What many medical students don’t realize is that their education is funded by drug companies who benefit from overprescription. Most people have heard of pharmaceutical reps whose job it is to convince doctors to push specific drugs on unsuspecting patients, but did you know that those same drug companies wine and dine medical students, pay medical school professors millions of dollars each year, and begin lecturing medical students even before they are doctors?
Over the years, Harvard Medical School has received hundreds of millions of dollars from drug companies. TIME reports, “1,600 [Harvard professors] admit that either they or a family member have had some kind of business link to drug companies — sometimes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — that could bias their teaching or research.”
Several of my pediatrician friends have told me that they are sick of mothers who don’t…
The Yellow Vests have started to create discussion groups, constitution assemblies, initiatives at the village and town level, public promotion campaigns, discussion groups on the theme of the Grand Débat and the development of the RIC, social actions such as the Jardins du Nous, a whole bunches of popular initiatives that are flourishing throughout France.
Shutting down the Strait of Hormuz would destroy the American economy by detonating the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market; and that would collapse the world banking system, crushing the world’s $80 trillion GDP and causing an unprecedented depression.
Those are the words of the President of the United States. They’re also the ravings of a semi-literate lunatic. Packed full of lies, misspellings and vitriol, it’s the sort of thing you’d expect from your poor cousin Eugene, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s just last year, and isn’t it sad how fast it’s progressing.
So, we were that close last night, “cocked and loaded” to quote Donald, but for some reason he changed his mind. Perhaps he simply had cold feet, or perhaps, as suggested by Heather Digby Parton in a column posted on Salon, he balked at the last minute because Tucker Carlson came on the air and mentioned that war with Iran wouldn’t sit well with the Base. His claim that the stand-down resulted from getting a body count at the last minute, because it occurred to him suddenly to pose the question, is preposterous – projected casualties and collateral damage are always crucial to target selection, and would have been discussed as part of evaluating the merits of each of the no doubt numerous strike packages the Brass had on offer. It’s not something they don’t bother bringing up unless the President happens to ask, for the love of God.
Not that I’m complaining. Hooray cold feet, or yay Tucker Carlson, or whatever it was that prompted Trump to call things off. Ordinarily, I’d be happy to hear that military options were prepared, a strike was planned, but the President decided it wasn’t the right move. That’s what Presidents are supposed to do. It’s just that there’s a flukey, almost whimsical feel to the affair, like the mercurial President might change his mind again tonight, if the mood hits him. It’s worrying, too, that reports indicate Donald visibly enjoyed playing Commander in Chief, wielding the authority to initiate and then cancel military operations. Yikes. It’s bad enough that he’s a dumbass on the cusp of being fed pabulum on a spoon. The last additional thing we need the President to be when reaching these decisions is delighted.
It’s beyond strange that having prepared and then aborted an attack, Trump would take to Twitter to boast about it – or, that is to say, there was a time just a few years ago when such would have seemed beyond strange. It’s certainly bad brinksmanship. If the Iranians weren’t on a hair trigger before, they sure are now, and it’s hard to figure how they’ll react to learning over social media that they almost went to war last night. With luck, they won’t feel emboldened, having concluded that the President is just a bigmouth with no stomach for the fray. Here’s hoping they don’t conclude the opposite, either, and decide that since war is inevitable they may as well make the first move. At this point, appearing weak and indecisive is just about as dangerous as being overly aggressive, and Donald, through the course of the latest Tweet-storm, seems a little bit of both. “I am in no hurry” he says, before bragging about US military power (which has not been materially bolstered after only a couple of budget cycles since Donald assumed office), and concluding with a rant in ALL CAPS. What’s that supposed to mean? He seeks a negotiated solution? He’s not in the mood for a war just this minute, but rest assured he’ll get around to it? He means to starve them out with still more crippling sanctions? Or what?
Thank God there was no Twitter in 1962. If Khrushchev had yapped like that at Kennedy, I probably would have been incinerated in my crib, my wonderful life tragically terminated only a year after it began […]
via Nutbar-in-Chief — the needlefish
The World According to AI: Episode 1 Targeted by Algorithm
Al Jazeera (2019)
This documentary examines the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI), aka machine learning, in civilian drone strikes. The narrator is a human rights lawyer representing the family of a Yemeni man mistakenly targeted in 2012. After extensive investigation, she has learned her client was targeted by Skynet, an algorithm employing a large quantity of metadata the CIA/NSA collected from the phones of suspected “terrorist” couriers. By some strange coincidence this metadata was very similar to that collected from human rights and labor activists the CIA was monitoring. This means Skynet drones are more likely to to target women and children, who tend to be in the front line of dissent protests.
The film also traces the history of machine learning, starting with Alan Turing’s use of primitive calculating machines to crack the Nazi’s Enigma code. IBM’s creation of Big Blue (which beat chess grand master Garry Kasparov in 1997) and Watson (which beat the two highest scoring Jeopardy champions in 2011) are also major events in this story.
The filmmakers go on to explore the growing (and alarming) use of faulty facial recognition algorithms in law enforcement.
“The world is tired of U.S. lies. They did not start with Donald Trump, a pathological liar who may genuinely believe—in the moment—that his father was born in Germany, or that Obama was born in Kenya. The U.S. has been losing credibility for many years, while the crimes attending its wars-based-on-lies have spread fear and hatred of this country.”
Japan since 1945 has been the most abjectly deferential of U.S. allies, even more so than the U.K. Tokyo rarely strays far from Washington’s line on any global issue. It notoriously supported the Iraq wars if 1991 and 2003-present, both based on lies. Japan’s loyalty, like Britain’s, is strategic; while all alliances with the U.S. are promoted as based on “common values” they are mainly based on capital and global capitalists’ needs. Both the U.K. and Japan are for the time being part of the U.S. imperialist camp, under strong pressure to side with it when it decides to provoke war.
When George W. Bush turned to Tony Blair’s Britain and asked for support for a war on Iraq, Blair became Bush’s poodle. The slavish cooperation with the U.S. in that disastrous, criminal war remains a matter of national shame. Germany and…
According to Callamard—who listened to audio recordings provided by Turkish authorities—Saudi agents Maher Mutreb and Dr. Salah Tubaigy discussed how they would dismember and dispose of Khashoggi’s body just minutes before he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain marriage papers.
Report Says ‘Inconceivable’ Crown Prince Not Involved
“Evidence points to the 15-person mission to execute Mr. Khashoggi requiring significant government coordination, resources, and finances.”
By Jake Johnson
June 19, 2019 “Information Clearing House” –In a thorough and damning report on the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi released Wednesday, United Nations special rapporteur Agnes Callamard found that Khashoggi was “the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing” that was likely orchestrated by top officials in the Saudi government, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“Evidence points to the 15-person mission to execute Mr. Khashoggi requiring significant government coordination, resources, and finances,” Callamard wrote. “Every expert consulted finds it inconceivable that an operation of this scale could be implemented without the crown prince being aware, at a minimum, that some sort of mission of a criminal nature, directed at Mr. Khashoggi, was being launched.”
The case would collapse in the US owing to prosecution reliance on two convicted felons. They aren’t obliged to reveal the background of their witnesses in UK extradition hearings.
“It therefore seems that if House Democrats initiate impeachment against Trump, he will initiate very serious criminal charges — perhaps even an extraordinary case of treason — against Obama, for concocting Russiagate against him.”
June 18, 2019 “Information Clearing House” – The case that Obama’s team concocted Russiagate in order to weaken Trump if Trump were to win the Presidency has just received an important admission by the Government’s acknowledgement that the Government under Obama had lied to the FISA Court in order to get the FISA Court’s permission to investigate Trump for possible collusion with Russia’s Government. This information came from the DNC’s own lawyer, to the current U.S. Justice Department, in the case of United States of America v. Roger J. Stone Jr.
In response to Trump operative Roger Stone’s defense effort against Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s charges against Stone, the “Government’s Response to Defendant’s Motion to Compel Unredacted Crowdstrike Reports”
Report Says ‘Inconceivable’ Crown Prince Not Involved
The Most Revolutionary Act 