https://lists.theepochtimes.com/links/BJ...jAhmQ4KoIX

Quote:1,000 People Live on a Rock Smaller Than a Football Field on a Giant Lake—But You'll Never Guess Why


Migingo Island is one of the most populated islands on Earth. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images)

By Michael Wing
6/17/2024
Updated:
6/17/2024
On a tiny island on the world’s second-largest freshwater lake two nations wage Africa’s “smallest war.”
An iron-clad tortoise of rock and sheet metal juts from Lake Victoria, christened after Britain’s late queen, surrounded by over 23,000 square miles of water. Here a thronging mix of nationalities mingles—despite territorial disputes, competition over fishing, and myriad viewpoints—all in relative harmony on an island less than half the size of a football field.
All this began over three decades ago, with reports of fishermen earning three to four times in a day what shore-based cohorts earned in a month, driving anglers to seek their fortunes on Migingo Island, the outcrop in question, at the very source of the Nile River.

United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations

We have over 2,000 years of written records, remarkedly consistent given the turnover of empires & technology - of how to successfully eliminate piracy. In the Red Sea, we decided to ignore that and only do part of the recipe but expect the same result.

Quote:Shortly after Israel began its war on Gaza last year, Yemen’s Ansarallah, commonly known as the Houthis, began firing missiles and drones at Israel-linked merchant and commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden and southern Red Sea.

This was Ansarallah’s way of supporting the Palestinians in Gaza by “counter-blockading the blockader.” Such action has been consistent with Ansarallah’s practice of taking an “eye-for-an-eye” when dealing with the rebel movement’s domestic and foreign enemies.

Perceiving this Houthi conduct near the Bab al-Mandab strait as a major threat to the global economy, the U.S. and U.K. — with nonoperational support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands — began waging military operations against Ansarallah on January 12. The aim has been to deter the Houthis from carrying out such maritime attacks.

The coalition has been waging these strikes against the Houthis on almost a daily basis for the past five months. Recently, on June 7, the U.S. and U.K. conducted six air strikes — four of which targeted Yemen’s Hodeidah airport and the Salif seaport, while two were against the al-Thawra region, according to the Houthi-owned, Beirut-based Al Masirah TV.

These strikes came eight days after the two Western militaries attacked Houthi targets in Hodeida and southern Yemen, killing at least 16 and wounding 35 in what appeared to be one of Washington and London’s largest attacks against Ansarallah since the joint American-British campaign began in mid-January.

How much damage the strikes have inflicted on the Houthi war machine and its ability to continue attacking maritime targets is difficult to determine. Nonetheless, these operations, which have cost the U.S. some $1 billion according to a new intelligence report, have ultimately failed to deter Ansarallah, which continues firing missiles and drones at vessels off Yemen’s coast.

“Clearly, there has been some damage [to Houthi targets], but not at a significant level; the Houthis have suffered some losses, but they retain the ability to obstruct maritime shipping in the Red Sea,” said Thomas Juneau, an associate professor who focuses on the Middle East at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, in an interview with RS.

“And perhaps more importantly, beyond the material damage they have suffered, their intent to continue obstructing shipping in the Red Sea has not wavered.”

Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House, sees the overall situation similarly. “The Houthis have remained undeterred, and the U.S.-U.K. strikes have had limited impact as evidenced by continued attacks despite repeated U.S.-U.K. attempts to disrupt the group’s campaign,” he told RS. “Continuation of the military campaign is unlikely to deter the Houthis.”

Since the military campaign against the de facto Yemeni government in Sanaa began in January, the U.S. has waged 450 strikes against Ansarallah. There is good reason to question the sustainability of these U.S.-U.K. operations against the Houthis. “Their supply of weapons from Iran is cheap and highly sustainable, but ours is expensive and our logistics tails are long. We are playing whack-a-mole, and they are playing a long game,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Emily Harding recently told the Wall Street Journal.

The Biden administration refuses to see Houthi conduct in the Gulf of Aden and the southern Red Sea as linked to the U.S.-backed Israeli war on Gaza. Although Ansarallah has been straightforward with their vows to cease disruptive behavior off Yemen’s coasts once a ceasefire is in place in Gaza, the White House claims there is no connection between the two and that continuing these military operations against the Houthis, rather than addressing the root cause of this behavior, is the best course of action.

There is no denying that the coalition strikes have, to a significant extent, empowered the Houthis within Yemen and across the Arab world. Mindful of how anti-Israeli sentiments are shared by Yemenis across the country and its political spectrum, it has not been surprising to see Ansarallah boost its recruitment as a result of its maritime attacks waged under the banner of defending the Palestinians.

In the process, this has also put anti-Houthi forces in Yemen under increased pressure. This includes the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which depends on support from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Arab state that pioneered the Abraham Accords — a series of normalization agreements between Arab states and Israel. The Houthis have seized this crisis as an opportunity to “bolster their position as champions of the Palestinian cause, allowing them to increase their regional prestige and influence,” explained Juneau.

Ultimately it is unclear what Western and regional actors can do to influence the Houthis, who have proven their ability to live under intense pressure from the West and certain Arab states.

“The reality on the ground in Yemen is that the Houthis have won the civil war and the internationally recognized government is not in a position to challenge them; it is weak, fragmented, and corrupt,” Juneau told RS.

“The Houthis, moreover, fully intend to project their power beyond Yemen’s borders now that they have won the war. The U.S. faces a menu of only bad options in the face of this reality.”

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO and founder of Gulf State Analytics, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Washington, DC. He is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, and an Adjunct Fellow at the American Security Project.

Are the Houthis winning in the Red Sea?

https://rense.com/general30/giant.htm

Quote:By Peter Porco
Anchorage Daily News
10-15-2


ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A giant winged creature, like something out of Jurassic Park, has reportedly been sighted several times in Southwest Alaska in recent weeks.   Villagers in Togiak and Manokotak say they have seen a huge bird that's much bigger than anything they have seen before.   A pilot says he spotted the creature while flying passengers to Manokotak last week. He calculated that its wingspan matched the length of a wing on his Cessna 207. That's about 14 feet.   Other people have put the wingspan in a similar range.   Scientists aren't sure what to make of the reports. No one doubts that people in the region west of Dillingham have seen a very large rapto-like bird. But biologists and other people familiar with big Alaska birds say they're skeptical it's that big.   A recent sighting of the mystery bird occurred Oct. 10 when Moses Coupchiak, a 43-year-old heavy equipment operator from Togiak, 40 miles west of Manokotak, saw the bird flying toward him from about two miles away as he worked his tractor.   "At first I thought it was one of those old-time Otter planes," Coupchiak said. "Instead of continuing toward me, it banked to the left, and that's when I noticed it wasn't a plane."   The bird was "something huge," he said. "The wing looks a little wider than the Otter's, maybe as long as the Otter plane."   The bird flew behind a hill and disappeared. Coupchiak got on the radio and warned people in Togiak to tell their children to stay away.   Pilot John Bouker said he was highly skeptical of reports of "this great big eagle" that is two or three times the size of a bald eagle. "I didn't put any thought into it."   But early this week while flying into Manokotak, Bouker, owner of Bristol Bay Air Service, looked out his left window and 1,000 feet away, "there's this big ... . bird," he said.   "The people in the plane all saw him," Bouker said. "He's huge, he's huge, he's really, really big. You wouldn't want to have your children out."   Nicolai Alakayak, a freight and passenger driver from Manokotak who was flying with Bouker, said the creature looked like an eagle and was as large as "a little Super Cub."   Comparison to an eagle, certainly. Super Cub? Probably not, scientists said.   "I'm certainly not aware of anything with a 14-foot wingspan that's been alive for the last 100,000 years," said federal raptor specialist Phil Schemf in Juneau.   Schemf, other biologists, a village police officer and teachers at the Manokotak School said the sightings could be of a Steller's sea eagle, a species native to northeast Asia and one of the world's largest eagles. It's about 50 percent bigger than a bald eagle.     Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service http://www.shns.com

Real or Hoax?

This makes for an awesome bedtime story. Only an hour in length. This British storyteller retells the whole several year bizarre tale between Mel and Art Bell in summary fashion with some detailed analysis. I usually fall asleep, but not with this 'very deep' tale! Apparently the legend still lives on to this very day. Vid upload is from Jun 6, 2024.




In 1997, radio presenter Art Bell had a phone conversation with a man named Mel. He had discovered something strange on his land, a seemingly bottomless hole. Over the course of 5 years, Mel and Art would have a number of conversations live on Coast to Coast AM, discussing the increasingly strange experiences Mel had with the hole.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Art Bell/Coast to Coast
02:14 Welcome to The Tape Library
04:15 The First Call - 1997
13:36 The 2nd Call
22:23 Mel Returns - 2000
33:03 Call 4 - 2002
41:55 Animal Cruelty Warning
43:45 The Autopsy
48:03 The Final Call
53:48 What Really Happened With Mel's Hole

If you're into ghost stories & the paranormal check out his channel: The Tape Library

This article gives a rundown on this concept known as "Constitutional AI", an idea that if properly followed through will hopefully work as an AI control measure. It is not as straightforward as Asimov's Laws of Robotics, but as complex as AI is, it will have to be more like a law book rather than three simple laws.

Quote:Constitutional AI: The Essential Guide
In the swiftly evolving domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the overarching emphasis on ethics and security is increasingly prevalent. A salient concept emerging from this landscape is "Constitutional AI." As AI systems gain a foothold in critical sectors such as judiciary, governance, and policy-making, the call for constitutional compliance becomes paramount. This article unveils the world of Constitutional AI, offering a comprehensive understanding tailored for the technically astute reader interested in AI security.

What is Constitutional AI? Defining Constitutional AI
At its essence, Constitutional AI is the convergence of legal frameworks, particularly constitutional principles, with AI systems. The goal is to embed and ensure AI operations are in alignment with the legal and ethical principles enshrined in national constitutions or other foundational legal documents. This means crafting AI systems that not only recognize but respect rights, privileges, and values at the heart of our societal contracts.

Quote:Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights

To advance President Biden’s vision, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has identified five principles that should guide the design, use, and deployment of automated systems to protect the American public in the age of artificial intelligence. The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights is a guide for a society that protects all people from these threats—and uses technologies in ways that reinforce our highest values.

Quote:King James Bible - Revelation 13:15

"And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed."

I wonder why?

In 2020,. 

• More than 5.5 million ballots were cast, breaking the previous record set in 2008
  

• About 3.3 million of those ballots counted were absentee ballots, representing 60% of the total ballots cast. 
  

Quote:Michigan’s George Soros-funded Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, tried to allow the state to count ballots received after election day. She has also championed a measure that would allow same-day registration without a photo ID.

What could possibly go wrong when there’s ZERO verification,
To make matters worse, the state has also expanded mail-in voting. And the icing on the cake? 105% of the state’s population is registered to vote! Gee, how could that have happened?

Not one of the best W.F.s IMO but a few interesting thoughts nevertheless. Skip to 3:58 to miss Ad.

Quote:The far side of the moon has been a mystery since the dawn of the space age. But is it just a barren, crater-filled wasteland? Shocking claims from astronauts, whistleblowers, and classified documents suggest there's more to the story. Eerie sounds, inexplicable sightings, and covert missions point to something astounding hidden from public view. We examine the evidence, from Apollo-era transcripts to modern military insiders. The implications are staggering, hinting at a secret history beyond our world. --- PS... Harvard released a paper today called "The cryptoterrestrial hypothesis: A case for scientific openness to a concealed earthly explanation for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena." The Why Files is cited as a source (pg 14, pg 39) But the paper has suddenly disappeared... ...though we saved you a copy: https://(link tracking not allowed)/4b1xk11

Who wants a good laugh and some entertainment? It is so stupid that critics are trolling the hell out of it.

It appears Disney is now just trying to completely destroy the IP.




Below is the funny review of episodes 1 & 2 .... the trolling is epic! Make It Make Sense!!!





The Acolyte Episode 3: Commie, Space Witch, Lesbians Make Children with The Force!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ShvlYjOgXM

I'm hearing Saudi Arabia will not be renewing the 50-year petrodollar agreement with the United States. Instead, they will be selling oil in multiple currencies, including the Chinese RMB, Euros, Yen, and Yuan.

Quote:And I feel fine



On the 6th of June 1974, the Watergate scandal was in full bloom, the global economy was in the crapper, and I was anxiously awaiting my 13th birthday to become a full-fledged teenager. President Nixon had instituted a national 55mph speed limit, which essentially pissed off everyone who lived west of the Mississippi River. Japan was the China of the day and the Vietnam war was nearing the end of its decade-long stranglehold on Merkin culture.

At that moment, Prince Fahd ibn Abdel Aziz and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were sitting down to change the world and create an empire. The Petrodollar Pact, among other things, forced the world to buy oil and gas in US dollars, and created Saudi Aramco, the single most powerful energy company ever.

At the same time, Nixon had ended the Bretton Woods agreement and closed the gold window at the Federal Reserve Bank, thus severing US currency from its Constitutional link to precious metals. This event tied the dollar’s value to energy instead of gold and allowed the dollar to be inflated to unimaginable levels as a debt instrument.

Suddenly, the world desperately needed dollars to buy energy for economic growth, and the US had the power to hand out “aid” and loans — through the IMF created by Bretton Woods — which meant the politicians could go on an economic binge unlike anything seen before, and the inflationary consequences could be exported and amortized over the entire planet.

Fifty years later, the US has $34 trillion in public debt, not to mention the untold trillions in global private debt (namely the Eurodollar) denominated in dollars and tied intricately to US control over energy and the means to pay for it.

And it all ended on Monday.

With the US dollar no longer tied to gold and no longer needed to buy energy, Congress no longer controls global economic growth. Who will buy US Treasuries if they don’t need dollars to buy energy? How will the US be able to sanction its opposition if it cannot hold the dollar up as coercion and incentive? How will Wall Street dominate global finance if the dollar imperative is lost?

The most destructive part is what will happen when nations begin to sell off US Treasuries to diversify their foreign currency reserves and promote their own currencies on a suddenly-level playing field?

The net effect will likely be that the US will no longer be able to export its inflation, and the domestic economy will inflate like a massive balloon, as the politicians scramble to avoid anything sharp. Government spending will perforce come to an inglorious halt, as Congress’ ability to borrow funds dries up. Social safety nets will crater and the country’s socio-economic free ride of the past half century will abruptly end.

On the global stage, US Treasuries will become nearly worthless, and private debt will simply roll over into alternative currencies, such as yuan, rupee and Swiss franc. There will be some amount of turmoil as everyone scrambles to re-denominate contracts and loan agreements, but it will stabilize relatively quickly, especially with the introduction of the BRICS’ new blockchain payment system that circumvents the SWIFT system that has dominated global banking and trade since the introduction of the Petrodollar.

Gloom and doom?

Hard to say. I think life in the US, and especially for the Political Class, is going to get mighty uncomfortable. With crushing debt and waning global influence, the feds will not be able to buy loyalty from anyone, and especially folks at home. The profligate lifestyle that most Merkins have grown up with is coming to a swift (pun intended) and messy end. Certainly the Bumbledicks will no longer have any carrots with which to entice compliance.

The world, on the other hand, will undergo a recession, but it will end quickly as markets are suddenly unshackled by the Petrodollar and vast new opportunities open up for trade and finance.

It seems to me that the spread of Fascism that I’ve railed against for years will be stalled, as the vast buckets of dollars poured into the NGOs and quasi-governmental organizations dry up, along with their influence. All of these interlocking hydras have built their cages on US dominance and the universal need for dollars. This eventuality has likely been the impetus for megacorps like Vanguard and BlackRock to rapidly adopt and expand their crypto ETF holdings.

The most interesting development to watch will be how the Central Banking cabal adjusts (or doesn’t). They have been pushing their CBDCs with fear and panic behind their eyes, but the CBDC system is simply a desperate ploy to compete with blockchain systems and maintain the Petrodollar hegemony under a digitized guise. All indications are that this effort will fail miserably, and national banking systems will be freed of this monkey on their backs.

The direct and iterative effects of the Petrodollar demise are myriad and reach into every aspect of global economic activity.

The Russians have been discussing and planning for the demise of the Western financial system since at least the late 1990s. This is likely the primary impetus behind the current Western war on Russia and its allies. Anyone who has played king of the hill knows that “when you reach the top, you’re on the bottom.” Sitting on a throne is the very definition of paranoia, and the US has become the very definition of complacency after 50 years of inhabiting the High See.

It may take as long to unwind the Petrodollar as it took to build it. There is no telling what the outcome will be, since history has a habit of being non-linear. That it represents the end of a long-standing regime is without a doubt, but how it will shake out in our daily lives belongs to future generations.

With the death of Henry Kissinger last year, everyone who created our current world order is dead, and perhaps that’s a sign that it’s time to move on. It will be a century or more before humanity has a grasp on where we are, much less on where we are going. Profound shifts in power structures have far-reaching and incomprehensible ripples through human events. Western legal systems still use Latin, after all.

What we can say with authority is that the world has irrevocably changed in a way that is and will continue affecting all of us. The severity and benefits depend heavily on our individual abilities to adapt and prosper in the midst of turbulence. Like the recent Singapore Airlines tragedy, where the plane suddenly dropped nearly 200 feet, some will die, some will be injured, and some will survive and sell the rights to their stories.

It behooves us to buckle up and try our best to read the tea leaves. We can assess the most likely scenarios and perform a cost/benefit analysis for each of them. My perspective and experience in Indonesia will likely differ widely from someone in Peoria, but we will all lose something and gain something else.

As the Mandarin proverb says, “乱中有机" (luàn zhōng yǒu jī) — in chaos there is opportunity.

It seems even the Brain dead FBI is warning of an imminent attack from some group of illegals who have been crossing the border... In just the last month at around 5000 a day there seems to be plenty of Chinese and Russians to help a general cause. I just hope when the fireworks start it starts in the Sanctuary Cities.