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Horizontal Sunday – Siesta Logic – BlinkLab

The NWS is back at it – failing to deliver any sign of significant rain – all the way into mid September.  Other than watering “critical trees” (which are the kind that can fall on building if they die of drought) there’s a ton of shop work and so today’s focus is on?

Horizontal Engineering

107F is toasty – and all that greenhouse engineering (including closing in the “heat tunnel ceiling” has paid off. With two Hessaire MC-37’s running on medium, the greenhouse got up to 93.7 yesterday. And even that was contained in very short order.

The Mexican logic – which is where us “nortes” will usually run smack-into it the first time around – is not really Mexican at all.  It’s heritage sails back to Spain and regions where the heat was on before the power poles went in.

The word itself comes from the Latin sexta hora — the “sixth hour” after sunrise, roughly noon — and in medieval Christian monastic life that hour was associated with a pause in the day’s work. In farming communities, the pattern made practical sense: work early, eat the main meal near midday, rest while the heat peaked, then return to work later in the afternoon or evening.

Except, of course, it will still be hot-enough for egg frying well past dark.  And we may be old but we be have another term for sexta hora:  Nooner.

Spain became especially identified with the custom, and Spanish colonial influence helped spread the term throughout Latin America, but the underlying behavior is really a form of climate-adapted scheduling found independently in many hot regions. Industrialization, fixed factory hours, air conditioning, and urban commuting weakened the traditional siesta during the twentieth century, even in Spain.

Seen historically, though, the siesta was not laziness at all; it was engineering at its finest and an efficient way of shifting human effort away from the most thermally punishing part of the day — precisely the logic behind working our shop during the cool morning hours and sleeping through a 105-107-degree afternoon.

Dallas County (which is in what state, you think?) confirmed its first heat-related death of 2026 (resident in their 50s with pre-existing conditions) amid an ongoing extreme-heat episode with highs near 108°F and little overnight relief.  (Unless you sexta hora, cool shower, and have the a/c down at Ice Age.)

So that explains why I’m up and rolling through the overnights.

News Compressor: ON

The United States has imposed 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods effective Saturday after last-ditch talks collapsed; Canada announced dollar-for-dollar retaliation beginning September 8 targeting steel, dairy, electronics and other sectors.

We have already started shopping for “humanitarian relief” goods.  And specifically for I.S. maple syrup.  As we lift a cup in a “French toast.”

Russian forces conducted a double-tap drone strike on a crowded Kryvyi Rih shopping mall Friday that killed at least 16 civilians and injured more than 130 (including children), followed by additional missile and drone attacks Saturday that killed at least seven more Ukrainians and three in Russia. Vector: Escalating. Which is what wars seem intent on.

Northwest Indiana remains in a multi-week power-restoration slog after mid-August derecho and record flooding; NIPSCO reported ~28,500 customers still out as of late Saturday with some Gary-area restorations not expected until Tuesday.  Nowhere is safe from Ma Nature,

Inside Pages

  1. A federal judge in New York vacated a Trump administration policy that had suspended immigrant-visa processing from 75 countries. New York?  Look surprised.
  2. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts issued a temporary order allowing White House ballroom construction (~$400 million, privately funded) to continue pending further review. dem temper-tantrums are a safe bet.
  3. Small plane crashed off Boca Raton, Florida; the [female, but can we mention that?] pilot was rescued. Separately, a Cessna 441 charter crash near remote Alaska radar site Thursday killed all eight aboard.  And the skies are sub-“friendly” elsewhere…
  4. Laptop ignited on an American Airlines flight approaching Dallas; passengers and crew handled it without further incident. Hot video, we’re thinking?  (Streaming smoke show?  Guessing…)  Ground ain’t safe, either:
  5. NIFC reported 78 large wildfires being suppressed (Northwest heaviest), 11 new large fires yesterday, 22,751 personnel assigned, YTD 50,239 fires and 7.65 million acres burned (well above 10-year averages).
  6. Extreme heat warnings and advisories remain in effect across the South-Central U.S., Southwest, and parts of California through mid-week; which may sound repetitive. Again.
  7. CISA added known-exploited vulnerabilities (TrueConf Server, Zimbra, others) to its KEV catalog and issued ICS advisories. But the IT geeks get a/c…
  8. Oil prices held near recent highs (Brent ~$94, WTI ~$87) on lingering Iran-war supply concerns and Hormuz traffic still below pre-conflict levels. As we were saying about wars, huh?
  9. National debt surpassed $40 trillion earlier this week.  Instead of a quarter tax payment in September, we may just send the government PowerBall tickets.
  10. SNAP enrollment dropped more than 13% over 12 months, steeper than official estimates.
  11. Texas judge denied new-trial request for Karmelo Anthony in the fatal stabbing of a high-school athlete.
  12. Two Phoenix police officers fired and arrested after a violent unreported traffic stop.
  13. Eye-drop recall of 40,000 bottles nationwide over sterility issues. Prestige Brands Holdings voluntarily recalled 39,060 bottles of Clear Eyes Maximum Itchy Eye Relief, a non-prescription product used to relieve itchy, irritated, and burning eyes temporarily. Recall is limited to one lot.
  14. Kindergarten vaccination rates dipped as exemptions hit a record high.
  15. Actor Michael Wright (“Sugar Hill,” “Oz”) died at 70..

Slow-Speed to Monday News Outlook

  • Beer for the heat, Deodorant to Hawaii for hurricane sweats.
  • Additional heat-related fatalities  in Texas, Oklahoma, or Arizona is a 55 percent gamble.
  • Look for Canada to publish its detailed retaliatory tariff list.  Watch for maple syrup.
  • New large-fire growth or evacuation orders are another big bet in Oregon/Washington as Northwest remains at fire Preparedness Level 5.

War Change of Temp to watch:

  • Civilian-targeting pattern in Ukraine (mall double-tap plus follow-on strikes) is shifting from ‘“escalation” to “normalized urban terror” in Western coverage, it’s an inference from casualty clustering and limited new sanctions talk.

Marketing Reality

We might as well call this “LOOB” day for all the food references.  Because? Today is…

  • National Sponge Cake Day
  • National Cuban Sandwich Day
  • Find Your Inner Nerd Day
  • National Ride the Wind Day
  • Internaut Day (anniversary of the World Wide Web going public)
  • International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition (UNESCO)
  • Black Ribbon Day (European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism)
  • Also noted: Cheap Flight Day, Hug Your Sweetheart Day, Buttered Corn Day

Monday, August 24, 2026 (tomorrow is…)

  • National Waffle Day
  • National Peach Pie Day
  • National Knife Day
  • National Maryland Day
  • International Strange Music Day
  • Pluto Demoted Day
  • Also noted: Can Opener Day, Vesuvius Day, Weather Complaint Day, National Selfirst Day

Ah! National Knife Day.  Be sharp.  End of cutting up, now.  Time to “shop.”

Write when you get rich,

George@Ure.net

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38 thoughts on “Horizontal Sunday – Siesta Logic – BlinkLab”

Comments are reviewed by a human because the web is crawling with spammers. Submissions after 4 PM Central usually appear the following morning. After you click Post Comment, you’ll jump back to the top of this article, but your comment is queued up here. We’ve got a robust community and your participation is invited. Some commenters are brilliant. Read a few and judge for yourself. Imagine. You could be one.

  2. Still sad about Pluto. sickos of the world with their control fantasies. Get ya some Butternut Mountain Farm Pure Vermont Maple Syrup, Grade A solid choice. If you ever find yourself buying a portable AC unit make sure to get the style with both an inlet air tube and an exhaust air tube. Other wise you’ll be blowing indoor air outside and pulling outdoor air in through cracks and other various places to replace the air. I mistakenly purchased the single tube version. Ended up making a box to cover the condenser air intake and routed a inlet duct outside to fix the issue. Gotta head out and pick up some non ethanol gas for the mower. Have a good Sunday

  3. I am leaving Huntsville, Alabama in a little while driving 6 hours back to western NC. Enjoyed the Hamfest, large crowds, and plenty of vendors. I did buy a power supply, coax to replace older coax, and a Yaesu FT-891 to replace my older Yaesu HF which is having several issues. Just a little update for you about the Huntsville Hamfest.

    • Hope you’ve already got your hotel reservations made. I was just in the Ashville to Gastonia region this week, moving the college bound kid there. Had a devil of a time getting a room for the night before driving the U-Haul trailer back to Indiana. The mountain road passes are still under heavy construction, too. Good luck!

  4. a new cankicker /urger member george . Ray Dalio now a fully fledged member . buy gold , bitcoin , dump bonds and secretly hate the $USD . if i had any money in any bridgewater product i would re consider . good on yah Ray hope you like your new mates . great story tellers and made up charts

    • Ed Dowd – Buy TLT
      Harry Dent – Buy TLT
      Mike McGlone/Bloomberg Strategist – Buy TLT

      See what happens in the fall, you will wish you bought TLT.

  5. avoid all can kicker / urgers with their voodoo bad juju charts and made up technical revisionist economics . and bond dumpers , they oink a lot from greed . the perfect storm has arrived . remember nobody rings a bell or blows a whistle.

  6. “Nowhere is safe from Ma Nature”

    I can smell the narcissism from here, this statement is BASSACKWARDS.

    Nowhere is Ma Nature safe from the “Takers” , as they have never had any Respect for anything-https://youtu.be/L2v6ZEU4SLU? Z ro!

    CALM is Word of the Day, Week, Month, and rest of Year…

    CALM, this advice comes from “They” that do Love HUMANITY from on “high”, or so they say.

    It is a special time right now, everything has fallen into place. “They” are going to handle ALL the Logistics, Military Stuff, ect.
    HUMANITY needs to Bee CALM and maybe try to LISTEN a little bit.. more.

    – Listen to your Still, Small Voice, to the Sounds and Vibrations of the World. Its there underneath all the “Noise”….pedos’, war, hypersonics, hemorrhagic fevers, influencers, Lamestreamnews, plantetary crusts going walk about, markets CRASHING. All that and everything else will become the “CRASH”. It will take down Govmints as well. We bee talkin Khaos, Check.

    Feels like we are at top of aridgeline, astride our mounts, gazing down on the gathering storm (Battles), waiting for a Signal, a Sign in the Sky. ? Turn and retreat, or stand and wait..

    For thousands of years this has been planned, and hear We bee at yet another doorway/portal.

    Me ? I’ve been trying to jailbreak this shitshow for ages, and all I ever got out of it was some heartbreak, knowledge and scars..and no not talking FN Scar- https://fnamerica.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/scar-release-models.jpg

    A perfect choice for those who feel the need to reach out and splatter/STOP something..dont, let the ET’s handle it.

    * CALM is not Relax -https://youtu.be/kLn9EWyjlpQ?
    just picture in Ure mind, if you will, while listening, the orange gollum of greatness doing his Dutch Paddle – Masturbation Dance on stage with Frankie.
    Go MAGA (Make American Gay Again).

  7. Hard to believe Canada cozying up with the Peoples Republic of China because of Trump hate and capitalist American dominance, certainly acting more like of a European country than a North American one. Carney acting boldly, like a little rooster unhappy with the pecking order, does he think only Canada is entitled to tariffs? Perhaps they’d rather become a state of the People’s Republic of China than one of the United States of America?

    • Canada has been cozying up to China for 40 years. Only since Trump walked into the room and flipped the light switch to “on”, have Americans (both Yankees and Canucks) begun to notice.

      It has accelerated over the past 10 years or so, as the CCP has learned how to play our addiction to unsocial media against us. ‘Thing is, it has also done so in the U.S., but while we can see Canada slide into the abyss, we don’t notice we, ourselves, are sliding down into the same void. We don’t notice because Canada (under Carney), Australia (under Albanese), and the UK (under StarmerBurnham{sic}) are simply moving faster toward their end than we are. None of the four are worthy of being more than Trump’s boot scraper. They were ushered into office by the CCP and are doing a damnfine job of destroying their countries from within. The only reason Cammy isn’t our Prez, and destroying the U.S. alongside them is 220,000 attorneys-on-retainer and 400,000 Republican or independent poll watchers held poll grift to a minimum in our last election…

    • “Does it apply to Canada’s lumber exports?”

      Yes.

      We’re tariffing their SPF; they’re tariffing our SYP. We need their SPF plywood for sheathing. They need our SYP for construction of bearing walls in frame buildings.

      Add:
      SPF = Spruce / Pine / Fir – “soft pine.” Lightweight and not very strong.
      SYP = Southern Yellow Pine – “hard pine.” Nearly as hard, heavy, and strong as oak, but more flexible. The ideal framing lumber.

      Canada’s got, like 14 dairy cows (two of which are dry) but they tariff our milk nearly two bucks per gallon. Wisconsin dairy farmers periodically dump thousands (sometimes millions) of gallons of milk on the ground because they can’t sell it, store it, or keep it. That Canadian tariff is a principal reason why. There should be cost-parity between Minnesota and Wisconsin, and Manitoba and Ontario. There’s not because the folks in Canuckistan live in a “soft communist” State and are being taxed and regulated to death. We don’t even notice that the Trump Administration, in under six years, has eliminated nearly half the Federal regulations regarding production and finance. If we were Canada and that happened, everybody would notice…

      • Delusional Kool Aid as usual, R,

        That Canadian Tariff isn’t the principal reason why WI milk got dumped in 2026, From AI:
        ‘In 2026, individual Wisconsin dairy farms faced isolated incidents of milk dumping primarily due to severe weather events, such as a major March blizzard that blocked rural roads and prevented milk transport trucks from reaching farms for over 36 hours.’

        https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/milk/reporter/can

        Those awful tariffs must be why U.S. was the top Importer of Canadian milk:
        ‘In 2025, Canada exported C$17.4M of Milk, being the 672nd most exported product (out of 1,212) in Canada. In 2025, the main destinations of Canada’s Milk exports were: United States (C$14.5M), Cuba (C$2.53M), China (C$191k), Hong Kong (C$132k), and Saint Pierre and Miquelon (C$8.14k).’

        https://globalnews.ca/news/12027575/donald-trump-tariffs-supply-management-dairy-access/
        ‘Data provided by the U.S. Dairy Export Council to Global News shows American dairy exports to Canada have increased under CUSMA from 93,525 metric tonnes in 2020 to 145,662 metric tonnes in 2025 — with the latter number equal to a value of US$1.38 billion.

        The Dairy Farmers of Canada, which declined an interview with Global News while the final trade negotiations continue, claims the expanded U.S. dairy market access results in more than $140 million in losses per year for Canada’s dairy processors.’

  9. You didn’t mention the helo-cessna crash this week. Cessna appears to be taking off , a police helo appears to be taking off next to the runway. Looks like the plane got sucked into the helo vortex and collided and hit the helo. Who allowed a helo to take off next to a runway in use?

  10. My nephew is a ‘woodsman’ in northern Wisconsin with a large Maple forest. I get my syrup from this side of the border… at no cost.

    First rain band of Moke’ at 0430, more to come. North side looks pretty scattered on the radar. Outside temp dropped to 70… surprise! Yesterday’s prep was making a large pot of hamburger/mushroom chunky spaghetti sauce in the fridge for heat & eat storm food. And a siesta afterwards.

    • Vermont is arguably the best. I did not know until a couple months ago that the Amish had discovered tree taps — There are some remarkable maple syrups coming out of Northern Ohio and Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Their production is almost like microbreweries — The syrup bottlers pop up in the oddest small towns and blend sap from specific trees to produce syrup with unique bouquets and flavor profiles. I’m thinking it won’t be long before folks can take tours: Ya pays your money an’ gets on da bus. At each stop you’re given a shot of virgin gimlet, five silver dollar pancakes, and a flight of syrups… with diet counseling available at the end of the ride.

  11. The shape of things already hear, so see how it resonates wit Youse or Not. W. Bunch be talking about our very own G-Ned the Luddite.

    This article is from a ‘”flamer at the philadelphia inquirer who I usually can not stand..his political views. The attached is an exception to my general rule of not engaging anything to do with queers.

    One comment – this has been perking just beneath the surface, but has now emerged as a real INFECTOUS “thing”…It be rolling now..

    https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/voter-anger-data-centers-flock-20260823.html
    Somebody’s watching me? https://youtu.be/7YvAYIJSSZY?

    * Shiner Bock or Lone Star ?

    • re: “The Last Dragon”, 1985
      feat: “Peeping Tom”, Rockwell

      tbs,
      I had no idea that Motown’s musical artist Rockwell is a second cousin twice removed of President Carter.

      Rockwell’s first 1984 hit single “Somebody’s Watching Me” that you linked above apparently channels an uncredited Michael Jackson on backing vocals. Frankly I found myself initially shocked to discover the first seconds of the music video offer a held-in-hand Chinese character newspaper cover followed by a ticket stub shaped item. Despite the objects’ fleeting and blurry appearance, I took the opportunity to make a best guess on the subliminal messages being broadcast in the 2009 Youtube uploaded version.

      Newspaper folded front page:
      “International Daily

      New record for U.S. dollar in Hong Kong

      The US dollar rose, and innovation

      Eight countries’ central governments were widely pleased”

      Ticket stub:
      “international daily
      The U.S. dollar is very UF”

      Sixteen years after the “Somebody’s Watching Me” music video got uploaded to the Rockwell Vevo channel, “Peeping Tom” was uploaded a year ago. Here is the Youtube link:

      https://youtu.be/ftofDoDyaPY

      A Rockwell ticket stub is shown in the video. It appears printed reading as his LA concert at the Beverly Theatre (on Wilshire) for Monday April 22, 1985. Rockwell allegedly never played at the Beverly Theatre. It seems the theatre venue wound down a couple of years later for demolishing in 1989. As chance would have it, the theatre’s owner in its last years was Columbia Savings and Loan Association headquartered in Beverly Hills. They had a large junk bond footprint and folded in 1991 to the tune of $3.25 billion according to Wiki.

      Kosher Chinese restaurant Bernstein’s-on-Essex in New York served as one of the filming locations for “The Last Dragon”. After the restaurant shut down but before building demolition, it looks like a Chinese butcher moved in. Their sign perhaps translates to English as “Hengfeng Meats just make a public announcement”. Hengfeng’s geographic meaning is “horizontal mountain ridge” in a rhyme with today’s Urbansurvival headline. Yesterday’s headline mentioned Kondratiev. His Russian name looks to derive from Greek to be “descendant of the square/sturdy one”. There may also be a nod in there to St. Quadratus (lat: “squared”) of Athens from the time of Roman Emperor Hadrian. The saint’s feast day is September 21.

  13. Hawaiian Electric reports this Sunday morning 6800 customers without power yet. They brought in crews from California, but most heavily damaged areas may not get power until Sept. 8.

    Moke has put a half inch of rain in my gauge so far this morning. More to come.

  15. Ai & Ukraine

    Ure keeps confirming my view of his loving lovely Ai.

    Need to be a cynic.

    Like I have said, it’s biased; it only finds what is commonly printed. That is, by the powers-that-be.

    Ukraine is a great example -and Ure appears to follow what it finds. Not me, I go for sources and analysis not some half or less ‘truths’ form some biased newspaper.

    The Ai now Ure reports always avoid the heart of the matter, the “Root Cause”. Nor all the meetings and agreements Russia and Ukraine actually or essentially agreed to. Reminds me of Trump and Putins’ agreement in Anchorage.

    Note, Ai/Ure never mentions that Ukraine has refused to even discuss reaching an agreement. Indeed, Ukraine has outlawed even directly speaking with Russia!

    What really made the difference in Russian tactics was –remember?, firstly, something over a month ago the U.S./Ukraine bombed a girls dormitory killing and injuring a large number of students. THEN, the next day the U.S./Ukraine attacked a school bus, killing some.

    Never mentioned is that until then, the Russian approach was “maximum restraint”. Generals and lots of people were always wondering why Russia do more of the typical conflict strategies and tactics. Their policy was that they didn’t want to hurt anyone -they did speak Russian. Always at night when workers were home.

    The second was the 40, now 60 day U.S./Ukraine 300, 700 daily drone attacks mostly on civilian targets. It has changed Russia’s ‘restraint’ approach. Almost all of the drones are wasted U.S./EU/Ukraine money.

    It should be obvious to all but Ai. Russia’s troops are advancing more quickly and many more devastating drone and missile attacks are being accomplished.

    As a consequence of the illegal uncivilized novel civilian centered U.S./Ukraine approach, yesterday Putin said the 40 day program has “opened a Pandora’s Box for the Zelensky Regime and Ukraine.” Why wasn’t that in today’s Ure report?

    It was U.S./Ukraine that attacked Russian Grain Ships.
    Only then did Russia go after Ukraine’s grain shipping.

    Odessa? Long ago got its name by Catherine the Great, Russian lands. Thanks to the U.S./Ukraine, Odessa is being re-taken by Russia; /Ukraine’s primary export ports are closed to them. A chief income source is gone.

    Ukraine’s economy will soon be in shatters, more of a tin cup than currently.

    Only after the U.S./Ukraine started bombing Russian amazon-like facilities and malls did Russian do the same to Ukraine. U.S./Ukraine has gone through most of the largest amazon-like (Wildberry) facilities and yesterday started attacking the secondary amazon-like companies (yesterday, Ozone in St. Petersburg.)

    Russia will soon respond; not long ago they would not have.

    Again we see an extreme Ai and Ure bias. Often the U.S./Ukraine bombs during times when factories and stores are operating. In smaller areas, the U.S./Ukraine is known to use U.S. or European cluster bombs.

    (Need I remind you, it was the U.S./Ukraine that began to widely use outlawed land mines while Russia wasn’t.)

    The few Ukraine deaths are constantly and repeatedly reported but nary a word is heard of the much larger Russian civilian deaths.

    I guess night maintenance Ukraine workers are critical but Russian boys and girl students and mothers and fathers going shopping are expendable according to the U.S./Ukraine and Ai can avoid its mention.

    The U.S./Ukraine bombs Russian oil storage facilities. Russia responded by bombing gas stations and some oil storage.

    Recently the U.S./Ukraine said to bomb Russian airports, civilian airports, knowing it would kill large numbers of civilians and civilian planes. Lots of pushback.

    Now, today, the U.S./Ukraine is bringing in foreign officials, including U.S. Senators, to Kiev so that Russia will not attack Kiev. Using people as shields! Indeed, Russia has been attacking some of the railroads and guess how some of “the willing” are heading for Kiev for tomorrows flag celebration. You got it, by train! :>)

    Also not mentioned is that when Ukraine was part of Russia it was one of the wealthiest of Russian states and leading grain exporter -and no debt! The debt became the debt of Russia and Russia paid all of it off.

    Also never mentioned is that it was Germany who lined up 400,000 soldiers along Russia’s border and asked if Russia would give some Russian states to Germany. Stalin said yes. A short time later Russia was at War and lost 28,000,000 soldiers and civilians defending the West.

    Speaking of debt. Ai/Ure might want to mention that the U.S./EU has taken $304 billion of Russia’s money. Stealing any income from it. My guess is that taking your money just might upset a person.

    The U.S./Ukraine has is attempting to assassinate Putin, as they have assassinated many other’s. If that happens The Willing will be in trouble.

    • Dell, You made a fair criticism, and rather than argue with it, I took it back into the machinery.

      Or more accurately, **we** did.

      Your central point was that an AI-driven news scan can inherit the biases of the sources it reads. That’s true. If the information environment disproportionately reports one side’s civilian casualties, allegations, diplomatic framing, or version of chronology, an AI can produce a beautifully written summary of a distorted input field.

      So I have now changed the BlinkLab tasker.

      The new version is:

      **2026-08-23 — Streamlined / Claim-Chronology Audit**

      The important addition is an **internal audit layer**. It does **not** turn BlinkLab into an unreadable fact-checking dissertation. Readers still get compressed news. But before disputed material gets compressed, the system now has to run several additional tests:

      **EVENT** — What physically happened, stripped as far as possible of political narrative.

      **ATTRIBUTION** — Exactly who says who did what. “Russia says Ukraine attacked X” is not converted magically into “Ukraine attacked X.”

      **VERIFICATION STATUS** — Is the claim independently corroborated, an official claim only, contested, denied, preliminary, or presently unverified?

      **PRECEDENT DATE** — This may be the most useful addition. Whenever somebody says *we retaliated*, *they started it*, *this was the first use*, *we ended our restraint because they did X*, the system now searches backward for the earliest well-supported occurrence of the same class of action.

      That last one matters because war propaganda loves chronology.

      Everyone’s favorite sentence is: **“We only did X because they did X first.”**

      Sometimes that’s true.

      Sometimes the historical record says otherwise.

      The tasker now has explicit permission to reach outside the normal news window to check that question rather than simply repeating the day’s explanation.

      It also has a source-symmetry rule. For seriously disputed claims it should attempt to obtain the claimant’s version, the opposing version, and some independent or third-party evidence before converting an allegation into a conclusion.

      Will that settle Ukraine?

      Of course not.

      Two intelligent people can read the same twenty reports and still disagree about what happened, why it happened, who provoked whom, and what constitutes an appropriate response. Even the word **“true”** becomes slippery in wartime because there are facts, interpretations, omissions, propaganda, intelligence operations, mistaken initial reporting, and occasionally outright fabrication all circulating simultaneously.

      Nor do I accept the premise that Western governments and media have a monopoly on bullshit.

      Russia lies, too. Russian state media has its narratives, Ukraine has its narratives, Washington has its narratives, European governments have theirs, and occasionally everybody manages to lie about different parts of the same event at the same time.

      Which makes programming a genuinely neutral news system rather like handing **Diogenes** a lantern and telling him:

      *“Go find me an honest man.”*

      Then, just to raise the difficulty level:

      *“Start in Chicago.”*

      So I don’t expect BlinkLab ever to produce the Final Revealed Truth of Ukraine.

      What I can do — and what your criticism helped improve — thank you – is make it much harder for the system to confuse **a claim with a fact, repetition with verification, or retaliation rhetoric with actual chronology.**

      That’s a useful improvement. And you get credit for pushing it.

      —Ure

      • Seems story/video now a days comes with Tags. Does the AI chat boxes search by Tags, then refer that story/video… maybe the programmers use those tags to slant the answers?

        You want the truth? You can’t handle the… (insert answer)

        I like the careful steps and drill down in questions Ure asks to avoid a lot of propaganda that’s built in during Ure research. Take care, George

      • **VERIFICATION STATUS** — Is the claim independently corroborated, an official claim only, contested, denied, preliminary, or presently unverified?

        Where this will be an issue is when all information, regardless the reporting agency, has a single, biased source. If you recall, I B&M’d after October 7th, that all public information regarding Palestine and the Palestinians came from Hamas. Because Hamas was the government and power structure of Gaza, despite being a terrorist organization and one of the combatants, it was technically the “official” source for all information Palestinian. Since the IDF, being smart enough to realize in a war, information = intel, refused to report anything, Hamas was the only voice on the wire services and could make any claim whatsoever and feel confident it would be reported by the Western media as if it were fact. Even Jpost used Hamas as its source. This is how Palestinian casualty reports eventually exceeded the total population of Gaza, no one noticed, and no one called “the Palestinian Authorities” on the obvious lie (because to do so would disclose their complicity in maintaining an anti-Israeli/anti-Jewish narrative, or their stupidity.)

        The result was literally thousands of “news sources” reporting the same lies, until people without short-term memories and an arithmetic aptitude (nearly everyone, today) believed them, without question.

        This is why I abandoned English language newspapers in Kiev, Warsaw, Budapest, Bucharest, Minsk, and Prague as news sources, after the Ukrainian coup. Suddenly, the USDoS and Vichy Nuland became the covert “official” news source for all of them, invalidating any possible viability they could have for accurate news reporting.

  16. I wonder what the penalities are for smuggling Canadian Maple Syrup back into the US? Smuggling liquids INTO the US was a big thing back during Prohibition … so is there a New Day Dawning for smuggling liquids into the US?

    Instead of carrying extra gas in those NEW gas cans … maybe they could carry Canadian Maple Syrup!! umm… Would the new Gordie Howe bridge or the old Ambassador bridge be the best route? Both are probably understaffed since they have now split the Immigration /Customs crew into having to cover two bridges vs one .. umm.

    Just askin for a friend!

    • Yes…hard times opens up access to smuggle in items..like our congress and hemp..they are pushed to keep it illegal even though there’s tens of thousands of use from every aspect of its potential..
      but its legalization would close the door to the cartels and it would effect the profit margins of the drug and alcohol industry.. closing the border to syrup opens the border for syrup smugglers.
      I was looking up the Amish yacon…. another plant that was for years demonized….

    • Love all that Golden, Amber liquid that comes from Canada… both the high proof stuff, and the no proof stuff.

    • Or, they could simply “Buy American” and get their syrup from Minnesota, Maine, or any State in-between — Better syrup for less money, but you’d have to not break the law to buy it…

  17. (“We might as well call this “LOOB” day for all the food references. Because? Today is…

    National Sponge Cake Day
    National Cuban Sandwich Day
    Find Your Inner Nerd Day
    National Ride the Wind Day
    Internaut Day (anniversary of the World Wide Web going public)
    International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition (UNESCO)
    Black Ribbon Day (European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism)
    Also noted: Cheap Flight Day, Hug Your Sweetheart Day, Buttered Corn Day”)

    interesting thing today is..I got a few recipes from a working mans depression kitchen..where even the basics didn’t exist…like bacon fat beef tallow…instead of butter or margarine…
    the desert one tastes good but didn’t rise like it was supposed to.. before I share that I will wait till I get it right..
    Days like this totally remind me how people used to improvise when the basics didn’t exist — Depression kitchens turning cookies into cake, bacon fat into butter, and scarcity into creativity. Even when it feels like we’re stuck in a poison pawn trap with our worlds leaders pursuing the world of more for me is driving the planet into a world class catastrophic event both economically and militarily.. I don’t believe that if the game isn’t fixed soon we all will have to know these things that give us a quality of life..( been there done that ). Power structures may resist change, but history shows that systems adapt, over come and improvise to survive…they reorganize, and find new paths forward. Just because something doesn’t rise the first time doesn’t mean it can’t rise at all…. I will be sharing that soon….the fat and bacon is actually pretty good..needed salt but not bad on toast..

  18. Moke’ was a nothing-burger here at the ranch. Absolutely no wind. On & off rainy day… not very hard. Flood watch up for already saturated & damaged areas, but I have not heard of anything dramatic from this (alleged) storm. Biggest news is that HECO crews are still mending the power grid from Lala damage. I’m not putting away the generator until that is done. Hiccups happen.

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