Enter Barbie-Landia, Barberella, One Million Years BC, Mad Mad Mad MadWorld
It’s almost a timeless Grateful Dead, Burning Man, Woodstock bullshit of our times thing so say, man, Just enjoy the ride cuz the great messed up cosmic force is a hoot. Americanos, whether the first dirty Disneyland or the newest one in Oklahoma, can’t wait for the next CHOICE/UNCHOICE:
And so it goes, man, as the endless prattle, endless Million-plus Podcast March Toward Ennui or “Decision Fatigue” or Buridan’s ass. All those Substacks to choose from, millions of books at Amazon (30 million). From 3,000 choices at the old supermarket, to 300,000. Choices, and so the Western Modern World Goes Round and Round with Diet Coke and Depleted Uranium Shells.
The paradox predates Buridan; it dates to antiquity, being found in Aristotle‘s On the Heavens.[2] Aristotle, in ridiculing the Sophist idea that the Earth is stationary simply because it is spherical and any forces on it must be equal in all directions, says that is as ridiculous as saying that[2]
…a man, being just as hungry as thirsty, and placed in between food and drink, must necessarily remain where he is and starve to death.
— Aristotle, On the Heavens 295b, c. 350 BC
Or, more French:
So paralysis is a consequence of having too many choices.
La paralysie est une conséquence de trop de choix.
Now the paralysis is not so much the act of freezing with all these choices, all those color wheels for home improvement (sic) or paint options for the Dodge Charger. It is the idea that so many appearingly disparate aspects of modern society, so many dividies between First World, Developing World, Third World, Emerging Economies, Under-Developing Economies, Feudal countires, re-colonized countries, religious states, inverted totalitarian states, Fourth Worlers — Fourth World refers to the most underdeveloped, poverty-stricken, and marginalized regions and populations of the world. Many inhabitants of these nations do not have any political ties and are often hunter-gatherers that live in nomadic communities, or are part of tribes.
Over-fed, under-fed, food as a weapon, sanctioned and sanctioning, all of that, way to much for the average American mind to take, so, they fold into pure bullshit, from movies like Oppen-Monster-Heimer, to the next Batman and Robin LGBTQA+ Rainbow warriors.
Fucking “FIRST” world are the destroyers of Earth so, they are, FIRST and LAST Destroyers of Earth Worldians:
The First World consisted of the U.S., Western Europe and their allies. The Second World was the so-called Communist Bloc: the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and friends. The remaining nations, which aligned with neither group, were assigned to the Third World.
The Third World has always had blurred lines.
“Although the phrase was widely used, it was never clear whether it was a clear category of analysis, or simply a convenient and rather vague label for an imprecise collection of states in the second half of the 20th century and some of the common problems that they faced,” writes historian B.R. Tomlinson in the essay “What was the Third World,” published in 2003 in the Journal of Contemporary History.
So, endless stories on the rich, the business class, the techno-class, the athletes, the owners, the bosses, the billionaires, the cultural creators, the ziegeist, man. And, we are in that flippant species epigenetics, you know, the laugh is on us when we look at Pelosi, Schumer, Nuland, Kagan, Blinken, Yellen, Maddow, Whoopie, Biden, Trump, Harris, Pense, DeSantis, RFK, Jr. The joke’s on us, looking for gems of wisdomw from Buffet or Gates or Sam Altman or MIC, or DARPA, or Big Pharma, or . . . .
There are no choices, but when one of my amiga’s tells me to chill the pill, to quit being so serious, to look at the day’s events and news with George Carlin aplumb, well well — I also take some pride in seeing how the fall of human kind (sic) and the avalanche of absurdity and ruthlessness and abslote despotism is on a steep steep uptick, or in a deep deep spiraling down down down.
Soren Kieekergard: Lost in the infinite.
Or this pop book reference, that work for you? Overchoice. Overchoice or choice overload is a cognitive process in which people have a difficult time making a decision when faced with many options. The term was first introduced by Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book, Future Shock.
And you thought the marketing, or the education departments, or the K12 schools, or the mass media, or the news makers, or the wonks and nerds, or the scientists, all of those are more or less finding the better angels of our/their nature?
In 2000, Professor Sheena Iyengar*** from Columbia University famously conducted the ‘jam study’ as an exploration of choice and decision making. In the study, Iyengar and her researchers first displayed 24 jams in a busy supermarket, encouraging free tasting. This abundance of choice saw 60% of customers stopping and tasting the jam, but only 3% making a purchase.
In 2005 the journalist Malcolm Gladwell featured Iyengar’s work in his best seller Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Little, Brown).
Next, the researchers set up the display with 6 jam jars. This time there were fewer customers stopping, only 40%, but the actual purchases went up tenfold, to 30%. This study became a central example in Barry Schwartz’s*** 2004 book, The Paradox of Choice.
The paradox of choice is a phenomenon where an abundance of options can counterintuitively lead to less happiness, less satisfaction, and hamper the ability to make a decision.
BEHIND THE PARADOX.
Some of the reasons why more choices might result in lower conversion rates include:
More obvious Opportunity Cost: when presented with options, the loss of the choice you didn’t make will potentially be heightened in your mind. Also known as ‘FOMO’ or the fear of missing out.
Decision fatigue and overwhelm, with an understanding of thinking fast and slow: where every conscious decision you make has a cognitive cost, making such decisions can be exhausting.
AN INFLUENTIAL MODEL.
The paradox of choice model made a significant impact at the time — Schwartz’s book became a bestseller and its premise was endorsed by many credible sources. Since 2004, modern consumers have only been more inundated with choices — from media, online shopping, and don’t get me started on the rows and rows of toothpaste in the supermarket! Which makes the backlash against the model all the more surprising.
THE BACKLASH AGAINST IT.
This backlash came to the fore in 2010 with a meta-analysis by Benjamin Scheibehenne. His results are often held up to be a straight rejection of Iyengar’s research, revealing difficulties replicating the findings of the jam study, given that he identified an average nil effect. Digging deeper, the nil average hides the fact that the actual results were quite varied — with choice sometimes increasing conversion rates, and other times minimising it.
CHOICE OVERLOAD vs INFORMATION OVERLOAD.
One distinction Scheibehenne made in trying to understand his findings was the difference between ‘choice overload’ versus ‘information overload’. Indeed Schwartz, revisiting his work, pointed out that the paradox of choice does not apply when a person knows a domain well and can be mitigated with an effective presentation of the choices.
MEANINGFUL CHOICE AS A FACTOR.
Others have claimed that the reduced conversion rate arises from the ‘lack of meaningful choice’, rather than choice itself. And some researchers have since pointed to additional moderating factors, including the:
Difficulty of the decision task: how much work is involved in making a decision.
Complexity of the choice set: how easy is it to make comparisons.
Level of uncertainty: the ability for a consumer to evaluate options or be clear on their preference.
Decision goal: whether it’s to minimise cognitive load or find the best option.
SO HOW USEFUL IS THIS MODEL?
Where does the debate leave you in deciding choice sets in your marketing campaign, product strategy, or simply striving for a happier life? Well, it’s complicated. Dare we remind you that the Map is Not the Territory?
The truth is that the paradox of choice model has its uses but also has clear limitations. When applying it, use experimentation methods such as Split Testing, to identify the impact on your specific challenge and context. Also, consider some of the above factors in deciding whether the choice you might be providing is a blocker or a benefit. See the Actionable Takeaways below for more.
IN YOUR LATTICEWORK.
This model is often viewed as part of broader Behavioural Economics, so is informed by Fast and Slow Thinking. As mentioned, it has also been explained by the Opportunity Cost.
In designing for user interaction, whether it be in delivering a UX, product range or anything, consider addressing this potential challenge with models such as Occam’s Razor to simplify; the EAST Frameworkto design Nudges; and/or Anchoring to frame and influence a user experience.
***Sheena S. Iyengar is the S.T. Lee Professor of Business in the Management Department at Columbia Business School,[1][2] widely and best known as an expert on choice.[3][4][5] Her research focuses on the many facets of decision making, including: why people want choice, what affects how and what we choose, and how we can improve our decision making.[2][6] She has presented TED talks on choice[7] and is the author of The Art of Choosing (2010).[8]
Iyengar was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[8]: xi Her parents were immigrants from Delhi,[9]India.[8]: xi–xii As a child, she was diagnosed with a rare form of retinitis pigmentosa,[8]: xii an inherited disease of retinal degeneration. By the age of nine, she could no longer read.[6] By the age of sixteen, she was completely blind,[6] although able to perceive light.[8]: xii She remains blind as an adult.[5]
Iyengar’s father died of a heart attack when she was thirteen.[8]: xii–xiii This change in family circumstances, and Iyengar’s loss of vision, prompted Iyengar’s mother to steer her towards higher education and self-sufficiency, saying to Iyengar: “I don’t want to hear about men or boys, you’ve got to stand on your own two feet.”[10]
***Barry Schwartz (1946-) The National Library of Israel [Founded in Jerusalem in 1892, the National Library of Israel (NLI) holds the collective memory of Israelis of all backgrounds and faiths and the Jewish people worldwide. While continuing to serve as Israel’s preeminent research library, over the past decade NLI has embarked upon an ambitious journey of renewal to encourage diverse audiences in Israel and around the globe to engage with its treasures in new and meaningful ways. This transformative renewal is taking place through a range of innovative educational, cultural, and digital initiatives, as well as through the construction of a new landmark campus, on schedule to open its doors in 2023.]
+—+
So, that Mad Mad Mad Mad World of Mad Mad Mad Mad Men and Mad Mad Mad Mad Women, and all those choices — butts, beer, bombs, boobs, bathrooms — all part of the behavior management, until we have Wikipedia putting up the UkroNaziLandian Flag as a way to the future.
Choices made for you, vis-a-vis monitoring, mixed reality, virtual relaity, artificial intelligence, algorithms, those guys with the nerdy looking haircuts.
Lucky in Love:
But Americanos have so many choice, are so independent, are so the New Eve and Adam, are so rugged and individual, are so enlightened and free.
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.
That’s 1928, the quote above: Often referred to as “the father of public relations,” Bernays in 1928 published his seminal work, Propaganda, in which he argued that public relations is not a gimmick but a necessity:
So, manufacturing consent or engineering consent, have at it, but this one fellow is one of the seminal viruses of the world, and we know his background, his history, his values, his religion, his uncle, his ways.
Drawing on the insights of his Uncle Sigmund – a relationship Bernays was always quick to mention – he developed an approach he dubbed “the engineering of consent.” He provided leaders the means to “control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it.” To do so, it was necessary to appeal not to the rational part of the mind, but the unconscious.
Bernays acquired an impressive list of clients, ranging from manufacturers such as General Electric, Procter & Gamble, and the American Tobacco Company, to media outlets like CBS and even politicians such as Calvin Coolidge. To counteract President Coolidge’s stiff image, Bernays organized “pancake breakfasts” and White House concerts with Al Jolson and other Broadway performers. With Bernays’ help, Coolidge won the 1924 election.
Bernays’ publicity campaigns were the stuff of legend. To overcome “sales resistance” to cigarette smoking among women, Bernays staged a demonstration at the 1929 Easter parade, having fashionable young women flaunt their “torches of freedom.”
He promoted Lucky Strikes by convincing women that the forest green hue of the cigarette pack was among the most fashionable of colors. The success of this effort was manifested in innumerable windowdisplays and fashion shows.
In the 1930s, he promoted cigarettes as both soothing to the throat and slimming to the waistline. But at home, Bernays was attempting to persuade his wife to kick the habit. When would find a pack of her Parliaments in their home, he would snap every one of them in half and throw them in the toilet. While promoting cigarettes as soothing and slimming, Bernays, it seems, was aware of some of the early studies linking smoking to cancer.
And so we are that brunt of and straight line for that funny joke of the cosmos, no, and do you see any resemblance to Israel’s Pink Washing and complete control of the media and legislation and censorship campaigns with ZioAzovLensky’s marketing of a dying Goyim Ukraine? All those smoke and mirrors of Blinken-Kagan-Yellen-Nuland?
Any historical, educational, networking, familial resemblance, man? Staged, demonstrations, what’s fashionable, control and regimentation, manipulating the narrative, working and reworking the framing, blasting, soothing, massaging, tricking the unconscious — is any of this coming to you clearly . . . but the big joke’s on all of us, so sit back and take it, enjoy it, self-express while the shit goes into the handbasket? Foggy weather? Let it pass, like RAPE?
The Republican gubernatorial nominee apologized today for an off-the-cuff remark suggesting that some victims of rape should ”relax and enjoy it.”
The candidate, Clayton Williams, had initially played down the remark as being a joke.
Women’s groups and political opponents of Mr. Williams strongly criticized the candidate for the comment.
It ”questions his ability to understand the kinds of problems faced by the people of Texas,” said Ann Richards, the State Treasurer and a runoff candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. ”Rape is a crime of violence.”
Mr. Williams made the remark on Saturday while preparing for a cattle roundup at his West Texas ranch. He compared the cold, foggy weather spoiling the event to a rape, telling ranch hands, campaign workers and reporters around a campfire, ”If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”
Moving onto my daily dose of aggressive angst: Headlines, first, and links (sorry, it’s mostly all Mashed Up Mainlining Mauling Media!
Where to start? Think hard, man, about just Oregon — more gotcha stuff from the Pigs and the Code Inspectors and Fine and Ticket Managers. Isn’t CCTV, computing, drones, and AI wonderful? Tax the rich and tax the destroyers of earth into oblivion? Nah, get the drivers, man. CHOICES!
Food and who controls the supply chain, or the actual grocery stores? You are shit outta luck man, when these mergers occur, and jobs are lost and stores close. CHOICES at the supermarket.
And who controls the food will control the population, and starvation, and add a little bit of gut diseases, stunted childhood growth, and then let loose a bioweapon virus or two:
On September 5, the annual Africa Food Systems Forum, organised by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), will launch in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Government officials, experts, policymakers and business leaders will come together to discuss – in their words – “building back better food systems and food sovereignty”.
Sponsored by international philanthropic and bilateral donors and agrochemical and biotech companies such as Yara, Corteva and Bayer, the forum promotes hybrid and genetically modified seeds, chemical fertilisers and pesticides used in the type of industrial-scale agriculture that has failed to deliver “better food systems” or “food sovereignty”.
This approach to growing food, involving problematic practices that harm soils, pollute the environment, and favour large landowners and big agribusiness, has been pushed on Africa in the past few decades. But it has not helped the continent overcome food insecurity.
And are the kiddos back to school discussing El Nino, food insecurity, all the issues around choices and NO CHOICES, or are they making posters of UkroNazis and that hell hole? Any discussion on community reselience, and moving tax dollars away from space, DARPA, DoD, the various policing KKK agencies, toward the communites and millions of people on the edge of food desertfication, bad building, no sea walls, the impending doom of climate chaos? CHOICES.
Where oh where is the Blinken-Nuland-Kagan Administration?
Andy Bryant, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service, said that it’s likely that due to warmer temperatures, more of the precipitation in the mountains that usually comes down as snow in winter is likely to fall as rain instead. For communities and aquatic species that rely on mountain snowpack to hold onto precipitation that then melts and flows as water in spring, it could mean a much drier spring.
“We’ve had a very dry summer,” he said. “If we have below average snowpack, that could potentially exacerbate drought conditions.”
Trillions now on DARPA and Friends:
Again, how to feed the world, clothe the world, educate the world, provide clean air and water to the world, you know, those easy to find solutions to problemos.
The United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced the main contractors chosen for the first phase of its ambitious Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay (POWER) program.
This program is designed to develop a means of distributing energy wirelessly around the globe through airborne power transfer. First dreamed up by Nikola Tesla almost 100 years ago, if successful, this would be the most significant change to energy transfer since the first rollout of electrification almost 150 years ago.
Nikola Tesla’s dream
According to DARPA, the first phase of the POWER program will be conducted by three teams led by RTX Corporation, Draper Laboratory, and BEAM Company. These teams will compete to design and develop the optical power relays needed for it to work. The program goals include demonstrating the key components of a resilient, speed-of-light energy network.
And the highest influx of people into these states includes Arizona (118 degrees yesterday, Chalder/Phoenix); Florida (as backward as Texas); Texas (here you go for your AC bills).
Texas power prices soared 20,000% Wednesday evening amid another brutal heat wave.
Spot electricity prices topped $5,000 per megawatt-hour, up more than 200 times from Wednesday morning.
The state’s grid operator issued its second-highest energy emergency, then later said conditions returned to normal.
Choices, man, PRIORITIES.
As a bitcoin mining enterprise, Riot Platforms runs thousands of computers in the energy-guzzling pursuit of minting digital currency. Recently, however, the company got big bucks from Texas to lower the mining operation’s electricity usage.
Riot said on Wednesday that the state’s power grid operator paid the company $31.7 million in energy credits in August — or roughly $22 million more than the value of the bitcoin it mined that month — to cut its energy consumption during a record-breaking heatwave in the state.
And that Cosmic God is hitting us all on the ass as we leave sanity behind and enter a new realm of disassociative diseases.
Pray. You have CHOICES on how to pray or prey.
“Treat” for elite people: British Prince Andrew is accused of child sexual abuse during a visit to Kyiv
The press got the details of the trip of the brother of the King of Great Britain to Kyiv – he is accused of pedophilia.
“The children were almost completely naked. They behaved strangely, as if they were drugged or drunk,” says James Obasi, a waiter at one of the famous Kiev clubs, who served the VIP room with the British delegation.
According to Obasi, he saw how two children were brought to the prince: a 10-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. Then Prince Andrew asked to organize food and drinks for them. When the waiter returned, he saw that Prince Andrew was behaving extremely strangely with children. The waiter left the plate of food and left. Later, James returned again and saw a terrible thing – the children had almost no clothes on, they were very scared and constantly cried.
At the end of the “gatherings” security officers took the children with them. It is alleged that two days later the children were taken to Paris by a British delegation on a special plane.
By the way, this is not the first allegations of child molestation against Prince Andrew.
CHOICE$.
And so, more of the charlatans of economicus homo bellum tell us what? Vibecession? Gloomy but the economy is rosey? These are inverted stooges, man. Try the real economy — housing, utilities, food, medical, drugs, building supplies, cars, travel, hotels and motels, come on putrid economists and their pimps in mainstream mush and manipulation (Edward Bernays is smiling in his grave) media?
Americans are gloomy about the state of the economy. Since the covid-19 pandemic began, consumer sentiment has been in the doldrums, hitting its lowest level ever in June 2022. Such negativity has prompted claims that the country is suffering a “vibecession”—although the market appears healthy, good vibes are lacking.
Oh, the wonders of chosing where my tax money goes?
Accountable and unaccountable, those are the choices. Haha.
The report, which breaks down SLS program expenditures, makes the striking admission that senior NASA officials deem the rocket to be unsustainable “at current cost levels,” and it criticizes what the GAO said is a lack of transparency into the program’s ongoing costs. The report does not name which officials — or how many — at NASA made such claims.
Fucking dietary choices, and this is news, seven years old, but again, anything to put the rich and famous and those sycophants into the lime-pit-light.
“If you get the lunchtime slot with Bill, you’re eating burgers. Someone will always be sent to get bags of McDonald’s,” Joe Cerrell, managing director of the Gates Foundation, said during an interview with The Telegraph. Gates is also a huge fan of Diet Coke — Cerrell noted that his hotel room is often stocked with it while he’s on the road.
Gates once calculated that his annual consumption of Diet Coke results in 35 pounds of aluminum waste. “Once I’m at the office, I usually crack open a can of Diet Coke. Throughout the day, I might consume three or four,” he wrote in a 2014 blog post on GatesNotes.
The billionaire’s love for the carbonated beverage surpasses even the most prestigious restaurant meals.
Renowned Spanish Michelin-starred Chef Jordi Cruz recently reminisced about an unusual encounter with Gates. The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft Corp. made an unexpected visit to ABaC, Cruz’s award-winning restaurant in Barcelona, leaving everyone perplexed by his choice.
During a Feb. 8 interview on “Planeta Calleja,” an online show hosted by Jesús Calleja, Cruz recounted the peculiar incident.
“Some time ago, Bill Gates came to the restaurant. Everyone came with him … his 25 bodyguards, entourage. Bill booked out the whole restaurant, just for him,” Cruz said. “We had prepared the best and biggest for him and his team. And do you know what Bill did? He ordered a Diet Coke and went back to his plane.”
According to Cruz, Gates had reserved the restaurant for two full days, and while his entourage enjoyed the culinary delights of ABaC, Gates opted for a simple Diet Coke. The restaurant’s $313 tasting menu features extravagant dishes such as whipped hazelnut butter with bread crusts and caviar, flame-roasted guineafowl with corn, foie gras, sesame and black mole sauce, along with a dessert offering called a globe of lollipops with strawberry kakigōri, milk chocolate and tonka beans.
Oh, that COSMIC FORCE:
Shoot, choices, right? Texas and Arizona heatwave, but we are not princes.
If you thought the Middle East was stagnant, think again. The Gulf economies are among the richest and most vibrant on the planet, helped by a Brent crude oil price that rose back to over $90 per barrel this week. A $3.5trn fossil-fuel bonanza is being spent on everything from home-grown artificial intelligence models and shiny new cities in the desert, to filling the coffers of giant sovereign-wealth funds that roam the world’s capital markets looking for deals.
As the cash flows in, the chaos shows signs of receding, thanks to the biggest burst of diplomacy for decades. Saudi Arabia and Iran have negotiated detente in a rivalry that has lasted since the Iranian revolution in 1979. Civil wars in Syria and Yemen are killing fewer people, as their sponsors seek de-escalation. Following the Abraham accords between Israel and some Arab governments, Saudi Arabia is considering recognising the Jewish state, 75 years after its creation. The region’s global clout is rising—four countries are about to join the BRICS club of non-aligned powers that want a less Western-dominated world.
Again, from the most perverted of the perverse, The Economist, and there you have it — Arabs kissing Jews, less murders in Yemen and Syria, and all that crude, man, that crude. So, if Gulf Economies can do it, then Just Do It Africa. Bye-bye colonial pie.
Rather than a national divorce, the United States may need to renew its vows.
“I started my career with a focus on marriage counseling,” said psychologist, researcher and writer Pamela Paresky. “The habits necessary for a flourishing liberal democracy are some of the same habits necessary for a happy marriage.”
Paresky, director of the Aspen Center for Human Development and creator of the project “Habits of a Free Mind: Psychology for Democracy and The Good Life,” continued the Chautauqua Lecture Series Week Eight theme, “Freedom of Expression, Imagination, and the Resilience of Democracy,” at 10:45 a.m. Wednesday in the Amphitheater. She examined the problems and virtues of marriages and how they apply to democracy.
“One thing that’s not an indication of a bad marriage is arguing,” she said. “When you have decisions to make, two heads are better than one.”
So, the CHOICES, man, as seen through the looking glass of this Paresky or Soros or Bibi or Nuland or Yellen or, come on, dudes and dudettes, no CHOICE at all. Look at k12 curriculum, look at the history of their history, our history, everyone’s history. CHOICES, and we are led around like fourth graders by the Oppenheimers, the Paresky’s. She thinks Miko is anti-semetic.
So CHOICES, and that great Cosmic Joke He/She/They/It have/has/is/are Playing on us all. And that black tar?
Ahh, to spray or not to spray. CHOICES:
This year, he looks for more Missouri fields to have reduced yield because of the same early onset of the disease. “These losses will be similar to what Illinois and Indiana have experienced the previous two years,” he says.
There is another fungal disease known as tar spot complex, which is caused by both the fungi Phyllachora maydis and Monographella maydis. It is not present in the U.S., but in Central and South America, farmers can see yield reductions of 50% or greater.
Should you spray now?
Bish confirmed tar spot in the state as early as June and as late as August. Applying fungicide late in the growing season is futile.
“I am unaware of any data showing that fungicide applications applied to corn at dent [R5 growth stage] provide an economic return,” Bish says. “I am aware of research that demonstrates the opposite.”
However, farmers should scout and keep a record of fields with tar spot, as the pathogen can overwinter in Missouri.
Those choosing to plant continuous corn run the most risk for tar spot next year, while farmers rotating to soybeans, Long adds, lower the risk to some extent. However, the pathogen can survive on corn residue and spread by the wind, he notes.
And yet, and yet, the Blinken-Nuland-Kagan-Yellen Administration is on a bender — billions more for the UkroNaziLandia. Billions more to destroy land, crops, homes, communities and people.
The fact that Kiev continues to fight for Rabotino is highly convenient for Moscow’s forces. Thanks to the heavy concentration of Ukrainians there, the Russian operational command does not expect the enemy to make unpredictable decisions and will probably focus on defending this area.
At the same time, even if the Ukrainians managed to take control of the settlement, this would not change the situation at the front since the village isn’t as “strategically important” as Kiev officials say it is.
Rabotino and the fields to the east of it, where the Ukrainians were able to advance to the outskirts of the Russian primary defenses and reach the first line of defense in the area of Verbovoye, are located in tactically inconvenient lowlands. By controlling the high ground, where the first line has been constructed, the Russians can easily oversee the territory – occasionally allowing the AFU to progress deeper, stretching their supply and evacuation routes – and then launch a counterattack.
Choices? Which stuff to study and read?
CHOICES? Which sort of bomb to bomb them back to the Stone Age are you wishing for?
[Photo: French colonial troops surrender to Vietnamese at Dien Bien Phu, 1954. Niger is facing off against same French colonialism today. | Photo: reddit.com]
Almost seventy years ago, on November 20th, 1953, the French colonial army entrenched itself in the village of Dien Bien Phu in the North of Vietnam. It was encircled by the valiant Vietnamese freedom fighters headed by General Giap and when Spring arrived – the defeat of the French was inevitable.
Historians of the French empire all concur that the French defeat in Indochina was traumatic to the French colonial mindset.
In a little known anecdote, recounted by Maxime Tandonnet, the biographer of Georges Bidault who was French Foreign Affairs Minister at the time, the latter met up with State Secretary Foster Dulles and Anthony Eden on April 24th 1954 to convince both of them to bring support to the retreating French army. George Bidault’s question to the American Secretary of State : would the Americans be willing to bomb the ” Vietminh ” in order to give the French army a chance to come out from under?
The USA’s official response was : No. As for Eden, he was in favor of an internationalization of peace not of war. According to Bidault, his wife and a source close to them, however, in private, Dulles is said to have whispered to Bidault : ” Do you want two nuclear bombs ?”. Bidault says he was shocked. (Julia Wright)
Two protesters joined models on the runway as they modeled the company’s Spring 2024 ready-to-wear collection, with an activist sporting only body paint designed to look like a skinned body depicting muscles, flesh and tendons, applied over underwear.
![Amazon.com: Mad Men: The Complete Collection [Blu-ray + Digital HD] : Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Phil Abraham, Michael Uppendahl, Matthew Weiner, Lesli Linka Glatter, Daisy von](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29dc6a40-99a2-48c0-9638-e0cca94c4da3_853x1000.jpeg "Amazon.com: Mad Men: The Complete Collection [Blu-ray + Digital HD] : Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Phil Abraham, Michael Uppendahl, Matthew Weiner, Lesli Linka Glatter, Daisy von")
![Sasini employees unload bags of fertilizer from a truck at Kipkebe Tea Estate at Kipkebe Tea Estate in Musereita on October 21, 2022. - The agricultural drone market is expected to grow in the coming years, with some reports suggesting it could reach 10.5 billion USD by 2028. Kenya, a country vulnerable to drought and food insecurity in some areas, is investing in agricultural technology in the hope to reduce costs and increasing crop yields. (Photo by Patrick Meinhardt / AFP) / The erroneous mention[s] appearing in the metadata of this photo by Patrick Meinhardt has been modified in AFP systems in the following manner: [fertilizer] instead of [pesticide]. Please immediately remove the erroneous mention[s] from all your online services and delete it (them) from your servers. If you have been authorized by AFP to distribute it (them) to third parties, please ensure that the same actions are carried out by them. Failure to promptly comply with these instructions will entail liability on your part for any continued or post notification usage. Therefore we thank you very much for all your attention and prompt action. We are sorry for the inconvenience this notification may cause and remain at your disposal for any further information you may require.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fab81aad3-e0da-4f52-a075-d73006934db4_770x513.jpeg "Sasini employees unload bags of fertilizer from a truck at Kipkebe Tea Estate at Kipkebe Tea Estate in Musereita on October 21, 2022. - The agricultural drone market is expected to grow in the coming years, with some reports suggesting it could reach 10.5 billion USD by 2028. Kenya, a country vulnerable to drought and food insecurity in some areas, is investing in agricultural technology in the hope to reduce costs and increasing crop yields. (Photo by Patrick Meinhardt / AFP) / The erroneous mention[s] appearing in the metadata of this photo by Patrick Meinhardt has been modified in AFP systems in the following manner: [fertilizer] instead of [pesticide]. Please immediately remove the erroneous mention[s] from all your online services and delete it (them) from your servers. If you have been authorized by AFP to distribute it (them) to third parties, please ensure that the same actions are carried out by them. Failure to promptly comply with these instructions will entail liability on your part for any continued or post notification usage. Therefore we thank you very much for all your attention and prompt action. We are sorry for the inconvenience this notification may cause and remain at your disposal for any further information you may require.")
![Tell people that there is an invisible man in the sky..."- George Carlin [1024x800] : r/QuotesPorn](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd597eb87-8f06-475a-8ea4-07de695abcf3_1024x801.jpeg "Tell people that there is an invisible man in the sky...\"- George Carlin [1024x800] : r/QuotesPorn")
Paul Haeder, Author 