A Prediction That's Sure To Come True

If indeed there's a plan for the US to be reimbursed for its contribution to Ukraine's success in fending off the Russians, days after it's approval an American pressure group will be established to monitor any mining activity in the rare critical mineral wonderland. It's almost a sure thing that such a group already exists, waiting in the wings for the names on the dotted lines. The only questions will be the name of the group and its leaders, and what inane behavior will occur. There will no doubt be European counterparts as well.

 mining.com

foxnews.com

 

Alvin Bragg's Mission

 

                                       Manhattan District Attorney's Office 

In a city where evil, warped people push others in front of subway trains, stick up bodegas over and over again, steal cars in record numbers and commit crimes for which they are released with no bail so they can continue their felonious careers, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, led by Alvin Bragg, concentrates its efforts on the "return" of ancient relics that have somehow managed to survive into modernity.. It's no doubt more pleasant for the Bragg troops to haunt art galleries and museums rather than rub elbows with the dregs of the Big Apple but is that what they're really supposed to be doing?

The latest Bragg triumphs are said to be worth over $2.2 million to the rightful owners in Italy and Greece. is it really the business of these government lawyers to be involved in an international trade where the provenance spans thousands of years? Maybe it is proper. After all, NYC is the center of every form of lucrative financial transaction, including crime. The DA in Wichita, KS has more important things to worry about than a Greek drinking cup that may not even be genuine.

Does an interesting pre-Christian ceramic item that has been sitting on the mantel of an art lover for a few years impose any special misfortune on the people that may or may not be descendents of an anonymous potter that crafted it, even if none of them now live in that area? Or does a Greek or Italian whose family lives in Spain or Turkey have an equal share in the ownership of the work with a country that didn't even exist when it was made? Evidently the figures made by men in a particular location thousands of years ago remain tied to that geographic location rather than any humans forever. Maybe Alvin Bragg should enlighten us on the subject.    

William Tecumseh Sherman Said:

 

"The more I see of these Indians, the more convinced I

 am that they all have to be killed or maintained as a

 species of paupers."

 

Federal De-Funding Of Research

An article in on-line publication "Unherd" attempts to describe the cause of the slashes in federal academic research funding as the monolithic ideology found in the ivy-covered halls. If only it were that simple.

The reality is that a huge portion of academic research funding has gone to validating neo-Whig projects designed to produce fortunes for entrepreneurs. These would be AI data centers and associated software, hydrogen fuel implementation, wind turbines, solar power arrays, CO2 sequestration, big battery development and other similar fantasies. Academic scientists apply for grants to investigate these subjects, their findings are covered by the media and the entrepreneur/capitalists go into action beside the government regulators, who change sides regularly and are part of the process of distribution of federal funds.

The ideology involved isn't political, it's all about money for everyone involved. The US capitalist system has reached a point where the immense growth of the post-WWII economy has become obsolete in financial terms. It's a mature system. The railroads have all been built, airports, too. Steel mills, automobile factories, factory farms, dead tree media, educational institutions, retailing, etc. have all reached a point where further development will be of minor importance if it happens at all. Just as manifest destiny was the great opportunity for the Whigs, the non-hydrocarbon energy scheme is the growth industry for their descendents.

This is dismissing the corruption and dishonesty in peer-reviewed academia, where more and more research is found to be phony.    

U of M Needs $450 Million From Taxpayers

Students at the University of Minnesota spoke at "U of M Day At The Capitol" on February 18 in hopes of getting state legislators to move forward on requests for state funding, $450 million in total.

While $200 million is needed for building maintenance on the seven U of M campuses, another $235 million is required for student health and housing services. A request is also being made for $15 million to install anti-suicide nets on the Washington Ave. bridge that connects the East Bank campus and the West Bank.

structurae.net 

 A University health study has determined that 57% of the students at the UofM Duluth campus suffer from a mental "condition". The UofM is the unquestioned source for the information and knowledge that the unwashed masses need to organize their lives. This figure must be taken seriously. If indeed a majority of 8,825 people have a mental condition, whatever that is, it means that a little over 5000 Bulldog students are scurrying around the campus and the lakehead city with some form of neurological disorder, in addition to the background mental problems of the larger community. Mental Health America says that 46% of Americans will meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition during their lifetime.

Why should this be? If roughly half of the population has a mental health condition, at least to the extent that it affects their own lives and those around them in a negative way, what is the cause? Maybe it's a fact that it is the current culture rather than genetics that encourages mental health problems. If so, no amount of taxpayer dollars will change the situation. No amount of study by the UofM or any other academic institution is likely to change the culture of a free society to one where aberrant behavior, the real index of a mental condition, is eliminated.      

  

A Description of Artificial Intelligence

A paragraph from an interview in the on-line European

 Conservative attributed to Pedro Uria Recio defines AI

 as this:

Artificial intelligence is a collection of algorithms that

 perform functions traditionally associated with the

 human mind, such as language, object recognition,

 planning, and decision-making. It relies on complex

 models that require large amounts of data and

 computational power to function efficiently.

According to Merriam Webster, an algorithm is:

 The current term of choice for a problem-solving

 procedure, algorithm, is commonly used nowadays for

 the set of rules a machine (and especially a computer)

 follows to achieve a particular goal.

Language and object recognition are areas that seem to

 be fairly easy to fit into an algorithm and evidence of

 that is all around us. Planning operations and decision-

making is another story. How much data is necessary to

 make a viable decision on a particular plan?

Where AI is most impressive is in a situation as seen

 here:

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the robotic auto

 workers is what happens when something goes wrong.

 There are a multitude of things that can foul up the

 production process, a dropped tool or broken part or

 more. Does the robot have the capability to effectively

 respond to unique problems? Or will future human

 employees specialize in covering for their brainless

 associates? Failures in the complicated digital,

 electrical and mechanical systems in a production

 facility may take a long time to analyze and correct.

Management may be very disappointed with equipment

that won't work.

Will some robots be more effective and reliable than

 others, just as their human counterparts now relegated

 to robot supervision also show varying levels of

 expertise? 
 

Ukrainian Critical Minerals

As some parties try to bring the Russian-Ukrainian

 "special operation" to a halt, the media at different

 levels points out some factors that they consider

 important in the process.

All of a sudden, Ukraine, once known as the

 breadbasket of Europe, is now the repository of some

 of the most critical minerals on earth.

 

" However, there’s another important factor at play in

 Trump’s actions: the intensifying global competition

 over critical minerals. Trump wants to secure access to

 Ukraine’s vast reserves of these minerals, even if it

 means breaking with the US’ traditional allies in the

 European Union. . . 

According to some reports, Ukraine has deposits of 22

 of the 34 minerals identified as critical by the EU.

 These include:

• lithium and cobalt, used in rechargeable battery production
• scandium, used for aerospace industry components
• tantalum, used for electronic equipment
• titanium, used in the aerospace, medical, automotive and marine industries
• nickel ore, manganese, beryllium, hafnium, magnesium, zirconium and others, used in the aerospace, defence and nuclear industries
  

 

If Ukraine has vast reserves of critical minerals,

how much mining activity has taken place before or 

since Ukraine was given independence from the 

failing USSR? Furthermore, the business of mining

is really all about moving unwanted dirt to gain 

access to ore. Often the cost of moving that

 overburden and recovering valuable minerals is 

more costly than the value of the minerals 

themselves. The valuable minerals aren't valuable

enough to justify the cost of their extraction.

According to the BBC:  "We will get technologies

 that our mining industry lacks so much," Ms

 Suprun explained. "We will get capital. That means

 more jobs, tax payments. We'll receive revenue

 from the development of mineral deposits."

Since Ukraine is impoverished, the finances to

 enable the above will come from who? As usual,

jobs are a critical feature. 

Lithium and cobalt are currently the key raw

 materials for EV batteries. It's no sure thing that

EVs are ever going to become the back bone of

 personal transportation in the foreseeable future.


 

There's also a logical issue in the situation. Ukraine

land surface is .00405 percent of the world's surface


area and .0611 percent of the surface area of the 

US.


 

There's no denying that mineral resources aren't

distributed evenly across the planet. But does it 

seem likely that a single relatively small spot in

 eastern Europe possesses a huge percentage of 

recoverable minerals that can't be found in other 

locations?

A matter of real concern in the Ukrainian critical

minerals is that it appears that rather than grant

 them

 membership in NATO, erecting a US financed 

mining infrastructure in the country means that the

US, and probably only the US, will protect the

 country and the American investments there. Is

this a position that the US really wants to be in?



 Source: Ukrainian Geological Survey

The very detailed blotches are meant to show valuable mineral deposits.


 


This is a scam akin to Florida swampland. The

 media

 haven't bothered to look into the actual proven

 deposits of any particular minerals in Ukraine. It's

 in the interest of both Zelensky and Trump to push

 this  bovine dung. Neither will be around to see if it

 pans out. 

 

Hockey Game Proves Canadian Superiority

The "Four Nations Face-Off" hockey tournament between National Hockey League players divided into teams on the basis of nationality, Finland, Sweden, Canada and the US, was decided by an overtime goal by Canadian Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid. This result seemed to prove that the Canadians, long regarded as the best hockey players in the world, had validated that assumption.

In reality, the game proved nothing other than that such a spectacle would be a financial boon for Boston, media companies and maybe some cell phone service providers and automobile manufacturers.

The players themselves know that at the highest level there is little difference between one group of hockey stars and another. There are physical limits to human dexterity. No center or winger can fly, they all must skate like the others. There is a difference in speed and talent but not very much. Tactics used by coaches are countered by their opposite numbers. The nuances of the sport are well-known.

If this be the case, what does a victory in a monumental game especially, really mean? Actually, not much. Most games between similar teams are decided by chance, hockey for sure. Shots can either enter the net or clang off a goal post, a difference of inches or less. A fifty-foot pass to a wide open forward can miss by the same amount. A goal tender might stop a puck he hasn't seen or be fooled by a visible shot. There's also a certain amount of ignoring the rules or even outright cheating. 

Ultimately, the hockey results of the evening of February 20, 2025 don't really mean anything at all in the big picture of hockey or anything else. It was all just entertainment.    

German Free Speech

Criticizing the German government, particularly in the on-line universe, can be expensive, as this article reveals. 

The thin-skinned German office holders must not be aware that draconian responses to taunts from their opposition serve only to bring attention to the very foibles they wish to hide. The laws that enable their response are written in such a general manner that almost any criticism is open to prosecution.

The history of Germany from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day has given its would-be rulers an extreme and justified feeling of paranoia. Their reaction is only validating that emotion. In the long run censorship has always failed its goals. But they are Germans, after all. 

 thelocal.de 

Robert Habeck, much maligned Vice Chancellor of Germany, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, frequent target for on-line ridicule.

Ghost Particles, Neutrinos

In a world where the condition of streets and highways are so dilapidated that going to the supermarket is an adventure, immense amounts of money are spent finding and analyzing neutrinos, particles from outer space that have only recently been identified because of their interaction with other sub-atomic particles. No one knows how knowledge of these ultra-minuscule what-ever-they-are can be put to practical use. Angels dancing on the head of a pin are giants in comparison.

If Bill Gates or Elon Musk want to chart the travels of invisible particles coming from the depths of space with their own funds, good for them. However, government subsidies for these investigations should be considered taboo. If, indeed, tax payer funds subtracted from the wages of laborers, truck drivers, and brick layers are being used to search for invisible muons there's something very wrong with the system.

This isn't the only profligate and wrongful use of public funds in the name of science. Hugely expensive telescopes peering into the infinite expanse of space and time of the universe are of no real use to the great  majority of humans that wonder where their next meal is coming from. Even the most primitive of larger societies recognized that meeting the needs of the proles took precedence over anything but religion.

 

newatlas.com   James Webb Space Telescope    

Dresden, February 13, 1945

Today, February 13, is the anniversary of the allied air raid on Dresden in 1945 that effectively demolished the capital of Saxony, about halfway between Berlin and Prague. 

Image: akg-images/picture alliance and Deutche Welle

No one denies that the event occurred but there is an ongoing argument over the number of civilian casualties. For years the GDR, the communist entity that governed East Germany, maintained that between 100,000 and 200,000 people were killed on that fateful day but extensive research by the current German Federal Republic seems to indicate that the death toll was more likely to be in the neighborhood of 25,000. The discrepancy is blamed on the motives of GDR apologists (many thousands of dead) and the FDR (the equivalence of a small city). 

Why the exact number of dead and wounded should continue to be a matter of controversy can only be related to post-war political issues. 

It turns out that Germany's Nazi era roughly coincides with the anti-bellum US Confederacy. Very roughly, since in the US there was no effort to exterminate black chattel slaves, while the National Socialists initiated an industry of death for Jews and others deemed genetic inferiors. This shouldn't and won't be forgotten but, as in the US, its effects will be felt for generations to come.

So the current citizens of Dresden will make a point of solemnly honoring those uninvolved victims of a bombing on February 13, 1945. Americans, on the other hand, won't remember the battle of the Washita River on November 27, 1868 when a US Cavalry force attacked and destroyed Black Kettle's Cheyenne camp.

     

NATO Defense Funding

 

commonswikimedia.org

POTUS D.J. Trump has suggested, no doubt after intense study and reflection, that all the members of NATO, including the US, devote 5% of their GDP to defense. At a meeting in 2014 NATO members had agreed to increasing defense spending to 2% of GDP. Of course the impetus for this increase is the big argument between Putin's Russia and Zelensky's Ukraine. In 2024 the US put together a pot of $967 billion for defense purposes, about 3.4% of GDP, increasing it to 5% would bring the commitment to well over a trillion dollars.

Obviously, or maybe not, throwing numbers like this around without a specific destination would seem to indicate that it's up to the defense establishment to determine how this funding would be implemented. They're already bulking up on artillery rounds. There's much talk about increasing the size and ability of the navy fleet. Defending east Asia against the godless commies means huge and diverse expenditures but what for? You can be sure that the customer Pentagon and its corporate suppliers will always be able to agree on an expensive weapons program. In the case of Ukraine the US will demand a quid pro quo, lately the price is access to rare minerals that no one has identified.

One thing that hasn't come up in regard to NATO is the length of a human life. Looking at the composition of the US Congress it would appear that elected officials can function for many decades and in a way they do. The same would be true for foreign despots. As soon as an east European or Oriental nuevo emperor shows signs of decrepitude those that make up his or her cadre begin to determine the successor. Inevitable decline and death mean that both bad guys and the virtuous are only on the world stage for a relatively short time. Putin is not forever and neither is Trump. Who takes their place and what their goals are will be known soon enough.  

 

Transit Through Panama Canal

 

businesstoday.com

Effective last Wednesday, according to the US State Department, no fees are being charged for the passage of US government ships through the Panama Canal. Over 14,000 ships pass through the canal annually, generating around $2 billion in fees.

However, the next day US Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained that a process must be followed by the Panama government to enable the new policy.

According to on-line media source CNN, in the last 26 years the US government has spent $25.4 million in transit fees for the passage of warships and submarines. 

In further canal news, scientists say that the sea on the Pacific side of the passage way is about 20cm higher in elevation than that of the Atlantic. This is supposed to be because of a difference in water density and some other factors. Evidently the difference hasn't changed over time because of the heating atmosphere.  

The Alternative For Deutschland

 

AW: Berlin Briefing | Questions about Germany

Dear reader,

thank you for your interest in our output.

You ask about our label to describe Germany's AfD party.

We refer to the AfD as far-right or far-right extremist because it has been classified as such by German courts and the domestic intelligence service.  

You may have noticed that we have labels for all parties, intended to help our readers to roughly place them on a political spectrum. 

Objecting to unrestricted immigration alone is not what makes a party far-right. 

When it was formed in 2013, the AfD's main focus was on abolishing the Euro and opposing bailouts of indebted European Union member states like Greece. With the rise in immigration in 2015, the AfD moved towards nationalism and misogyny. Moderates left the party.

The AfD does not support many of the basic rights enshrined in the constitution, does not respect the courts or the traditional media. Individual members use Nazi Slogans and make offensive and derogatory statements - and indeed labels such as racist and misogynist have often been used to describe them. The AfD advocates a traditional nuclear family and is hostile to alternative lifestyles.

On immigration and human rights: The AfD wants to get rid of the right to an individual hearing in asylum cases and seek to immediately deport all those whose applications to remain in Germany are rejected, regardless of whether the countries to which deportees are sent back are safe or not. It also advocates for foreigners who commit crimes in Germany being sent to prisons outside the country and treating minors as young as 12 as adults for certain offenses.

The AfD wants to seal the EU's borders, institute rigorous identity checks along Germany's national borders and set up holding camps abroad to prevent migrants from leaving for Germany in the first place.

As a nationalist party, it wants is opposed to the EU, its institutions and principles.

I hope that explains why we use the "far-right" label.

Kind regards,

Rina Goldenberg

Berlin Briefing newsletter team

Rina Goldenberg-Huang <rina.goldenberg@dw.com>

Bezos Retreats On Climate Change

 

silicon.co.uk

The word is out that the man in charge of the massive money machine Amazon is terminating its funding effort for Science Based Target Initiatives through the Bezos Earth Fund. Uk based SBTI is in the business of helping corporations reduce their green house gas emissions thus reducing the likelihood of world combustion. The Earth Fund was one of the original entities involved in the creation of SBTI and provided billions for their efforts. As of 2024, SBTi operates without a central office and has 145 staff who primarily work remotely, including part-time employees.

Nobody knows for sure the reasoning behind the decision. The two most plausible reasons are felt to be more and more doubt over the reality and effect of climate change and the arrival of Donald Trump as a consequential government figure capable of changing the status quo. 

Don't Call Them Worms

 

Apollo News 

They're actually whole larvae of Tenebrio molitor, or  meal worms. As explained here, beginning on Feb. 10, up to four percent of the weight of bread and cakes sold in the European Union can be made up of a powder of these worms after they've undergone a 24 hour fast and UV treatment. Their inclusion in a diet supplies much needed vitamin D3.

"If the vitamin D3 content in a food exceeds a certain limit due to the addition of mealworm powder, the following notice must appear on the product packaging: "Contains vitamin D produced by UV treatment". The amount of the vitamin must then also be stated in the nutritional table."

Keep in mind that on your next trip to Paris or Amsterdam you might get a vitamin D3 boost from your pie or Dutch crunch roll.

School Bus Epdemic

 

evolv-electric.org

According to World Population Review, buses of one sort or another that take children to school and return them to their homes number between 1 and 1 1/2 million in India and around 1 million in China. Sadly, in the contest for global domination of all kinds, the US trails the Chinese by perhaps 50,000 big yellow buses. Next in line are Brazil and the UK, each with about one tenth of the buses that careen around the US each weekday morning and afternoon for nine months of the year.

In a country where obesity is a national problem, one would think that there would be an emphasis on physical activity, even on walking to school. Of course schools must be within a reasonable distance for the students to make a daily pedestrian commute so instead of the current trend of giant "factory" schools Yankees would need to increase the number of smaller, more intimate neighborhood schools. Since we are seeing major changes in technology and adaptations to it, maybe it would be best to wait for awhile and see how it all shakes out. We don't have a very good picture of how anything will look in even the near future.

The inevitable objection to child pedestrians in the early morning hours is assuring their safety. If that's the case, that a seven year-old can't safely walk three blocks from home to school at eight in the morning, then it might as well be admitted that the society and culture have failed, that the central feature of civilization no longer exists.