Think of all the stuff you confidently claim to know and understand. Tons of facts and ideas and truths underlying your daily experience of reality. All the things your culture has taught you about science and history and psychology and philosophy and religion and ethics. In the welter of all this handy third hand knowledge, very little counts as anything you really know. How could it? You didn't think thru those ideas or values or truths on your own and form them as your conclusions. You didn't record all the scientific facts about the world for yourself. It was all just handed to you and taken by you as all given and true without any questions.
It's basically like the software that is installed in every child's brain that enables them to operate and function successfully in the world. We are thankfully spared the task as members of one species of having to learn all this information ourselves from scratch, literally inheriting the entire constructed worldview of the historical epoch of our time. Like bees secreting and storing precious honey in their hive we are the lucky beneficiaries of this collective project of stored information over thousands of years. Very little of the real world happens to us except as it is expected to and believed in by our culturally programmed minds.
And yet nothing about our experience is in fact given. It is all prepackaged and pre-interpreted for us in the template of our programming. Consciousness itself is less a direct grasp of the real as it is a way of integrating our reality thru the sense-making sieve of language and traditional values. Can we experience the world in any other way outside of how we are culturally predetermined to? That is perhaps the biggest question of our time. And how does one begin to start doing that when even our sense of what is true and right is itself likely just an artifact of the culture and time we are living in?
"Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself. " ~E.E. Cummings
In the future humans will obviously have more and more time to themselves due to AI eliminating jobs---time in which to contemplate their insignificant lives and their inevitable displacement and to create new ways of making time pass. The emergence of a new kind of imaginative being will result in us all becoming information processors much as our AI overlords are. The increasingly emaciated physical body devolving into a vestigial relic from a bygone era.
EXCERPTS: The guilty plea by Summer Worden, 50, on Thursday comes more than five years after she was indicted in the space case for lying about actions by her wife, Anne McClain, a U.S. Army colonel, West Point graduate and Iraq war combat veteran, while they were in the midst of a divorce.
The claim came at a time when Worden said that the couple was engaged in a custody battle over what Worden’s then-6-year-old son [...] The Kansas resident was accused of making false statements about McClain to NASA’s Office of Inspector General and the Federal Trade Commission, where she alleged that McCain had committed identity theft.
Worden in July “alleged her estranged spouse had guessed the password and illegally accessed her bank account while the spouse was deployed to the International Space Station” [...] “The investigation revealed Worden had granted her spouse access to her bank records from at least 2015, including her login credentials,” the statement said.
At the time of the alleged illegal access, McClain was preparing for what NASA billed as the first all-female space walk, which was later scrapped because the agency did not have enough spacesuits to fit the astronauts.
[...] McClain was aboard the Space Station from December 2018 through June 2019. She recently commanded the SpaceX Crew-10 crew mission to the Space Station from March this year until August.
Worden, who remains free on bond, is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 12. She faces a maximum possible sentence of up to five years in prison... (MORE - missing details)
Everything Trump does is exactly what someone would do if they were trying to hide something. Pretty much an admission of guilt..
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday it will fulfill President Donald Trump's request to investigate Jeffrey Epstein's ties with former Democratic President Bill Clinton and JPMorgan (JPM.N), opens new tab, as Trump sought to shift the focus from his relationship with the convicted sex offender.
The move comes two days after a congressional committee released thousands of documents that raised new questions about Trump's relationship with the late financier, and marks the latest in a series of demands by Trump for federal law enforcement to pursue his perceived political enemies.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said Jay Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, will lead the investigation.
The Epstein scandal has been a political thorn in Trump’s side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters. Many Trump voters believe Bondi and other Trump officials have covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019.
Trump has harnessed the Justice Department to target other perceived political enemies, notably former FBI Director James Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James, both of whom were charged after Trump replaced the prosecutor leading the cases.
'NOT HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO WORK'
Legal experts say Trump's demands could undermine the criminal cases that emerge from those probes, as judges can dismiss cases found to be motivated by "vindictive prosecution" - which both Comey and James have raised, though judges have not yet ruled on their requests to dismiss the cases.
Patrick J. Cotter, a former federal prosecutor, said it was "outrageously inappropriate" for Trump to order the department to investigate individual citizens, adding, "That's not how it's supposed to work."
Along with Clinton, who socialized with Epstein in the early 2000s, Trump said he had asked the Justice Department to investigate former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn founder who is also a prominent Democratic donor. All three men were mentioned in the 20,000 Epstein-related documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
"Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem!" Trump wrote on social media. "They all know about him, don't waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!"
JPMorgan said in a statement the U.S. bank regrets its past association with Epstein, who was a client between 1998 and 2013, and did not help him commit "heinous acts."
Clinton and Summers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Hoffman could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Justice Department's decision to acquiesce to Trump's demand came despite a July memo in which the department and the FBI said there was no "evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties" in the Epstein case.
"This systematic review revealed no incriminating 'client list,'" the memo said. "There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions."
TRUMP FACES CONTINUED PRESSURE OVER EPSTEIN
Trump and Epstein were friends during the 1990s and the 2000s, but Trump says he broke off ties before Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Trump has consistently denied knowing about the late financier’s abuse and sex trafficking of underage girls. Still, some of Trump's most ardent supporters have accused his administration of a cover-up. Trump, who frequently engages with reporters, has declined to take questions over the last several days as new revelations about Epstein have become public.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to vote next week on legislation that would force the Justice Department to release all of the material it holds on Epstein, who was facing federal charges of sex trafficking minors at the time of his suicide. The measure is expected to pass, even after House Speaker Mike Johnson repeatedly maneuvered to try to block the vote. It would also require the Senate to pass similar legislation and Trump's approval to compel the Justice Department to act.
Just four in 10 Republicans in an October Reuters/Ipsos poll said they approved of Trump's handling of the Epstein files, well below the nine in 10 who approve of his overall performance in the White House.
TRUMP 'TRYING TO DISTRACT'
"Trump is clearly desperately trying to distract from his own presence in the Epstein emails," said Alan Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor and former Justice Department lawyer.
JPMorgan paid $290 million in 2023 to some of Epstein's victims to settle accusations that it had turned a blind eye to his sex trafficking. The deal followed embarrassing disclosures that JPMorgan ignored internal warnings and overlooked red flags about a valued client. The bank did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement.
No credible evidence has surfaced that Clinton, Summers or Hoffman were involved in Epstein's sex trafficking. All have previously denied wrongdoing and have expressed regret about their relationships with him.
Clinton flew on Epstein's private jet several times before the financier's 2008 conviction, while Summers accepted philanthropic gifts from Epstein while serving as president of Harvard University. Hoffman has acknowledged meeting with Epstein multiple times in professional situations.
Before his 2008 conviction, Epstein worked and socialized with a long list of well-known figures, including the UK's former Prince Andrew, who was stripped of his royal title due in part to his association with Epstein.
Clayton, the prosecutor who will head the probe into Clinton, JPMorgan and the other figures, is a political independent who chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first White House term."
Everything Trump does is exactly what someone would do if they were trying to hide something. Pretty much an admission of guilt..
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday it will fulfill President Donald Trump's request to investigate Jeffrey Epstein's ties with former Democratic President Bill Clinton and JPMorgan (JPM.N), opens new tab, as Trump sought to shift the focus from his relationship with the convicted sex offender.
The move comes two days after a congressional committee released thousands of documents that raised new questions about Trump's relationship with the late financier, and marks the latest in a series of demands by Trump for federal law enforcement to pursue his perceived political enemies.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said Jay Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, will lead the investigation.
The Epstein scandal has been a political thorn in Trump’s side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters. Many Trump voters believe Bondi and other Trump officials have covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019.
Trump has harnessed the Justice Department to target other perceived political enemies, notably former FBI Director James Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James, both of whom were charged after Trump replaced the prosecutor leading the cases.
'NOT HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO WORK'
Legal experts say Trump's demands could undermine the criminal cases that emerge from those probes, as judges can dismiss cases found to be motivated by "vindictive prosecution" - which both Comey and James have raised, though judges have not yet ruled on their requests to dismiss the cases.
Patrick J. Cotter, a former federal prosecutor, said it was "outrageously inappropriate" for Trump to order the department to investigate individual citizens, adding, "That's not how it's supposed to work."
Along with Clinton, who socialized with Epstein in the early 2000s, Trump said he had asked the Justice Department to investigate former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn founder who is also a prominent Democratic donor. All three men were mentioned in the 20,000 Epstein-related documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
"Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem!" Trump wrote on social media. "They all know about him, don't waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!"
JPMorgan said in a statement the U.S. bank regrets its past association with Epstein, who was a client between 1998 and 2013, and did not help him commit "heinous acts."
Clinton and Summers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Hoffman could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Justice Department's decision to acquiesce to Trump's demand came despite a July memo in which the department and the FBI said there was no "evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties" in the Epstein case.
"This systematic review revealed no incriminating 'client list,'" the memo said. "There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions."
TRUMP FACES CONTINUED PRESSURE OVER EPSTEIN
Trump and Epstein were friends during the 1990s and the 2000s, but Trump says he broke off ties before Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Trump has consistently denied knowing about the late financier’s abuse and sex trafficking of underage girls. Still, some of Trump's most ardent supporters have accused his administration of a cover-up. Trump, who frequently engages with reporters, has declined to take questions over the last several days as new revelations about Epstein have become public.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to vote next week on legislation that would force the Justice Department to release all of the material it holds on Epstein, who was facing federal charges of sex trafficking minors at the time of his suicide. The measure is expected to pass, even after House Speaker Mike Johnson repeatedly maneuvered to try to block the vote. It would also require the Senate to pass similar legislation and Trump's approval to compel the Justice Department to act.
Just four in 10 Republicans in an October Reuters/Ipsos poll said they approved of Trump's handling of the Epstein files, well below the nine in 10 who approve of his overall performance in the White House.
TRUMP 'TRYING TO DISTRACT'
"Trump is clearly desperately trying to distract from his own presence in the Epstein emails," said Alan Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor and former Justice Department lawyer.
JPMorgan paid $290 million in 2023 to some of Epstein's victims to settle accusations that it had turned a blind eye to his sex trafficking. The deal followed embarrassing disclosures that JPMorgan ignored internal warnings and overlooked red flags about a valued client. The bank did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement.
No credible evidence has surfaced that Clinton, Summers or Hoffman were involved in Epstein's sex trafficking. All have previously denied wrongdoing and have expressed regret about their relationships with him.
Clinton flew on Epstein's private jet several times before the financier's 2008 conviction, while Summers accepted philanthropic gifts from Epstein while serving as president of Harvard University. Hoffman has acknowledged meeting with Epstein multiple times in professional situations.
Before his 2008 conviction, Epstein worked and socialized with a long list of well-known figures, including the UK's former Prince Andrew, who was stripped of his royal title due in part to his association with Epstein.
Clayton, the prosecutor who will head the probe into Clinton, JPMorgan and the other figures, is a political independent who chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first White House term.
"At just 15 years old, a Canadian teenager engineered a breakthrough that could transform global healthcare — a fully functional dialysis machine that costs less than a smartphone. Traditional dialysis treatment can cost tens of thousands of dollars per year, putting it far out of reach for millions in low-income regions.
His portable, low-cost device replicates the core function of hospital-grade machines: filtering toxins and excess fluid from the blood of patients with kidney failure. Built from simple parts and powered by open-source engineering, it’s a life-saving solution designed for communities where access to treatment is nearly impossible.
Healthcare professionals and global NGOs are now evaluating the invention for deployment in rural clinics, emergency zones, and mobile medical units. The goal is to bring reliable dialysis to areas where patients often travel hours or even days for treatment — or receive none at all. This teen’s innovation demonstrates that medical breakthroughs don’t always come from giant corporations; sometimes they come from young minds driven by compassion, creativity, and the desire to solve real human problems."
Why we’re going to keep talking about the Trump phone (excerpts): For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been asking — repeatedly — where the promised Trump phone is, whether it exists, and what happened to all the money people have already paid for deposits. And I’m going to keep doing that every week for the foreseeable future.
Not everyone thinks I should. I’ve been told that covering Trump Mobile is “playing into his hands,” that “this obvious con [doesn’t need] any more publicity,” and that “we don’t need to read about it literally every week.” And those are just the nice messages — you don’t want to see some of the other ones.
Still, I think it’s a fair question. [...] The long answer is: We can’t move on because this is still playing out, and it still needs reporting.
If the T1 Phone 8002 would just arrive at buyers’ houses and turn out to be a real, probably quite bad, smartphone, that would be that. But no one has the phone yet. No one has even seen the phone yet. And Trump Mobile has gone suspiciously silent, with no updates in months to its website or social media profiles.
[...] In the grand scheme of the Donald Trump administration, a gold Android phone that won’t actually be made in the US is pretty small fry. But it’s emblematic of empty promises and naked grifts, of baseless claims that they don’t expect to ever be called out on...
- - - - - - - - - - -
It's now November and the Trump phone is still MIA (excerpts): The Trump Phone has yet to surface. This is significant because back in late August, when the Trump Phone failed to arrive, the Trump Organization told USA Today that the phone had been delayed to October. Well, October has now passed as there is still no Trump Phone.
The last time there was any social media post about the phone, it was August 28th and the Trump Organization released a photoshopped render of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra in a Spigen case and passed it off as the Trump Phone. The Trump Organization didn't bother to remove the Spigen logo from the photoshopped T1 image.
[...] Trump Mobile plans to offer service for $47.45 a month. You don't have to be a genius to figure out how the Trump Organization came to that price since Trump has been both president number 47 in his current term and number 45 in his first term. This is called the "47 Plan," and it comes with unlimited talk, text, and data with a high-speed data cap. Trump Mobile is in business and subscribers also receive:
Unlimited talk, text, and data
Complete device protection
24/7 roadside assistance through Drive America
Telehealth services, including virtual medical care, mental health support, and easy ordering and delivery for prescription medications
Free International calling to more than 100 countries, including many with American military bases to help honor the families who are bravely serving in our military abroad
EXCERPTS: A blood sample from—of all people—Adolf Hitler has been procured, authenticated, and sequenced. [...] and from there one can do DNA analysis, even if the sample is somewhat degraded.
[...] The brouhaha centering on Hitler’s micropenis and sexuality has got people worked up because they think that these conditions may have explained Hitler’s behavior. It seems pretty clear that der Füher was not a highly sexed man, but beyond that it’s hard to analyze his psychology [...] And speculations that he had one undescended testicle come not from this genetic study (though the study supports it), but from a doctor’s report made when Hitler was in Landberg Prison.
As for the possibility that Hitler’s behavior was compensation for a micropenis, we have no idea whether he actually had a microphallus. And “likely” is not the right word. In a good article in the Guardian, Philip Oltermann sets out the results of Hitler’s DNA test quite clearly.
[...] For one, the programme finally puts to bed an old rumour that Hitler had Jewish ancestry. Its source is the fact that Hitler’s father Alois was an illegitimate child and the identity of his paternal grandfather was unknown...
[...] The researchers also found robust evidence – the deletion of a letter from a gene called PROK2 – that Hitler had some form of a well-known but rare genetic disorder known as Kallmann syndrome [...] Up to 10% of people with Kallmann syndrome also have a “micropenis”; more prevalent symptoms are low or fluctuating testosterone levels.
[...] When a psychiatric geneticist from Aarhus University presents Hitler’s polygenic risk score for ADHD in the programme, it is shown to be merely “higher than average”. [...] Again, the top half of people in the risk category for ADHD does not mean that Hitler definitely had ADHD, as anybody with brains knows...
[...] Most important of all, aside from the salaciousness of the main claims about his genitals, is that the polygenic risk analysis categorically does NOT and CANNOT be used to ascribe complex psychiatric or psychological traits to an individual. Genetics plays no role in the diagnosis of schizophrenia or ADHD or bipolar. Hitler did not have ‘the gene for schizophrenia’ because there is no such thing... (MORE - details)
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