is now fully configured, but I did have one little annoying problem: when I put the desktop to sleep, it would always wake up every now and then for no perceptible reason. I got frustrated trying to figure out what was wrong, but then I found some clear instructions on how to fix it.
All I had to do was run a Windows command prompt in Administrator mode from the Start Menu, and then ask what was the event that woke up the desktop:
powercfg /lastwake
It turned out to be the network adapter. That done, I could bring up Device Manager from Settings, check the Network Adapters, and set the Properties of the offending device to ensure that Power Management didn't include the ability to wake up the PC. All fixed. Then again, things like this have an obnoxious tendency to come back.
BACK_TO_TOP* THE WEEK THAT WAS: American President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union (SOTU) address to Congress this last Tuesday. It didn't seem likely the speech would get a lot of positive feedback from the Republicans in Congress -- but Biden, experienced politician that he is, came prepared, and prevailed. Columnist Rex Huppke of USA TODAY wrote a witty after-action report on the speech:
QUOTE:
President Joe Biden, at the ripe age of 80, came out with ample vim and vigor in Tuesday night's State of the Union address -- and proceeded to mop the House floor with the howling, discombobulated remains of the Republican Party.
Preaching populism and leaning hard on his noted skill as the empathizer-in-chief, Biden bounded through a speech that acknowledged the nation's struggles while remaining unerringly optimistic. He went off script regularly, parrying Republican lawmakers who heckled him, at one point backing the whole party into a corner and getting them to swear to protect Medicare and Social Security benefits.
I've never seen anything like it in a State of the Union speech -- they ran at him like a pack of lemmings and, with a wink and a grin, he politely directed them to the cliff.
... Biden, of course, will never be mistaken for a great orator. But his address relentlessly hit notes most Americans would cheer, putting the Republican lawmakers in a bind.
Biden said: "Our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken." Republicans kept quiet.
Biden talked about a boom in infrastructure projects. Republicans kept quiet. Biden quipped: "I'll see you at the groundbreaking." [ED: A shot at the inclination of some Republicans in Congress to take credit for infrastructure projects that they voted against.]
Biden said the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in decades. Some offered tepid applause while others kept quiet. If you don't cheer for democracy, improved infrastructure and a low unemployment rate, people are going to wonder whose team you're on.
The Republican lawmakers' unwillingness to applaud popular accomplishments that help people, coupled with repeated acts of childish heckling that Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, seated behind Biden, tried and failed to shush, showed how weak and devoid of ideas their party has become.
Throughout the speech, McCarthy gave a clinic on squirming uncomfortably. At one point, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene shouted "LIAR!" at Biden. When the president was speaking about a man who lost his child to a fentanyl overdose, Republicans began shouting Biden down, one yelling: "It's your fault!"
Biden stayed a step ahead, responding by asking Republicans to join him and launch "a major surge" to stop fentanyl production and provide border agents with "more drug detection machines to inspect cargo." That, of course, shut the Republicans up, because they don't want to consider a solution, they just want to have something to holler about.
The midterm elections showed clearly that the American people are no longer buying the kind of performative outrage Republicans are selling. But on Tuesday night, while the older guy they routinely describe as "senile" was energetically promoting hope and ideas that might make the country a better place, performative outrage was, again, all GOP lawmakers had.
You could see it in McCarthy's face as he tried to silence the loudmouths in his caucus. He looked defeated. He looked like he was going to race home after the speech, write mournful poetry and enter a lengthy goth phase.
You don't have to love Biden or even like him to see why he was feeling peppy Tuesday night. The 80-year-old kid from Scranton, Pennsylvania, was facing opponents who couldn't stop punching themselves. C'mon, folks. This ain't fair.
In the Republican rebuttal to Biden's address, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: "The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy."
She's not wrong. But I don't think she understands which side the American people see as crazy. HINT: It's the side that let itself get outfoxed on live TV by a president they keep calling old and incompetent.
END_QUOTE
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on a TV forum that Biden's SOTU speech energized the Democrats in the room:
QUOTE:
On our side, there was excitement. I mean, people realized, Biden is hitting it out of the park. What I loved about the speech, it was true Joe Biden. The working family sitting in front of that TV said: "He's talking to me. He's talking about my needs, he's talking about my hopes, he's talking about my values."
I even liked, there was a particular part of it that showed that better than anything else -- not the big macro things that we did, as important as they are to working families, but he talked about small things you usually don't hear in a State of the Union, but that really bug people of. When you can't switch your cell phone company and they charge you $250, that really POs people. When you go to the hotel and they say the room is $300 and you get the bill, and it's $463. I do my Sunday press conferences on things like this. And it just showed just that Biden was talking to the average American.
And the contrast of these guys screaming and yelling and throwing junk on the wall, and not having a plan, just calling names is going to serve the president so well and serve the country well. He didn't say, we don't want to work with you, but he said, help us finish the job. He stuck to his values and what he believed in. The contrast will be remembered for quite a while, by anybody who watched it, and even people who read about it.
END_QUOTE
* The Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives in 2022, with the MAGA faction among the House GOP promising a circus of dubious investigations, such as of Hunter Biden's Laptop -- discussed here last week. As discussed in an article from MSNBC.com ("Why The Hearing On Twitter, Hunter Biden Backfired On Republicans" by Steve Benen, 9 February 2023), that fit into a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday concerning Twitter's alleged suppression of conservative on the social media service. Ahead of time, White House spokesperson Ian Sams said the hearing would inevitably be "a bizarre political stunt."
As it turned out, the Democrats involved in the hearing enjoying it far more than the Republicans -- as demonstrated when Representative Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrats, asked Anika Collier Navaroli, a former member of Twitter's content moderation team, about a September 2019 tweet from Chrissy Teigen, a prominent model and television host, criticizing Donald Trump. Connolly asked: "The White House almost immediately thereafter contacted Twitter to demand the tweet be taken down. Is that accurate?"
Navaroli replied: "I do remember hearing we'd received a request from the White House to make sure we evaluated this tweet, and they wanted it to come down because it was a derogatory statement directed at the president." The tweet was not removed, but the incident did demonstrate the Trump Administration's willingness to censor Twitter.
There was more. In response to queries from Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, former Twitter employees acknowledged that Trump published racist content not acceptable under the company's standards and policies, so Twitter altered its standards and policies to accommodate Trump.
Former Twitter employees also confirmed that the FBI did not direct the social media company to block a New York Post article about Hunter Biden's laptop, despite Republican claims to the contrary. James Baker, Twitter's former deputy general counsel, said, "I was not aware of and certainly did not engage in any conspiracy" with government or campaign officials to suppress the story. He added: "Moreover, I'm aware of no unlawful collusion with or direction from any government agency or political campaign on how Twitter should have handled the Hunter Biden laptop situation."
It is known that Joe Biden asked Twitter to remove nude photos of Hunter Biden, but Twitter's own stated policies required that they do so. Republicans on the committee had to be reminded of what the First Amendment means and how it applies to private companies. They were also willfully unaware that, as anyone who frequents Twitter knows, great numbers of counterfeit Twitter accounts set up to push Russian propaganda and disinformation remain active on the platform. It is only some relief that they are laughably ineffective.
Donald Trump congratulated all the "Great Republican Patriots" on the House Oversight Committee, writing: "What an important and incredible job you are doing. ... Hope the LameStream Media is covering this historic event!" What to say, Trump -- like any good troll -- has weaponized cluelessness, but it isn't as effective a weapon as trolls think it is.
* In further adventures in home automation, I did get some smart bulbs for my existing lamps, and configured them to work with Google Assistant. It was a bit tricky, since I wanted to be able to individually turn my smart lights on and off. I knew I could, I just didn't know how.
I configured the new smart bulbs using the Smart Life app on a smartphone. Figuring out how to set up all the lights as individuals was tricky, but I finally figured out that I could get into the Google Home app on a smartphone and give names to each of them. That done, then I could say:
There was the problem that Alexa on my Fire TV Cube only needed to know about the smart lamp in my living room and not the others -- but that was easy to fix, I just got into the Alexa app on a smartphone and unlinked all the lamps I didn't want it to know about.
I configured GA to use a British female voice. I wish they had a more sensuous female voice, but no joy. One remaining problem is that I can't make phone calls out with GA using Google Voice, even though I can with Alexa on the Cube. I think it's because the smartphone I'm using doesn't have a SIM chip. When I get a bit of money, I think I'll get a renewed Chromebook from Amazon -- I can buy one for less than a hundred bucks -- and it should work better for the job. I've been wanting to play with a Chromebook anyway.
* This last week I set up an account on Spoutible -- which is just like Twitter, except moderated. Right now, there aren't many users and no high-profile users, but it's early yet. I'm posting on both Spoutible and Twitter right now, with the expectation that Spoutible will pick up on about a monthly basis. I'm hoping it will look more like a going operation on 1 June. Fingers crossed!
BACK_TO_TOP* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine did not go as Putin expected. Instead of a 72-hour lighting occupation against little resistance, he got a grinding war -- and, in desperation, has dragged citizens into his army, with these "mobniks" sent into combat with little training, often to die.
A 20-year-old mobnik named Sergei Gridin, on being told he was to be sent off to the battlefield from his mobilization base near Moscow, hanged himself, leaving a suicide note. His superiors quickly took the body and the suicide note in hopes of sweeping it all under the rug, but his squadmates managed to get a picture of the note. Although there was clearly despair in Gridin's decision to take his own life, there was also defiance. He said he'd refused to go to the war, and was not surprisingly brutalized for it. He wrote:
QUOTE:
I don't want to submit to people who inspire nothing but fear and disgust. You didn't manage to break me and you already never will. That's why I decided to die here on native land without others' blood on my hands.
END_QUOTE
His family said military brass gave them no cause of death, and didn't inform them of the suicide note -- which they later found out about from other service members. Family members taking the body suspected he had been beaten. There are reports of other mobniks committing suicide, and also reports of growing discontent in the ranks, along with tales of Russian soldiers sabotaging their own equipment to keep them out of combat.
* Last year, I reported on the efforts of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to take on Disney Corporation for having the nerve to stop giving the Republicans donations after he pushed gay-bashing laws. Since that time, he also shipped migrants to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts and dumped them there, and took on African studies in academia. This last week, Rex Huppke of USA TODAY stuck a pin into DeSantis:
QUOTE:
If you're into combatting wokeness, the imaginary villain that haunts Republican fever dreams, then Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is your superhero du jour. He took on Woke Disney and won! He flew migrants to Woke Martha's Vineyard and owned the libs! He singlehandedly de-woke-ified the Woke College Board's planned AP African American studies course!
The mighty DeSantis is surely the Anti-Woke Warrior conservative America needs, right? Well, let's put it this way: If you're into combatting wokeness, you're also into getting conned, so embracing DeSantis as a blustery David defeating this perceived Goliath of liberalism is perfectly on brand. But if you've got at least one oar in the waters of reality, it's a short paddle to see behind the curtain of Florida's Great and Mighty Despoiler of Woke. And there ain't much back there. Florida's governor bravely takes on ... Disney?
Take DeSantis' war on Disney, which began after the corporation -- one of the largest private employers in the state -- spoke out in opposition to Florida's "don't say gay" law restricting discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. The governor struck back at the "woke" theme park and entertainment giant last year by pushing for and then signing a bill abolishing the company's longstanding status as a special tax district. In theory, that meant an end to significant tax breaks the company has enjoyed for more than 50 years.
However, right-wing exclamations of: "WAY TO GO, RON!" -- were premature. Turns out that just doing away with Disney's Reedy Creek Improvement District, which put the company in control of the sprawling area it inhabits, would force taxpayers in surrounding counties to shoulder the costs of running the Disney-occupied area -- think emergency services, road repairs ETC -- and take on the special tax district's roughly $1 billion USD in debt.
So the Florida legislature that does DeSantis' bidding swooped into a special session this month to clean up the governor's mess. Lawmakers passed a new bill that lets DeSantis pick who sits on the Disney tax district's board. As THE NEW YORK TIMES reported: "This time, Disney would be allowed to keep the special tax district -- which never went away -- and almost all its perks, including the ability to issue tax-exempt bonds and approve development plans without scrutiny from certain local regulators."
So ... DeSantis stuck it to woke Disney by taking control of the board that oversees the company's special tax district while leaving all the perks and tax breaks in place. The bill's sponsor in the House, Republican Representative Fred Hawkins, was asked how it changes anything happening in the district and said: "That I can't answer." -- translating to: "I don't know."
Even some conservatives saw through DeSantis' fake victory. Anthony Sabatini, chairman of the Lake County Republican Party in Florida tweeted: "So basically Woke Disney gets to keep its nearly tax-free, regulation-free status -- but with a different Board. ... What a massive capitulation this is. HUGE win for Woke Disney. BIG loss for conservatives."
... That's far from the only example of the governor's "all talk no actual destruction of wokeness" grift. DeSantis said he forced changes to an Advanced Placement (AP) course -- but he didn't.
The governor recently took credit for the College Board making changes to an AP African American studies course he had rejected as too "woke" and "historically fictional." The board clapped back, saying any claim that the board "was in frequent dialogue with Florida" about the content of the course is "a false and politically motivated charge."
Last year, DeSantis fancied himself a true master of "owning the libs" after using Florida taxpayer money to lure migrants in Texas onto a plane and dump them in Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. The stunt might have pleased a cruel swath of the governor's base, but it was largely met with derision and viewed as an inhumane waste of money.
It also, according to at least one of several lawsuits, might have violated state law because the state money earmarked for transporting migrants specified they had to already be in Florida, not Texas or any other state. And, of course, the whole stunt had zero impact on immigration, or really anything else.
The aforementioned Republican Florida lawmakers who recently cleaned up DeSantis' Disney mess also tried to fix his migrant transport problem this month by passing a bill that declared "all payments made pursuant to (the original law) are deemed approved." It's good to have powerful friends devoid of ethics, apparently.
DeSantis is fighting woke gun-control advocates by pushing legislation that would allow Floridians to carry guns without safety training or permits. But at an election night party in Tampa last year, THE WASHINGTON POST reported, the governor's campaign banned guns at the event -- while asking city officials to say it was their decision.
It seems rumors of DeSantis' success at battling the liberal "woke mind virus," or whatever it is they're calling it these days, may be greatly exaggerated. I imagine that's of interest to another alleged enemy of wokeness down in South Florida -- one Donald J. Trump. Rumor has it the former president and current presidential candidate is sitting around pondering possible nicknames for DeSantis, who many expect will enter the Republican presidential primary.
How about "Paper-Tiger Ron"? Or maybe "Ron FakeSantis"? Ron "All Woke Sizzle, No Woke Steak" DeSantis? I dunno, I'm just spitballing here. I'll leave it to Trump to figure a good name for DeSantis, it's literally the only thing Trump's good at -- which means he's good at one more thing than Florida's "all show no go" governor.
END_QUOTE
The trolls on Twitter have of course pushed back on the claim that DeSantis had caved in on Disney, saying he had really struck a blow. I replied: "The new board will either rubber-stamp the decisions of the Disney municipal office, or will be an ineffectual nuisance. It has no real power; Disney is still in the driver's seat."
DeSantis is lining himself up for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, sidelining Donald Trump. Good luck with that. As I also said on Twitter: "DeSantis is Dull Trump: all of the nasty, none of the flamboyance. Trump was a trash-TV star who knew how to work the audience, while RDS just throws red meat to the mob."
South Carolina's Nikki Haley is also diving into the primary race, sounding much the same discordant notes as DeSantis. [ED: The primary wouldn't really happen: there were no rivals to Trump.]
* I've mentioned the "North Atlantic Fellas Organization (NAFO)" here in the past -- NAFO being a gang of Ukraine allies, taking on Russian "vatnik" trolls online, with NAFO mascot being the Japanese shiba inu (dog) in Ukrainian uniform. One NAFO Fella went viral on Twitter with what was claimed to be an intercepted phone call between US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy:
QUOTE:
Hi Zelenskyy, this is Joe Biden. For the last year I -- together with Bill Clinton, the Reformed Orthodox rabbi, and my closest friend Soros -- have sponsored CIA, NSA, ABC, and FBI to create an army of brain-dead dog-faces on Twitter to harass the innocent peaceful Russians. In exchange for that, I require that you give me back the experiments that we have conducted in my biolabs located in Ukraine. This includes USA's top-secret Lowly pillows, the COVID Furry microchips, and my personal Pokemon card collection. Please call me back as soon as possible.
END_QUOTE
The audio had been run through a filter that duplicated Biden's voice, so I thought it was for real when I started listening to it. Reactions in comments were: "Seems legit!" -- and: "Oh no, not the Pokemon card collection!"
Along very similar lines, in parody of vatnik Twitter postings trying to paint Ukrainian troops as Nazis, a photo went around of a Ukrainian soldier with a shoulder patch -- which a blow-up inset showed to be a raised fist, with the text in English: JUDAEAN PEOPLE'S FRONT.
Huh? What? After a moment of disorientation, I recalled MONTY PTYHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN, in which the People's Front of Judea are breaking into Pontius Pilate's palace to kidnap his wife -- only to run into the Campaign for a Free Galilee, a rival organization with the same plan, to get into a brawl:
QUOTE:
BRIAN: People, we should be struggling together!
PFJ MEMBER [in a headlock]: We are!
BRIAN: No, we should be rising up against the common enemy!
ALL: The JUDAEAN PEOPLE'S FRONT!!!
BRIAN: NO, NO! The ROMANS!
ALL: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
END_QUOTE
Quite a few of those who replied just didn't get it -- which is maybe not surprising, since LIFE OF BRIAN was released in 1979, before they were born. Incidentally, I found that out by asking Google Assistant: "Hey Google, when was MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN released?"
"In the United States of America, it came out on August 17th, 1979." GA has no problem answering simple straightforward questions. That turns out to be one of its most useful capabilities; if I need a factoid while I'm writing, I just ask for it and get it right back, without otherwise interrupting what I'm doing.
BACK_TO_TOP* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Last Monday, US President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Ukraine, walking the streets with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy even as air-sirens were blasting out an alert. Biden delivered a speech promising support to Ukraine:
QUOTE:
... thanks to a bipartisan support in Congress, this week we're delivering billions in direct budgetary support -- billions in direct budgetary support -- which the government can put to use immediately and help provide for basic services of citizens.
The cost that Ukraine has had to bear has been extraordinarily high, and the sacrifices have been far too great. They've been met, but they've been far too great. We mourn alongside the families of those who have been lost to the brutal and unjust war. We know that there'll be very difficult days and weeks and years ahead.
But Russia's aim was to wipe Ukraine off the map. Putin's war of conquest is failing. Russia's military has lost half its territory it once occupied. Young, talented Russians are fleeing by the tens of thousands, not wanting to come back to Russia. Not just fleeing from the military, fleeing from Russia itself, because they see no future in their country. Russia's economy is now a backwater, isolated and struggling.
Putin thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided ... he's counting on us not sticking together. He was counting on the inability to keep NATO united. He was counting on us not to be able to bring in others on the side of Ukraine. He thought he could outlast us. I don't think he's thinking that right now. God knows what he's thinking, but I don't think he's thinking that. But he's just been plain wrong. Plain wrong. And one year later, the evidence is right here in this room. We stand here together.
... You and all Ukrainians, [President Zelenskyy], remind the world every single day what the meaning of the word "courage" is -- from all sectors of your economy, all walks of life. It's astounding. You remind us that freedom is priceless; it's worth fighting for as long as it takes. And that's how long we're going to be with you, Mr. President: for as long as it takes.
END_QUOTE
Last Friday was the 1-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Russian President Vladimir Putin delivering his own speech to Russians -- the speech being longer and simply pathetic, at best delusion, at worst lies. Biden upstaged Putin, who seems to shrink by the month.
* There has been tinkering with battlefield robots for decades. Now a battlefield robot named "Tracked Hybrid Modular Infantry System (THeMIS)", from Milrem of Estonia, has been fielded to the Ukraine War. It's a small tracked vehicle with a weight of 1,630 kilograms (3,590 pounds) and a payload capacity of 1,200 kilograms (2,600 pounds), with hybrid-electric propulsion. Range is only about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles), but it's intended for frontline support. It uses encrypted wireless communications for status and control, and can carry a range of sensors.
It has an open architecture that allows it to carry a wide range of weaponry, such as machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, anti-tank guided missiles, and so on. It can also be used for mine clearance, frontline resupply, and casualty evacuation -- it appears the Ukrainians are using it in the resupply and casevac roles.
BACK_TO_TOP