[RS] Does Disney enjoy losing money? Because it really seems like they enjoy losing money. From the complete botching of the "Star Wars" universe to the obsession with girl-bossing live-action remakes of its classic films, the once-storied production company simply refuses to learn any lessons.
Sure enough, despite Disney's Marvel franchise flopping over the last several years, some genius decided it'd be a great idea to race-swap "Captain America" with a guy who doesn't believe the role represents America. No, I'm not kidding. That's an actual thing Anthony Mackie said while promoting the upcoming fourth installment in the series.
Anthony Mackie explains what Captain America represents for him:
"Captain America represents a lot of different things & I don’t think the term ’America’ should be one of those representations. It’s about a man who keeps his word, who has honor, dignity and integrity."
#4
Swap out the white guy and have a highly pro-American black guy and you might have a chance to keep the character appealing. Swap out the American for globalist and you just torched to whole thing, because now you made it clear you were determined to make a DEI point. Morons...
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Denis Davydov
[REGNUM] Young Ukrainian fascists, veterans of the battles of 1917–1920, internment camp survivors, and activists from the now defunct republics gathered on January 28, 1929, for the first Great Gathering at the Vienna Hotel on Kant Street, in a recognizable style. Their goal was to create the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) as a new political center. At that time, there were already three such political centers in Europe alone.
The government of the UPR in exile and the similar government of the ZUNR, who hated each other because of the betrayal of Symon Petliura, who gave Western Ukraine to the Poles. And in addition to them, there was the "hetman center" headed by Pavlo Skoropadsky, overthrown by Petliura in December 1918. Naturally, the first two organizations treated the former hetman with contempt. Well, the new office, headed by the former colonel of the Austrian army Yevhen Konovalets, showed deep disappointment in both the social democratic tradition and the hetman's conservative one.
Among the "correct" nationalists, it was believed that it was the democratic efforts of the Central Rada that prevented the Ukrainian forces from defeating all enemies. And since the enemies (in the form of Soviet Russia and Poland) turned out to be more effective, it would be completely logical to imitate them, and not those who had lost everything.
In addition, totalitarian movements were already rapidly gaining popularity in Europe, and Italian fascism in particular could already even boast of some successes.
By the end of the 1920s, strict censorship had already been established, a ministry for press and propaganda had been created, all opposition parties had been banned, lustration had been carried out in government bodies, and all non-fascist youth organizations had been dispersed. And in the year of the Ukrainian nationalists' rally in the elections in Italy, voters were asked to vote "for" or "against" a list of candidates for a single party - the National Fascist Party.
In principle, there are already analogies here with modern Ukraine, where the ideological heirs of the OUN received all the power. But then, in 1929, all this was a dream about the future. One of the founders of the organization, Dmytro Andriyevsky, a former member of the government under the Central Rada and the Hetman, a member of the diplomatic mission of the UPR in Sweden and Switzerland, convinced everyone that the Ukrainian people also needed a leader with a firm hand.
"The idea of Hetman is entirely consistent with the idea of the Dictator, the Ukrainian Musoline, and you are afraid of it," he instilled in his colleagues, specifying that such a Dictator should be elected not through stupid popular elections, but for life, by a constituent assembly of representatives of the "Active Fighters for Independence." Party struggle was to disappear forever, "the place of a flock of eternally warring parties and their eternally changing blocs should be taken by an organic monolithic ruling class" - another dream come true.
The only bearer of the ruling state ideology according to the plan was the OUN. Having borrowed the term “totalitarian” from the Italian fascists, the nationalists invested a positive meaning in it: the complete control of their state over all spheres of public life was presented as constructive and necessary for the creation of a new system and a new man.
Because he himself, without the right, ideologically verified leadership, will not be able to become a “proper Ukrainian.”
So the colleagues did not argue much, since the founders of the OUN included fascist youth from the Legion of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Union of Ukrainian Fascists and the Union of Ukrainian Nationalist Youth, who advocated decisive action. And veterans from the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO), which was subordinate to Konovalets, also sympathized with radical methods.
After all, they perceived the situation of 1917-1921, when the project of Ukrainian independence did not take shape, as a betrayal of the democratic world, since none of the Western democratic powers supported the UPR. So the participants of the meeting in the Vienna hotel proceeded from the fact that they needed to rely on their own strength.
And a little more - on Germany, with whose representatives the “Austrian gentleman” easily found a common language.
The OUN, created at the gathering, declared its goal to fight all "occupiers of Ukraine", but could practically do something only against Poland, using all available means, including individual terror. The dream of creating organizational structures in the Ukrainian SSR remained unattainable - in fact, Konovalets died at the hands of the Soviet saboteur Pavel Sudoplatov, because he believed his legend about the nationalist underground, which allegedly existed beyond the Zbruch.
The UVO, which appeared back in 1920, was also initially focused on creating an underground agent network in Western Ukrainian lands to continue the fight against the "traitor Poles" using radical methods. And the Germans were quite happy with this - Konovalets' new project was taken on by German counterintelligence, the link with which was Richard Yary, a dark figure who later took money for Stefan Bandera.
However, in addition to plans for armed struggle, the participants of the Great Gatherings were also concerned with the project of the future Ukrainian state, since they understood that it was “necessary”. Although two years later, a member of the Provod (leadership) of Ukrainian nationalists, Mykola Stsiborsky, complained in a letter to Konovalets that the ideological problems in the OUN are “a question that immediately makes some of us yawn, others feel stomach cramps, and still others smile sarcastically”.
The majority (just like now) proceeded from the fact that ideological chatter is useless, what is needed is a Ukrainian army that beats the enemy, “and then let the politicians do what they want.”
Looking ahead, we will say that the split in the OUN with the young Bandera's claim to the role of leader was based on the fact that all these foreign old men think too much at a time when they simply need to kill. So the Bandera faction focused on this - in his entire life their leader did not give birth to any intellectual formulas, except slogans.
But then, in Vienna, the first and last project of Ukraine as nationalists saw it was actually created - nothing else has actually been implemented to this day. It is all the more interesting to compare the concept with reality.
And here too there is something to be surprised about.
The key idea of the OUN was to mobilize society for a national revolution, the goal of which was not only independence, but also the creation of a new social order, different from both capitalism and socialism, and the spiritual rebirth of the nation. The new Ukrainian state was to be built on the principles of natiocratic rule – this was only achieved after 2014.
And then everything on the list: the eradication of "foreign national slavery" in the sphere of culture and psyche. Russians and Poles were called hostile peoples, only in the case of the latter the opinions diverged. The Dnieper people in the delegation believed that it was necessary to simply make their life unbearable so that Poland would eventually come to terms with the loss of Western Ukrainian lands in favor of a joint fight against Russia; the Galicians believed that the Poles should be physically exterminated - which was undertaken already in 1942-1943.
It was proposed, quite in keeping with the spirit of the times, to lock all Jews in a ghetto and thus encourage them to emigrate en masse.
The “Military Doctrine of Ukrainian Nationalism” by Mykhailo Kolodzinsky (1938) outlines the contours of a very familiar structure that has been implemented over the past 10 years: after an uprising on all Ukrainian lands, a Ukrainian nationalist army had to be organized from the rebel masses, and with its help, spread and consolidate their power on Ukrainian lands.
And then destroy the enemy's manpower and transfer the war to enemy lands.
According to Kolodzinsky, the final liberation of Ukrainians from enemy rule will come when the uprising ends with a parade of Ukrainian troops on the ruins of the enemy capitals - Warsaw and Moscow:
"The liberation of Ukraine consists not only in the liberation of Ukrainian lands from the power of enemies, but even more in the liberation of our slavish spirit from the feeling of inferiority. And the feeling of superiority of our nation will only be possible when our liberation ends with a glorious epic, that is, a campaign against enemy lands."
Meanwhile, for the new society, according to the program, it was necessary to establish strict control over historical narratives and spread the cult of "chivalry" among the population. Education in "foreign languages" - only with the personal permission of the state and under its control. Development of a national church, "independent of foreign patriarchates," and Ukrainization of religious cults.
Of course, the elimination of the "occupiers" from Ukrainian lands with the help of a new army, "territorial Cossack units" and the correct allied policy. To be friends with the enemies of enemies, which was done both in the 1940s and in our days.
The basis of power was called local self-government with its representative body and executive power. The nationalists proposed the economic life of the country in the form of cooperation between the state, cooperatives and private capital, between which the "sections of the national economy" are divided.
In the economic part, the project "Ukraine-1929" corresponds to current realities by about two thirds. Private property for land and its purchase and sale. Intensification of agriculture. State ownership of strategic enterprises and privatization of all the rest. Pension at 60 years.
Although in terms of taxation, state support and lending to rural workers, protection of their producers in foreign markets, technical education for the needs of the economy, relations between employers and workers, the ideologists of the OUN a hundred years ago were in some ways even more progressive than today's Ukrainian politicians. For example, proposing an eight-hour working day, which should be further reduced, and one main tax with a limited number of secondary ones.
However, let us repeat, all this was irrelevant until 1991, when Soviet Ukraine, which had just entered independence, had virtually no alternatives other than the stale OUN ideas. And somehow it turned out so interestingly that the heirs of the nationalists of the early 20th century stubbornly clung to them until the opportunity arose to make the Viennese fairy tale a Ukrainian reality.
Apparently, because “integral nationalism” was initially formulated by its creators as a religion, where you just need to believe. And what does not fit into this faith - like a developed industry producing spaceships and the largest planes in the world, multiculturalism and that same disgusting democracy - is simply discarded as unnecessary. Slogans about “European values” and the desire to be “with the entire civilized world” are simply a cover for what is actually being done.
And in order for some other Ukraine to emerge, one that does not think in terms of fascism, totalitarianism and a “parade on the ruins of Moscow”, the basic ideology must obviously be erased and replaced by something more sensible. Otherwise, everything will be only according to the precepts of the OUN: “no sacrifice is too great if it is about the life and honour of the nation”.
[LaughingWolf] Part of my family is from Ireland, and I appreciate Irish contributions to the world. Heck, the enclosed Catholic confessional came from the Irish I’m told (by an Irish priest no less). However, there comes a time when you have to let rubbish go; and, to call the current leadership and government of Ireland rubbish is to insult every midden heap and landfill in the world. They are a disgusting lot, and you should pay attention to the ethnic and religious makeup (and how few generations they’ve been in Ireland) of many of them.
As I noted in the previous post, the despicable fascista midget serving as president had Jews removed from the Holocaust Memorial service yesterday, with his goons dragging a pregnant Jewish woman out by the arms. My understanding was that he has been asked by the Jewish community not to attend, but did anyway just to be the largest anti-Semitic ass he could possibly be. Suspect he’s more than happy that many Jews are fleeing Ireland (and I strongly suggest they do as this guy would be right at home in the Third Reich and I suspect he mourns that they no longer exist).
Made the decision a few weeks ago to stop buying Irish products, but decided to go public with it after yesterday.
Kerrygold butter? Not any more. Plugra is as good, costs a little less, and is made here in the US I think.
Alcohol? On the stout front, America as a large abundance of good stouts, not to mention craft beers, that are flat-out better than Guinness. It may be heresy to some, but Guinness mostly coasts on reputation. Diageo is the owner and is not Irish, but promotes it as an Irish brand. Had just been introduced to an independent Irish distiller, but Irish whiskey is off the list. Frankly, lots of small independents to explore here, and I would offer that Scotch was the better choice usually. Again, easy choice to make and I won’t suffer for doing without.
Irish wool and fabrics? Eh, check out this U.S. company that I’ve heard good things about. Again and again there are a lot of good options here to check out, and you would be helping small U.S. businesses.
Seriously, it may not make a huge difference but it is something I can do. I don’t have to support Nazi-loving politicians. I can instead invest in American products and small American businesses. Hope you join me in so doing, as if enough of us do, it might help make a difference.
Posted by: Grom the Affective ||
01/29/2025 03:37 ||
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#1
I started drinking Tullamore Dew just a couple of months ago and buying Kerry's for a few years now..used to be $4.69 and in some places now it's $6.29..and that increase only in a little more than a year. I had Plugra before and it ain't Kerry's. Plugra is a Texas company.
As everyone knew he would, reprehensible troll-doll made Irish president, Michael Higgins, hijacked a Holocaust memorial event and made it about Gaza, even adding in the debunked Gaza famine blood libel. A blood libel at a Holocaust memorial...
… by the tiny Irish Jewish community not to attend and defile this event, seeing as he is an obsessed anti-Zionist who never found an antisemite he wouldn't mourn or embrace.
He came and lectured Jews anyway. Some who objected to his trivialization of the Holocaust and his conflation of it with the (fake) "famine" in Gaza, were dragged out.
Free tip: Antisemitic nations fail. Don't bet on Ireland.
[Spiked] One of the most striking things in the aftermath of 7 October was the silence of the fascism-spotters. You know these people. They’re the centrists and liberals who see fascism everywhere. Who think everything is ’like the 1930s’. The vote for Brexit, Donald Trump, the rise of populist parties in Europe — all of it reminds them of the Nazi years. And yet when the Islamofascists of Hamas stormed the Jewish State and butchered a thousand Jews, suddenly they went quiet. No more Nazi talk. No more trembling warnings of a return to ’the dark days of the 1930s’. No more handwringing over ’new Hitlers’. It seems that to a certain kind of liberal, everything is fascism except fascism.
...There was a time when you couldn’t open a newspaper or peruse social media without seeing some pained liberal hold forth on how populism will drag us back to the death camps. Fascism panic was the fashion of the day. And then it stopped. In the wake of the 7 October pogrom — the worst act of slaughter against the Jews since that period of the mid-20th century these people love talking about — their fascism chatter evaporated. In fact, they started warning people not to use Nazi analogies. Not to compare 7 October to the 1930s. Not to engage in the very fascism fretting that had been the bread and butter of their own political commentary for years.
Just two weeks after the pogrom, the Guardian published a piece denouncing Israel for ’weaponising the Holocaust’ in its response to Hamas’s assault. It is an outrage, it argued, that Israeli leaders are likening Hamas to fascist Germany and thus portraying Israel as ’powerless Jews in a struggle against Nazis’. This is the same Guardian that had been namedropping the Holocaust for years. Which ran pieces asking ’Are we living through another 1930s?’ after the vote for Brexit. Which published columns saying that, thanks to Trump, ’the world could be heading back to the 1930s’. Yet when Israelis suggested that the slaughter of a thousand Jews by fascistic men with knives, guns and rocket launchers was somewhat reminiscent of the 1930s, the Guardian essentially tut-tutted. The left's eventual solution to the problem was to accuse Israel of genocide. ("Say that you like about this fellow Hitler - but he knows how to treat the Jews.")
Posted by: Grom the Affective ||
01/29/2025 03:41 ||
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[The Free Press] On October 4, 1957, the USSR launched Sputnik, a 184-pound satellite, into Earth’s orbit. The satellite didn’t do much—it just "beeped" over radio waves. But those beeps sounded a wake-up call for the United States.
Fearful of falling behind its Cold War strategic rival, the federal government launched an expensive crash program to spur technological development. The U.S. went from a laggard in the space race to unified, fast-moving behemoth. By 1969, we had landed men on the moon, a feat the Soviets never accomplished. And more than that: The Sputnik moment began decades of across-the-board American dominance in science and engineering.
Now comes what many are calling a new Sputnik moment: the release of DeepSeek, a low cost, high-performing Chinese-created artificial intelligence (AI) model. The analogy is a bit imprecise though—and probably understates the significance of last week’s event.
Rockets are bounded by the laws of physics and the scarcity and movement of materials—which is why we say that hardware is hard. The only constraint on software development is the human imagination. Small, far-flung teams can accomplish extraordinary things. If a rocket explodes, it takes 12 months to get the next one built. Software can instantly be replicated 7 billion times into every human’s pocket. And updated seamlessly.
Another difference: The space race (notwithstanding its many peace dividends) was primarily focused on the next weapons of war—ICBMs and the like. Building leading AI or, better yet, artificial general intelligence, is more like building the brain layer for everything—weapons, yes, but also "agents" for almost every kind of imaginable work, and potentially the source of almost all knowledge and information to be consumed by humans in the future.
Whoever controls AI will control the answers to questions like: What happened on June 4, 1989? How many genders are there? Did Covid-19 lockdowns work? What’s happening in Israel? What happens when you ask AI these questions depends on who created the AI, where it’s hosted, and what information it was trained on. Which is why every cultural warrior and government wants to control AI.
And, unlike rockets, AI models are fundamentally "black boxes" that can be observed, but not deterministically explained. AI models generate responses probabilistically, meaning they weigh countless possibilities and choose outputs based on likelihood rather than fixed rules. This makes them flexible but also unpredictable—and if adversaries control the models, they could manipulate the underlying probabilities to subtly distort truth, influence decisions, or spread falsehoods at scale. This makes the geopolitical risk of having an adversary control these "brains" real. The space race operated at the intersection of national pride and national defense; the AI race is about so much more—and progressing at breakneck speed.
Unlike rockets, AI is primarily bounded by math, compute (the processing power needed to train an AI model), and data.
For the math part, it’s largely vector math—linear algebra and multivariable calculus. China finished first in the International Mathematical Olympiad from 2019 to 2023, with a United States team of four Chinese Americans (out of six team members) finally besting China in 2024. China is very, very good at math.
There’s a joke that in every International Mathematical Olympiad, the top teams are China versus those of Chinese background. It’s why the allegations that DeepSeek is some kind of Communist psyop ring hollow. While it’s hard to confirm the exact amount of money spent or chips used to train the model, China is the world leader in human capital around this type of work, so it’s not surprising to see a tremendous advance come from that nation.
By making its model open-source, the Chinese hedge fund behind DeepSeek has confirmed how counterproductive the Biden administration’s pro-containment, pro-hegemony, anti-open source AI strategy had been.
Biden issued an executive order which sought to constrain compute under an arbitrary threshold, bar open source as an alleged threat to national security, and effectively allow regulatory capture by the biggest players. The administration and its enablers wanted to limit math, and in turn, limit code—but ended up just limiting America’s lead.
#6
A gift? There is stupid past moronic. DeepSeek is in fact the largest security hole in our nation right besides ChiCom cell phone towers. How the hell can any rational person not see that?
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.
