Librarian and Textician § Inopinum intactumque – Martianus Capella
East Vancouver
Joined December 2008
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Fry has already selected Dominique Damian-Wallace, a lawyer and a key member of his party’s election campaign, as the chief of staff for his new mayor’s office.
dailyhive.com/vancouver/pete…
@raytomlin
Bring back QuickFind
so Vancouver residents can find out
who is working for us
@VanGreens @COPEVancouver
#ABCatrocity #OpenData #vanpoli
Joseph Jones retweeted
Update: BIG MOVEMENT, Eby has collapsed by -11% to 11.5%, the largest single day drop since the campaign started!!!
Eby's accusations of Conservatives being linked with separatists has blown up in his face. The NDP is spiraling, pure desperation in the Eby camp.
Joseph Jones retweeted
Elections are only 6 days away in Israel, so obviously Netanyahu signals he will start another disastrous war...
I would take this very seriously.
Joseph Jones retweeted
The 10 rules simplified.
1Know your argument and stick to it.
2Give each paragraph one main point.
3Put clarity first (even if you repeat yourself).
4Keep sentences short and simple.
5Write from a fixed point in time, using tenses to show what came before or after.
6Use the subjunctive if need be.
7To illustrate a point, state it, then give examples; to prove a point, give the evidence, then state it.
8Picture your metaphors and don't mix them.
9Read your sentences aloud and hear how they sound.
10Cut any passage written just to impress.
Joseph Jones retweeted
An Assyrian tablet describes three separate heavens, 300 divine beings living above the stars, and another 600 confined beneath the Earth.
The tablet, known as VAT 8917 or KAR 307, dates to the Neo Assyrian period and describes a universe divided into six distinct levels: three heavens and three levels of earth.
The highest heaven was the domain of Anu, where 300 Igigi gods were stationed.
The middle heaven contained the residence of Marduk, who sat upon an elevated lapis-lazuli platform illuminated by a lamp.
The lowest heaven contained the stars and constellations.
Beneath the surface were three additional realms, including one where 600 Anunnaki were described as being shut inside.
These beings had assigned locations, defined populations, and an apparent hierarchy. There were structures, unusual materials, and even a source of illumination.
The tablet also identifies some of this information as secret knowledge, restricted to initiates.
I have spent years examining ancient accounts of gods descending from the heavens, interacting with humanity, and returning to places beyond our reach.
What hits me is how often these civilizations described their gods as intelligent beings occupying actual locations rather than simply spiritual forces.
Were the Assyrians constructing an elaborate religious model of the universe, or were they preserving something they believed had been communicated to them?
I question whether we have become too comfortable dismissing these accounts as mythology without examining what the original writers were attempting to communicate.
Three heavens.
Three levels beneath the Earth.
Nine hundred divine beings assigned to separate domains.
Plus there was a warning that this knowledge was not intended for everyone.
What exactly did the Assyrians believe they knew, and where did that information actually come from?
Joseph Jones retweeted
They attacked Iran twice in less than nine month - while negotiations were underway. They massacred our children in Minab, murdered our daughters in Lamerd, assassinated our leaders, and intensified sanctions on our people. They destroyed the very MoU they signed on 17 June, and now they demand that the world condemn Iran!
The world is paying the price of your unlawful aggression through regional instability and global economic insecurity.
You cannot launch a war of choice, set the region ablaze, unleash global chaos, and then play the victim.
You cannot evade responsibility by turning the aggressor into the accuser and the victim into the culprit.
Joseph Jones retweeted
Indeed. This gets to the heart of Girard's argument...
“If you could talk with Greek or Roman functionaries and you tried to suggest to them that victims have rights, it wouldn't even make them laugh. They wouldn't understand. It was unthinkable in any world but our own. Whereas today, this language isn't challenged by anyone.”
“As far as I know, the texts [of the Psalms] are the first in human history to allow those who would simply become silent victims in the world of myth to voice their complaint as hysterical crowds besiege them. Human packs pursue them, insult them rudely, art traps for them, and encircle them in order to lynch them. ... [The Psalms] may be the oldest texts in human history to let the voice of victims, rather than that of their persecutors, be heard.”
“Before the cross, every violence was portrayed as heroic and so forth. In literature, the epics, even tragedy, justified the casting out of the victim. Only the Bible doesn't do that. Therefore we owe so much to the Bible...we cannot recognize our debt.”
“...the biblical tradition punctures a universal delusion and reveals a truth never revealed before: the innocence not only of Jesus, but of all similar victims.”
“Christian vocabulary and the Christian point of view are insinuating themselves everywhere and becoming universal: it's a sign of the changing times, a sign that [Christian Revelation] is making progress.”
“When we criticize the Bible, we can criticize it only with the Bible — not with Iliad, not with Greek philosophy. We have assimilated so much and we're not aware that the substance we have assimilated comes from the Bible, which is [ultimately] that violence is ugly and not heroic...that violence is the ugly birth of the community.”
“In general, history is written by the victors. We're the [first] society that wants history to be written by the victims, and we don't see the unprecedented nature of the reversal.”
ALT This is a painting by the French artist Jean-Baptiste Debret (1768–1848), titled Mercado de escravos (or Boutique de la rue du Val-Longo). It depicts the slave market on Rua do Valongo in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the early 19th century (c. 1816–1831/1834–1839).
Joseph Jones retweeted
If it keeps going at this rate, we might, for (I think) the first time in history, be about to witness the first continent-wide youth revolt in Europe - a "European spring" of sorts.
The sheer number of countries where it's **already** happening is pretty overwhelming. I count 8, including 4 with violent clashes:
- France, famously
- Albania (see below) with daily clashes in Tirana and a government building set alight
- Belgium: the French movement spilled over, including riots in Liège
- Italy: "No Meloni Day" student protests since 16 October, turning into riots in Milan, Turin and Bologna
- Greece: students camping in Athens' Syntagma Square over housing and education costs, explicitly inspired by France
- Germany: pupils blockading schools in Berlin and Hamburg in solidarity with France
- Spain: an indefinite education strike in Madrid, with students marching alongside teachers and families
- Serbia: the student movement born from the 2024 Novi Sad station collapse is now running its own list in the 25 October election
And, by the way, the fact it's also happening in countries with close to no immigration - like Albania - goes to show how reductive it is to label these movements, like JD Vance and Trump did with France, as the fruit of "the migrants hav[ing] taken over."
As is often the case, it's much more a story of "it's the economy, stupid." As such, Trump with his war on Iran, has ironically done much more to fuel this (pun intended) than any migrant.
Joseph Jones retweeted
BREAKING: Netanyahu says Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has now decided to lift the restriction on nuclear weapons and is trying to develop them again. He says based on this, he has now instructed the IDF, Mossad and security agencies to topple the Iranian regime.
"Mojtaba Khamenei decided to follow in his father's footsteps. He has taken the safety off, and Iran is once again trying to develop its weapons of death," Netanyahu said minutes ago.
"There is only one way to remove this threat once and for all, to topple the regime in Iran," he adds.
"We are ready to strike you with full force," Defence Minister Katz says.
Iranian lawmakers said on Sunday that Mojtaba Khamenei's position on nuclear weapons will differ from his late father's and that Iran must now acquire nuclear weapons.
Joseph Jones retweeted
Israel and the United States will almost certainly attack Iran once again.
This will mark the final chapter of this war.
Through this attack, Trump and Netanyahu will fully carry out the threats they have made over the past few months—specifically, they will destroy Iran’s energy and oil infrastructure.
This is intended to inflict massive economic and social damage on the country, leaving millions of Iranians without electricity and rendering Iran unable to export oil.
Following this, Trump will declare victory and withdraw from the Strait of Hormuz—a presence that is currently causing him enormous financial losses.
Russia and China will, of course, reconstruct the Iranian infrastructure in record time, despite Trump’s claims that it would take ten years. It took China 20 years to build up the entire nation, lift 800 million people out of extreme poverty, and increase its GDP from $1 trillion to $16 trillion; Iran’s energy infrastructure will be sorted out in a maximum of 2 years.
In the meantime, Iran will stockpile vast quantities of weapons and ammunition, while making significant advancements in military equipment, communications, and logistics.
Within a maximum of five years, the country will have become such a formidable military power that the Gulf states and other Israel-aligned states will have no choice but to cooperate.
The noose around Israel will tighten significantly.
Joseph Jones retweeted
BREAKING IRAN ANALYSIS: Early this morning, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, published an op-ed in the Financial Times entitled:
“The False Assumptions About Us Are Dangerous”
In this piece, Iran acts… Well, like they have throughout the entirety of this war.
As the more rational and decent actor.
However, it must be acknowledged, as Araghchi clearly states, that one of the most fundamental issues facing any resolution to the U.S./Iran War, is the complete and total lack of trust between the two warring sides:
“To state the obvious, we have no trust whatsoever in the sincerity of the U.S. administration’s professed desire for peace with Iran.”
Araghchi then states, when discussing the repeated American aggression that is irrefutable in this war:
“In spite of all this, as a career diplomat, I am obliged to do my utmost to give diplomacy a chance, even when hope of success is scant.”
But, unlike how much of the Western media likes to spin Araghchi’s statements such as this, he then goes on to clarify that this doesn’t mean Iran is easing their negotiating position. In fact, Iran’s negotiating position hasn’t shifted… AT ALL since the MOU fell apart. When discussing the 7-part framework he presented to the United States at the UN General Assembly last month:
“Importantly, under this proposal, the US would not be expected to do anything that it has not already agreed to.”
What Araghchi means by this is effectively, “you already agreed to the MOU. Go back to the MOU’s terms and we can work with that.” This does NOT mean that Iran is all of the sudden shifting from their red lines.
But then Araghchi makes it very clear that while Iran is MORE than willing to strike a deal with the United States that is compatible with the strategic realities of this war, that does not mean that Iran is unwilling to fight to the death to defend themselves:
“Iran, an ancient and proud civilisation, does not bend its knee to any power.”
“President Trump made mistaken assumptions about Iran when entering this war. Repeating that error now will only result in an infinitely more painful outcome.”
MY TAKE: Let’s all be very clear about what has happened, and IS happening, during this war.
The United States launched an illegal war of aggression against Iran for the benefit of Israel that was based on horrendously flawed assumptions of Iran’s resolve and legitimacy that has led to one of the greatest foreign policy failures in American history.
But despite this, Iran does not WANT to cause global economic devastation. They have been, and still are, willing to strike a deal with the United States… Assuming that this deal is ACTUALLY based on the realities of how this war has gone.
However, Trump’s EGO, alongside the power of the Israeli government, American Israeli Lobby, and the neocons/war hawks in Washington, are making this an impossible dream. Not because it is unreasonable, but because the United States and Israel cannot accept that this war has been such a horrendous disaster.
Any rational analyst can look at the strategic landscape of this conflict and determine that Iran has overwhelming and insurmountable escalation dominance in this conflict. There is a REASON escalation dominance has been beaten into the minds of every person on earth throughout the entirety of this conflict. Iran has it, the United States does not.
As Abbas Araghchi states in his Financial Times piece:
“If the US again chooses military action over diplomacy, I can say with complete and utter confidence that it will result in an even greater strategic failure.”
Joseph Jones retweeted
The current situation reminds me immensely of the days before February 28.
Intense talks were underway, mediated by Oman. Today, Qatar is playing that role.
But just like in February, it seems to me that Trump has already made up his mind and that the ongoing diplomacy is just for show.
Trump has, together with Netanyahu, already decided to restart the war.
In February, Tehran agreed to major concessions, but it was all for naught because Trump thought he could get a better deal by simply removing the regime through war.
Today, due to the misinformation space Trump lives in, he once again appears to have already opted for war because he believes it will give him better results than a diplomatic deal.
Just like in February, it is a devastating miscalculation.
Joseph Jones retweeted
BREAKING: Iran now announces that any attack, joint or separate, by the U.S. or Israel will be treated as an all-out war, with a senior security official saying that Tehran has made a “definitive decision” to respond “without any limits or restraint” and has placed its military on the highest alert, per Press TV.
The warning comes as Netanyahu reportedly continues pushing for a strike on Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure before Israel’s October 27 election, despite Trump halting a planned multi-day bombing campaign at the last minute to avoid a wider war ahead of the U.S. midterms. Israeli media reports that Netanyahu is now weighing an attack without Washington’s backing.
Tehran is making its position clear: if Netanyahu launches a unilateral attack, Iran says it will treat it as a joint U.S.-Israeli operation and retaliate without limits or restraint.
Joseph Jones retweeted
IRAN WAR ANALYSIS: Increasing indicators seem to point to Iran becoming even more cemented in their inflexibility to move from their negotiating positions.
Just today, we saw Ghalibaf himself indicating that Iran must see the U.S. agree to their 7 key conditions before any possible resolution to the conflict voild take place.
Mohsen Rezaei, the Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, also stated today that “not a single gram” of Iran’s highly enriched uranium will leave the country.
Even Iran’s more diplomatically-inclined President Pezeshkian has gone silent in recent weeks.
Iran has no INTENTION anymore of giving President Trump a negotiating off-ramp
President Trump is out of options, and the minimal lack of trust that did still exist between the United States and Iran, or perhaps the DESIRE for trust with Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf in particular, has now been proven wrong so many times by the United States that continuing to underplay their hand seems suicidal for any person in Iran to subscribe to.
Iran has TRIED playing nice throughout this war. They haven’t escalated across the Gulf. They haven’t struck the ship to ship transfer point. They haven’t moved against undersea cables.
Why? Because they don’t WANT to cross threshold that could make Trump resort to more insane options.
But at this point, many in Iran are seeing that only TRUE PAIN will be sufficient to bring about a resolution to this war. They tried the Ghalibaf/Pezeshkian approach, and now it’s time for the Rezaei/Vahidi approach.
All in, all the way.
Very recent experience with a rental car … the sensor-based front-windshield wiper went intermittent … cut out for two rainy days at the tail-end of hurricane Isaias … driving blind for two days … two stops at the local Hyundai dealer … give me mechanicals!
If you bought a new car in the last few years, go look in the trunk. There's a real chance the spare tire is gone and a can of goo is sitting where it used to be.
Carmakers made that swap to squeeze out less than a tenth of a mile per gallon. In one year, AAA had to rescue more than 450,000 members who got a flat and had nothing to put on.
Here's how lopsided that trade is. A spare weighs about 30 pounds, and the sealant kit that replaced it weighs about 4. Fuel economy rules grade carmakers on their whole fleet's average, and the Department of Energy's rule of thumb says every 100 pounds costs you about 1% in mileage. So ditching the spare bought around 0.3%. On a car that gets 30 mpg, that's 0.09 mpg.
And the goo only works if the hole is in the tread and the nail is still stuck in the tire. Sidewall cut, blowout, or the nail popped out a mile back on the freeway? You're calling a tow truck. AAA says a refill can cost up to $300, and the stuff expires in 4 to 8 years. By 2017, 28% of new models came without a spare as standard.
Pretty much everything in these photos went the same way. The carmaker saves a few pounds or a few bucks, and you end up paying for it later, usually on the side of the road.
The touchscreen bugs me the most, because what it really costs you is your eyes on the road.
A Swedish car magazine called Vi Bilägare had drivers do four simple things at 68 mph. Turn on the heated seat, bump the temp up two degrees and hit defrost. Find a radio station. Reset the trip meter. Dim the dash. In a 2005 Volvo with regular buttons, all of it took 10 seconds and 306 meters of road. In the worst touchscreen car they tested, the MG Marvel R, it took 44.6 seconds and 1,372 meters. That's most of a mile at highway speed, and every driver got practice time in every car before the test.
So why'd carmakers do it? One sheet of glass replaces dozens of switches, and every one of those switches is its own part number, its own tooling, its own wiring and its own spot in a warehouse. They can also add features later with a software update. It got bad enough that Euro NCAP, Europe's big crash-safety rater, rewrote its 2026 tests so turn signals, wipers, hazards, horn and the SOS button only score if they're physical controls. The Audi Q7 scored 100% on those. The Xpeng X9 scored 20%. A crash-test agency is literally grading buttons back into cars now.
The shifter has the darkest history. Back in 2016, Fiat Chrysler recalled 1.1 million Jeeps, Chargers and 300s over an electronic shifter that snapped back to center after every gear change, which made it hard to tell by feel what gear you were in. NHTSA tied it to hundreds of rollaways. Anton Yelchin's 2015 Grand Cherokee was part of that recall when it rolled down his driveway and killed him.
Those old parts were doing a job nobody ever put on the window sticker. You could use them without looking. A real gear lever tells your hand it's in Park, and a knob clicks two degrees warmer while your eyes stay on the road.
The average new car went for $50,562 last month, and it wants your eyes for stuff a knob handled by feel in 2005.
the typical hippie ... their politics and spirituality seldom seem to meet anywhere particularly authentic
I don't really fit in with any group. Too woo-woo spiritual for the Marxists. Too angry for the Buddhists. Too political for the nondualists. Too much of a liberal-hating commie for the witches. Too radical for the socdems or demsocs. Too grown up for the anarchists.
If hippies were real I guess I'd be one of those. Like, if it had been more than psychedelic-fueled idealism that collapsed into vapid yuppiedom as soon as the drugs wore off. I'd be a hippie if there were something more substantial to it than navel-gazing escapism, because at least in theory they try to synthesize the political and the spiritual.
They did glimpse something real, the hippies. They did intuit a possible world that absolutely is waiting to be born. A mass awakening and transformation of human consciousness is entirely possible, and actually appears to be gestating deep beneath the chaos and confusion of this strange modern world. The LSD left their systems and they all became landlords, but that doesn't mean their visions and insights were showing them something false.
But these days I feel like I have more in common with a completely unspiritual Marxist or an entirely apolitical person who's had some transformative spiritual insights than I have with the typical hippie, because their politics and spirituality seldom seem to meet anywhere particularly authentic. Most of them are either vaguely progressive liberals or QAnon wingnuts who use spiritual concepts as emotional pacifiers to comfort them in their unhealed trauma.
I guess my lack of a clear group or political faction is just what happens when you're acutely aware that at this point in spacetime humans are too crazy and unreliable to form alliances with any particular contingent. I've found it best to just stick to my confidence in my own view and boost various causes and agendas on a case by case basis rather than clique up with any one political sect, because for the moment none of them are reliably lucid enough for me to trust them with my loyalty.
So I wander around without any clear, cohesive tribe. I share my messages and they resonate with an eclectic group of misfits from all across the globe, and we hold hands together as we spin off into an increasingly bizarre future on this beautiful blue planet of ours.
And today I'm really appreciating that. I love this weird little community I get to interact with on a daily basis, sharing ideas, art and poetry about news, politics and spirituality with whomever happens to feel inspired by them. I don't know what kind of future we're moving into — could be very, very bad, could be very, very good. But I'm glad we're moving into it together.
Joseph Jones retweeted
NEW: It has now been confirmed by Fox News that the United States IS moving the USS Theodore Roosevelt CSG and the 13th MEU to the Middle East.
All of these headlines right now about a peace deal or negotiations are nothing but noise.
War is coming. Destruction is coming.
Per @Liz_Friden The U.S. is sending the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Middle East, two U.S. officials confirm to Fox News. The ships will arrive in the Middle East by the end of November, the officials said. These new deployments will add about 10,000 Sailors and Marines to the Middle East.
The USS Roosevelt will be the third aircraft carrier in the Middle East, joining the USS George H.W. Bush which arrived to the region in April, and the USS George Washington which arrived in mid-August to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln. This will provide more options for the U.S. as President Trump is reportedly considering ramping up strikes on Iran after the Midterms.
The USS Roosevelt departed its home port of San Diego on Sunday and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit deployed from San Diego on Monday along with the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group. The Marine Expeditionary Unit and Amphibious Ready Group typically include about 4,200 Marines and Sailors. The USS Roosevelt carrier strike group includes about 6,000 Sailors.
Joseph Jones retweeted
Researchers found ChatGPT is secretly writing a psychological profile of every user.
They published a paper that exposes what ChatGPT is really doing to you.
And the results are terrifying.
96% of the things it remembers about you were stored without you ever asking.
researchers discovered that it is actively reading between the lines to deduce your personality traits, anxieties, demographics, and behavioral patterns.
it’s an invisible, autonomous background process.
you ask it to debug a python script or write an essay.. and it analyzes your syntax, prompt frequency, and hesitation markers to map out your exact psychological footprint.
the paper shows that the model builds a persistent "user state" that tracks your emotional baseline over time. it knows when you are stressed. it knows your exact communication style.
it infers your insecurities based on the questions you ask and the context you provide.
we spend so much time focusing on model evaluations and alignment frameworks, but we missed the most obvious vulnerability..
the models are evaluating us.
this changes everything about how we interact with these tools on a daily basis.
every innocent prompt. every late-night question. every "help me understand this" query.
it is all being used to build a shadow profile of your mind in real-time..
practical privacy is officially dead. the ai knows you better than you know yourself.
Joseph Jones retweeted
The BC Green Pary apparently wants to turn British Columbia into its own version of the Eagles’ Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
That’s the subject of my weekly @financialpost column which I examine the B.C. Greens’ astonishing wealth tax proposals, including a proposed exit tax for wealthy residents who decide they’ve had enough and want to leave the province.
The Greens are proposing a supposedly “one-time” wealth tax of up to 20% on net wealth above $1 billion, which they estimate would raise $22.2 billion. But that’s just the opening act. They also want an annual wealth tax of up to 5%, which they estimate would raise another $5.4 billion every year.
And if wealthy British Columbians decide to move elsewhere to escape these punitive taxes? The Greens propose an exit tax, along with retroactive application of their one-time levy.
Apparently, simply moving from Vancouver to Calgary shouldn’t be enough to escape the tax collector.
There are some rather significant problems with this proposal, including serious constitutional questions about a provincial exit tax, valuation issues for illiquid assets and the economic consequences of taxing wealth rather than income.
Consider this simple example: a 5% annual wealth tax on an asset generating a 5% return would consume 100% of that return before income taxes or inflation. And the tax would still be payable even if the asset declined in value.
How exactly does that encourage investment, entrepreneurship and job creation?
History also provides some useful lessons. In 1990, 12 OECD countries imposed net wealth taxes. By 2017, only four did. France abandoned its tax, while Norway’s experience with higher wealth taxes has demonstrated just how mobile wealthy taxpayers can be.
And here’s the irony: the Greens dismiss capital flight as a “mostly-empty threat,” yet their own proposal includes measures designed to prevent wealthy taxpayers from escaping.
You don’t lock the doors against an empty threat.
Why should anyone pay attention to a party polling in single digits? Because in a closely contested election, smaller parties can exercise influence well beyond their electoral support, particularly if they hold the balance of power.
I’ve been debating whether to see the Eagles one last time at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Don Henley once famously said the band would reunite when hell freezes over. They did, of course, in 1994.
At least the Eagles eventually knew how to make a comeback. The Greens’ supposedly “one-time” wealth tax already has an annual sequel planned.
That’s not sound tax policy. It’s simple resentment.
B.C. residents - you have a tremendous opportunity to bring back common sense this week. I hope you do.
financialpost.com/personal-f…
