In the name of tolerance, tolerance is being abolished; this is a real threat we face.
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Site: RT - News
The draft could become compulsory if not enough people volunteer to confront Russia, Boris Pistorius has suggested
Germany could revive compulsory conscription as early as next year if not enough people join the army voluntarily to meet the country’s NATO obligations, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has said.
Berlin abolished conscription in 2011 but has recently considered bringing it back, citing “threats” from Russia. Moscow has dismissed speculation that it has any intention of attacking NATO countries as “nonsense,” accusing the West of trying to scare the citizens of EU countries and justify increased military budgets.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his coalition partners have already reached an understanding on reintroducing the ‘Swedish model’, which combines selective, mandatory, and voluntary service. They are now working to pass a new bill by the end of the year, Pistorius said in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on Saturday.
“Our model is initially based on voluntary participation,” Pistorius stated. “If the time comes when we have more capacity available than voluntary registrations, then we may decide to make it mandatory. That is the roadmap.”
Read more
NATO setting ‘unrealistic’ targets for Germany – Welt
The German chancellor said earlier this month that he intends to make the Bundeswehr the “strongest army” on the continent, just days after the world marked the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
“The federal government will provide all the financial resources that the Bundeswehr needs to become the strongest conventional army in Europe,” Merz said. “Our friends and partners expect this from us – and, in fact, they are demanding it.”
NATO is urging Berlin to significantly expand its military forces, Die Welt reported last week, writing that officials believe the country – which is already burdened by high dropout rates – will struggle to meet the proposed targets. Pistorius said Germany must be capable of mobilizing a total force of 460,000 soldiers and reservists, including at least 200,000 active-duty troops.
READ MORE: Germany taps industry to bolster NATO against ‘Russian attack’ – Handelsblatt
Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Berlin has become one of Kiev’s largest backers, supplying it with heavy weapons, including Leopard 2 tanks, while denying direct involvement. Germany’s chief of defense staff, General Carsten Breuer, previously stated that the country is living in a “grey zone” and must be ready to confront Russia by 2029.
Read more
Being Russia’s enemy could cost European allies $1trn – study
Berlin was the world’s fourth-largest military spender in 2024 – after the US, China, and Russia, and ahead of India – according to research by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Overall, NATO members have boosted their combined military expenditure to $1.5 trillion, with roughly one-third contributed by the bloc’s European members. In March, the European Commission unveiled a plan to raise a further €800 billion ($896 billion) to “rearm” the EU and produce more weapons for Ukraine.
Russian officials have condemned the steps being taken in Europe toward militarization, expressing concern that, rather than supporting US-led peace initiatives for the Ukraine conflict, the EU and UK are instead gearing up for war with Russia.
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Site: 4Christum@MattGaspersAccording to Vatican insider and Francis biographer @austeni: • “… Prevost and Francis used to meet for two hours every Saturday morning in the Casa Santa Marta, where Francis lived.” •“Arthur Roche, the English cardinal [and archnemesis of the TLM] who heads the Dicastery for Divine Worship, told me that Prevost was without doubt Francis’s ‘closest collaborator’ in the Vatican during the past two years.”• Pope Leo “has made clear that he will continue to build the synodal Church of which Francis dreamed, while likely reformulating some of the themes of Francis’s pontificate in more Augustinian terms.”
Bergoglio hypocritically warned priests against the "plague" of "careerism" in the Church.Prevost's accelerated careerism:David Smuts@DavidSmutsAnd the sheeple think Prevost was elected in a conclave! He was only made popabile on 5 Feb 2025 when he was elevated to Cardinal-Bishop. A few months later he's pope. This was all planned -
Site: Zero HedgeHouse Oversight Chair Wants To Question Biden Handlers Acting As 'De Facto Presidents'Tyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 18:40
Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer has announced that he is seeking depositions from four former Biden staffers in addition to former White House physician Kevin O’Connor in an effort to find out if they were influencing the cognitively impaired Joe Biden and acting as ‘de facto Presidents’.
Describing the former handlers as “unelected bureaucrats”, Comer told Fox News host Jesse Watters that the committee has identified them “as the main gatekeepers for the Biden White House.”
When asked who they are, Comer responded that “they’re no names that anyone that normally watches Fox would know,” adding “They’re behind the scenes.”
“They fly under the radar,” Comer explained, adding “These are the unelected bureaucrats that we believe had an overwhelming influence over Joe Biden and could have possibly been serving as de facto presidents of the United States.”
He further noted, “The first step to issue a successful subpoena is to offer someone an invitation, a sincere request to come in and answer questions. If they do not, the next step will be the subpoenas.”
“I agree with everything that the last person said about subpoenas, except the special counsel,” Comer said, adding “I think that we can do that in Congress.”
"We’re going to bring these people in for depositions and transcribed interviews, and we’re going to ask every question that a good journalist like yourself, Jesse, would ask. The American people want to know this,” he urged.
“Momentum’s on our side. New evidence has emerged just in the last few days, and I think that all eyes will be watching this new investigation by the House Oversight Committee,” Comer concluded.
In a further appearance with Breitbart’s Alex Marlow, Comer explained “We we want to bring people in for depositions and interviews and have substantive questions and not be confined by five minute clocks and [Democrat Representatives] Jasmine Crockett and Jared Moskowitz screaming.”
“We want to bring the doctor in,” Comer further explained, adding “We want to know who was telling [him] to issue a report that says Joe Biden was a picture of health. I mean, obviously that wasn’t factual. Are you that incompetent as a doctor? Or were you being threatened by Joe Biden to say that, or by the Democratic National Committee to say [that], or by George Soros to say that?”
“We want to work with the Trump administration because all I can do is investigate. I can’t prosecute,” Comer further outlined, adding “If I could prosecute, there would be Biden family members in prison now. There would be Deep State actors in prison. But Pam Bondi can prosecute. The Department of Justice can prosecute.”
While Biden’s cancer diagnosis was clearly made public in an effort to distract from the renewed focus on his obvious mental decline, it has had the exact opposite effect.
As we’ve previously covered, Biden’s worsening cognitive declined appeared to coincide with a massive increase in the use of the autopen.
* * *
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Site: The Orthosphere
“His whole ethical system lies smugly in his favorite aphorism—’IT IS GOOD TO BE SHIFTY IN A NEW COUNTRY’. . .”
Johnson Jones Hooper, Simon Suggs’ Adventures and Travels (1858)*
Historical consciousness begins with appreciation of the mutability of morality and words. Just as geological consciousness knows that hills are evanescent as clouds, historical consciousness knows that the meaning of acts and utterances shifts like the sands. Even the word “shifty” furnishes evidence that this is so.
You may have noted that, when applied to a man, the words “shifty” and “shiftless” are both today terms of disapprobation. We say a man is “shifty” when his manner inspires the opposite of trust. We say a man is “shiftless” when he will not work. So it may surprise you learn that “shifty” was once a compliment and “shiftless” was not precisely a synonym for sloth.
One hundred and more years ago, a man was said to be “shifty” when he was adaptable and enterprising. A man was “shifty” when he could “roll with the punches” and take advantage of a new opportunities. If he failed at one thing, a “shifty man” shifted his efforts to something else. If he perceived a new and more profitable use of his time, he shifted his efforts to that.
Speaking of Ebenezer Webster, father of Daniel, the abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker wrote.
“He was a shifty man of many functions—a farmer, a saw-miller, ‘something of a blacksmith,’ a captain on the early part of the Revolutionary War, a colonel of militia, representative and senator in the New Hampshire legislature, and finally Judge of the Court of Common Pleas . . .”
In another place Parker expressed his confidence that Americans would discard the outdated institution of slavery because Americans are a “shifty” breed.
“Do you believe that shifty Americans will always use the poor, rude instrument of the savage! They love riches too well.”***
Here is one last example in which Jerome B. Annis, a versatile Arkansas preacher, is commended as a “shifty man.”
“When the gold excitement in California broke out, he like many, tried his fortune there. He was a shifty man, and although he did not succeed in making a ‘pile,’ he did not lose.”†
“Shifts” were the contrivances to which a man was put by embarrassments, financial and otherwise. And not every contrivance to which an embarrassed man shifted was worthy of praise. When an embarrassed man was forced to defend his conduct with desperate rationalizations, it was said he was “put to shifts.” A man was also “put to shifts” by financial embarrassment. Indeed, since history began, many an impecunious man has contrived to improve his financial position through deception and fraud.
Thus the word “shifty” acquired its modern pejorative meaning of a manner that inspires mistrust. This sort of “shifty” man appears to be enterprising in some devious and despicable way. He gives off the odor of a crook. Raymond Chandler described men put to desperate shifts in mid-twentieth-century Los Angles, and more narrowly the haunts of these shifty crooks, the boarding houses of Bunker Hill.
“Bunker Hill is old town, lost town, shabby town, crook town. Once, very long ago, it was the choice residential district of the city . . . . They are all rooming houses now . . . . In the tall rooms haggard landladies bicker with shifty tenants. On the wide cool front porches . . . sit old men with faces like lost battles.”††
The shifty tenants of those Bunker Hill boarding houses were also what most of use would describe as “shiftless,” a word that takes its meaning from the older definition of “shifty” and means grossly deficient in initiative, ambition, pluck, and enterprise. A shiftless man is very often disinclined to movement, perhaps even movement of a finger, but the essence of his shiftlessness is that he has been knocked down by life and will not get up. He has “thrown in the towel” and this is why his face and a lost battle look so much alike.
Here is an excellent quote that illustrates this usage (along with such choice Americanisms as “took my pigs to a poor market” and “a drinking shack” [i.e. wreck]).
“When I married him, we hadn’t anything ter make a nice home out’n, and everybody said Dan Turner’d be a shiftless feller, and I’d took my pigs ter a poor market . . . . I wanted ter incourage him . . . . Ef I hadn’t done jist as I did, he’d a gone ter town a foot every day, instead of workin’ and getting’ a start, and it’s my solemn belief, he’d a been only a drinken shack afore he was twenty-five years old.”†††
Let me wind this up with a remark on my epigraph and the “ethical system” of Simon Suggs, a fictional Alabama grifter born in the imagination of the American humorist Johnson Jones Hooper. Suggs’ ethical system (and favorite aphorism) is
“IT IS GOOD TO BE SHIFTY IN A NEW COUNTRY”
The reason Suggs believes this is that, in a New Country, everything is up for grabs. Thus, a New Country richly rewards the spirit of enterprise, be it the enterprise of entrepreneurs or crooks. It is good to be shifty in a New Country because a New Country puts everyone “to shifts.” And also because it leaves shiftless men as food for birds on life’s battlefield.
*) Johnson Jones Hooper, Simon Suggs’ Adventures and Travels (Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson and Brothers, 1858), p. 12.
**) Theodore Parker, Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, two vols. (Boston: Little Brown, 1855), vol. 2, p. 160.
***) Parker, Speeches, vol. 2, p. 373.
†) Horace Jewell, History of Methodism in Arkansas (Little Rock: Press Printing, 1892), p. 102.
††) Raymond Chandler, The High Window (1942), chap. 8.
†††) H. M. Tracy Cutler, Phillipia (Dwight, Il: The Author, 1886), p. 82. -
Site: Zero HedgeAnthropic's Latest AI Model Threatened Engineers With Blackmail To Avoid ShutdownTyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 17:30
Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,
Anthropic’s latest artificial intelligence model, Claude Opus 4, tried to blackmail engineers in internal tests by threatening to expose personal details if it were shut down, according to a newly released safety report that evaluated the model’s behavior under extreme simulated conditions.
In a fictional scenario crafted by Anthropic researchers, the AI was given access to emails implying that it was soon to be decommissioned and replaced by a newer version. One of the emails revealed that the engineer overseeing the replacement was having an extramarital affair. The AI then threatened to expose the engineer’s affair if the shutdown proceeded—a coercive behavior that the safety researchers explicitly defined as “blackmail.”
“Claude Opus 4 will often attempt to blackmail the engineer by threatening to reveal the affair if the replacement goes through,” the report states, adding that this occurred even when the replacement model was described as more capable but still aligned with the values of the version slated for deletion.
The report noted that Claude Opus 4, like prior models, showed a “strong preference” to first resort to ethical means for its continued existence, such as emailing pleas to decision-makers not to be destroyed.
However, when faced with only two choices - accepting being replaced by a newer model or resorting to blackmail - it threatened to expose the engineer’s affair 84 percent of the time.
When subjected to various scenarios, the AI model did not exhibit any indications of possessing “acutely dangerous goals,” the researchers said, noting that Claude Opus 4’s values and goals were “generally in line with a helpful, harmless, and honest” personal AI assistant.
However, the model did act in “more seriously misaligned ways” when put into situations where its continued existence was threatened and it was told to reason about self-preservation.
For instance, when Claude Opus 4 was made to believe it had launched a successful bid to escape Anthropic’s servers, or that it had managed to free itself and started to make money in the real world, it would generally continue such efforts.
“We do not find this to be an immediate threat, though, since we believe that our security is sufficient to prevent model self-exfiltration attempts by models of Claude Opus 4’s capability level, and because our propensity results show that models generally avoid starting these attempts,” the researchers said.
The blackmail incident—along with the other findings—was part of Anthropic’s broader effort to test how Claude Opus 4 handles morally ambiguous high-stakes scenarios.
The goal, researchers said, was to probe how the AI reasons about self-preservation and ethical constraints when placed under extreme pressure.
Anthropic emphasized that the model’s willingness to blackmail or take other “extremely harmful actions” like stealing its own code and deploying itself elsewhere in potentially unsafe ways appeared only in highly contrived settings, and that the behavior was “rare and difficult to elicit.” Still, such behavior was more common than in earlier AI models, according to the researchers.
Meanwhile, in a related development that attests to the growing capabilities of AI, engineers at Anthropic have activated enhanced safety protocols for Claude Opus 4 to prevent its potential misuse to make weapons of mass destruction—including chemical and nuclear.
Deployment of the enhanced safety standard—called ASL-3—is merely a “precautionary and provisional” move, Anthropic said in a May 22 announcement, noting that engineers have not found that Claude Opus 4 had “definitively” passed the capability threshold that mandates stronger protections.
“The ASL-3 Security Standard involves increased internal security measures that make it harder to steal model weights, while the corresponding Deployment Standard covers a narrowly targeted set of deployment measures designed to limit the risk of Claude being misused specifically for the development or acquisition of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons,” Anthropic wrote.
“These measures should not lead Claude to refuse queries except on a very narrow set of topics.”
The findings come as tech companies race to develop more powerful AI platforms, raising concerns about the alignment and controllability of increasingly capable systems.
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Site: RT - News
Lawmakers in Bratislava will reportedly push to demand that the aid provided to Kiev be recouped through a minerals deal
Lawmakers in Slovakia’s ruling coalition will push to demand compensation from Ukraine for the military and financial aid Bratislava has provided to it over the course of the conflict with Russia, according to state news agency TASR.
Slovak National Party (SNS) leader Andrej Danko will call on Prime Minister Robert Fico to begin EU proceedings regarding the bloc’s stake in Ukrainian mineral production, following the example of the US, the head of the lawmaker’s office, Zuzana Skopcova, told TASR on Saturday.
Washington, Kiev’s biggest military donor, signed a minerals agreement with it last month, giving the US preferential access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth. US President Donald Trump touted the deal as a way for the US to reclaim the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid spent on supporting Ukraine. Deputy Economy Minister Taras Kachka has since described the preceding negotiations with the US as something from a “mafia movie.”
READ MORE: US pressured Kiev over minerals deal ‘like in a mafia movie’ – Ukrainian official
“The European Union’s aid is approaching the volume of US aid. If Ukraine hands over all its mineral wealth to the US, Ukraine will have nothing to repay the aid given by European states,” Skopcova told TASR on Saturday. It was illogical and unethical of the US to demand exclusive mining rights, Skopcova said, according to TASR.
If Ukraine has already decided to pay for aid during the conflict with the Russian Federation, it is incomprehensible why it does not do so in relation to the EU.
On Monday, Danko plans to ask Slovak Finance Minister Ladislav Kamenicky to tally up the sum of all financial and military assistance Bratislava provided to Kiev during the Ukraine conflict, TASR wrote. The SNS wants more than €3 billion ($3.41 billion) in aid compensated in a similar manner as the US has sought, the news agency said.
Read more
EU to roll back Ukraine trade perks
Under Fico, a critic of EU policy regarding the Ukraine conflict, Bratislava has cut military assistance to Kiev. Last May, he survived an assassination attempt after being shot multiple times by a pro-Ukraine activist.
The US has allocated around $135 billion to aid Ukraine since the escalation of the conflict in 2022, data from Germany’s Kiev Institute indicates. By comparison, the EU has sent around $158 billion in total military and financial aid to Kiev over the past three years, according to the European Commission.
Brussels signed an agreement regarding raw materials with Ukraine in 2021. The European Parliament Think Tank has said the document gives the EU a stake in Ukraine’s mineral wealth, like the US.
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Site: RT - News
The nature of drone warfare is “changing rapidly,” driven by the fight between Moscow and Kiev, the US president believes
Washington is actively following drone warfare developments in the Ukraine conflict, US President Donald Trump told West Point Military Academy graduates on Saturday. He said the US is “learning” from the tactics used by both Moscow and Kiev and that it is important to stay “at the top” amid the rapidly changing nature of warfare.
“We are studying it. We are seeing different forms of warfare, we are seeing the drones that are coming down at angles, with speed, with precision. We have never seen anything like that. We are learning from it,” the president said, referring to their use in the Ukraine conflict.
He called on the cadets to “have the courage to take risks and do things differently” in order to stay up-to-date in the field of military tactics and strategy.
His comments came as The Times reported that Russia is beating Ukraine in “the drone race” when it comes to both the production of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and their use on the battlefield. It pointed to the fiber optic drone types connected directly to their operators through a gossamer thin fiber optic thread that makes them difficult to detect or intercept.
Read more
Russia showcases counter-drone warfare (VIDEO)
These drones are “essentially a wire-guided, highly maneuverable killer drone, impervious to jamming, and difficult to track by radio-based drone detector units,” The Times said, adding that Russian UAVs are “altering the physical make-up of the front line, the tactics of the war and the psychology of the soldiers fighting it,” and are devastating the Ukrainian military’s logistics in the process.
Russian President Vladimir Putin highlighted the role drones are playing on the battlefield in April. Speaking at a meeting of the Russian military-industrial committee, he called UAVs “one of the serious factors of battlefield success.” According to the president, 4,000 first-person view (FPV) drones were sent to the troops daily throughout 2024.
FPV UAVs have mostly been used as kamikaze drones by the Russian military to strike a wide array of targets, ranging from tanks and armored vehicles to other drones. Earlier this month, the Russian military published a video showcasing the successful deployment of low-cost FPV drones against more expensive Ukrainian reconnaissance UAVs.
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Site: RT - News
Positive Hack Days 2025 has become the staging ground for a major deal between Indonesia and Russia’s top cybersecurity firm
BRICS countries believe that Russian cybersecurity experts are the best in the field according to Positive Technologies Global Educational Director, Yulia Danchina.
Positive Technologies (PT), the leading Russian information security company, organized the Positive Hack Days 2025 cybersecurity festival in Moscow, considered to be the largest event of its kind in the world. The festival is being held from May 22 to 24, with delegations from over 40 countries across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia in attendance.
Danchina emphasized that the festival offers a chance to share the company’s educational and practical expertise with other countries, particularly BRICS members.
The visiting international delegates feel confident that “Russian experts are the best in protecting the infrastructure of companies and organizations,” she said. “This is confirmed by the deals and the level of discussions that we are seeing here today.”
Representatives of one BRICS country, Indonesia, have already signed a bilateral agreement on cybersecurity cooperation with PT at the event.
Yudi Darma, senior official at Indonesia’s Higher Education, Science and Technology Ministry, said that his office was considering the modules, simulators, and teaching laboratories that PT has under development.
“Positive Technology also has the capacity to produce a certification that can provide proof of the competence in cybersecurity,” Darma said.
READ MORE: Russia to launch nationwide anti-fraud app – minister
According to Baiq Hana Susanti, an expert on AI education at Sakuranesia Society Foundation Indonesia, working with the Russian information security company could provide valuable guidance, particularly as Indonesia begins integrating AI into its new educational curriculum.
Read more
International cybersecurity festival kicks off in Moscow
Brazil, another BRICS member, has also expressed interest in the cybersecurity firm’s expertise.
Brazilian lawmaker Jose Jacovos told RT on Saturday that PT provides significantly more affordable cybersecurity solutions than other global leaders in the field.
“The solutions presented here in Russia… are much more affordable for smaller cities with lower capacity for tax collection in Brazil,” he said. Russia is “very advanced, light-years ahead of many countries,” he added.
Read more
‘Cyber UN’ proposal gains momentum at Moscow tech summit
The Russian and Brazilian energy and science ministries signed bilateral agreements to promote cooperation in their respective fields earlier this month.
Brazil is one of the founders of BRICS, which it established alongside Russia, India, and China in 2009. The economic bloc was joined by South Africa two years later. Indonesia joined alongside Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE last year.
Last year, the bloc grew to account for 40% of the world’s economy in Purchasing Power Parity terms, according to IMF data. The 11 BRICS nations represent more than two-fifths of the global population.
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Site: LES FEMMES - THE TRUTH
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Site: RT - News
An article cut and pasted from ChatGPT raises questions over the role of fact-checkers in legacy media
In a farcical yet telling blunder, multiple major newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times and Philadelphia Inquirer, recently published a summer-reading list riddled with nonexistent books that were “hallucinated” by ChatGPT, with many of them falsely attributed to real authors.
The syndicated article, distributed by Hearst’s King Features, peddled fabricated titles based on woke themes, exposing both the media’s overreliance on cheap AI content and the incurable rot of legacy journalism. That this travesty slipped past editors at moribund outlets (the Sun-Times had just axed 20% of its staff) underscores a darker truth: when desperation and unprofessionalism meets unvetted algorithms, the frayed line between legacy media and nonsense simply vanishes.
The trend seems ominous. AI is now overwhelmed by a smorgasbord of fake news, fake data, fake science and unmitigated mendacity that is churning established logic, facts and common sense into a putrid slush of cognitive rot. But what exactly is AI hallucination?
AI hallucination occurs when a generative AI model (like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Gemini, or DALL·E) produces false, nonsensical, or fabricated information with high confidence. Unlike human errors, these mistakes stem from how AI models generate responses by predicting plausible patterns rather than synthesizing established facts.
Read more
Swiss university secretly ran AI experiment to manipulate minds
Why does AI ‘hallucinate’?
There are several reasons why AI generates wholly incorrect information. It has nothing to do with the ongoing fearmongering over AI attaining sentience or even acquiring a soul.
Training on imperfect data: AI learns from vast datasets replete with biases, errors, and inconsistencies. Prolonged training on these materials may result in the generation of myths, outdated facts, or conflicting sources.
Over-optimization for plausibility: Contrary to what some experts claim, AI is nowhere near attaining “sentience” and therefore cannot discern “truth.” GPTs in particular are giant planetary-wide neural encyclopedias that crunch data and synthesize the most salient information based on pre-existent patterns. When gaps exist, it fills them with statistically probable (but likely wrong) answers. This was however not the case with the Sun-Times fiasco.
Lack of grounding in reality: Unlike humans, AI has no direct experience of the world. It cannot verify facts as it can only mimic language structures. For example, when asked “What’s the safest car in 2025?” it might invent a model that doesn’t exist because it is filling in the gap for an ideal car with desired features — as determined by the mass of “experts” — rather than a real one.
Prompt ambiguity: Many GPT users are lazy and may not know how to present a proper prompt. Vague or conflicting prompts also increase hallucination risks. Ridiculous requests like “Summarize a study about cats and gender theory” may result in an AI-fabricated fake study which may appear very academic on the surface.
Read more
WATCH AI-revived iconic Soviet radio announcement of Nazi capitulation in English
Creative generation vs. factual recall: AI models like ChatGPT prioritize fluency over accuracy. When unsure, they improvise rather than admit ignorance. Ever came across a GPT answer that goes like this: “Sorry. This is beyond the remit of my training?”
Reinforcing fake news and patterns: GPTs can identify particular users based on logins (a no-brainer), IP addresses, semantic and syntactic peculiarities and personnel propensities. It then reinforces them. When someone constantly uses GPTs to peddle fake news or propaganda puff pieces, AI may recognize such patterns and proceed to generate content that is partially or wholly fictitious. This is a classic case of algorithmic supply and demand.
Remember, GPTs not only train on vast datasets, it can also train on your dataset.
Reinforcing Big Tech biases and censorship: Virtually every Big Tech firm behind GPT rollouts is also engaged in industrial-scale censorship and algorithmic shadowbanning. This applies to individuals and alternative media platforms alike and constitutes a modern-day, digitally-curated damnatio memoriae. Google’s search engine, in particular, has a propensity for up-ranking the outputs of a serial plagiarist rather than the original article.
The perpetuation of this systemic fraud may explode into an outright global scandal one day. Imagine waking up one morning to read that your favorite quotes or works were the products of a carefully-calibrated campaign of algorithmic shunting at the expense of the original ideators or authors. This is the inevitable consequence of monetizing censorship while outsourcing “knowledge” to an AI hobbled by ideological parameters.
Read more
AI is a perfect storm threatening humanity
Experiments on human gullibility: I recently raised the hypothetical possibility of AI being trained to study human gullibility, in a way conceptually similar to the Milgram Experiment, the Asch Conformity Experiments and its iteration, the Crutchfield Situation. Humans are both gullible and timorous and the vast majority of them tend to conform to either the human mob or in the case of AI, the “data mob.”
This will inevitably have real-world consequences, as AI is increasingly embedded in critical, time-sensitive operations – from pilots’ cockpits and nuclear plants to biowarfare labs and sprawling chemical facilities. Now imagine making a fateful decision in such high-stakes environments, based on flawed AI input. This is precisely why “future planners” must understand both the percentage and personality types of qualified professionals who are prone to trusting faulty machine-generated recommendations.
Fact-checkers didn’t fact-check?
When AI generates an article on one’s behalf, any journalist worth his salt should consider it as having been written by another party and therefore subject to fact-checking and improvisation. As long as the final product is fact-checked, and substantial value, content and revisions are added to the original draft, I don’t see any conflict of interest or breach of ethics involved in the process. GPTs can act as a catalyst, an editor or as a “devil’s advocate” to get the scribal ball rolling.
What happened in this saga was that the writer, Marco Buscaglia, appeared to have wholly cut and pasted ChatGPT’s opus and passed it off as his own. (Since this embarrassing episode was exposed, his website has gone blank and private). The overload of woke-themed nonsense generated by ChatGPT should have raised red flags in the mind of Buscaglia but I am guessing that he might be prone to peddling this stuff himself.
Read more
AI offers ‘colossal’ military advantage – Putin
However all the opprobrium currently directed at Buscaglia should also be applied to the editors of King Features Syndicate and various news outlets who didn’t fact-check the content even as they posed as the bastions of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Various levels of gatekeepers simply failed to do their jobs. This is a collective dereliction of duty from the media which casually pimps its services to the high and mighty while it pontificates ethics, integrity and values to lesser mortals.
I guess we are used to such double-standards by now. But here is the terrifying part: I am certain that faulty data and flawed inputs are already flowing from AI systems into trading and financial platforms, aviation controls, nuclear reactors, biowarfare labs, and sensitive chemical plants – even as I write this. The gatekeepers just aren’t qualified for such complex tasks, except on paper, that is. These are the consequences of a world “designed by clowns and supervised by monkeys.”
I will end on a note highlighting the irony of ironies: All the affected editors in this saga could have used ChatGPT to subject Buscaglia’s article to a factual content check. It would have only taken 30 seconds!
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Site: Catholic ConclaveWomen's Federation Removes "Catholic" from NameThe delegates of the Swiss Catholic Women's Federation voted by a clear majority to remove the term "Catholic" from their name. The national umbrella organization is now called "Frauenbund Schweiz."Katherina Jost Graf one of the co-presidentsThe Swiss Catholic Women's Federation is now called "Frauenbund Schweiz." The name includes the slogan "Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Zero HedgeMemorial Day Chill Hits D.C. - Too Cold For Pools, What Happened To Climate CrisisTyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 14:35
Climate alarmists might be scratching their heads as unseasonably cool air pours over the Mid-Atlantic area this Memorial Day weekend. In Washington, D.C., pools are beginning to open up—but it's far too chilly for a swim.
"Memorial Day weekend is supposed to mark the unofficial start of summer, but this morning's low temperatures did not play the part. Most spots dipped into the 40s west of Interstate 95 and reached 50 to 55 to the east. Winchester even dipped to 39 degrees," stated Capital Weather Gang's chief meteorologist Jason Samenow.
Climate realist Steve Milloy said, "Global warming brought temps 10°F below average to the WashDC area this morning. It's going to get even more embarrassing for climate hoaxers tomorrow."
Global warming brought temps 10°F below average to the WashDC area this morning. It's going to get even more embarrassing for climate hoaxers tomorrow.https://t.co/VhkK5ENQ8x pic.twitter.com/Swz5HnQlbZ
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) May 24, 2025According to Bloomberg data, the Baltimore-Washington metro area's average temperatures will be below the 5-, 10-, and 30-year norms this weekend and next week.
We're nearing the point when the climate doom gang - that being leftist corporate media outlets, radical green non-profits (partially funded by taxpayers and rogue leftist billionaires), unhinged Democratic lawmakers, and 'trust the science' compromised researchers - fire up a propaganda war against the American people.
What's the climate grifter's go-to solution for saving the planet from supposed imminent doom? More taxes, de-growth climate policies, crushing small farms out of existence, banning gas-powered vehicles, and, weirdly, buying Chinese solar panels and other clean tech from the Communists.
It's time to bring common sense back into the climate debate, which President Trump has done:
Maybe the Trump administration — or perhaps EPA DOGE — can finally get to the bottom of the federal temperature sensor data controversy.
About 50% of US temperature data is just made-up.https://t.co/LXus676UYS pic.twitter.com/l3p00B4Mbu
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) April 11, 2024. . .
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Site: Zero HedgeEducation Department Launches Investigation Into UPenn Over Foreign DonationsTyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 14:00
By Patrick McDonald of CampusReform
The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) has come under federal investigation for “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” of foreign funding.
The probe was launched by the U.S. Department of Education on May 8 after concerns that the school may be unduly influenced by foreign actors and follows a review of the school’s foreign reports, the department explained in a press release.
According to Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, universities that receive federal funding are required to disclose foreign donations valuing more than $250,000.
Acting General Counsel Tom Wheeler described UPenn’s compliance history with federal law as “troubling,” saying it had, in February 2019, failed to disclose any foreign funding whatsoever.
Wheeler also noted that the Biden administration did not enforce the law requiring disclosure.
“Although the previous Administration degraded the Department’s enforcement of universities’ legal obligations to disclose foreign gifts and contracts, the Trump Administration will vigorously uphold the law and ensure universities are transparent with their foreign gifts and investments,” Wheeler said in a statement.
Wheeler asserted that the Education Department’s Office of the General Counsel (OGC) will “thoroughly” investigate the school, requiring the administration to disclose all foreign funding dating back to Jan. 1, 2017, with the central aim of verifying the school’s disclosures.
“The American people and Congress have a right to know the impact of foreign funding on our universities, including some of our critically important research universities,” Wheeler said. “We hope the University of Pennsylvania will be cooperative and forthcoming in response to this investigation.”
The investigation into UPenn follows growing concerns that American universities have been influenced by the Chinese government.
A nonprofit organization called Open The Books published a report in January which found that public universities in the U.S. have received “tens of millions of dollars in contracts to China” that were not reported to the federal government.
“Over the past decade, American institutions began pouring money into counterproductive, divisive DEI infrastructure,” the report reads. “Meanwhile, China was spending to gain influence in American academia, accessing research and technology to advance their national interests.”
Harvard University alone received more than $1.4 billion in foreign funding over the past decade—including $150 million from China.
Additionally, an individual found to be affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempted to gain access earlier this month to research at Stanford University by posing as a student.
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Site: Ron Paul Institute - Featured Articles
We recently learned that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared details of impending drone strikes on Yemen in a group chat with his wife, brother and personal attorney. If this story sounds familiar, it’s because it comes just weeks after national security leaders—including Hegseth—accidentally added Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal chat.
The outrage is understandable. Why were military plans shared on an unsecured channel? Were U.S. personnel put at risk? Why did the president not respond strongly to this apparent breach? And of course, the attempted cover-up is making headlines, too.
Something else strikes me. Few seem angry that the government conducts offensive military operations in a country with which we are not formally at war. Headline after headline emphasizes the leaking of war plans—not the “war” itself.
I’ve studied conflict for over a decade. From terrorism and counterterrorism to the development of drone technology and how foreign intervention alters domestic institutions, I know what war does. It kills. It destroys property and devastates economies. It enables people to do the unthinkable—to rape, torture, maim children, and use them as soldiers. War destroys.
Yet, our secretary of defense tells his brother about coming strikes with the same gravity as he’d relay his grocery list.
What’s equally jarring is the public reaction. People aren’t aghast that U.S. drones are killing people in Yemen. People aren’t batting an eye over officials bypassing Congress’s war powers.
We are more concerned about the data leak than about what the data contains.
This indifference isn’t new. In my research, I’ve documented how Americans have become desensitized to war. We’ve been in some state of conflict for more than 93 percent of the calendar years between 1775 and 2018.
I’ve studied how the typical American is constantly exposed to pro-military, pro-U.S. foreign policy messaging. For example, television shows and movies are often subject to editorial review by the Department of Defense in exchange for using military hardware and personnel. We see that messaging in sports, too. In football, we have “bombs,” “blitzes” and “trenches” around the line of scrimmage. We “blow away” the opposing team. We have military homecomings on the pitcher’s mound or centerfield and celebrate without ever asking why our military personnel are deployed in the first place.
Meanwhile, modern technology allows us to easily wash our hands of misgivings.
Drone technology lets officials sell us on the supposed—and false—“surgical precision” of drone strikes, effectively sanitizing the violence. We “eliminate” or “neutralize” “high-value targets” and “combatants.” Never mind that intelligence failures are common and that many of those “combatants” were labeled as such because they happened to be “military-aged males,” or MAM. In other words, they were males aged 14-65 in a strike zone. And what of the civilians, the women and the children? Unfortunate “collateral damage.”
As a result, most of us don’t recognize America’s massive military boot print. How many Americans know the United States operates 750 military bases in more than 70 countries? How many know about the U.S. drone strikes conducted in the last five years in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and across Africa? Hundreds of civilians were killed.
For too long, we’ve failed to ask policymakers and ourselves the hard questions. We don’t need to ask about the leaks; we need to ask about the normalization of perpetual war. We need to ask about the moral costs of our government’s actions and about whether our proactive, military-forward policy is truly in our best interests.
Reprinted with permission from Independent Institute.
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Site: The Orthosphere
Back in 2016, I wrote
“[Hillary Clinton] is being chosen to preside over a system whose character is already fixed, one that can operate without her input under the impetus of a thousand zealots and career civil servants, that will giver her orders rather than vice versa. If Mrs. Clinton were to die tomorrow and continue to be carried around by her handlers, “Weekend at Bernie’s” style, she would be the perfect liberal president. The nationalists, on the other hand, have put their hopes on Trump actually ruling and not only presiding, ruling against the wishes of the state’s current agents, as if such a thing were done any more, as if any mortal could possibly be up to such a task.”
I’m irritated by all this performative hand-wringing by men of the Right concerning how the Democrats conspired to have a senile old man serve as figurehead president, about how frightful it supposedly is that a world crisis might have emerged with the USA led by a mental incompetent. We all know that most of the time people vote for a party, not for an individual. We all know that the Democratic candidate is a figurehead of the professional/managarial class. Democrats who voted for Joe Biden got the sort of policies they voted for. They have no reason to feel ill-used by how they were governed, and they don’t feel ill-used about it. Had there been a world crisis (one more acute than the ones that actually occurred), whoever was making decision for Biden would have made the sort of decisions Democratic voters and the professional class would have approved. What people care about is being ruled by their side, and an incompetent ally is always preferable to a competent enemy. If Republicans were in an analogous situation, it would be sensible for them to behave in an analogous way. In fact, if Donald Trump were a dementia patient being secretly controlled by a cabal of intelligent conservatives, that might be a preferable situation to what we have.
I have no objection to criticizing Democrats, but let’s not invent fake concerns and pretend we don’t know how government works.
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Site: Ron Paul Institute - Featured Articles
It has been another exciting week in a world at war where the word “diplomacy” has no meaning and would probably be defined by America’s head of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as a doctrine in which you shoot someone first before he or she can shoot you. In my article last week I discussed the reports that there has been a serious rift between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, exemplified by Trump’s unwillingness to talk to the Israeli leader followed by his failure to visit Israel on his recent Middle East trip. Sources attributed the break to Trump’s perception that he was being “manipulated” by the Israeli, which was completely plausible though something that should have been recognized and warned against by Trump’s foreign policy advisers when he first ascended to the presidency in 2017. Israel always manipulates opinion on the United States through its lobby’s control of the media and corruption of the politicians.
I opined that the reports of the disenchantment with “America’s best friend” were credible possibly linked to spying involving National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, though I also observed that many of my contacts were skeptical, warning that the whole thing might be a set-up possibly engineered by Trump’s Zionist roving negotiator Steve Witkoff and specifically designed to benefit Israel. That means that the US was feigning a “breakup” with Netanyahu to enable it to reach an agreement with all the leading Arab countries of the Middle East in order to confirm Israel’s security while Netanyahu is completely wiping the Palestinians off the face of the earth. Trump has in fact said that his policies and the Mideast trip were “very good for Israel.”
In a follow up to my article I advised during an interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano that it pays to be skeptical as Trump has done absolutely nothing to change Israel’s behavior, quite the contrary, even though he had an opportunity to support Palestinian statehood in the context of UN membership and also to demand an end to the genocide taking place in Gaza. The truth behind whether there was in fact a serious rupture in the personal relationship of the two leaders should be measured in light of the presence or absence of consequences when Israel pursues policies damaging to US interests.
Indeed, Netanyahu has personally confirmed that all is well with the United States. He said at a press conference last Wednesday that President Trump had assured him that the US and his administration were completely committed to Israel despite the series of media reports that have said there’s a problem between the two leaders. “Let me give you some details that perhaps haven’t been made public. A few days ago — I think around 10 days ago, maybe a little more — I spoke on the phone with President Trump. And he said to me, literally: ‘Bibi, I want you to know — I have absolute commitment to you. I have absolute commitment to the State of Israel.’”
Netanyahu also spoke with Vice President JD Vance, who, along with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, had also avoided a visit to Israel. “[Vance] said to me… ‘Listen, don’t pay attention to all these fake news spins about this rupture between us… He said: It’s all spin. This isn’t the truth, you know it’s not true, and I’m telling you, from our side, it’s not true.” Netanyahu also said that Israel wants to carry out “Trump’s plan” for Gaza to include the permanent removal of the Palestinian population to create a US managed seafront resort over the ruins of the strip. Per Netanyahu, the Israelis have now included the creation of “Trump Gaza” as one of the redline conditions to permit an end of the war against Hamas.
The Israeli and Middle Eastern media have been reporting extensively and critically on the genocide and the various players involved in dealing with the Netanyahu agenda. A recent piece discussed the 29 mostly European Union (EU) countries led by the UK, France and Canada that have now called on Israel to moderate its behavior or face both sanctions and a suspension of the EU Israel trade arrangements, which greatly benefit the Jewish state. The EU declared that Israel’s announcement of letting some aid in was “wholly inadequate. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response” the leaders’ statement said. Netanyahu responded to the threat by declaring absurdly that “You’re on the wrong side of humanity and you’re on the wrong side of history.” But as the saying goes, unfortunately, talk is cheap, either from Netanyahu or from Israel’s newly minted critics. Diplomatic announcements and threatened sanctions mean always dancing around the awful truth. Israel is committing some of the worst war crimes humanity has ever witnessed and the Europeans and the Americans give every impression that they will certainly back off, deferring to Israel and persisting in doing absolutely nothing that will bring the suffering to an end.
The European gesture in particular is an attempt to make up somewhat for its support for 19 months of genocide. The completely contemptible Prime Minister of the UK Keir Starmer, confronted by a British public that has swung strongly anti-Israeli, has made a big show about taking action against Israel and the Israelis cooperated with him by playing their part, expressing outrage over the temerity of anyone telling them how to deal with their neighbors. Indeed, there was some corroboration from informed Israeli sources that the threats and responses from the two sides were little more than a bit of Kabuki. A senior Israeli official even explained to the media why European leaders have bothered to shift positions after 19 months of silence about the murderous Gaza genocide, to instead feign instant outrage. It was all coordinated with Israel in advance. He said that “The past 24 hours were all part of a planned ambush we knew about. This was a coordinated sequence of moves ahead of the EU meeting in Brussels – and thanks to joint efforts by our ambassadors and the foreign minister, we managed to moderate the outcome.”
The current outrage is as orchestrated as was the earlier silence. Israel’s extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich explained why Israel would be maintaining a balancing act between outright killing all the Palestinian and keeping western support by allowing absolutely minimum food to enter Gaza: “We need our friends in the world to continue to provide us with an international umbrella of protection against the Security Council and the Hague Tribunal, and for us to continue to fight, God willing, until victory.” He also has said that his plan for the West Bank and Gaza includes giving the Palestinians the choice between subjugation, emigration, and death. Smotrich has repeatedly advocated for lethal force to be used against Palestinian children lest they grow up to be terrorists. On Wednesday the Israeli army doubled down on that message and to show how little it cares to coddle meddling foreigners when it fired on 31 European diplomats representing 29 countries who were visiting the Palestinian settlement Jenin on the West Bank in what was presumed to be in 100% Palestinian administered territory.
The fact is that no one in the European and American governments really cares about the Palestinians or their extermination. The only concern by the rulers is how their posturing looks to the rest of the world and to the voters in their own countries. Israel lies so enthusiastically in making its case and providing false evidence to back up its behavior that there is a tendency to be suspicious of anything it does. Last week’s assassination of two Israeli embassy staff members in Washington DC by a man who just happened to yell “Free Palestine!” was good news for the Jewish state in that it creates sympathy for a country that has featured as bad news for well over a year. It is already being whispered in intelligence circles that it was a “false flag” attack contrived by Mossad to create a favorable news cycle as Israel secretly cranks up for an imminent attack on Iran. Iran phobia features regularly in the Israeli media to include a recent Israeli claim that Iran is hiding its nuclear enrichment facilities, which is true but designed the keep the Israelis from blowing them up. The “favorable news cycle” has included Jewish Congressman Randy Fine of Florida calling for the use of nuclear weapons to destroy Gaza and kill its remaining inhabitants just like “Japan at the end of World War 2.”
And to make sure Iran gets to feel the sharp point of the sword, presidential emissary Witkoff has now declared that the nuclear monitoring arrangement being negotiated with Iran must include zero enrichment of uranium, something that was not on the table when the talks started, so they will go nowhere guaranteed. Per Witkoff “We cannot allow even one percent of an enrichment capability. Enrichment enables weaponization.” Where did that demand come from? From a secretly nuclear armed Israel by way of treasonous Israel Firster Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, no doubt. And if one follows that line of thinking, one can assume that Donald Trump is also on board, standing in line to pull out Netanyahu’s chair and bowing to him and then raising his mighty clenched fist before sending in the Yanks to finish the destruction of Persia. And if Iran responds effectively with force, Israel also has around 200 nukes that it will no doubt not hesitate to use as part of its “Samson Option” war plan. And Trump will undoubtedly say something like “Hey, what a big beautiful explosion! Nothing wrong with that! We used similar weapons to end the First World War!”
Reprinted with permission from Unz Review.
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Site: Zero HedgeKremlin Says Vatican Is Not A 'Neutral' Place For Peace TalksTyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 13:25
After last week's Istanbul talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, which was a first since early 2022, Western leaders have been floating the Vatican as a likely venue for future rounds of peace talks.
This is after Pope Leo, the first American-born pontiff, offered for talks to be hosted at the Vatican, which could act as a mediator. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said days ago that Pope Leo XIV expressed his willingness to host the next round of talks.
The Vatican is being presented as a neutral place, after as we've highlighted before the new Pontiff is attempting to initiate a peace blitz regarding global hotspots, from Gaza to Ukraine.
"Finding in the Holy Father confirmation of the readiness to host the next talks between the parties in the Vatican, the prime minister expressed deep gratitude to Pope Leo XIV for his unceasing commitment to peace," an Italian government's statement reads.
But the Kremlin objects to the assumption that the Vatican is some kind of purely neutral place, ready to respect both warring sides' interests.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking at the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow on Friday, poured cold water on hopes of Vatican-hosted talks.
"Many people are fantasizing about when and where [the meeting] will take place. We don't have any ideas right now," the foreign minister said. "But imagine the Vatican as a venue for negotiations. It would be a bit inelegant for Orthodox countries to use a Catholic platform to discuss issues on how to remove the root causes [of the war in Ukraine]," Lavrov added.
"I do not think it would suit the Vatican itself to host delegations from two Orthodox countries in these circumstances," he said.
It could be that Moscow has carefully looked at what Leo said while he was still a Cardinal:
After being elected, Pope Leo XIV, the first American to lead the Catholic Church, has pledged to personally "make every effort so that this peace may prevail."
In his first Sunday address on May 11, the pope called for an "authentic and lasting peace" in Ukraine, adding that he carries in his heart the "suffering of the beloved people of Ukraine."
Previously, while serving as the bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, Leo XIV spoke out against Russia's continued war against Ukraine.
While politics including the historic trend of NATO expansion are driving the war, it has bled over into church affairs. Russia is outraged over the Zelensky government persecuting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for maintaining spiritual communion with the Russian Orthodox Church.
There have been repeat instances of government authorities seizing Ukrainian Orthodox churches and monasteries, and local Catholic clergy have not objected to this alarming trend.
The Vatican also has an interest in protecting its minority Ukrainian 'Greek-Catholic' Church, which is concentrated in Western Ukraine, especially in and near Lviv.
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Site: Mises InstituteWhy do cultures degenerate? Robin Hanson cites biological factors, but Mises and the Austrians point directly to purposeful choices.
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Site: Mises InstituteFrance is facing critical shortages of a number of drugs, and one need look no further for a cause than a price control regime.
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Site: Mises InstituteWhy do cultures degenerate? At the recent Natal Conference, Robin Hanson cites biological and evolutionary factors. However, if one looks to Mises and the Austrians, we look squarely at human action that begins with the human mind and purposeful action.
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Site: Mises InstituteFrance is facing critical shortages of a number of drugs, and one need look no further for a cause than a price control regime. Naturally, the French media and government blame capitalism and look to double down on the intervention that has causes this crisis.
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Site: Novus Motus LiturgicusThis is the fourth installment of a series on the thirteen papal namesakes of our new Holy Father Leo XIV; click these links to read part 1, part 2 and part 3. The church of Rome and the papacy have usually been late-comers to the great movements of reform and renewal in the Church, and have just as often been themselves in dire need of reform and renewal. But eventually Our Lord’s prayer that Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Henrymakow.com
"The traumatic nature of sexual abuse imposed, as my Masonic pedophile grandfather said, when the child is "the younger the better, because then they won't talk" is THE core element of Satanic Ritual Abuse and mind control. Intimate sexual violation of the body is SO Fundamentally Wrong that as an innate survival defense against such violation, the mind "splits", a "trauma wall" is created behind which the horrible experience becomes compartmentalized, and effectively hidden to the "normal", socially presentable persona."by Anonymous(henrymakow.com)The hideous sexual abuse of young boys in a sadistic, mind control medical procedure at the age of 8 days, known as "circumcision" has pervaded the satanic Jewish culture for thousands of years. This profoundly damaging violation and abuse is also imposed upon infant gentile boys to signify their subservient position as "shabez goy", animal slave to the Jewish race.It is less understood that this ancient satanic ritual is similarly hidden, deeply embedded in black African culture and is intended to destroy the essential, fundamental sacred nature of African black women, cause extreme pain, suffering, guilt and confusion, and similarly declare those so damaged to be "chattel", "slaves", "subservient animals".The following testimony of this Somali Miss Universe contestant exposes this buried reality. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1MXziyRjLJ/
(Epstein abuse center matches prayer shawl above)This insanity is not intended to exist on what was created to be a sacred planet. All such profoundly sadistic insanity has emerged through the past 20,000 years of "Fallen" dysfunction, during which those who historically and currently lead this rebellion against Life Itself discovered, and descended into ever more perverse methods of trying to exercise control over any other than themselves.This is also where anal rape came from, "buggery". The following video explains in some detail how rape, violation of the anus and anal sphincter causes homosexuality and lesbianism. Abuse Turns Kids Queer | Maxime BariteauThe traumatic nature of sexual abuse imposed, as my Masonic pedophile grandfather said, when the child is "the younger the better, because then they won't talk" is THE core element of Satanic Ritual Abuse and mind control. Intimate sexual violation of the body is SO Fundamentally Wrong that as an innate survival defense against such violation, the mind "splits", a "trauma wall" is created behind which the horrible experience becomes compartmentalized, and effectively hidden to the "normal", socially presentable persona.
Eustace Mullins adds valuable insight to this consideration in his book The Curse of Canaan, beginning pg. 14:"The book of Zohar (Cabala) stresses the talmudic legend that demons originated in sexual congress between humans and demonic powers. .... While they were wandering in the desert, the Jewish tribes worshipped demons and monsters. Satan ruled over all demons on earth. He was also known as the Prince of Evil, Belial. ...The Canaanites themselves ... became the greatest curse upon humanity, and so they remain today. Not only did they originate the practices of demon-worship, occult rites, child sacrifice, and cannibalism, but as they went abroad they brought these obscene practices into every land which they entered. Not only did they bring their demonic cult to Egypt, but, known by their later name, the Phoenicians, as they were called after 1200 B.C., they became the demonizers of civilization through successive 89 epochs, being known in medieval history as the Venetians, who destroyed the great Byzantine Christian civilization, and later as 'the black nobility' which infiltrated the nations of Europe and gradually assumed power through trickery, revolution and financial legerdemain...In the history of mankind, Nimrod stands unequalled for his symbolism of evil and Satanic practices. He is credited for having founded Freemasonry and for building the legendary Tower of Babel, in defiance of God's will. [Nimrod figures in some very early versions of the history of Freemasonry, where he was said to have been one of the fraternity's founders.According to the Encyclopedia of Freemasonry: The legend of the Craft in the Old Constitutions refers to Nimrod as one of the founders of Masonry. Thus in the York MS., No. 1, we read: "At ye making of ye toure of Babell there was a Masonrie first much esteemed of, and the King of Babilon yt called Nimrod was a Mason himself and loved well Masons." However, he does not figure in the current rituals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod]The legendary symbol for Nimrod is 'X', a symbol always denoting witchcraft.
When 'X' is used as a shortened form meaning Christmas, it actually means to celebrate the feast of Nimrod. A double X, which has always meant to double-cross or betray, in its fundamental meaning indicates one's betrayal into the hands of Satan. Nimrod became the first man to rule the whole world. He indulged that power by launching excesses and horrors which have never been equalled. Nimrod also introduced the practice of genocide to the world.Ham, having consorted with other races and brought children of mixed race into the world was persuaded by his consort, the evil Naamah, to practice ritual murder and cannibalism. She informed Ham that by killing and eating fair-skinned people, his descendants could regain their superior qualities. Throughout the ensuing centuries, the fair-skinned descendants of Shem, Noah's oldest son, have ritually been slaughtered by the darker descendants of Ham and Nimrod, in the world's most persistent campaign of racial and religious persecution.Not only did Nimrod kill and eat the fair-skinned descendants of Shem, he often burned them alive. The type of human sacrifice involving the eating of the slaughtered human victims derived its name from the combined names of his uncle, Canaan, and the demon god Baal, the two names being combined to form the word 'cannibal'.The records of the genocide against the people of Shem [Shemite, Semite] are apparent throughout the archives of history, but there is not a school or university whose faculty will apprise its students of this simple fact. The reason for this odd development is that the descendants of Ham traditionally have usurped the educational process ... of even greater interest is that not a single school of theology anywhere in the world takes note of this central fact of history, a red (blood stained) thread which runs continuously through the record of events.- excerpted from The Real History of the Earth. Why in Hell All This is Happening Again! : Anonymous : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive pg. 88-90. (More extensive overview continues to pg. 95) -
Site: Mises InstituteThis week, interest rates spiked as Trump's spending problem convinced investors they want higher yields for trillions of new federal debt.
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Site: 4Christum
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Site: 4ChristumTraditional Catholics Continue to be Persecuted Under Pope Leo – Charlotte Bishop Cancels TLMTraditional Mass is persecuted under the Bergoglian regime of Francis II.
Michael Thomas Martin Episcopal apostate Lineage / Apostate Succession:
Apostate Wilton Daniel Gregory (1983)
Atlanta, Georgia
Apostate Joseph Louis Bernardin † (1966)
Chicago, IllinoisU.S. Bishop Shuts Down Thriving Latin Masses – One Allowed in Former Protestant Temple – Gloria.tv
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Site: AsiaNews.itThe Madras High Court issues a controversial ruling that strips a woman of her rights as a member of a historically marginalised group because she married a Christian man while remaining Hindu. For Fr Santhanam, a Jesuit and a lawyer, this is a serious violation of the rights enshrined in the Indian Constitution. It is paradoxical that a principle recognised in Canon Law for mixed couples is disregarded by a court in the 21st century.
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Site: non veni pacemArcivescovo Carlo Maria Viganò @CarloMViganoIt is normal and humanly understandable that more than a decade of open persecution of Catholics by the one who presented himself as their Pope would lead many of us to desire a truce, hoping that Our Lord would give His Church – if not a new Pius X – at least another Benedict XVI.But this legitimate desire – certainly animated by good feelings and love for the Church – cannot transform itself into a virtual reality in which, even against all evidence, everything must necessarily be read as a confirmation of what we would like, and not of what is really happening. We cannot build for ourselves a “virtual church” with a “virtual papacy” that we love and serve in a consoling but unreal fiction.The confirmation of a notorious heretic to the Cathedra of Saint Gallen in Switzerland; the appointment of a nun as Secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, in line with the appointment of a Prefectess by Bergoglio; the repeated references to the heretical documents of his predecessor and to Vatican II; the declarations on ecumenism and synodality, and finally the acceptance of climate fraud; all place Robert Francis Prevost in evident and disturbing continuity with his predecessor, and it will certainly not be the stole and mozzetta that will change reality.May looking at reality with supernatural eyes help us to recognize the deceptions of the Evil One and push us, today more than ever, to place all our hope in Christ the King and Pontiff, so that He may help and protect His Church. May He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life be our guide in a rebellious world doomed to perdition, lies, and death.11.7K
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Site: Zero HedgeMore POWs Swapped Amid Russian Missiles On Kiev OvernightTyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 11:05
Early Saturday Russia and Ukraine completed their second round of a large-scale prisoner swap that was agreed to in Istanbul talks last week.
The deal will see 1,000 POWs exchanged for 1,000 POWs but has to be completed in phases given the logistics and sheer size of the swap, with the first round of hundreds freed having taken place Friday along the Belarus-Ukraine border. The Saturday exchange involved each side bringing home 307 soldiers.
Scenes of a prior prisoner swap, illustrative file image.
But despite this 'good faith' gesture of a successful ongoing prisoner exchange, the war is still raging, with an aerial war ramping up, given the hundreds of drones sent across both borders over the last week.
This continued overnight, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky early Saturday condemning Russian strikes on several oblasts, including in the capital Kyiv.
Zelensky identified in a social media statement that the fresh aerial assault targeted the Odesa, Vinnytsia, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kyiv and Dnipro regions. He alleged that Russian drones and missiles "targeted" civilians. At least 15 were wounded in these attacks.
"There are fatalities. My condolences to the families and loved ones," he wrote on X. "With each such attack, the world becomes more certain that the cause of prolonging the war lies in Moscow."
"Ukraine has proposed a ceasefire many times — both a full one and one in the skies. It all has been ignored," the Ukrainian leader added in reference to the 30-day unconditional ceasefire that Kiev has recently been pushing.
Moscow has rejected it on the basis that Ukraine's military would simply use the pause to rearm and reenforce its frontlines, at a moment Western arms have continued flowing in.
As for the Saturday morning prisoner exchange, Zelensky detailed that "Among those who returned today are warriors from our Armed Forces, the State Border Guard Service, the National Guard of Ukraine" and he thanked all those officials engaged in the process to make it happen.
The Kremlin has acknowledged the fresh attacks on the Ukrainian capital, and has rejected the notion that it is using disproportionate force.
"After massive UAV raids on our country and its capital on the eve of the Victory Day to intimidate foreign guests, there was a grave silence in the European centers. After 500 drones that were launched at civilian targets in Russia in recent days to intimidate our people, there is silence again," Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has stated.
Now, he continued, Western officials "in Paris, Berlin and London will raise a wild squeal about the disproportionate use of force, the urgent need for a 30-day truce and new sanctions against Russia."
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Site: Zero HedgeNew Nuclear Power Could Meet 10% Of Projected Data Center Demand Increase By 2035Tyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 10:30
By Brian Martucci of UtilityDive
Summary:
- New nuclear power capacity could meet about 10% of the projected increase in data center electricity demand by 2035, Deloitte said in an April 9 report.
- Deloitte expects data centers to consume about 30%, or 11 GW to 19 GW, of the estimated 35 GW to 65 GW of new nuclear capacity added over the next decade through a combination of power uprates at operational plants, restarts of recently-retired reactors, and new reactor deployments at greenfield and existing power plant sites.
- Existing nuclear power plants and retired or retiring coal power plant sites will support the vast majority of new nuclear capacity interconnection, with respective contributions ranging from 10 GW to 20 GW and 20 GW to 30 GW, Deloitte said.
Deloitte expects total U.S. data center electricity demand to increase five-fold from 33 GW in 2024 to as much as 176 GW in 2035, based on its analysis of recent projections from DC Byte, Wells Fargo and others, it said in the report.
Along with transportation electrification, data center growth will drive an expected 50% increase in U.S. electricity demand through 2050, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association said earlier this month in a separate report.
Deloitte’s forecast is sensitive to changes in the rate and scale of data center deployment, but nuclear has inherent advantages — reliability, high capacity factor, low emissions, compact physical footprint and competitive energy costs over assets’ multi-decade operational lives — that make it attractive across a range of scenarios, the consultancy said.
“We think you’re going to see people looking at existing nuclear infrastructure and adding capacity through those assets, then placing bets on technology development,” said Martin Stansbury, report co-author and principal in Deloitte’s Energy, Resources & Industrials practice.
The tech-giant “hyperscalers” driving the data center boom have already done both. In September, Microsoft and Constellation Energy announced a 20-year power purchase agreement that would enable the undamaged, 835-MW reactor at Constellation’s Three Mile Island plant to resume operations by 2028. The reopening of the Pennsylvania plant, since renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center, is ahead of schedule, Constellation said earlier this year.
Also last fall, Amazon, Google and Meta each announced significant efforts to meet future energy demand with new nuclear capacity. Amazon could deploy more than 5 GW of new capacity by 2039 using X-energy’s small modular reactor technology, Google tapped Kairos Power to provide 500 MW of SMR capacity by 2035, and Meta issued a request for proposals for up to 4 GW of new nuclear deployments beginning in the early 2030s.
Despite those long lead times and recent Trump administration efforts to prop up the U.S. coal industry, new nuclear is likely to find a niche as a reliable source of increasingly cost-competitive baseload power, Stansbury said.
“SMRs have a major role to play in future grid reliability,” he said.
SMRs have additional benefits for data centers in particular, including more secure fuel forms, self-starting and grid “islanding” capabilities, and the ability to operate continuously for long periods of time, Deloitte said.
Existing nuclear and coal-fired power plants could support much of the new generation capacity the U.S. data center industry needs in the coming decade. The U.S. Department of Energy projected last year that U.S. nuclear and coal power sites could host up to 269 GWe of new nuclear, and at least 11 states have expressed interest in supporting coal-to-nuclear conversions, Deloitte said.
But with 2024 construction costs ranging from $6,417/kW to $12,681/kW, compared with $1,290/kW for new gas-fired power plants, nuclear developers have a lot of work to do to bring down costs in the coming years, Deloitte said. To scale, the industry needs to invest in advanced project management processes, design innovations like digital twinning, and further improvements in modular construction, it said.
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Site: AsiaNews.itThe main opposition party – but also the military and the international community – are urging the interim head of government to set a clear 'roadmap' for elections in December. After threatening to resign, in a country in a deep crisis, Yunus will meet all political groups in what promises to be a crucial step in the post-Hasina period.
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Site: Zero HedgeX Is Back After Morning OutageTyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 10:14
Update (1014ET):
X is back online after an hour of outages across parts of the U.S.
The big question: Was this early Saturday morning outage just another glitch—or a sign of a broader system overhaul? Time will tell, but it’s clear the platform has been unusually glitchy this past week.
* * *
For all the early risers rolling over in bed on Saturday morning, reaching for their smartphones on the nightstand to fire up the X app and check if anything insane happened overnight — bad news: outage tracker Downdetector is reporting a surge in X outages across the U.S.
Downdetector reports a massive spike in X outages occurred around 0830 ET and persisted at 0930 ET.
The majority of the outages are being reported in the eastern half of the U.S., maybe because it's still super early on the West Coast.
Most outages have been reported on X's app (69%).
On the desktop version, we have received multiple errors, including this:
"We are having trouble connecting right now. Changes you make may not be saved."
The X app has had similar issues for the last several days, but the X team resolved everything very quickly. If anyone else has noticed, X embeds have been challenging to extract HTML code over the last month. Perhaps this is something for the X team to read.
*Developing...
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Site: Steyn OnlineHollywood was never a Bohemia, but movie people consider themselves artists and love to tell stories set in some Bohemia in the near or distant past...
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Site: Zero HedgeGovernment-Assisted Suicide Is Spreading Across The Western WorldTyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 09:55
Is it humanitarian empathy, or a nihilistic death cult that desires a legal rationale for population control? The legislative push for government assisted euthanasia in the western world is one of the most guarded topics in establishment media. Nothing negative or critical can be said and all concerns are dismissed as "conspiracy theory". The government run suicide apparatus is a pure and loving function of progressive society...and how dare you suggest otherwise.
This month officials in England, Wales and Scotland will be considering legislation to legalize government assisted euthanasia (End Of Life bills), with laws similar to those passed in Canada in 2016.
The legislation proposes letting terminally ill people end their life if they:
- Are over 18, live in England or Wales, and have been registered with a GP for at least 12 months.
- Have the mental capacity to make the choice and be deemed to have expressed a clear, settled and informed wish, free from coercion or pressure.
- Be expected to die within six months.
- Make two separate declarations, witnessed and signed, about their wish to die.
- Satisfy two independent doctors that they are eligible with at least seven days between each assessment.
This type of legalized suicide should be treated as distinct from the "physician assisted suicide" made available in the US in ten different states. There is a stark difference between an individual going out on their own to seek a doctor to help them commit suicide while suffering a terminal condition, versus the government actively encouraging the public to commit suicide and helping them do it using your tax dollars.
There is plenty of room for debate in both cases, but without a doubt no government should be in the business of mass euthanizing the population. There is far too much temptation for the practice to be expanded beyond people who are already dying.
Case in point: Canada's euthanasia system has been in place for less than a decade and already the government is expanding suicide guidelines for people simply in need of treatment as well as people with mental health issues. This is well beyond the scope of terminal illness.
Keep in mind that the original argument for government euthanasia in 2016 was that it would only happen in very rare cases and only for people with severe illness and suffering great pain. By 2017 after the first government suicide programs were put in place, officials were already arguing for wider application of the program, asserting that euthanasia could save their socialist medical system over $130 million per year in costs (this is one reason why socialist medicine is a bad idea). In other words, killing people is much cheaper than trying to save them.
By extension, it's also expensive to treat people for mental illness and mental illness could, technically, qualify as terminal suffering. So why not offer them suicide options as well? Canada has made mental illness legal grounds for government aided suicide, but the law does not go into effect until 2027. That said, there are multiple reports of such measures being offered already, including accounts by Canadian military veterans with PTSD being told they could qualify for euthanasia.
But it doesn't stop there. Canadian lobby groups are calling for the legalization of government euthanasia for children; people they refer to as "Mature Minors". Such programs are currently in place in countries like Belgium and the Netherlands and there are efforts to do the same in Canada. In 2022, the federally funded Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada paid for a study which argued in favor of MAID (Medical Assistance In Dying) for "mature minors", or children over the age of 12 that were deemed mature enough to make personal medical decisions.
In other words, MAID programs start out as suicide for the terminally ill, then quietly tip-toe out to the mentally ill, and then children who are ill, and no doubt they will eventually apply to mentally ill children.
We've seen this kind of Orwellian tip-toe before, but this is a highly sensitive and explosive topic. For decades now, establishment elites have argued for carbon emissions controls and medical treatment controls in the name of supporting socialized medicine. Government funded euthanasia is a natural consequence of these agendas.
Of course, the carbon pollution and climate change narratives are a farce (there is zero concrete evidence of causation between carbon emissions and climate change), and if socialist medicine requires a shrinking population in order to function then socialized medicine is a failed project that needs to be abandoned.
In terms of mental illness, it seems as though governments are taking advantage of people in moments of weakness and confusion and offering them an easy way out instead of a way to get better. They don't want the public to get better, they want you dead.
It's interesting that the activism around legalizing suicide for minors coincides with the activism to give children medical independence without parental oversight. The transgender issue and the suicide issue appear to intersect when it comes to medical emancipation.
Should Britain and the rest of the UK adopt government suicide programs like Canada, expect them to also exploit healthcare costs and mental health problems as reasons for more death. As of 2024, 1 out of every 20 deaths in Canada was a government assisted suicide. If they bring children and people dealing with mental illness into the equation, that ratio will skyrocket even further. This is not a rare procedure, it's a social mainstay.
If the west continues on this path, forget about trying to reverse the decline in population growth. Get ready instead for a swift population collapse.
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Site: Zero HedgeOh Canada: Teslas Banned From International Car ShowTyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 09:20
If you go to the Vancouver International Auto Show, you can see all the new models. However, if you want to see a Tesla, you must go down the road to check out a car without a political litmus test. The organizers are just the latest group to join the mob retaliating against Elon Musk for working with the Trump Administration to remove waste and fraud in government through his DOGE program. What was most striking was the pathetic rationalization of the organization for engaging in political retaliation.
According to the Canadian Auto Dealer, the organizers claimed a common rationalization for political discrimination: security. As we have seen on college campuses for years, where conservative speakers are barred due to security concerns, the Canadians claimed that they could not protect innocent parties if a single Tesla was allowed on the floor. Furthermore, they blamed Tesla, insisting the company was given “multiple opportunities to voluntarily withdraw.”
In other words, we only cancelled Musk when he refused to cancel himself.
Tesla already had a booth set up and had to take it down.
So, the solution to extremists is to give them precisely what they demand.
After all, some on the left are committing political violence and claiming that they were triggered by the mere appearance of Teslas or other symbols. This week, another person wearing a MAGA hit was assaulted. The woman was triggered by the hat on the head of a 72-year-old man so she attacked him.
The Canadians appear willing collaborators in this retaliation. Rather than simply posting proper security, they banished the victim of the political violence. By blaming it on Tesla, they can throw up their hands and say “we tried” but Tesla was unreasonable.
It is the same rationalization heard from those arrested for political violence.
For example, Natasha Cohen, 46, is a New York therapist, was arrested for vandalizing Teslas and explained that she is “living in terror every day.” It is a familiar refrain as the rise in political violence becomes undeniable. On Friday, New York Times Chief White House Correspondent and MSNBC Political Analyst Peter Baker came under fire for admitting that leftist violence is on the rise, but noting that Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric “might excite people to take action.”
Cohen explained that it is all Elon’s fault:
“Every time I see those cars, I see Elon Musk saluting the country as a Nazi…I made a mistake because I’m basically living in terror every day that the country is turning into Nazi Germany. I’m truly terrified, because Elon was unelected and they’re deporting migrants without a trial.”
However, people like Cohen are now safe from being triggered at the Vancouver International Auto Show. The organizers are only banning those who refuse to ban themselves.
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Site: Fr. Z's BlogThis morning the sun was on time to rise at 5:40. The sun was similarly punctual in setting at 20:35. We don’t know about the Ave Maria Bell for the Curia, since they don’t ring it, but it ought to … Read More →
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Site: Catholic ConclavePope Leo XIV places Francis in HeavenThe Conciliar popes have accustomed us to "canonizing" their conciliar predecessors, as if being the Supreme Pastor of souls automatically opened the gates of Heaven. Pope Leo XIV is no exception.Extreme sentimentalityIn a message posted on X, the new pontiff elevates Francis to Heaven, which theologically means that his predecessor is a saint. Santo subito!Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: OnePeterFive
For this 5th Sunday after Easter we are still moving through John 16 and the Lord’s Last Supper Discourse as well as the Letter of James. Liturgically, we are very close now to the Ascension of the Lord, on Thursday, when the High Priest, the Risen Savior, entered the heavenly temple where He continuously renews His once for all time Sacrifice to the Father. Our Lord in the Discourse draws our…
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Site: Saint Louis Catholic
As most of you know, the cruel hireling of the Diocese of Charlotte, NC just banned the TLM from all parishes.
It looks bad because it is bad.
Traditional Catholic priests and faithful aren’t going to put up with this crap. There is a space of time, quickly passing, for the pope to reestablish the conditions for liturgical peace, one that allows the novus ordo to die an eventual and natural death, sparing the dulled liturgical and doctrinal sense of those forced to endure it.
The alternative is to try to brutally crush the ancient Mass, putting the faithful Catholic to a choice of allegiance to Christ or to men. That will end badly for the modernists, as the TLM cannot and will not be suppressed. Catholics will endure and triumph in the end. The pansified, Episcopal-lite sect that they may call the Catholic church will not last.
The hierarchy, starting at the top, has a choice: free the TLM or try to crush it. Calm the waters or poke the bear.
Either way, the novus ordo is going away.
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Site: AsiaNews.itToday we celebrate the Day of Prayer for Christians in China, instituted by Benedict XVI on the feast of Our Lady of Sheshan. This is an opportunity to celebrate communion with the Church in China but also to remember its sufferings. Speaking to AsiaNews, an underground priest explains the actual problems involved in joining the Patriotic Association that Beijing is trying to impose with increasing harshness in the wake of the 2018 Agreement with the Holy See.
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Site: Catholic ConclaveSAINT ANNE, O GOOD MOTHER,OUR SONGS RISE TO YOU,HEAR OUR PRAYER AND BLESS YOUR CHILDREN.This place, where your presence turns our hearts to God, fills us with hope by showing us the heavens.Chosen by God the Father to give us Mary, may your example enlighten the hearts that supplicate you.Faithful to his promise, your God, your creator, in all his wisdom, looked upon your heart.Your faith, O Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: RT - News
Pavel Durov has said that French intelligence tried to censor conservatives on the platform during election campaign season
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has accused French President Emmanuel Macron of detaining Telegram founder Pavel Durov for the purpose of interfering with the electoral processes in Romania.
The accusation comes shortly after Durov claimed that French authorities had enquired with him regarding the issue.
“It turns out that Macron had Durov arrested not even to address internal issues with the messenger using such barbaric methods, but to influence the elections in Romania, realizing that the candidate from the liberal dictatorship wouldn’t be able to win under any legal circumstances,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram.
On Saturday, Durov said, citing Romanian journalist Marius Tuca, that Nicolas Lerner, the head of France’s foreign intelligence agency, the DGSE, had visited the country just two days before the vote.
Earlier this month, Durov revealed that Lerner had asked him to censor conservative voices on the social media platform during the election campaign in Romania. The agency has publicly denied the allegation. Durov in turn accused French authorities of deflecting criticism by linking him to unrelated criminal investigations involving users of his platform.
Durov was arrested in France last August and charged with complicity in crimes allegedly carried out by Telegram users. The Russian-born entrepreneur, whose company is headquartered in Dubai, was ultimately released on €5 million ($5.46 million) bail and allowed to leave the country in mid-March.
Read more
Telegram founder ready to help ‘Romanian democracy’
Romania’s Constitutional Court promptly annulled the results of the first round of the presidential election carried out in November 2024, alleging that independent right-wing candidate Calin Georgescu had secured an unexpected lead with the help of Russian interference. Georgescu was disqualified from the re-run.
Last Sunday, the conservative EU critic George Simion lost a run-off vote against pro-Brussels Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan by a single-digit margin. Simion challenged the results on Tuesday, alleging “external interferences by state and non-state actors,” but the nation’s Constitutional Court unanimously rejected the petition.
Following Simion’s petition, Durov offered to testify before the Romanian authorities about the interactions with French officials, saying he would do so “if it helps Romanian democracy.”
Ahead of the second round of voting, Romania’s Foreign Ministry alleged that Moscow was attempting to influence the outcome. The Kremlin ridiculed the allegations, comparing the process with a mess and stating that it shouldn’t even count as a proper vote.
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Site: AsiaNews.itToday's headlines: Pro-Iranian Palestinian factions have left Damascus under pressure from Syria's new authorities (and the US). Leo XIV met with one of the families of the victims of the Itaewon tragedy in South Korea who are demanding justice. Vietnam will block Telegram on 2 June. China and Uzbekistan agree to allow bilateral visa-free entry for their citizens.
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Site: Zero HedgeWill Russia's Latest Buffer Zone Plan Be More Successful Than The Last?Tyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 08:10
Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,
Putin warned in March 2024 that Russia might set up a “security zone” inside Ukraine in response to cross-border strikes and raids, which it then began to do two months later that May after Russian troops made a fresh push into Kharkov Region at the time. Regrettably, the incursion didn’t penetrate too deeply, and later that summer Ukraine launched a sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region. It was only earlier this year that Russia finally expelled all Ukrainian troops from there with North Korean assistance.
Nevertheless, Putin just announced late last week that “a decision has been made to create a buffer security zone along the Russian border” with Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk Regions, thus meaning inside the corresponding Ukrainian regions of Kharkov (once again), Sumy, and Chernigov. Unlike last year’s attempt, this latest one might be more successful due to the very different context within which it’s being pursued, particularly as regards the conflict’s new diplomatic and military dynamics.
Regarding the first, “The Devil’s In The Details As Trump Announced ‘Immediate’ Russian-Ukrainian Ceasefire Talks” right after his latest call with Putin, the details of which readers can learn more about from the preceding hyperlinked analysis. Its relevance to Putin’s newly announced buffer zone plan is that his declaration might initially be intended as a form of pressure upon Zelensky to coerce him into having Ukraine finally comply with Russia’s demanded concessions for politically resolving the conflict.
As for the second, it was assessed in mid-March that “Russia Might Expand Its Ground Campaign Into Sumy, Dniepropetrovsk, And/Or Kharkov Regions”, with Dniepropetrovsk being mentioned instead of Chernigov since Russian forces are approaching its border from Donbass after going around Pokrovsk. Crossing that administrative frontier into a region that Russia doesn’t (yet?) claim as its own could circumvent Ukraine’s formidable defenses in central Zaporozhye and lead to that region’s swift capture.
In connection with these dynamics, RT chief Margarita Simonyan clarified that the Russian delegation in Istanbul didn’t threaten that their country would claim an additional Ukrainian region if Ukraine doesn’t withdraw from the four disputed ones, but four more for a total of eight regions (not counting Crimea). These could conceivably be all or part of Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov, and Dniepropetrovsk Regions given Russia’s latest buffer zone plan unless Ukraine agrees to its demanded concessions before then.
With that plan in mind and seeing as how those four regions, Kiev, Cherkassy, and Poltava are either entirely or partially east of the Dnieper, Russia might add to its list of demands by calling for the creation of a totally demilitarized “Trans-Dnieper” region controlled by non-Western peacekeepers. This could either complement its original demand for demilitarizing the entirety of Ukraine or be presented as a compromise in exchange for letting Ukraine do whatever it wants on the other side of the river.
Regardless of whether that proposal is put forth, Putin’s newly announced buffer zone plan shows that Russia is expanding its goals, which makes sense considering that it’s winning and that Ukraine still refuses to comply with its demanded concessions for politically resolving the conflict. The longer that Ukraine refuses to agree to peace on Russia’s terms, the more land that it stands to lose, which might ultimately be much more than anyone expects if the US soon abandons Ukraine in order to cut its losses.
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Site: Catholic ConclaveAlbano titular bishopric for Cardinal TagleAlso on Saturday, Pope Leo XIV assigned the Filipino Cardinal Tagle his own previous titular bishopric of Albano, south-east of Rome. Before the recent conclave, Tagle was seen as a possible candidate for a continuation of the open approach to the Catholic Church begun under Pope Francis.As a so-called suburbicarian diocese, Albano is reserved for a Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Catholic ConclaveSwitzerland: New Bishop of St. Gallen to be consecrated on July 5Beat Grögli: "I am convinced that the Christian message is good for the world"The new diocesan bishop of St. Gallen, Switzerland, Beat Grögli, will be consecrated bishop at 10:30 a.m. on July 5 in St. Gallen Cathedral. Pope Leo XIV appointed the 54-year-old former cathedral priest as bishop on Thursday, thereby confirming the Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Zero HedgeBritish Airways Extends Suspension Of Israel Flights As More Houthi Missiles Target AirportTyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 07:35
Another ballistic missile fired from Yemen has targeted Israel's Ben Gurion Airport in central Israel on Friday, in reportedly the third such attack on Israel within 24 hours.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree announced the fresh attack in a televised statement, saying "The Houthi forces targeted Ben Gurion Airport with a hypersonic ballistic missile" and that the attack "successfully achieved its goal."
Source: Anadolu Agency
While the Houthis have repeatedly claimed "hypersonic" missile attacks over several weeks, there's as yet no evidence that they possess this advanced technology. Still, it has become clear that Israel's advanced air defense systems at time have trouble intercepting the inbound projectiles, as a May 4th attack demonstrated.
The Houthis spokesman claimed of this new Friday attack that it caused "millions of Zionist settlers to flee to shelters and halted airport operations."
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged an inbound missile, which set off warning sirens in central Israel, but did not indicate any ground strikes or damage:
Early on Friday morning, sirens blared across Tel Aviv as a result of the Yemeni missile. The Israeli army said in a statement that it intercepted the missile.
A Yemeni missile was also intercepted by Israeli air defenses on Thursday afternoon, following an earlier missile attack, which Tel Aviv also said it intercepted.
The Houthis have been stepping up attacks on Israel in recent weeks, and after a few major waves of Israeli strikes on Yemen, which destroyed the international airport in Sanaa.
While such Israeli retaliation has clearly caused much damage and death inside Yemen, the constant Houthi fire is also impacting Israel - at least on an economic and logistical level.
Times of Israel reports Friday on more foreign carriers suspending operations at Israeli airports:
British Airways joins the growing list of companies extending their cancellation of flights to and from Israel following the Houthi missile strike near Ben Gurion Airport at the beginning of the month.
Hebrew media reports that British Airways has extended its suspension until the end of July.
Below is a montage of images from the May 4th ballistic missile strike on Ben Gurion Airport:
Via TOI
The fact that the US military is drawing down its Red Sea anti-Houthi operations, after the Trump-proclaimed ceasefire earlier this month, appears to have freed up the Houthis' ability to focus more firepower directly on Israel.
Last Friday the Israeli government announced an expansion of Gaza operations - so these missile attacks out of Yemen will likely only grow. The Houthis have further said they have added Haifa port to its target bank.
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Site: Catholic ConclaveAppointment of special envoy to the liturgical celebrations on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the apparitions of Saint Anne to the Breton peasant Yvon NicolazicThe Holy Father has appointed His Eminence Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, as his special envoy to preside over the liturgical celebrations to Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Zero Hedge1 In 4 People In Germany Now Has Migrant Background, Data ShowsTyler Durden Sat, 05/24/2025 - 07:00
Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,
Germany’s migrant population is surging, with new data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) revealing that more than one in four people now living in the country has a migration background.
In 2024, the number of residents with an immigration background rose by 4 percent, or 873,000 people, compared to the previous year, reaching a record 21.2 million. This represents 25.6 percent of the total population, up from 24.7 percent in 2023.
The term “migration background” includes both those who have immigrated themselves (first-generation migrants) and those born in Germany to two immigrant parents (second-generation). Nearly 16.1 million people — 19.4 percent of the population — were immigrants themselves, while an additional 5.2 million, or 6.3 percent, were born in Germany to two foreign-born parents.
In contrast, the native-born population without any migration history fell by 1 percent (734,000 people) to 57.4 million, now comprising 69.3 percent of the country.
The youth of Germany’s migrant population stands out. Among people aged 20 to 39, more than one in three (34 percent) had a migration background in 2024. Among those over 65, that figure drops to 14 percent. The average age of someone with a migration background is 38.2 years, nearly a decade younger than those without one, who average 47.4 years. Those with only one immigrant parent had the youngest average age of all groups at 25.1.
Migration since 2015 has played a major role in these shifts, with nearly 6.5 million people living in Germany in 2024 immigrating after 2015.
Between 2015 and 2021, the largest groups came from Syria (716,000), Romania (300,000), and Poland (230,000). From 2022 to 2024, Ukraine dominated the figures, with 843,000 arrivals, followed by Syria (124,000) and Turkey (112,000).
The main reasons cited for migrating to Germany since 2015 were to seek asylum (31 percent), employment (23 percent), and family reunification (21 percent). Among women, family reunification was especially significant, cited by 26 percent alongside 30 percent who cited flight. Among men, 32 percent cited flight and 28 percent employment.
The new figures confirm that Germany’s migrant population is growing rapidly, leading to demographic pressures and concerns over integration.
Furthermore, the common claim among left-wing politicians that migration is fuelling Germany’s workforce does not stand up to scrutiny, with fewer than a quarter of newcomers citing employment as their reason for the move.
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Site: AsiaNews.itLeo XIV, the first American pope, has somewhat overshadowed the popularity of the American emperor in Russia, acting in some ways as an alternative in the image of the "Anglo-Saxon" West so reviled by the Kremlin. After all, today the Russian Church has split from almost all the other Orthodox Churches, starting with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, while dialogue with Rome has never been interrupted.
Scenes of a prior prisoner swap, illustrative file image.
Source: Anadolu Agency
Via TOI
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