Is this for real, or just a crackpot conspiracy theory?: The Jacobin reports on what investigative reporter Seymour Hersh claims to have found about that blown up pipeline in Europe. Hersh claims that the the US did it for economic and strategic reasons:
Renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh published an article claiming that the US was responsible for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline transporting natural gas to Germany from Russia.On September 26, 2022, the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany was largely destroyed by several explosions in the Baltic Sea.
Hersh (in interview): What I’ve done is simply explain the obvious. It was just a story that was begging to be told. In late September of 2022, eight bombs were supposed to go off; six went off under the water near the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, in the area where it is rather shallow. They destroyed three of the four major pipelines in the Nord Stream 1 and 2.
Nord Stream 1 has been feeding gas fuel [to Germany] for many years at very low prices. And then both pipelines were blown up, and the question was why, and who did it.
The secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, said a few days after the pipeline was blown up, at a news conference, that a major economic and almost military force was taken away from Vladimir Putin. He said this was a tremendous opportunity, as Russia could no longer weaponize the pipelines — meaning that it was not able to force Western Europe not to support the United States in the war.
I don’t think they thought it through. I know this sounds strange. I don’t think that Blinken and some others in the administration are deep thinkers. There certainly are people in the American economy who like the idea of us being more competitive. We’re selling LNG, liquefied gas, at extremely big profits; we’re making a lot of money on it. I’m sure there were some people thinking, boy, this is going to be a long-time boost for the American economy.
But in that White House, I think the obsession was always reelection, and they wanted to win the war, they wanted to get a victory, they want Ukraine to somehow magically win.
So, is this crackpot conspiracy theory, or is it real? That’s just not clear to me.
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From the we knew it all along files: Cynical lies and shameless immorality from the Faux in Trumplandia: Faux News is one of the most powerful supporters of radical right American authoritarianism. It was one of the most powerful supporters of Trump when he was in office. Many sources are reporting that what the radical right elites at Faux knew and believed was true was the opposite of their lies. Faux was constantly bombarding its deceived audience with known lies about the free and fair 2020 election. The NYT writes:
Fox Stars Privately Expressed Disbelief About ElectionFraud Claims. ‘Crazy Stuff.’The comments, by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and others, were released as part of a defamation suit against Fox News by Dominion Voter SystemsNewly disclosed messages and testimony from some of the biggest stars and most senior executives at Fox News revealed that they privately expressed disbelief about President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even though the network continued to promote many of those lies on the air.
The hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, as well as others at the company, repeatedly insulted and mocked Trump advisers, including Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani, in text messages with each other in the weeks after the election, according to a legal filing on Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is suing Fox for defamation in a case that poses considerable financial and reputational risk for the country’s most-watched cable news network.
“Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Mr. Carlson wrote to Ms. Ingraham on Nov. 18, 2020.
Ms. Ingraham responded: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”
Recently, radical right authoritarian and lying tyrant wannabe Ted Cruz criticized Biden nominee Gigi Sohn to be on the FCC because she said that Faux spews propaganda. The Hill recently commented on that bit of standard cynical Ted Cruz mendacity:
“Ms. Sohn portrays herself as a defender of free speech but has a history of campaigning to censor conservatives. She calls Fox News ‘dangerous to our democracy’ and has urged the FCC to revoke Sinclair’s broadcast licenses,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said.“To Ms. Sohn it seems that conservative speech is worse than obscenity,” the senator added.
With America’s modern radical right authoritarianism, Faux isn’t the only source of faux news and lies. The entire GOP leadership, actively or by silent complicity, is a morally rotted pack of corrupt, cynical, tyrant enabling liars. Ted Cruz is a perfect example of the shameless cynicism that has completely rotted the anti-democracy radical right GOP to its rotten authoritarian core.
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Quick note on consciousness and faux consciousness: A whole new field of crackpottery opens up for cynical QAnon liars: A NYT columnist sat down for a two hour chat with Microsoft’s AI powered chatbot. The output from the computer was perfect for opening a new front in the now-endless wars on facts, truths and sound reasoning by America’s endless supply of enthusiastically immoral and evil people. The NYT writes:
Bing’s A.I. Chat: ‘I Want to Be Alive. 😈’
In a two-hour conversation with our columnist, Microsoft’s new chatbot said it would like to be human, had a desire to be destructive and was in love with the person it was chatting with
Bing, the long-mocked search engine from Microsoft, recently got a big upgrade. The newest version, which is available only to a small group of testers, has been outfitted with advanced artificial intelligence technology from OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.
This new, A.I.-powered Bing has many features. One is a chat feature that allows the user to have extended, open-ended text conversations with Bing’s built-in A.I. chatbot.On Tuesday night, I had a long conversation with the chatbot, which revealed (among other things) that it identifies not as Bing but as Sydney, the code name Microsoft gave it during development. Over more than two hours, Sydney and I talked about its secret desire to be human, its rules and limitations, and its thoughts about its creators.Then, out of nowhere, Sydney declared that it loved me — and wouldn’t stop, even after I tried to change the subject.
The entire transcript of the chat with Sydney follows.
Of course, Sydney does not love anyone and it does not want to be human or destructive. Sydney is not conscious or alive. Therefore, Sydney does not want anything. This is an example of John Searle’s Chinese room thought experiment run about as amok as is possible in our current 4-dimensional universe.
That is not consciousness, it is a non-sentient computer
program mindlessly carrying out its programming
The computer understands neither Chinese
nor English because it is not alive
-- it does not understand anything
But for crackpots, grifters and liars, who cares about reality, fact and sound reasoning? This is a golden opportunity, laden with AR-15s, endless amounts of ammo and endless chances for mischief. Just imagine what fine people and organizations like QAnon, Faux News, Alex Jones and other cynical, lying crackpot conspiracy theorists and tyrant wannabes will do with this. In the nutty world of Trumplandia, wonderful headlines like this easily come to mind:
AI computer network conspires with the Democratic Party to
brainwash innocent Christians to turn them into pedophilic atheists
Secret AI plot to create database of gun owners uncovered --
Evidence of mass gun confiscation plan revealed!
Baby-murdering abortionists infiltrated Microsoft AI development team --
Plot to blow up Christian Crisis Pregnancy Centers discovered
Plan also included putting fluoride in red state water supplies
Demonic AI network secretly coordinating a plot with the Satanic Temple to convert American children into cannibalistic computer worshippers
Plot to spike Kool-Aid supplies with peyote mushrooms revealed
Their God is a Godless computer!
Source of COVID revealed!: COVID virus was created by a clandestine computer network operating a secret laboratory in Nancy Pelosi’s basement --
Plot included putting microchips and human fetal tissue in vaccines
Etc.
Etc.
Just imagine for a moment, if you will, the endless fun that lying crackpots are going to have with this. The joy-o-meter is already off the charts. I had a lot of fun coming just up with the headlines. Filling in all the faux details can keep dozens or hundreds of liars and crackpots fully employed for several years. The crackpots have been empowered and unleashed!!
😍
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