Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan and other books on risk and probability is Bitcoin’s nemesis. A one-time supporter of the cryptocurrency he now calls it a “Ponzi scheme.” Taleb recently posted an analytical take-down of Bitcoin using concepts from quantitative finance. He hits hard.
The World Health Organization’s chief scientist on Monday advised against people mixing and matching COVID-19 vaccines from different manufacturers, calling it a “dangerous trend” since there was little data available about the health impact.
So there’s 4 versions of the truth: The WHO’s, the government’s, the MSM’s, and the actual truth.
h/t Mauser98. Thanks!
As history tells it, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was tending to his farm as a private citizen when a delegation from Rome came to tell him the Republic was under siege and their army was nearing defeat.
Cincinnatus put down his plow and headed from country to city, where he was appointed dictator. He immediately ordered the closure of businesses and placed all men of military age under his direct supervision.
It came as no surprise to me to see activists ‘celebrating’ Canada Day by setting fire to churches and toppling statues of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, while chanting, ‘No pride in genocide.’
Canada has managed to cultivate a culture that is simultaneously self-hating and self-righteous. We have no pride in being Canadian. Yet we are confident we are better than everyone else.
h/t Marvin
“… It is important to note that OPEC did not have a huge monopoly over the oil market in 1973. They had 56% of the oil market, according to energyeducation.ca -meeting the US Department of Justice‘s monopoly threshold which is defined as a market share of greater than 50 percent. It was enough to manipulate prices to shock the oil market and create a shortage in global supply. Currently, OPEC (less Russia) will produce 33.7 million barrels a day in 2021, while Russia- according to Interfax International Information Group- produces 10.2 million barrels a day. That leaves OECD countries producing 43.9 m/bd – so currently OPEC plus appears to control about 54% of the market. Dan McTeague warns that currently “OPEC and Russia produce nearly half the world’s oil needs. That’s quite a powerful block at a time when western nations seem intent on killing this vital resource.” It’s interesting that a similar price shock occurred in 1979, as the Iranian Revolution and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) restricted the supply of oil from Iran and once again created a shortage in global supply and doubled oil prices…”
Fine Tuned Athletic Machines pic.twitter.com/ZfimiMNfiL
— Steve Inman (@SteveInmanUIC) July 12, 2021
Mike Rowe, the host of “Dirty Jobs,” tells some compelling (and horrifying) real-life job stories. Listen for his insights and observations about the nature of hard work, and how it’s been unjustifiably degraded in society today.
While at our local produce farm a couple days ago, the owner recommended this video to me. I’ve been dealing with them for several years but the father/husband, Dan, likes to talk and brought up politics for the first time with me. He & his family & friends are good folks, avid Trump supporters, and refer to liberals as “Communists”. So I showed them Blazingcatfur on my phone, they loved it! Honestly I was surprised because Dan’s wife (nice lady) is a teacher, and that usually means batshit crazy liberal. I think you’ll like this video even though it’s a few years old.
When the war ended in 1988, it was not because the Soviets had been beaten on the battlefield but because they had been exhausted
As US and British forces pull out of Afghanistan, further victims of the ‘grave of empires’, Russia is experiencing a mix of satisfaction, exasperation and trepidation.
It has its own bitter memories of the country, after all. In 1979, as a friendly regime was falling back in the face of a mounting Islamic fundamentalist insurgency, Soviet forces rolled into Afghanistan. The idea was that by installing a new leader and mounting a brief show of force, the rebels would be intimidated back into line. Six months, the old men in the Kremlin told themselves, that is all it would take.
The Guiding Principles are creepily totalitarian, and yet one imagines the authors of this document think of themselves as being great public benefactors
The new Broadcasting Act, Bill C-10, may have been stymied in the Senate, but the actual content of its policy objectives has just been released, in the form of Heritage Canada’s “Guiding Principles on Diversity of Content Online.” For a government intent on control, the Guiding Principles have several advantages: they are not legislated; they can be revised and adapted according to how technology or society evolves; and they have no legally binding force. They have only the force of the large platforms to back them — if they sign on, as they are enjoined to do.
The free and open internet is under attack in countries around the world, Google boss Sundar Pichai has warned.
He says many countries are restricting the flow of information, and the model is often taken for granted.
In an in-depth interview with the BBC, Pichai also addresses controversies around tax, privacy and data.
And he argues artificial intelligence is more profound than fire, electricity or the internet.
The leaders of 16 political parties from across Europe have announced an unprecedented alliance to defend the sovereignty of European nation states, protect the nuclear family and preserve traditional Judeo-Christian values.
The July 2 “Joint Declaration on the Future of the European Union” represents the first significant endeavor by euroskeptic parties to jointly oppose efforts by European federalists to transform the European Union into a godless multicultural superstate.
President Joe Biden is sending a federal “strike force” to Chicago as well as major liberal strongholds such as New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., to combat violent crime and “illegal gun trafficking.”
The Department of Justice originally announced the strike force teams. They will be coordinating with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and will share information with state and local law authorities over guns and related crime. Biden claims the teams will not infringe on Second Amendment rights.
The UN human rights chief on Monday urged countries to take “a wide range of reparations measures” to address the legacies of slavery, colonial rule and racial discrimination.
Michelle Bachelet made the comment while presenting a report into racism worldwide and its impact on people of African descent.
The report was called for following the murder of Black man George Floyd by a white US police officer in 2020.
Over the last few weeks, Democrats have been laughably trying to shake their well-earned reputations as advocates for defunding the police off on Republicans. Biden advisor Cedric Richmond kicked things off in a late June interview by saying that “when [Democrats] were in Congress last year trying to pass an emergency rescue plan for cities that were cash-strapped and laying off police, it was the Republicans who objected to it. … They defunded the police.”
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla has accused US-paid mercenaries of fomenting Sunday’s mass protests across several Cuban cities, and blasted Washington’s “hypocritical” reaction to the unrest, suggesting that if the Biden administration really wanted to “help” Cuba, it should lift its crushing sanctions.
“Yesterday’s events in Cuba were not a social uprising, but disorder, disturbances caused by a communicational operation that had been prepared for some time and to which millions of dollars had been committed,” Rodriguez said in a televised address.
