Tuesday, September 02, 2025

Paul Kelly silences a stadium with a single heartbreaking song


It’s not in the nature of the lamb to mourn the lion.
~ Peter Watts, Blindsight 


The more doors you open to the mysteries, or sacred knowledge, the smaller you feel. And because you begin to feel smaller and smaller until your ego disappears, the more humble you become.

 

Therefore, any man who behaves arrogantly with what little he knows, or claims to know all, only reveals to all that he really knows nothing. Real greatness does not reside inside those who feel large. The truly wise are meek. Yet being small and meek do not make one weak. Arming oneself with true knowledge generates strong confidence and a bold spirit that makes you a lion of God.

 

The Creator does not want you to suffer, yet we are being conditioned by society to accept suffering, weak and passive dispositions under the belief that such conditions are favorable by God. Weakness is not a virtue praised by God. How could he desire for you to be weak if he tells us to stand by our conscience? Doing so requires strength.

 

However, there is a difference between arrogance when inflating your ego, and confidence when one truly gets closer to God. One feels large, while the other feels small. Why? Because a man of wisdom understands that he is just a small pea in a sea of infinite atoms, and that in the end — we are all connected. And did you not know that the smaller a creature is, the bolder its spirit?

Nestlé fired CEO Laurent Freixe "with immediate effect" on Monday due to an "undisclosed romantic relationship with a direct subordinate" the Swiss food giant announced.
Why it matters: Freixe was replaced by Nestlé Nespresso chief Philipp Navratil after just a year in the job.
Driving the news: Nestlé chair Paul Bulcke and lead independent director Pablo Isla led an investigation into the relationship, which company said breached its code of business conduct. 
  • Independent outside counsel assisted in the probe, according to a company statement.
What they're saying: "This was a necessary decision," Bulcke said in a statement Monday.
  • "Nestlé's values and governance are strong foundations of our company. I thank Laurent for his years of service at Nestlé," said Bulcke of Freixe, who had spent 40 years with the company.
  • Bulcke praised Navratil "for his impressive track record of achieving results in challenging environments." 
  • He added, "Renowned for his dynamic presence, he inspires teams and leads with a collaborative, inclusive management style. The Board is confident that he will drive our growth plans forward and accelerate efficiency efforts."
Background: Navratil started his career at Nestlé as an internal auditor in 2001 .

Book Review: This Is Your Brain On Nature

In “Nature and the Mind,” Marc Berman uses neuroscience to show how interacting with nature benefits mental health.


Some artists break your heart. Some tear theirs out in front of you. Paul Kelly is more surgical: if the pen is sharper than a knife, he wields his words like a scalpel and performs a triple bypass.
The legendary folk-rock singer-songwriter is on a stadium tour, but we could be in any bar in Australia on a Saturday night being transported along the Hume Highway, or to the Northern Rivers, via Wave Hill and Glenrowan, as 40 years of stories were condensed into two hours.
He opens with the sultry, smouldering Houndstooth Dress from last year’s Fever Longing Still but is soon slipping into the ’80s. The rousing Before Too Long and tender Careless were interspersed with gems from 2017’s No.1 album Life is Fine.


Trusted news sites may benefit in an internet full of AI-generated fakes, a new study finds

NeimanLab: “An economics paper found subscriber retention and daily visits both increased after readers were confronted with a difficult quiz with AI-generated images. Fake booksMade-up sources. Bogus trampoline bunnies. We’re all getting a lot of AI-generated content in our feeds these days. 

But a new working paper suggests there’s a silver lining for trusted news organizations: they may be able to benefit from the broader degradation of the information ecosystem and win over subscribers concerned about sifting through the slop on their own. Filipe Campante, Bloomberg distinguished professor at Johns Hopkins University, was reading coverage about deep fakes and fake news in the lead-up to the election last year when he conceived of this field experiment. “My economist brain said: If something — let’s say trustworthiness — becomes really scarce, then it becomes very valuable,” Campante said. 

He wondered whether “being confronted with the difficulty of telling real from fake would actually make people more willing to pay for news that they trust.” Thanks to co-authors Ruben Durante(National University of Singapore), Ananya Sen(Carnegie Mellon University), and an academic working inside a news organization, Felix Hagemeister, he was able to test that hunch. Hagemeister is a data scientist at the large German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ). SZ is considered center-left in the country, comparable to, say, The New York Times in the U.S. or the Guardian in the U.K. 

With a daily paid circulation of 260,000 and nearly 300,000 online subscribers as of 2024, it’s the most widely sold broadsheet daily newspaper in the country. More than three-quarters of its readers live in Germany and the largest proportion of readers are between 40 and 60 years old…”

‘Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.” 

– Michael Scott


MORE THAN 600 DEAD AFTER POWERFUL EARTHQUAKE ROCKS AFGHANISTAN.


Most of Donald Trump's tariffs are illegal, US court rules, undercutting international trade policy


Trump Is Building His Own Paramilitary Force


Most of Trump’s tariffs are illegal, federal court rules Guardian 


Suburban Casinos: will AUSTRAC bring an end to pokies money laundering?


Colleges have a new worry: ‘Ghost students’—AI powered fraud rings angling to get millions in financial aid Fortune



In the Land of the Eyeless Dragons Nautilus

GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY: U.S. Navy Warship Crosses the Panama Canal as International Pressure on Maduro Grows.


Interpol recovers $100m in Africa cybercrime sweep on crypto miners and scam networks DL News


Jon Adgemis turns to tax lawyers to help with ATO dispute


World’s largest wealth fund says it has excluded bulldozer maker and five Israeli banking groups on ethics grounds


Coffee Break: Gavin Newsom Weaponizes ‘Dark Woke’ Cringe Against Trump

California Governor Gavin Newsom is using a cringe-worthy “dark woke” approach to counter President Trump on social media that is getting positive poll results.

Monday, September 01, 2025

South Korean man arrested for laundering crypto into gold; handled $50 million

 


Interpol leads crackdown in Africa against scammers; 1209 arrested across Africa; $97.4 million seized; from crypto mining investment scams to inheritance frauds
 
New fraud technique called “Ghost-tapping:” crooks put stolen credit cards onto burner phones; link to Google Pay and Apple pay; can have mules buy goods at a physical location and just tap the card
 
FCC bars 1200 voice service providers from the US phone system in crackdown on illegal robocalls
 
CBS Interview with Apple Cofounder Steve Wozniak on online scams; how he sued Youtube for using clip of him to further bitcoin scam
  

Fraud Studies: Here are links to the studies I’ve written for the Better Business Bureau: puppy fraudromance fraud; BEC fraudsweepstakes/lottery fraud,  tech support fraudromance fraud money mulescrooked movers, government impostersonline vehicle sale scamsrental fraud, gift cards,  free trial offer frauds,  job scams,  online shopping fraud,  fake check fraud and crypto scams
 
Fraud News Around the worldHumor FTC and CFPBArtificial Intelligence and deep fake fraudBenefit Theft Business Email compromise fraud Bitcoin and Crypto FraudRansomware and data breachesATM Skimming                                                         Jamaica and Lottery FraudRomance Fraud and Sextortion 

The authoritarian checklist

 

Did you think the lion was sleeping because he didn't roar?
~ Friedrich Schiller


Trump’s new chief design officer aims to make federal websites ‘satisfying’

Washington Post [no paywall] – “Joe Gebbia, an Elon Musk ally who also worked for DOGE, said navigating dot-gov websites should be just as easy as visiting the Apple Store. President Donald Trump’s new chief design officer sayshe wants to overhaul the interface of government websites to make them more beautiful and less complicated to use — like a visit to the Apple Store.



The authoritarian checklist

Can We Still Govern – Don Monyihan: “It is time to admit that America is no longer a functioning democracy. There is so much happening that occasionally pausing to take stock is necessary. So where are we? 


In deep trouble. America may not be fully authoritarian, but by no means can we consider it to be a functioning democracy. There will be no announcement, no headline saying “America Not A Democracy.” 

But if you are willing to look clear-eyed at the cumulative evidence, the inescapable conclusion is that our deeply held beliefs about American democracy no longer match our present reality. 

Today, America is a competitive authoritarian system, with a rapidly increasing emphasis on the authoritarian part. The concept of competitive authoritarianism is useful because it suggests that there is not a binary option between democracy and authoritarianism, like a light switch. 

Instead, democracy can be powerfully degraded even as elections still exist. If you are an authoritarian, or a wannabe authoritarian, you are inherently driven to follow a specific checklist that allows you to a) consolidate power and b) neutralize sources of dissent. Here is the authoritarian checklist…”

Snakes on the plane in Mumbai - Good employees make mistakes and good leaders allow them to

Good employees make mistakes and good leaders allow them to…


Indian man arrested with 47 venomous vipers in bag at Mumbai airport


Europe burns as deadly infernos tear through Spain and Portugal in worst wildfire season on recordDaily Mail


Europe’s Eclipse of Intelligence – Diplomacy Finn Andreen


Trump Has No Idea How to Do DiplomacyForeign Policy

Norris retires as Piastri wins chaotic Dutch GP

Another Conversation with General Evgeny Buzhinsky… How Did the Russian Military Survive the Collapse of the Soviet Union? Larry Johnson


After the Alaska Summit, Europe’s Moment of TruthThe National Interest


With MAGA’s help, Europe’s far-right marches into the mainstream Axios


DOGE Put Critical Social Security Data at Risk, Whistle-Blower Says

The New York Times – “Members of the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded a copy of a crucial Social Security database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistle-blower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer.


Trump's Plan To Conquer Heaven


How Trump Used 10 Emergency Declarations to Justify Hundreds of Actions

The New York Times [no paywall] – “In his seven months back in office, President Trump has declared nine national emergencies, plus a “crime emergency” in Washington. Those emergency declarations have been used to justify hundreds of actions — including immigration measures, sweeping tariffs and energy deregulation — that would typically require congressional approval or lengthy regulatory review, according to a New York Times analysis of presidential documents.


The White House’s Bizarre Defense of Chinese Foreign Students American Conservative


RFK Jr continues to make dubious health claims as CDC roils under his leadership Guardian 


President Trump revokes Kamala Harris’s Secret Service protection The Hill


Transportation Dept. Cancels $679 Million for Offshore Wind Projects New York Times 


Sunday, August 31, 2025

Atlas Space - anti immigration marches

Christopher, the Dog-Headed Saint 


How the March for Australia anti-immigration rallies and counter-protests unfolded


Welcome to the Atlas of Space — an interactive visualization to explore the planets, moons, asteroids, and other objects in the Solar System.

  • Scroll to zoom
  • Click + drag to rotate\
  • Right-click + drag to pan
  • Click on an object to learn more
  • Use Search or ⌘ + k to jump to a specific planet.
  • Use the Settings menu to update display settings or click Help to open this menu.


The KGB’s Greatest Trick: How Soviet Spies Invented Liberation Theology to Spread Marxism.



THIS IS ANOTHER OF THOSE THINGS YOUR GRANDMOTHER COULD HAVE TOLD YOU:  Uninspired? Chat with People
People underestimate how much they’ll gain from talking with others.


 MARK JUDGE: ‘The Lives of Others’ and the Anti-Communist Film Festival.

One of the themes that is central to communism, and which has been adopted by the Western left, is shame. As journalist Laura Williams has described it, “If someone looked like he might challenge the Communist Party’s legitimacy or control, the Stasi systematically destroyed his life. They used blackmail, social shame, threats, and torture. Careers, reputations, relationships, and lives were exploded to destabilize and delegitimize a critic. Some forms of harassment were almost comical: agents spread rumors about their targets, flooded their mailboxes with pornography, moved things around in their apartments, or deflated their bicycle tires day after day. Others were life-altering: Individuals labeled as subversives were banned from higher education, forced into unemployment, and forcibly committed to asylums. Many suffered long-term psychological trauma, loss of earnings, and intense social shame as a result of Stasi lies.”


What is ‘neighbouring’ — and are you any good at it?

Many of us are more reluctant than ever to get involved with the people next door. But in an age of loneliness and online, a rethink of the old tropes is due …

According to the World Values Survey from the Policy Institute at King’s College London, 84 per cent of people in the UK trust their neighbours, the fourth-highest levels of trust in the world behind Norway, Sweden and Egypt, while in the US, 72 per cent of respondents said they trusted those living next door.
Yet other reports, including from the British Office for National Statistics, and the American conservative Institute for Family Studies, suggest we are interacting less with neighbours than ever, as a cost of living crisis, dwindling public space and expanding online life makes us shrink back into our private worlds.