the real disinformation agents: NBC tells four lies in two minutes


source: article (transcript) on Substack*


2021-12-17T21:24−08* / at the about* post – at bit.ly/dateposted – anyone can link to this post from its date: December 17, 2021
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power does untold harm to people and the planet, and gets away with it by manufacturing consent

power decides what happens and decides what people think about what happens: “the narrative”

this is only going to get worse until people start to wake up and focus on understanding power (!*)

Posted

maybe not the best response to the existential threats we all face


Lockheed has promoted the F-35 in washrooms and bus stops where politicians and DND officials congregate. A bus shelter in front of Parliament Hill recently declared, “F35: Seats one. Employs thousands.”*


2021-12-11T15:45−08* / at the about* post – at bit.ly/dateposted – anyone can link to this post from its date: December 11, 2021
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Posted

environmentalists vote against their own interests … with support from fossil fuel companies


see tweeted article, archived*

Reuters:
The fight for votes cost both sides almost a combined $100 million, making it the most expensive referendum question in Maine’s history.

The project was proposed in Maine in 2017 after a previous proposal to run a transmission line through New Hampshire was blocked by local opposition. It received a series of state and federal permits from 2019 to 2021 and began construction early this year.*


2021-12-02T10:13−08* / at the about* post – at bit.ly/dateposted – anyone can link to this post from its date: December 00, 2021
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seven rules for our best chance to survive climate change (Andrew Nikiforuk)

image credit: see cached article*

Andrew Nikiforuk:

We have entered a new era that demands we embrace these seven transformative truths:

  1. Complexity delivers diminishing returns
  2. Not acting early ups the eventual cost
  3. Growth equals emissions
  4. Governments learn from punishments meted by voters, not nature
  5. The coming catastrophes will victimize those least powerful
  6. Anti-fragility should be the new goal
  7. More data doesn’t lead to better decisions


2021-11-25T21:05−08* / at the about* post – at bit.ly/dateposted – anyone can link to this post from its date: November 25, 2021
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image original* / see also National Observer newsletter*
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Noam Chomsky: interview by Eftertryk Magazine, October 2021


Eftertryk Magazine interviewed Noam Chomsky on four issues:
  1. The justification for the Afghanistan war in the immediate wake of 9/11
  2. AUKUS and the new cold war with China
  3. The climate crisis
  4. The principles and values of socialist anarchism
see also: edited transcript in a Jacobin article, archived*


2021-11-19T21:25−08* / at the about* post – at bit.ly/dateposted – anyone can link to this post from its date: November 19, 2021
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Chomsky, from the transcript:
any form of hierarchy and domination is illegitimate unless it can justify itself*
/ in very rare cases it can; if it can’t, dismantle it for “a more free, participatory, cooperative society" – aka a “mainstream” anarchist system
An anarchist system could very well have hierarchy, as long as it’s controlled from below. Like, if I need surgery, I go to a doctor, not a carpenter. That’s hierarchy. But I chose it – he’s a doctor by virtue of my decision, our decision collectively, that some group of people can gain skills that the community needs. So, as long as responsibility is vested in the democratic participatory community in every institution, in the workplace, in communities everywhere, then we’re moving toward a free and just society.

It will be a highly organized society. There can be a lot of planning about how we should distribute resources, what our policies ought to be. It could be, or should be, international in scope. So, a rich and complex organization based on popular and democratic control, meeting the condition that any form of hierarchy that can’t justify itself has to be dismantled in favor of more freedom. Then you can spell that out in many detailed ways.
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ThorCon 2021-10 update from ORNL molten salt workshop




2021-11-15T21:32−08* / at the about* post – at bit.ly/dateposted – anyone can link to this post from its date: November 15, 2021
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video link copied from website for ThorCon Power !?

TED founder Chris Anderson is lead investor*

What is high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)? ! !? / thorium is fertile, not fissile !? / posts that mention thorium !*
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odds and ends*

image: from Google Books , Dangerous Ideas  (Eric Berkowitz, Beacon Press, 2021), screenshot of a frame

… to silence others is as old as the urge to speak … speech exerts power !gb

***

“Languages are not lost, they are taken.”
—James Griffiths, Speak Not: Empire, Identity and the Politics of Language




2021-11-14T22:28−08* / at the about* post – at bit.ly/dateposted – anyone can link to this post from its date: November 14, 2021
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Posted

Viking buildings in Newfoundland made from timber cut in 1021

image: from Guardian article, archived*

from the article:

The Viking Age is traditionally defined as AD 793 to 1066, presenting a wide range for the timing of the transatlantic crossing. Ordinary radiocarbon dating – determining the age of organic materials by measuring their content of a particular radioactive isotope of carbon – proved too imprecise to date L’Anse aux Meadows, which was discovered in 1960, although there was a general belief it was the 11th century.

The new dating method relies on the fact that solar storms produce a distinctive radiocarbon signal in a tree’s annual growth rings. It was known there was a significant solar storm – a burst of high-energy cosmic rays from the sun – in AD992.

In all three pieces of wood examined, from three different trees, 29 growth rings were formed after the one that bore evidence of the solar storm, meaning the wood was cut in 1021, said the University of Groningen archaeologist Margot Kuitems, the study’s first author.

It was not local indigenous people who cut the wood because there is evidence of metal blades, which they did not possess …



2021-11-13T21:27−08* / at the about* post – at bit.ly/dateposted – anyone can link to this post from its date: November 13, 2021
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Posted