Monthly Archives: June 2025

Remember the questions of confidence on the Iran attack damage assessment?

Mth be frail.

For many American viewers, this may seem like it’s in a foreign language where they don’t yell a lot. Americans, in movies, deliver each line with so much emotion that we’ve burned out several Greek gods. Their rotting husks litter the heavens, occasionally dropping bits of arrogance, sarcasm, and schadenfreude on the highways.

The Station Agent (2003) is an entry in the slice-of-life genre. A man with a physical challenge inherits a train stop, a simple little building, from his employer. From there he meets several other people, each battling their demons, as he battles his, and become friends with some of them, learning as they go.

In some ways this reminds me of Paterson (2017), probably my favorite movie of that year. It’s not a dance with your favorite action star from one adrenaline high to the next; it’s a chronicle of some problems, some tragedies, and some accomplishments that a few folks in New Jersey experience. Some of them are at Point A at the start and Point B at the end; some never get off Point A, clinging too strongly to their likes, dislikes, tragedies, even philosophies, and thus never progressing down their trail.

I won’t say this is as good as Paterson, but by no means let that caveat stop you from seeing this if you’re so inclined. Your taste in quiet, thoughtful drama will, most likely, differ from mine. Sampling Paterson and The Station Agent will not leave you with a sense of regret.

Most likely. I enjoyed this one a lot. Recommended.

A President who’s a publicity hound, and will kill to get it. What to do?

Accuse the left of lying. (Man, is this Roman Senate or what? Not a spec of shame to be seen.) Here’s Erick Erickson’s frantic accusation:

Mark Thompson, the CEO of CNN, has a serious problem that came into sharp view yesterday. His network is suffering from institutional arrogance. We need them, it seems, but they do not need us.

Yesterday, CNN anchors and fact checkers lied to the CNN audience.

A network that once ran “this is a banana” ads and laments disinformation and misinformation, engaged in what amounts to institutional arrogance — an unwillingness to hold itself accountable for getting a story wrong.

On Tuesday, at 2:51 pm, CNN ran an exclusive story that the Defense Intelligence Agency’s preliminary assessment showed the United States only set Iran back by perhaps two months.

The story never noted that the DIA report was rated as “low confidence.”

Elaborately stated. That’s a red flag. What are we distracting from?

That’s right. Whatever the confidence of the DIA report might be, it’s better than the President’s utterances, spewed as he runs in circles trying to claim a share of the glory. He has a long history of disdaining his own intelligence agencies; he relies on his own intuition, always a mug’s game.

I wonder how many people died in his attacks?

Meanwhile, it sounds like SCOTUS‘ conservative wing is diligently working to insulate the President from the legal world. If this is so, that’s another pack of fools.

I’ve been trying to find the complete speech by the President of Iran, but no luck. Here’s the CNN summary, which is the most concise, yet comprehensible, that I’ve encountered:

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addressed the nation today and claimed the country achieved a “historic victory” following the conflict that was “imposed” by Israel, according to the state-run news agency IRIB.

“After the courageous resistance of your great and history-making nation, we are witnessing a ceasefire and cessation of the 12-day war that was imposed on the Iranian nation by the adventurism and incitement” of the Israeli government, Pezeshkian said, according to IRIB.

Which I suppose might be best interpreted as “We’re not dead, yet.” Sun Tzu, a Chinese philosopher from centuries ago, once remarked that, in order to claim victory in war, the defender must merely survive.

Perhaps that’s the idea here.

But Iran has, if I’m to believe news reports, certainly engaged in provocative behaviors, allying with Hamas, Hezbollah, and other regional militias of dubious nature, so Sun Tzu and his observations may be inapplicable.

While the status of their nuclear energy program remains unclear following the Israeli and American attacks, it does appear that Iran stands alone. None of the other autocratic powers, such as China, North Korea, Russia, or others, came leaping to defend Iran. I wonder if Supreme Leader Khamenei considers that important?

Step 1: Make up a title that has little to do with reality.

Look, this CNN paywalled article, which means I haven’t read it, not being a subscriber, is entitled

The myth of Iran’s invincibility has been broken, and the fallout could be far-reaching

Maybe some Iranian provincials, with little access to the world, harbored that belief – but they won’t be reading CNN. Everyone else knows Iran has strengths, weaknesses, and elements that function as both.

So why the bizarre title?

Because that’s how one garners clicks.

And I view it as offensive and misleading – even as I clicked on the damn article to see which delusion the author may suffer from. (It wasn’t marked as Subscriber-only material.)

Sorry, sorry. I’m feeling cranky this morning. Even NewScientist is making me cranky. I’ll have to write that up, but maybe for tomorrow. Today, I’m crabby about the importance of honesty in communications in an article I haven’t even read. That may fling poo over my purported earnest nature, maybe.

Rolling Stone reports:

According to ethics disclosure reports released by the White House, Miller owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Palantir, Peter Thiel’s data and intelligence software company that has a several lucrative contracts with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to track data and conduct surveillance on undocumented immigrants. It’s a pretty clear conflict of interest from the man behind much of Donald Trump’s immigration policy, in an administration that is already rife with corruption.

A lesson in how to take advantage of one’s position. Maybe Mr Miller can take up a senior teaching position after this Administration closes down.

Something about this video is underhandedly creepy. My Arts Editor just shrugs.

For those who believe in goat entrails special elections as a light on the future, here’s last week’s spotlight from Steve Benen:

Headed into last week’s state legislative special elections, Democrats were confident about a contest in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The state House race was in a district that Kamala Harris carried by 19 points, and the party’s candidate, Amanda Clinton, appeared well positioned to do at least as well.

The good news for Democrats was that their candidate prevailed. The better news for Democrats was the margin: Clinton won a 69-point landslide, easily surpassing expectations.

Republican voters are either dispirited or switching sides in that particular district. Keep in mind that gerrymandering no doubt packed the district with left leaning voters if it was easily carried by Harris just a few months ago – in ruby red Oklahoma.

I wouldn’t try to extend that to other parts of Oklahoma.

Sock puppet account:

A sock puppet, sock puppet account, or simply sock[,] is a false online identity used for deceptive purposes.^[1] The term originally referred to a hand puppet made from a sock. Sock puppets include online identities created to praise, defend, or support a person or organization,^[2] to manipulate public opinion,^[3] or to circumvent restrictions such as viewing a social media account that a user is blocked from. Sock puppets are unwelcome in many online communities and forums. [Wikipedia]

As political and financial objectives supersede simple honesty, it’s difficult to tell readers that they shouldn’t use social media for their news.

But you shouldn’t.

I’m contemplating a post concerning the corruption that is pervading society; while Fox News has a decades-old reputation for misleading their audience, more recently the failures to reveal the failing nature of President Biden’s cognition has left mainstream and left-wing media similarly disgraced.

So what to do? Use multiple sources; think carefully about who can manipulate a given source, such as social media account.

And read the below.

Socket puppet account noted in “Is Your Favorite Influencer’s Opinion Bought and Sold?“, Lee Fang:

There was a momentary push in 2017 for stricter social media disclosures in the political realm. The discovery of foreign influence campaigns aimed at the 2016 presidential election set off alarm bells. As a result, the major tech platforms began working to track and close so-called sock puppet accounts operated by the Russian and Chinese government. Yet few reforms were institutionalized, and as more and more Americans get their news from social media, the problem remains largely unchecked.

Time for another check on the price of DJT, the stock of Trump Media & Technology Group, which was priced at $23.60 on May 27. And now?

This monthly chart^[1] shows DJT is currently in decline. Since my last casual note, my calculator shows DJT’s dropped 24.4%. Is this disaster?

No, not in my experience. I have observed, and in a few instances, owned stocks that have dropped that much and more, and then recovered. All it takes is patience; the bold investor might even buy more.

But there are no guarantees, folks. DJT could drop 20% tomorrow. In a month, it might go under the waves, never to be seen again. Or it could jump 20%.

Thank goodness I’m not a financial advisor, and readers shouldn’t take this as anything more than an old investor’s observations of a certainly unusual company, a company with a social media product that reportedly doesn’t do well, an American President as its chief draw, and a cryptocurrency on offer.

Speaking of, how’s that doing?

CoinMarketCap

From Day Zero to today, it appears to have dropped quite a ways. Investors who’ve bought $TRUMP coins are experiencing an unexpected depletion of their core wealth, I’d say, which is rather in line with everything Donald J. Trump touches.

But I do recall Professor Richardson of Letters From An American commenting that $TRUMP experienced a big drop during the week of feud between President Trump and Elon Musk^[2]. Such feuds are not uncommon in politics, but inexperienced folks often assume that allies are forever and bonded at a deep level, when the reality is that it’s often an alliance of convenience, and breaks up as goals are accomplished, personalities clash over tactics – or someone decides their slice of the pie isn’t big enough. Consider the fate of former leading Communist revolutionary and Stalin ally Leon Trotsky, exiled and assassinated.

I have to wonder if investors are awakening to the facts of DJT.

And President Trump’s bombing of Iran? I don’t expect that to affect the price of DJT. But we shall see.

¹ It also appears to be exhibiting a bug in that the After Hours display replicates the daily trading information of a 3.98% decline, yet the price hasn’t changed.

² I regret not finding the link.

Remember when the United States invaded Iraq under the excuse that Iraq, under President and megalomaniac Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)? Oh, some readers might be a trifle young.

And President Bush ordered the invasion despite his intelligence services telling they didn’t think there were WMDs? No WMDs were ever found.

And now we’ve hit Iran because President and megalomaniac Donald J. Trump believes the Iranians were only weeks, or months, away from completing nuclear weapons development.

Not an assessment – or excuse – to which his intelligence professionals agree.

So this CNN headline

How Trump quietly made the historic decision to launch strikes in Iran

while technically accurate, ignores the pattern in Republican Presidents to ignore inconvenient advice, making a mockery of running the best Administrations possible in favor of fiscal advantage and emotional preconception.

I wonder how many innocent Iranian citizens will die in this needless conflict?

It starts with a pleasant surreality, and then goes off into … weirdness.

Beckett-King is not a recent, random find. We have, I think, two of his books for children; his whimsical short videos appeal to the nature of both myself and my Arts Editor.

Caught these last night, across from the former Dairy Queen, which is now called Sprinkles and rumored to be opening … today!

Back when cars had character, looks, whatever you want to call it.

And weighed 6 tons.

And the garden is doing medium well.

No strawberries, yet. We usually have a harvest in mid-June. I wonder if the bee shortage is causing it.

It’s tough to be a chicken. Or maybe that was just a tough chicken.

The Tale Of The Fox (1930?) is a somewhat whimsical, somewhat grim exploration of the animal kingdom of King Noble, a Lion, as taken from the stories of Reynard the Fox. The key feature, I think, is that while the characters are intelligent animals that retain their basic dietary and behavioral natures, they occupy human roles: ruling nobility, the craft class, clerics, etc.

And the primary point comes when King Noble, in frustration with the antics of Reynard the Fox, sets forth the absurd rule that animals must not kill and eat each other, except the King gets a couple of exceptions. While Reynard’s behavior may be almost ridiculously clever, in the end he’s only trying to feed his family.

So now what is he, and the rest of the carnivores of the kingdom, to do? Well, the chickens take it in the shorts.

The King shows his loyalty to his subjects, or maybe to himself, when Reynard is revealed to be responsible for the death of a chicken, and is sentenced to death. Reynard doesn’t hang around, but slips the noose and makes a run for his castle.

Foxes have castles?

Once there, he employs various tricks to defeat the King’s Army, eventually leading to the King leaving the field of battle, blaming the Cock for a betrayal and thus excusing the King from prosecuting his war vow; soon, Reynard goes from imperilment to the King’s top minister.

And there we have the story of what happens when absolute monarchs make absolutely nutty rules: chaos. Only when all sides participate, in this case by Reynard becoming an advisor while representing the people of the kingdom, will prosperity be possible.

Unless you’re a chicken.

It’s a good lesson for today’s America, which has retreated to the fantasy that arrogant leaders are better than leaders that compromise and admit that they may not know the best way forward; instead, the self-regarding wannabe rulers make up edicts without consultation with others or even with reality (abortion, transgenderism), while ginning up gods of the mystical or scientific sorts from their imaginations in order to grasp after legitimization and not engage with Americans who just might disagree with them. It’s a horror show driven by arrogance that should shame them, but won’t: the leaders benefiting their egos will never admit error.

Ahem. Sorry ’bout that.

But this movie is also interesting, even fascinating, because it is a very early example of stop-action. The creators of the movie were also developers of the art, and if the characters aren’t always as engaging as those of, say, Aardman Animations, they do have quirky charm of their own.

But can you cheer on Reynard, who is, after all, eating his fellow citizens? It’s really a serious question. It’s why I’ve never watched The Lion King: it is implicitly ridiculous.

But The Tale of the Fox tackles that problem head on.

Caudillo:

1. A leader.
2. A military dictator, especially one ruling in Spain, Portugal or Latin America. [Wiktionary]

That’s a new one on me. I get the impression it’s used to express some disdain. Noted in “The American Caudillo,” Andrew Sullivan, The Weekly Dish:

And anyone peacefully protesting this grotesque cooptation of a military parade worthy of Putin or Xi? They will be met with a “very heavy force,” just as they would be in Beijing or Moscow. Yes, that’s what free speech now amounts to in this man’s America. Write an op-ed criticizing a foreign country’s mass infanticide, and you will be deported pronto. Protest this caudillo’s trashing of every American value since the Founding, and his masked thugs will arrest you, deport you, or injure you. Be a US Senator and ask a cabinet secretary some questions at a press conference, and guards will wrestle you to the ground and cuff you. This administration has now praised ICE and Secret Service violence against elected Democratic officials more than once.

But when President Trump

… demands ‘unconditional surrender’ in warning to Iran

[CNN headline] … it’s really hard not to see Trump frantically scrambling to remain relevant to the world stage. His poor management of the United States government continues to drive away casual supporters, his immediate reaction to the conflict was to claim the United States was not part of the conflict and had not coordinated with Israel, and now he wants not only a piece of the pie, but the entire pie and anything else he can scoop up through this demand.

And, meanwhile, it’s not even clear he can control his subordinates. From rumors that Stephen Miller is a loose cannon …

This shift makes it seem as if White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a white nationalist who insists that the U.S. must deport a million immigrants this year, is determining White House policies, just as he did on the Signal chat about the military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen when his statement that Trump wanted a strike appeared to shut down any further debate of the question.

… to RFK, Jr apparently taking the overpopulation issue into his own hands by sabotaging vaccines, Trump’s legacy is right at the bottom of the list of Presidents – and sinking fast.

It’s a very serious demand, to be sure, but it’s not driven by strategic considerations, but the fears of a man-child who should be in a rest-home – not the Oval Office.

Ever wonder how groundwater losses, or gains for that matter, are measured? WaPo mentions it in passing:

NBC News notes the staggering casualties suffered by Russia in Putin’s War:

The Russian military will likely surpass 1 million casualties in its war on Ukraine this summer, according to one of the world’s leading think tanks, reflecting the staggering human toll of President Vladimir Putin’s assault on his neighbor.

Around 250,000 of these Russian soldiers have died, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report Tuesday.

Surpassing 1 million killed and wounded would be “a stunning” and grisly milestone for Russia and showed “Putin’s blatant disregard for his soldiers,” according to the report. To put this figure in historical perspective, it is five times as many deaths as all Soviet and Russian wars since World War II.

It’s also worth remembering that President Trump has expressed frustration with President Putin’s continued prosecution of his war. So my proposal integrates these two observations, adds in Trump’s sneakiness, and is this:

The Trump Administration should leak that its plans for the partitioning of Russia by United States grifters is nearing completion.

That might get Putin to sue for peace.

Communications is the transmission of concepts from one group to another group. This is accomplished mostly via words, with some support from, in print, from font modifications and pictures, and in spoken language the use of body language, and other modalities.

Quick! Did you wonder at the word modalities?

For example, if I were giving a speech and used the word secular^[1] in its tertiary sense of Greater than 100 years, without explaining that alternative definition, the confusion that would follow during the speech might easily anger some of the audience.

My point is that using words unknown, or at least unfamiliar, to your audience can result in failure; worse yet, in the social tableau of humans, it can result in alienation, anger, and frustration. In fact, it can be perceived as exclusionary, and those who are excluded in a society in which groups are rivals to each other often migrate to the rival regardless of fundamental disagreements.

So I was surprised when this very conclusion was not mentioned in this WaPo article that opens with:

Maybe it’s using the word “oligarchs” instead of rich people. Or referring to “people experiencing food insecurity” rather than Americans going hungry. Or “equity” in place of “equality,” or “justice-involved populations” instead of prisoners.

As Democrats wrestle with who to be in the era of President Donald Trump, a growing group of party members — especially centrists — is reviving the argument that Democrats need to rethink the words they use to talk with the voters whose trust they need to regain.

They contend that liberal candidates too often use language from elite, highly educated circles that suggests the speakers consider themselves smart and virtuous, while casting implied judgment on those who speak more plainly — hardly a formula for winning people over, they say.

It’s worth remembering, too, that politicians of all stripes, as well as top military brass, corporate leaders, religious leaders, and even leaders of non-profits, are considered liars^[2] by varying segments of the citizenry. Using fancy-schmancy words that are puzzling and even misleading can pave the path to lying by everyone from military leaders to tobacco company CEOs – or so it’s perceived by the audience.

In the end, using sophisticated, unfamiliar words to communicate simple, familiar concepts is an exclusionary practice, which is precisely contradictory to the goal of the Democrats. They remain arrogant and too impressed with themselves, with a few exceptions.

Too bad the Republicans are even less acceptable. My guess is that we’ll be seeing most members of Congress replaced in the near future by an electorate that is tired of all the lying and abuse, regardless of the source.

¹ As in Secular Cycles, by Turchin & Nefedov.

² My nickname for President Trump is The Mendacity Machine; mendacity is a sophisticated way of saying he has a habit of lying, and it seems like another lie comes crawling out every time President Trump waggles his tongue.

Bourse:

The term bourse refers to the French word for the stock exchange. A bourse was traditionally organized as a place to buy and sell securities, commodities, options, and other investments. The word is commonly used in Europe where it is used to describe the Paris Stock Exchange and other Euronext exchanges, including those in Amsterdam and Frankfurt. The word bourse as it is used today traces its roots back to 13th century Belgium. [Investopedia]

Yep, I’ve been investing for forty years and did not know that. Noted in a piece of promotional mail from AL-Monitor:

Investors around the world this week have been anxiously awaiting the outcome of trade talks between the United States and China. Gulf bourses, along with the price of oil, have been rising at the prospect of an agreement — which was finally announced on Tuesday — that takes the sting out of the trade war. President Donald Trump said the pact would see China supplying rare earths and magnets and the United States allowing Chinese students into its colleges.

Please don’t snog the murder suspects.

The Oxford Murders (2008) is a sophisticated and slightly gamy murder mystery that, for audience members who like to actually try to solve the mystery du jour, unfortunately uses stochastic forces to obscure the mystery.

Stochastic. Yep, sophisticated.

A new mathematics student at Oxford, an American named Martin, wants famed Professor Seldom to be his thesis advisor, although Seldom no longer accepts PhD students for supervision. His landlady knows Seldom, and her husband and she worked with him at one time on the Enigma machine, along with Alan Turing. Oh, he wants Seldom, doesn’t he.

And then the landlady turns up dead. Her body is found by Professor Seldom and Martin.

From here we’re on a gallop to figure out not only who did this, but who’s leaving clues in the form of logical series pictures. Why would they do that?

I dunno.

As I mentioned, stochastic forces appear to cloud over the mystery’s clues, not to mention a couple of young ladies interested in Martin. The end is quite exciting, if perhaps a trifle incoherent.

It’s fun, if a bit unbelievable. Enjoy it, but you won’t remember it after a week or so.

Of course this could happen – but those cemeteries spilling into the sea took the limelight:

To the already very long list of problems caused by global warming, add toxic waste in old landfills exposed by coastal erosion and polluting beaches and seas.

“There is not lots of toxic waste spilling out at the moment, but there will be in the future,” says Andrew Russell at Queen Mary University of London. [“Toxic waste is spilling onto beaches as rising seas erode landfills,” Michael Le Page, NewScientist (24 May 2025, paywall)]

Glug.

In Britain alone, the team has now identified more than 1000 old landfill sites at risk of eroding, Russell told a recent meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria.

I doubt litigation will help with this. Another item for the long list of things to cleanup.