It Is Known, Khaleese

 

Crypto is only good for two things: gambling—is the price going to go up or down?—and crime. The amount of crime that crypto facilitates is staggering. There’s a crypto company, Chainanalysis, that estimated $154 billion of criminal activity was facilitated via crypto last year alone. --McKENZIE 

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What is this $1.6 billion slush fund for? Is it to compensate people who were unjustly targeted by the Biden Regency and had to spend a fortune to defend themselves from the people who created the Trump Russian conspiracy and the 'Hunter Biden computer is Russian disinformation?' What exactly is the penalty for a government agency attacking in court people they simply don't like?

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According to the Post, one of the San Diego shooters wrote in their 'manifesto,' that he " lamented being short, which he said caused him great pain and humiliation."

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New York City’s $125 billion budget is larger than the $115 billion the entire state of Florida is expected to spend this year. New York City has 8.5 million people; the state of Florida has 23.6 million.

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It Is Known, Khaleese

Critics this weekend point to investment patterns suggesting Trump is misusing his power to benefit from his own decisions. When he came to office, he said he would not take a salary, he built the ballroom with private money, and set aside his investment money in a private trust with management he could not influence. Is this a change? Is he now in control of his finances and betting on his own executive acts? Or is this charge just untrue?

It's reasonable to be cynical about government but, as Lily Tomlin said, it's hard to keep up. These people will take advantage of anything for influence or profit.
Regulators are seeking information from prediction-market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket over wagers tied to political events and military operations. Such bets pose a challenge for authorities because insider-trading laws weren’t designed for people who wager on the outcome of legislation, political races, and even U.S. military action.

Remember, these people have inside information, i.e. they are the insiders making these decisions.

Enter the innuendo. Is it possible that the administration has had the time to be as evil as is said? Trump is still said to be a Russian agent. There has been no reason to believe that, aside from the suggestion of a paid political opponent. Pedophile? That seems to be a specific charge with real definitions, but, again, no charges. 

Fascism. Fascism has a definition; does Trump qualify? Are these people confusing Fascism with authoritarianism? Trump is certainly that, but is he worse than, say, FDR? Lincoln suspended habeas corpus; was he a fascist?

All this has become political dogma, like the spiritual claims of religions, global warming, or aliens. The democracy functions on individual citizens' input. If its input is this flawed, democracy has little chance.

 

1-877-KARS4KROOKS

Israel also wants 'from the river ot the seas.'

***

Pennsylvania liquor control enforcement agents say they've stopped an illegal gambling operation in Washington County at a social club where they were playing Queen of Hearts. Officials said the club did not have a county-issued small games of chance license.

"The 52 cards are set out on a table," Officer Wright explained. "You buy chances to get the card. Obviously, getting the queen of hearts means you win and get the jackpot."

According to law enforcement, these games can actually last for a while.

"They can go on for various lengths of time," said Wright. "This specific game went on for 10 months approximately."

Stalking the state for 10 months. I know I feel safer.

***

Is Kash Patel taking blinking lessons?

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Verizon seems to believe that politeness can substitute for insincerity and stupidity.

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1-877-KARS4KROOKS

While the 1-877-KARS4KIDS song has been called one of the most memorable jingles in history, a court has ruled it is misleading.

Misleading

A California man took the group behind it to court, saying he donated an old car to Kars4Kids, thinking its value would be used to help underprivileged children. He didn't know the money generated was used to support Oorah, a Jewish organization that helps fund young adult trips to Israel.

Oorah actually runs a matchmaking program for Jewish youth and funds gap year trips to Israel for 17- and 18-year-olds. It does other things, too. The company used donations to purchase a $16.5-million building in Israel.

"The evidence also shows that children, especially needy or underprivileged children, are not the recipients of the proceeds of the donations," the ruling states. These 'donations' fund vague enterprises and infrastructure, including gap year vacations to Israel.

A recent Fox segment read the entire episode as antisemitic. One commentator talked about the maddening jingle. One laughed about its amateurish appearance. No one talked about what it was, a deceptive ad meant to bilk well-intentioned people out of money, then launder it. Nor did anyone suggest that it was representative of most of these charities: ways of making your personal plans and daily expenses tax-deductible with the help of unwitting accomplices.

Like the Westboro Church, the Southern Poverty Law Center, or the  "National Council of Churches" (NCC), 1-877-KARS4KIDS is a deception for someone's betterment, but probably not yours. And mendacity, in this case, money laundering, often disguises more than one thing.

At the very least, it is not funny.

Sunday/The Ascension

The national debt is a constitutional crisis. A government of free men requires a balancing responsibility, and we have met only half of our requirements.

***

The Liberation Caucus describes itself as “a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist caucus in Democrat Socialists of America.” That is to say, they believe in an inherent destructive conflict of castes among men which can be resolved only by the extermination of one class, their children, and their future.

***

NASA's Psyche spacecraft flew by Mars on Friday (May 15). The precisely timed maneuver was not designed to study Mars, but rather to use the planet as a celestial slingshot on its journey to its namesake, the metal-rich asteroid Psyche. The spacecraft passed within about 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) of Mars to boost Psyche's speed and, more importantly, to shift its trajectory toward its destination, the asteroid 16 Psyche, which orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter.

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Mortgages are up, and talk is appearing about the national debt as if it is something recent. 

A typical 30-year mortgage costs over $500 more per month than it did in 2019. When the Federal Reserve cut rates by a full percentage point in late 2024, mortgage rates barely moved. Treasury yields, pushed up by the government’s relentless borrowing, overwhelmed the Fed’s easing entirely. The same dynamic drives up auto loans, credit card rates, and small business borrowing costs.
That is called "crowding out." It is not going to improve.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighbouring Uganda a “public health emergency of international concern” after the virus killed nearly 90 people.

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Sunday/The Ascension

The otherworldly Ascension of Christ is a curious event as reported in the gospels. It is the last event of Matthew's gospel. In Luke, it is mentioned but is elaborated on later in the Acts of the Apostles. More than miraculous, it is a culmination, the culmination, one would think, that would be emphasized. But the management of the Ascension is strangely distant. Almost unsure. Added on. Indeed, the old Church celebrated the period from Easter to the Ascension as a single event, as a unit.

The reporting during this period reflects the humanity of the reporters. What were they to think? The complexity of Christ's message, His spiritual world, was overwhelming. Revolutionary. Now the Messenger was gone. 

As always, there is humor in this relationship, a strange, understanding irony, gentle and personal, that prods us.
"While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going,
suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.
They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?" 

Things have shifted. To you. This is just the beginning. There is so much more to come.

The Ascension is described by men who have seen the Resurrection, yet seem stunned.

SatStats/China

Physics is actually too hard for physicists.--David Hilbert

***

What if they thought "The border is secure" was true?

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A team at the University of Hong Kong has developed a new “super steel” that can survive the harsh conditions needed to make green hydrogen from seawater. The material uses an unexpected double-protection mechanism that resists corrosion far better than conventional stainless steel. Even more impressive, it could replace costly titanium parts used in today’s hydrogen systems.

***

SatStats/China

While the recent explosion in U.S. federal debt has raised numerous red flags, a broader measure of indebtedness across the public and private sectors shows borrowing as a share of GDP is actually down since 2010.

By contrast, China’s total debt-to-GDP ratio, excluding the financial sector, doubled in that span and has now topped 300%, according to Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics.

He pointed out that China’s debt surge has come despite weaker borrowing from households, which have been battered by the real estate market’s collapse.

But borrowing by companies as well as the central and local governments has continued to far outpace GDP growth, which has slowed in recent years, pushing the overall debt ratio higher.

Nearly 40% of outstanding debt is now owed by the public sector, including so-called local government financing vehicles, Williams calculated.

The result is total debt that surpasses the U.S., the eurozone, the U.K., and other emerging markets. Aside from some smaller economies, only Japan has more debt.

“China’s current level of indebtedness puts it in a league of its own,” Williams said.

U.S. federal debt has set its own grim milestones and is now more than 100% of GDP for the first time since the immediate aftermath of World War II.
But total public and private debt last year was about 265% of GDP, which has been robust lately. It’s also down sharply from pandemic-era highs, when governments unleashed a flood of stimulus. The eurozone and U.K. have similar trajectories.

But Chinese companies are borrowing more than they are selling. Business debt has doubled since 2019, while revenues are only 30% higher, according to Capital Economics.

Creditors continue to roll over loans to keep struggling firms afloat, even as nearly one-third of them are losing money, Williams noted. That worsens overcapacity and deflation, while preventing that capital from going to healthier borrowers.

China has been suffering from deflation for three straight years, the longest such streak since its transition to a market economy in the late 1970s.

“The irony is that one driver of both government borrowing and the lax lending standards of [state-owned] banks is the desire to prop up economic growth and prevent job losses,” Williams said. “But the product of a credit boom that has been underway for 18 years is a banking system propping up unproductive firms, widespread losses across industry, and entrenched overcapacity.” (From Fortune)

AI, Its Friends and Neighbors

 If you see your glass as half empty, pour it into a smaller glass and stop bitching. — Anon

***

The now-extinct Celtic language of Gaulish gave French its infamously tricky base-twenty counting system, where eighty is “quatre-vingts,” but only a few hundred Gaulish-origin words persist in modern Metropolitan French.
A now-extinct language of Frankish was a Germanic language, as English is. Though it contributed the names of France and the French people, it comprises only about 10% of modern French vocabulary.

***

“East of Eden” is a defining literary work, centered on California's Salinas Valley, and is deeply tied to the state’s geography and identity.

The seven-episode series, starring Florence Pugh, recently wrapped up filming in New Zealand.

***

Davis is hitting .151 through the first quarter of the season and just .177 with a meager .289 slugging percentage over his 218-game career.

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AI, Its Friends and Neighbors

A multi-trillion-dollar bet on the development and acceleration of AI has become the biggest outlay of capital in the history of business.

That said, AI is becoming deeply unpopular. It has a 26% approval rating, which is below just about every institution, including ICE. Data centers are being protested around the country. Two people even decided to take a shot at Sam Altman’s house. The industry has spent $150 million in PAC money to purchase compliance from the two major parties, but that hasn’t stopped ordinary people from coming to their own conclusions.

More money is now being spent on data centers than on commercial office buildings.

The hyperscalers plan to spend $700 billion, including data centers, on AI infrastructure in 2026. A major sports arena costs a couple billion or so. So imagine 7 new sports stadiums being built in every one of the 50 states this year, and you have a sense of the scale of the investment. (From Yang)

So what's going on here? Are we to advance society and knowledge at the expense of jobs--or should we purposefully stop those advances for the unproven benefit of the few? Are technological changes really up for popular vote? If so, what about online betting and pornography? Are these workers just Luddites, impassioned and wrong? What are the ancillary, unimagined applications of the technology, good and bad? And the real, basic, and unspoken question: what are the non-economic implications of this technology?

What happens in an increasingly comfortable but workless culture? Will social disruption be caused by aesthetics? The barricades manned by librarians and psychologists?

And can this technology be ignored--or suppressed--when it might be commandeered by people of bad intent?

Robbing Peter and Paul

 

***


“Our series (against Philadelphia) ended on a Wednesday. That Sunday night, there was Tampa-Montreal Game 7 (Canadiens won 2-1), and then Colorado-Minnesota Game 1 of their series (Avalanche won 9-6). The Montreal-Tampa game, I question whether our team could compete in that environment defensively. When I flipped over to Colorado-Minnesota, I questioned whether our team could compete in that environment offensively. That’s really the way that I view everything.”--Pen's GM Kyle Dubas

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A study published in Nature reported that the probability of an investor’s bankruptcy increases with the frequency of their leveraged trades. Investors have accumulated more than $1.22 trillion in margin debt to trade stocks as of May 2024. (Margin debt refers to money borrowed to purchase securities.)

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The Murtaugh reversal should give us all pause in the trust we place in our government, particularly in our entrepreneurial legal system.

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Chinese police stations in NYC, Sharia Law courts---anybody worried yet?

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Good news: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has an opinion on the Western Union merger plans.

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Robbing Peter and Paul

In New York City, the socialists are taking credit for balancing the city's chronic budget deficit.

Mamdani has reportedly gotten the governor and state lawmakers to agree to change the way New York City’s underfunded public pension plans pay off debt they incurred a generation ago by making unwarranted, rosy assumptions about how their investments would perform.
The working state is subsidizing the socialist city.

The city wants to reduce those debt payments and instead pay them off over a longer period, likely well into the 2040s — meaning tomorrow’s workers will be taxed extra to pay for city services delivered before some of their parents were born.

Mamdani, like all these politicians, regardless of their "philosophy," is proud of this manipulation as if it were an achievement rather than just another procrastinating, distorting economic gimmick. (The kind of economic sleight-of-hand, by the way, the prim socialist is supposed to disdain.)

The Russian communist state lasted for three generations.
See? Socialism works.

Vigilangione, Continued

 

Joyce taught English at Berlitz schools in Pula and Trieste, and is supposed to have known up to thirteen different languages.

***


Vigilangione, Continued

Order is restrictive; when does it become oppressive? It certainly is convenient. If half the people literate in English wrote from right to left, we would have no fewer literate people, but they would not be comprehensible to one another. If half of Americans decided it was right to drive on the left side of the road, car travel would stop, the car would become useless, and its convenience would be replaced. What would happen to chess if activists tried to broaden its appeal by straightening out and simplifying the knight's move?

Mormon polygamy was seen in the nineteenth century as a threat to the U.S. moral structure and was fought, legislated against, and eventually bullied away with very little legal justification. In Europe, polygamy has become a significant socio-economic problem for the growing nurturing state as dependents logrithmically outstrip underpinning arithmetical working support.

The values of the West are increasingly impractical in the modern, expanding world. In America, the values of equality and freedom have become a threat to the stability of the culture. The Americans suffer domestic disruption by people who oppose the very laws that protect their outrage, even to the point of organized street opposition to legitimate law enforcement agencies. The British now have hate-speech laws that rival any communist country. Sitting in judgment of your fellow citizens has become very disruptive, even if you're right. And Americans are telling themselves that by taking products without paying—a behavior they call "microlooting' known to the rest of us as "stealing"—they are, in fact, engaging in a quiet political protest.

Is this a trend percolating up or seeping down? What did the Americans do in Venezuela? They declared the country an outlaw — as they did with the Barbary states — and preemptively invaded it. The danger is that, in a larger view, Venezuela deserved it. American behavior in Iran is more illustrative. Iran is certainly a danger to the civilized world, and a nuclear weapon in its hands, according to its own philosophy and statements, would result in economic disruption and nuclear destruction to friends and enemies alike. That said, there is no obvious legal or moral reason Western nations should be able to control Iran's internal affairs simply because they fear the implications of its national ambitions. Nonetheless, the Americans and Israel preemptively destroyed most of Iran's military and scientific infrastructure.

Again, this was all in a good cause. The world's nonreaction even implied its tacit approval. The Americans want only stability and stable commerce. But is their action consistent with their values? Does the threat justify their extraordinary means? And, worse, what would have happened had the Americans not resorted to those extraordinary means?

So Mangioni, whoever shot Kirk, whoever attacked the Press Dinner, the gerrymanderer, Trump himself--all place their personal motives aside and, like the sin eater of ancient times, sacrifice themselves for what each knows is the greater good.