Friendly reminder that VOA, aka Voice of America, is a subsidiary of the US Agency for Global Media. It was established to convince people in the Soviet sphere that the US was better in every way. It continues that mission with America’s allies and enemies today.

The process of opening up a country’s media space is integral to getting those State department messages in there.

I grow old, I grow old

I wear my trousers rolled

Shall I eat a peach?

Nah, it’s 3:00 pre-boiled egg time

Then some Wheel of Fortune QI and a nap

Aglets. You can buy replacement aglets if it really bothers you.

It really was. I’ve watched it several times.

I’m not really sure what’s well known unless it’s enormously popular.

I’ve looked up the director, writer and actors from Rubicon to find similarly great work but this seemed to be a special convergence.

Rubicon

If you like espionage but from the analytical side.

Counterpart

If you like espionage, JK Simmons, and parallel dimensions

Berlin Station S1

If you like espionage and postwar Germany

Jelly beans. The fancy ones with many flavours like butter, apple, and cinnamon.

You’ll surely have those bean flavours to talk about, if nothing else.

Propaganda is usually truthful or exaggerated truth. It’s the framing that is important. Some facts are focused on. Some facts are omitted.

I acknowledge that Russia, China and the DPRK have made mistakes and even done things that are deeply questionable. But I’m interested in comparing their mistakes or misguided actions to those of the most powerful military empire on earth. The one involved in hundreds of military actions and dozens of coups since its inception. The one with the largest per capita prison population on earth. The one which controls many of the world’s financial levers.

There is a difference in the scale of their mistakes or bad actions. Propaganda distorts that difference of scale. It focuses on the crimes of the “enemies” / “axis of evil” / “rogue states” but doesn’t examine context or culpability of the empire. They’ll choose one conflict, downplay 9 others, and give a one-sided view of that one conflict.

That’s how propaganda works. Every state produces propaganda. One state produces billions of dollars of propaganda each year.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty is straight up State department propaganda.

Don’t eat between meals to re-establish your saliva microbiome and pH. This will do a lot for prevention of carie growth.

Calculator?! Those thieving, energy-sucking piles of garbage! Abacus till I die!

But seriously, AI is insidious in how it data mines us to give us answers, and data mines our questions to build profiles of users. I distrust assurances of anonymity by big data corpos.

They have noses worthy of being our successor species. Something you’d see on the cover of a sci-fi novel called “Children of Earth” or something…

The article states that there is no evidence that this is caused by Russia. But then goes on to speculate that it’s caused by Russia. Journalistic standards have fallen.

Would be funny if Boeing started cutting corners with their hitmen, too.

Municipal drinking water is tested multiple times per day in Toronto, as it should be. Testing once and assuming the complex machinery and chemical levels are the same a week later is pure folly.

Note that this is different from testing well water, which shouldn’t change much. Testing well water once a year is a good idea though.

What if we didn’t even have ads on the internet?

That’s because you haven’t tried cool ranch yet

Purchased upvotes and downvotes that make criticism invisible

I will gather all the time crystals and become quantumly immortal! No one can stop me!