For the largest health insurer in the US, AI's error rate is like a feature, not a bug.
UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurance company in the US, is allegedly using a deeply flawed AI algorithm to override doctors' judgments and wrongfully deny critical health coverage to elderly patients. This has resulted in patients being kicked out of rehabilitation programs and care facilities far too early, forcing them to drain their life savings to obtain needed care that should be covered under their government-funded Medicare Advantage Plan.
#6
Person I know, letter from insurer:
"After a thorough review of your case, we have decided not to back (proper but expensive) Medicine A for (much less expensive) Medicine B.
Medicine B has latex in the IV system. Person is allergic to latex. Thorough review.
#7
DooDahMan his wife confirmed he had been getting threats but she didn't know what they were because he wouldn't tell her. This whole thing stinks.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/07/2024 13:03 Comments ||
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#8
So UNH is going from PPO to HMO. Are blue glasses frames the new blue hair?
Posted by: Regular joe ||
12/07/2024 14:57 Comments ||
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#9
They kept pestering us to join them for Medicare plans. The pricing was rally inexpensive for what they said they offered, and that's always a red flag in my book.
Checked with a few folks we know that had it and they changed to another system within a couple of years. LOTS of hassle and denied services, apparently.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/07/2024 16:05 Comments ||
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[SteynOnline] I loathe the annual commemorations of the Montreal Massacre. I especially dislike the way it's become a state occasion, with lowered flags, like Remembrance Day. But, in this case, whatever honour we do the dead, we spend as much time dishonouring the living -- or at least the roughly fifty per cent of Canadians who happen to be male: For women's groups, the Montreal Massacre is an atrocity that taints all men, and for which all men must acknowledge their guilt. Marc Lépine symbolizes the murderous misogyny that lurks within us all.
M Lépine was born Gamil Gharbi, the son of an Algerian Muslim wife-beater, whose brutalized spouse told the court at their divorce hearing that her husband "had a total disdain for women and believed they were intended only to serve men." At eighteen, young Gamil took his mother's maiden name. The Gazette in Montreal mentioned this in its immediate reports of the massacre. The name "Gamil Gharbi" has not sullied its pages in the thirteen years since.
Ah, well, I would bring that up, wouldn't I? Just for the record, I'm not saying that M Lépine is representative of Algerian manhood or Muslim manhood. I'm saying he shouldn't be representative of anything -- least of all, the best efforts of women's groups and the convenient gloss of that pure laine name notwithstanding, Canadian manhood.
This spring, there was an attempted gun massacre at the Appalachian School of Law in West Virginia. But, alas for the Appalachians' M Lépine, there were two gun-totin' students present who were able to pin down the would-be mass murderer until the cops arrived.
Allan Rock stepping forward to recite the relevant portions of the gun registry requirements would have been far less effective. Generally speaking, when the psycho shows up and opens fire, your best hope is that there's someone else around with a gun to hand -- a situation Canadian law has now rendered all but impossible.
Direct Translation via Google Translation. Edited. by Igor Ivanenko
[REGNUM] For the fact that Novorossiya appeared on the map of Russia, descendants should thank three women - empresses: Anna Ioannovna, Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine II Alekseevna.
During the reign of the first of them, Anna Ioannovna, a fortified line was built on the lands of the former Wild Field, between the Dnieper and the Seversky Donets - the Ukrainian Defensive Line (the "Ukraine" was then the name for the Cossack lands in the middle Dnieper region). While the Russian army was "beating the Turks" in the steppes of the Black Sea region, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, settlers from the Great Russian provinces and descendants of old-timers-odnodvortsy settled at the edge of the empire.
The second, Elizabeth Petrovna, opened the way to the settlement of empty lands with hard-working and loyal colonists - the military-settlement provinces of New Serbia and Slavoserbia were created. As the names suggested, the migrants were refugees of the same faith and similar in language from the Ottoman Empire.
Finally, the third of the female rulers, Catherine the Great, united the Ukrainian line, Slavic Serbia and New Serbia into the Novorossiysk Governorate, whose borders expanded to the shores of the Black Sea, recaptured from the Turks by Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky and Suvorov. The victories of Russian arms guaranteed the rapid transformation of the former Tatar nomad camps into a region densely populated by Great Russians and Little Russians, a military outpost and trade gateway to the empire.
But on December 6, 1741, the day of Elizabeth Petrovna’s accession to the throne, nothing foreshadowed that she would be able to pass on the “Novorossiysk” baton from the despotic Anna to the enlightened Catherine.
And it was not about the supposedly frivolous nature of “Petrov’s daughter.”
When Alexei K. Tolstoy wrote, “Elizabeth was a cheerful queen, she sings and has fun – only there is no order” – he was still exaggerating.
The thing is that Elizabeth Petrovna's rise to power was, as they would say now, a pro-Western project. But in the end it turned out to be a huge disappointment for "our European partners."
THE SMALL BUT BLOODLESS FRENCH REVOLUTION
In order to describe the seizure of power by “the meek Elizabeth” (not the first, but far from the last in a series of St. Petersburg palace coups, which in European correspondence of those years were often called “revolutions”), it is necessary to at least briefly recall the specifics of the tsarist power of that time.
Peter the Great abolished the traditional order of transfer of power from father to eldest son, and up until Paul I, any member of the royal family who was lucky enough to secure the support of nobles and, most importantly, the guards, ended up on the throne. Thus, Peter's niece Anna Ioannovna, who had already "employed" her relatives, ended up on the throne.
In 1741, the emperor and autocrat was listed as Anna Ioannovna's grand-nephew, Ivan Antonovich, who was not even a year old. The infant tsar was ruled by his mother, the regent Anna Leopoldovna, and her husband, the Duke of Brunswick, Anton-Ulrich. The Brunswick family had recently overthrown (or rather, the guards had overthrown) the all-powerful temporary ruler Biron, but in his absence they could not cope with the government. Which irritated almost the entire elite.
And the soldiers of the Grenadier Company of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, who literally carried the Tsarevna into the Winter Palace, were generously rewarded from the purse of the French ambassador, the Marquis de la Chétardie. He is considered the "sponsor" of the conspiracy - hardly without the knowledge of his king, Louis XV the Beloved, perhaps the most influential ruler of Europe at that time.
THE CUNNING PLAN OF DOCTOR LESTOCQ
The organizers of the most bloodless of palace coups, however, had certain doubts about "Princess Elizabeth." Lestocq wrote that she, under the influence of "national sentiments," would contribute to Russia's self-isolation from Europe. But the bet was on the "princess's" political inexperience. Her "national sentiments" could be used to induce Elizabeth to renounce Peter's conquests - to the benefit of Europe.
By mid-1742, the first foreign policy program for her reign was formulated by the physician-in-ordinary Lestocq, who advised the young queen on state issues. This program was the fruit of a cunning, 18th-century-style, multi-move game.
The program envisaged rapprochement with France. This, they said, would free Russia from confrontation with our historical enemies - the Ottoman Empire and Sweden. Lestocq and Chétardie convinced Elizabeth that the Versailles court had great influence on both the Sultan and the Swedish king. And this was true - France was a constant and strong ally of the Turks and Swedes in the fight against Austria.
This circumstance was explained by the great influence of Versailles on Constantinople and Stockholm, which were historical allies of France in the struggle against Austria.
But the French had their own interests: for seven years Louis had been leading a coalition of European powers that was waging a grueling war with the Habsburgs. The War of the Austrian Succession of 1740–1748, which involved all the world players of the time – from England and Spain to Prussia – is generally considered one of the candidates for the “zero world wars.”
In this war, the Russian Empire “played” for the Austrians against the French.
The Lestocq plan removed our country from the ranks of France’s opponents and at the same time forced our historical enemies, the Swedes and the Turks, to become our “friends”.
If the plan had "succeeded", it would have changed history for the worse. Slavo-Serbia and other settlement provinces in the south would simply not have emerged. After all, the creation of our "colonies" on these lands contradicted the interests of Russia's "new allies" - the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate dependent on it.
The proposals of the personal physician fell on fertile ground, because at the beginning of her reign, Elizabeth Petrovna did not hide her Francophilia. But something went wrong.
MARIA THERESA, QUEEN OF HUNGARY
At the time of Elizabeth's coup, the Austrian Habsburgs were in particularly bad shape. The Prussian-French-Bavarian-Saxon coalition had taken control of Silesia, Bohemia, and even part of Austria proper. Spanish troops were threatening Austrian possessions in Italy. The very existence of the Danubian Empire was in question.
But it was at this moment that events occurred that predetermined, among other things, the Serbian colonization of the south of Russia.
In November 1741, the Austrian ruler Maria Theresa was proclaimed "king" of Hungary (since the feudal law of the Magyars did not allow for female rule) and turned to the Hungarian magnates for support.
The funds they collected were used to create a Hungarian militia. In addition, units of hussars, pandurs (mercenary infantry), border guards, and free shooters were formed from Austrian Slavs, including Serbs.
Thanks to these measures, a "small war" developed against Austria's enemies. Enemy communications, food warehouses, small garrisons and detachments were under constant attack. The hussars and militias were able to pin down the enemy forces, and the Austrians launched a counteroffensive.
All this made a strong impression on Russia, whose ally Austria was still formally under the treaty of 1726.
In addition, St. Petersburg appreciated Vienna’s sudden recognition of the imperial title of the Russian monarchs, which occurred in January 1742.
CHANCELLOR BESTUZHEV'S "U-TURN OVER THE ATLANTIC"
At the same time, an anti-French party emerged around the appointed Vice-Chancellor Alexei Bestuzhev-Ryumin, advocating an alliance with Austria and England. Bestuzhev entered into confrontation with the supporters of an alliance with Paris. The Empress supported Bestuzhev, who was appointed Chancellor in 1744.
In its significance, this patriotic turn can only be compared with Yevgeny Primakov’s famous “turn over the Atlantic”, after which Westernism began to disappear from our foreign policy.
Despite all of Elizabeth Petrovna’s Francophilia, the “merry queen” quickly gained experience in governing Russia, experience in understanding what “subtle European politics” is and what the geopolitical interests of the empire are.
In addition, it became known about an attempt to create an anti-Russian Prussian-Ottoman alliance.
Thus, it was impossible to rely on French guarantees of good-neighborliness between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. And this means that the southern border of the Romanov Empire clearly needed to be strengthened - from the Turks and Crimea.
HOW A SERB NAMED HORVAT APPEARED IN MIRGOROD
In these circumstances, reforms of the Austrian "Cossacks" - the Granichar (border guards), who were recruited from among the Serbs to serve on the southern borders of the Habsburg possessions, began in Austria very "timely". As a sign of gratitude to the Hungarians, Maria Theresa began to transfer the Granichar to the control of Magyar officers - which outraged the Serbian army.
Several commanders immediately began asking to serve the Orthodox Russian empress. Fortunately for them, in 1750, when these events were unfolding, the Russian ambassador to Austria was Mikhail Bestuzhev-Ryumin, the elder brother of the Russian chancellor.
He became interested in the idea of Serbian emigration and composed a maximally complimentary letter about it – a request to St. Petersburg.
The Empress expressed her readiness to accept the Serbs. Especially since "sister-empress" Maria Theresa gave the go-ahead for Colonels Ivan Horvat, Nikolai Chorba and other "toxic" opponents of military reform to switch from Austrian to Russian service.
In 1751, Colonel Horvat arrived in Russia and assured that several thousand more Serbs would follow him. The Empress initially planned to settle the colonists in the Volga region, but the Balkan residents wanted to stay closer to their native lands. And Elizabeth settled Horvat's team on the Right Bank of the Dnieper, in the area of the town of Novy Mirgorod (modern Novomirgorod).
Thus, on the territory of the current Kirovograd region of Ukraine, the military-settlement province of New Serbia was formed (inhabited by far from "pure-blooded Ukrainians"), and to the east of the Dnieper, in the north of the current DPR and LPR, the province of Slavyanoserbia. So Donbass became our "new territories" long before 2022 and even 2014.
Soon, the fortress of Saint Elizabeth was built to protect New Serbia from Tatar raids, later Elisavetgrad (now Kirovograd, or in the terminology of the Kyiv regime, "Kropyvnytsky"). It was in this fortress, populated by Russian and Serbian colonists, that the governing bodies of the new Novorossiysk province were located.
MOLDOVANS ARE NOT MIGRANT WORKERS
Only “people from Moldova, Wallachia, Macedonia, Serbia” and “not from any other peoples” were allowed to settle in New Serbia, as well as in Slavic Serbia created to the east of the Dnieper (it was located in the north of today’s DPR and LPR). Settlers were attracted by tax breaks, land grants, salaries and subsidies.
However, hopes for a mass influx of Serbian border guards did not materialize. Austrian authorities began to restrict the activities of Russian recruiters, who quite quickly managed to persuade hundreds of willing people to emigrate. Criminal liability was introduced for military settlers who tried to leave for neighboring countries without permission.
A way out in replenishing the New Serbian and Slavic Serbian regiments was found in recruiting Moldavians. In December 1754, the population of New Serbia was 2,225 men and 1,694 women. Moldavians and Vlachs made up 76% of the male population.
But the command positions in the province were occupied only by Serbian officers. The number of male Serbian population at that time was 257 people, Macedonians - 124, Hungarians - 79, Bulgarians - 57.
The bulk of the Moldavian settlers came from the Prut and Dniester interfluve, as well as from Podolia. The Moldavians were pushed to New Serbia by the oppression inflicted on them in their native principality by the Turks and especially the Tatars. A large influx of Moldavian settlers to the Dnieper was recorded in 1758, when Moldavia was subjected to the most devastating Tatar raid in its history.
The Serbian military-settlement provinces became the first experience of integrating Moldavians into the Novorossiysk project. Under Catherine II, it was used during the creation of the Bug (largely Moldavian-Balkan) Cossack army, generous land grants to the Moldavian nobility and their recruitment into service.
A SPRINGBOARD FOR A PUSH TO THE SOUTH
However, the growth rate of immigrants on the Right Bank of the Dnieper was not as high as the authorities expected. As of 1757, 5,482 immigrants (both sexes) lived here, and as of 1761, 11,179.
The Novoslobodsky Cossack Regiment, located near New Serbia, grew significantly faster. But the Cossacks settled on the border of the Wild Field for free, while the "regular" military-settlement provinces consumed significant resources.
The last episode in the organized migration of Serbs from the Habsburg Empire was 1758. Then a large group of 800 settlers came from the Balkans. When recruited, they introduced themselves as Montenegrins (Venetian subjects with extensive experience in wars with the Turks), but in Russia most of them admitted that they were Serbian "philistines", that is, peaceful residents from the Austrian possessions. Most of them had no military experience.
After the story with the false Montenegrins, the government of Elizabeth Petrovna closed down the very expensive project of resettling foreigners. Especially since there were no free funds in the treasury in the conditions of the tense Seven Years' War.
Seriously strengthening the southern borderland with Serbian regiments in the mid-18th century was not possible, as was demonstrated by the events of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, which was waged by the third strong woman on the Russian throne - Catherine the Great. Nevertheless, New Serbia played an important political role, limiting the contacts of the Zaporizhian Sich with Poland, which was hostile to us.
It is symbolic that the restless and difficult to control Sich was eventually dispersed by the Russian troops of General-in-Chief Peter Tekeli, a Serb who had switched from Austrian to Russian service.
The demographic echo of the existence of New Serbia and Slavoserbia continued to be felt until recently. According to the last All-Ukrainian population census of 2001, the Kirovograd and Donetsk regions were characterized by some of the most significant Moldavian communities (8.2 and 7.3 thousand people, respectively). It is difficult to explain their formation in the Dnieper region and on the Seversky Donets by anything other than the resettlement policy of Elizabeth Petrovna.
And most importantly, during the joyful reign of Elizabeth, the empire, with the help of military and diplomatic force, steadily advanced to the south. In order to later “grow” with the fertile lands of the Black Sea region – which now have to be returned with a fight.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Savin
[REGNUM] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has broken the curtain of silence and finally spoken out about the sharp escalation of the situation in Syria. And his words can be considered sensational without exaggeration.
"Idlib, Hama, Homs and the goal, of course, is Damascus. The opposition march in Syria continues. We hope that it will be without upheavals and disasters," the Turkish leader essentially revealed the militants' plans to seize the Syrian capital. Erdogan then complained that attempts to reach an agreement "in a good way" were fruitless: "We appealed to Assad with a call to jointly determine the future of Syria. Unfortunately, this call was not answered positively."
Not just a tin ear, but a lead one.
With such statements, Erdogan is essentially turning the chessboard of the Syrian conflict upside down and is rushing to consolidate the successes that the militants have achieved on the ground in the political plane. However, for those who professionally follow the situation in the region, such a development of events was not too stunning.
He thought the Kurds annoying. The Syrians are an entirely different kettle of piranhas — back when the Ottoman empire was a thing and not just a Playboy centerfold, the sultan’s army had to regularly decimate their Arab population just to keep their troublesomeness down to a dull roar. Hama Rules, if your men have the will.
Literally on the eve of the events in northern Syria, where Turkish-backed Islamist militants launched a fairly effective offensive and captured Aleppo, Hama and a number of other cities, meetings were held in Ankara with representatives of various think tanks and the academic community dealing with foreign policy issues.
In open and behind-the-scenes conversations, it was felt that some events were coming, in particular, the idea was expressed that the “Astana process” for the Syrian settlement had been exhausted and Russia should understand Turkey’s interests in determining the type of political unity in Syria. However, the matter does not end with the relations between Russia, Syria and Turkey.
In Turkey, current political processes are viewed through the prism of interconnected events not only in Syria, but also in Libya, Ukraine, and Nagorno-Karabakh, which came under the control of Azerbaijan. The Islamist militants have also been seen wearing symbols of “Eastern Turkestan” and “Grey Wolves,” which indicates at least the nominal presence of supporters of the pan-Turkic project in their ranks.
That’s what Turkey is paying them for. Statistically at least a few should believe in it.
If previously there was a clear belief that the United States is the leading external force in the Middle East, now in Ankara they are talking about a political vacuum that has formed that needs to be filled.
It will be on January 20th, my dears. But y’all carry on roistering about the landscape while still you can.
Without claiming to be a great power, Turkey, observing what is happening and other countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, has come to the conclusion that middle powers can also benefit greatly from the current geopolitical turbulence associated with conflicts and competition among great powers.
It is likely that the current round of escalation represents such a rationalization (from the Turkish point of view) due to the status quo in the Turkey-Iraq-Syria triangle. But if Ankara has managed to achieve some progress with the Iraqi leadership (despite the occupation of part of Northern Iraq by Turkish troops and regular bombing of Kurdish settlements),
…(a pungent point)…
then the situation with Syria is more complicated.
The Syrian issue is now taking on existential features for Ankara. This is due, firstly, to the large number of Syrian refugees in Turkey, who, given the current inflation, are becoming a kind of scapegoat. It is easiest to declare them the cause of internal problems, of which Ankara has many. Secondly, the Kurdish paramilitary formations are a real pain in the neck for the Turks. Thirdly, due to previously established contacts with the Syrian opposition, Turkey is counting on a political agreement, but there is still no such agreement.
At the same time, Turkey understands that the accumulating issues are creating contradictions within the country, and their resolution requires the active participation of Syria, Iran, Russia, and the United States.
With Donald Trump elected as the new US president, Ankara will have to balance hard, as it is not yet clear what strategy Washington will choose.
I feel seen, as the kids say nowadays.
It is possible that US troops will be withdrawn from both Syria and Iraq. For Ankara, an increase in the Russian military contingent would be preferable, as Russia does not put pressure on Turkey. On the other hand, it also sought to push Bashar al-Assad to a more compromising position, as Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants.
Turkey would probably be willing to leave Syria if there were no threats coming from there. But as long as there are militant Kurdish groups there, there is no such certainty. The Kurds, for their part, are not ready to disarm, especially given their experience of confronting ISIS* in the past.
The Kurdish YPG forces are active in Syria, and like the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Turkey considers them a terrorist organization. But while the US used to openly support and arm the YPG, this is no longer the case. Moreover, the Kurdish enclaves in northern Syria are now effectively surrounded by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* group.
From this we can conclude that Turkey has reached some kind of agreement with the US on non-interference in the conflict.
Not the U.S. — if such a decision was made it could be no more than the current ad hoc cabal in Washington making decisions on various issues as various subgroups turn their attention this way and that… for the next few weeks. None of their decisions can be binding, as they have no legal authority to decide for the nation.
Or the Turkish special services, understanding the specifics of the transition period in the White House and the absence of any forceful decisions, gave the go-ahead to the militants to conduct the current offensive operation. It is worth immediately making a reservation that the militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* would hardly have escalated on their own.
I seem to recall that HTS has talked about having rehearsed for a yeqr for this…
However, the scale of the escalation seems to have exceeded all expectations.
And if initially the talk was about pushing Syria, as well as Russia and Iran, to a speedy resolution of the political crisis, including defining the political role of the opposition and the return of several million refugees, which was planned to be agreed upon at the next round of meetings in the “Astana format” in Qatar, then the sudden success of the militants forced Erdogan to come out of the shadows.
The timing is ideal, given Russia's involvement in the SVO in Ukraine, as well as a certain pause in Iran's activity in the region, caused by both the death of an IRGC representative in Syria and the Hezbollah leadership in Lebanon.
Given how unfavorable the situation is for the Syrian government, even if the YPG Kurds decide to support it in repelling the militants' advance, more decisive action by Turkey could follow. Seeing the Kurds' weakness, Ankara could decide to finish them off once and for all, first in Rojava (in northern Syria), and then moving on to methodically destroying other structures in Iraq and Turkey itself.
The Kurdish issue is indeed extremely important for the current Turkish leadership. It is no coincidence that Erdogan's ally and leader of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahceli in October called on the founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment, to address parliament and announce the dissolution of the PKK. Given that parliament is a particularly sacred place for Turks, the proposal to allow a person convicted of terrorism to sit there clearly demonstrates concern about a possible Kurdish mobilization in the future. In addition, the demographic situation should be taken into account, since the Kurds have many more children than the Turks.
Which is why President Erdogan has been busily arranging as many Kurdish deaths as possible, both in Turkey and in the Kurdish territories immediately beyond Turkey’s borders.
Therefore, there are several elements in the equation - behind the interests of the Islamists trying to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad is Turkey with its interests in destroying the military-political structures of the Kurds. And in a broader context, we are talking about following the strategy of neo-Ottomanism and pan-Turkism.
What’s to be said? The man has dreams.
The US has so far distanced itself from active participation in resolving the Syrian problems, probably fearing to get bogged down in another conflict in the Middle East, as happened earlier in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And now Russian forces are bugging out for the same reason.
[NYPOST] Not content with one noxious pardon for son Hunter, President Biden is (reportedly) considering many, many others.
And the rumored list of the soon-to-be-legally-blameless is a doozy.
The newest add? Gen. Mark Milley, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chair.
Milley is a woke extremist who pushed DEI within the armed forces. Far worse, he sidled up to high generals in China's army days before the 2020 election and promised them ''everything is going to be OK,'' and did so again after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, telling them that if we were going to attack, he'd let them know.
It wasn't open treason, but sure flirted with it — and absolutely put his own ego above his sworn duty.
Milley's in some deeply dishonorable company.
Chief among them is Dr. Anthony Fauci, who (1) repeatedly obfuscated before Congress about his role in funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan that may have sparked the pandemic, and (2) ruthlessly used his power behind the scenes to suppress any discussion of the lab-leak theory, now by far the most likely explanation for COVID's origin.
Gee, we thought Fauci was a saint. Why would he need a pre-emptive pardon that frees him from criminal responsibility for bad actions?
Don't forget Sen.-elect Adam Schiff >...Showboating U.S. Representative for California's 28th congressional district since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Schiff has served in Congress since 2001. He currently serves as the chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In a manner reminiscent of Joe McCarthy, on March 22, 2017, in a interview with Chuck Todd on MSNBC Schiff claimed there was “more than circumstantial evidence now” that Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia." Todd followed up by asking if he had seen direct evidence of collusion and Schiff responded that there was "evidence that is not circumstantial and is very much worthy of investigation"...> , the Russiagate liar who used the utterly fake Steele dossier to power his bogus, endless crusade against President Donald Trump ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party... for nonexistent collusion.
How in the world could that American hero have anything to worry about legally?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11136 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Biden is considering...
I look forward to January when we can finally stop pretending that Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., nominally President of the United States, is actually in charge of anything.
#2
There is one final judgement that matters. Biden, Pelosi and McConnell don’t have jurisdiction in the courtroom where they are headed sooner than most of us.
If Biden pardons Trump, he should turn it down. It would be a temptation offered by the prince of this world. The Donald doesn’t need their stinking pardon.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/07/2024 12:21 Comments ||
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#3
Wasn't it Milley who refused Trump's order to pull our troops out of Syria and Afghanistan? And then he was at least partially to blame for the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan after Biden ordered it? Am I right or was that some other general?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/07/2024 14:12 Comments ||
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#4
He was the front-and-center...face..of all that; sure others played the same song but in the orchestra.
Text taken from the Live Journal account of smertnyy
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
The Netflix series "Three Body Problem" is an excellent adaptation of the book. Star Trek TNG alum Rosalind Chao is one of the main characters.
[ColonelCassad] In a recent conversation about understanding quantum mechanics, it occurred to me that the essence of Liu Cixin's novel "The Three-Body Problem" is to show the modern problem of physics: the irreproducibility of results ruins scientific activity.
In the novel, aliens ruin the scientific activity of earthlings, making it impossible for them to obtain reproducible scientific results. Scientists all over the world are either quitting science or committing suicide, because it is becoming impossible to do science. This reflects the problem of modern physics working with the quantum world. Modern physicists talk about the irreproducibility of experimental results in the quantum world.
For example, Feynman: "One philosopher said: "For the very existence of science, it is absolutely necessary that the same results always be obtained under the same conditions." Well, this does not work. You can accurately reproduce all the conditions, and still not be able to predict in which hole you will see an electron." There is also a problem with scientific activity in modern physics. There is no development of physics.
The refusal to reproduce results has led to the impossibility of developing physics, the impossibility of developing a theory. And the impossibility of reproducing the results of experiments is a refusal of causality, i.e. a refusal of determinism. It is impossible to reproduce the results of experiments, which means it is impossible to draw conclusions. No conclusions - no reasoning. No reasoning - no theory.
And modern physicists eloquently demonstrate this to everyone! Everything that they produce in experiments in the quantum world is interpretation. In fact, these are fantasies. It was shameful to write that these are fantasies, so they came up with a replacement word - "interpretations". Yes, of course, these fantasies are limited by the results of experiments, but that's all. It is impossible to reason. Any reasoning is based on causality, i.e. on the reproducibility of results.
Therefore, this novel is an excellent example of science fiction. But why don't these modern physicists in our reality kill themselves like in the novel?! When will they start?! If they suddenly start, I will open a shamanic one.
The current scientific problem in the novel is raised beautifully, but unnoticed (!!), which is funny. Reviewers and critics of the novel see only an analysis of the problem of life in a system with three suns (the homeland of aliens). And this is not the most important moment in the novel.
P.S. The article serves as an addendum to the article "Determinism. The essence of the concept and the history of understanding. Causality or chance?"
P.S. I do not agree with the interpretation of modern physicists that the results of experiments in the quantum world are irreproducible under the same conditions. They are irreproducible because it is impossible to repeat the conditions. In my opinion, physicists ignore the non-repeatability of experimental conditions in the quantum world. But this is a separate issue.
I liked the novel's peculiar line more, when the plot actually shows what happens if you pardon a relative of an enemy of the people. It is unlikely that this was directly implied by the author, but it looks like the main villain who doomed humanity to destruction was the daughter of an enemy of the people. Who, out of mercy, was decided to be given a second chance, and she used it to take revenge, and not only on the Communist Party or China, but on all of humanity.
There's a huge problem with fields of science being subjugated by politicized pseudoscience.
It is also true that there has not been some fundamental innovation in theoretical physics for some decades in the face of puzzling observational findings about the nature of the universe at a grand scale.
But there's no reproducibility problem pertaining to quantum mechanics related physical phenomena.
Also macroscopic phenomena that can only explained by quantum mechanics, like e.g. superconductivity, were discovered and explored by conducting reproducible experiments sometimes decades before the development of suitable quantum theories.
#2
The way my feeble mind understands the three body problem is that the problem is more about predictability than reproducibility.
Two celestial bodies interacting with one another can be predicted as to location at the instance they interact and how they interact using mathematics and quantum mechanics. A mathematical model can then be assembled.
But, when a third body is introduced, the predictability becomes much more difficult/complex and thus, the assembly of a mathematical model of the relative motions of the three bodies becomes extremely complex, so much so errors begin to creep in with the calculations.
The introduction of the third body is itself a problem.
I’ve fought in #Syria for half a decade—as an SDF soldier. In that time, I studied war, drew battle plans, and learned to know my enemy. When HTS seized their first village, I saw what few others could. Take a peek at what’s coming next—a 🧵 pic.twitter.com/on7hkOvbnS
Posted by: 3dc ||
12/07/2024 07:46 ||
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Top|| File under: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (al-Nusra)
#1
Reading his tweets on his X page is interesting. He was a YPG sniper and commander defending Kobane and Raqqa against Turkey in 2014-17. His views can be summed up as: Kurds good, communism good, Turkey murderous, the HTS-led alliance (Al-Fath al-Mubin) is Islamist, murderous, and aimed at Assad, while Fajr al-Hurriya — the alliance on Turkey’s payroll sometimes called the Syrian National Army — is evil, murderous, and aimed at the Kurds. But Israel, which isn’t involved in any of this, is vile beyond words — every time they don’t mention the Kurds is proof of that.
I didn’t expect that last, which shows my naiveté, I guess.
And this tweet is particularly fascinating:
Mahsun Korkmaz Academy training camp in Lebanon, 1988 - where the PKK learned guerrilla warfare tactics from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). pic.twitter.com/BVqXg9YdJ0
[FrontPage] After months of fighting, Israel had devastated Hezbollah, capturing enemy fortresses and weapons depots, and taking out much of its leadership along with over 3,500 of its terrorists.
Biden responded by using a weapons embargo on Israel to force an end to the war, but instead of ending the war, his administration had actually managed to restart a much deadlier war.
Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah led to less than 4,000 deaths in Lebanon, while the Syrian Civil War that the Biden administration restarted has racked up over 600,000 deaths so far.
Not only hasn’t the fighting with Israel ended, but a much bloodier war has begun all over again.
The false pursuit of peace with terrorists in the Middle East has once again brought on a war by diplomats who support terrorists and do not understand how the Muslim world works.
The ceasefire that Biden falsely described as a “permanent cessation of hostilities” has not actually ended the fighting with Israel, but it has allowed Hezbollah to regroup and return to areas that the Islamic terrorist group had been driven out of at a high cost for Israeli soldiers. Even while the Biden administration was taking its victory lap, Hezbollah terrorists were once again setting up rocket launchers and Israel was once again taking them out.
After the ceasefire announcement, Hezbollah’s Shiite population flooded back into the war zone, waving yellow Hezbollah flags, while much of Israel’s displaced population did not return knowing that they could put no trust in the same failed promises from the ‘international community’ that the rocket attacks on their homes and schools would come to an end.
The Biden administration had ensured that Israel would not be able to enjoy the fruits of victory, nor would Lebanon’s Christian population which continues to live under Islamist domination.
Instead, Islamic Sunni and Shiite terrorists became the only beneficiaries of the ceasefire.
Once Biden got his ‘ceasefire’, Turkey and its allied Sunni Jihadists, some aligned with Al Qaeda, decided to exploit Hezbollah’s vulnerability by launching a bid for Syria. The Biden administration had used every available tool, including reportedly threats of an UN arms embargo, to force Israel to stop attacking Hezbollah, but did nothing to stop Turkey.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
>...Showboating U.S. Representative for California's 28th congressional district since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Schiff has served in Congress since 2001. He currently serves as the chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In a manner reminiscent of Joe McCarthy, on March 22, 2017, in a interview with Chuck Todd on MSNBC Schiff claimed there was “more than circumstantial evidence now” that Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia." Todd followed up by asking if he had seen direct evidence of collusion and Schiff responded that there was "evidence that is not circumstantial and is very much worthy of investigation"...>
