How Baseball Betrayed Cuba’s Covert Ops - "On a few occasions, Cuba’s unique fondness for baseball betrayed its covert activities — at home and abroad — to American reconnaissance, thanks to the visible presence or absence of distinctive baseball diamonds... Twice during the Cold War, Cuban troops’ penchant for building recreational baseball fields helped American reconnaissance learn some of Fidel Castro’s secrets. The first story — dubbed “The Case of the Missing Diamond” in an article by legendary CIA photo analyst Dino Brugioni — begins in 1970. That year, Cuba began to build up the naval infrastructure on Cayo Alcatraz, an island in the port of Cienfuegos. The construction got underway just as a Soviet flotilla consisting of a nuclear submarine and guided-missile ships headed for the island... In an episode that both Haldeman and Kissinger recounted in their memoirs, the presence of soccer fields at the new facility led U.S. analysts to conclude it was meant for the Soviets. Haldeman writes that Kissinger slapped U-2 spy plane photos of Cayo Alcatraz on his desk and drew his attention to the soccer fields. “Those soccer fields could mean war, Bob,” Kissinger said. “Cubans play baseball. Russians play soccer.” Then-CIA Director Richard Helms concurred. In a Congressional briefing recounted by Brugioni, Helms told congressmen that “clinching the case that all this was for Soviet — not Cuban — use, there are sports facilities for soccer, tennis and volleyball only, and we have yet to see a major Cuban military installation that does not provide for ‘beisbol.’” “The ubiquitous baseball diamonds are an important part of the Cuban landscape, and photo interpreters often gauge the amount of activity by the number of diamonds present in an area,” Brugioni wrote. The practice dated back at least early as the Cuban missile crisis, according to Brugioni. During the crisis, analysts counted on soccer and baseball fields to distinguish Soviet from Cuban military encampments... Cuba’s fondness for baseball captured the attention of America’s aerial spies on another occasion in 1975. When Angola achieved independence from Portugal during that year, Cuba sent military advisers to assist the leftist People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola in its war against factions backed by the United States and the racist apartheid government in neighboring South Africa. The Cuban advisers stayed well into the 1980s. Their bases were apparently identifiable to American satellites — because of the baseball diamonds the Cubans built. David C. Miller, Jr., American ambassador to Tanzania during the administration of Pres. Ronald Reagan, recalled that he used to pass images of the fields to Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere in order to convince him of Cuba’s role in Angola... And for whatever secrets Cuba’s baseball diamonds did spill, the Reagan administration’s attempt to use and abuse them also highlights the perils of analyzing intelligence through the lens of simplistic truism. In the 1980s, Reagan’s National Security Council was hard at work orchestrating the illegal sale of arms to Iran and diverting the proceeds to fund “Contra” rebels fighting the leftist Sandanista government in Nicaragua. After the scandal broke, NBC’s Tom Brokaw recalled a briefing he’d received in advance of a trip to Nicaragua by one of the maestros of Iran-Contra, U.S. Marine Corps colonel Oliver North. Writing in The New York Times, Brokaw said North excitedly pointed out baseball diamonds in grainy satellite footage of what he alleged was a Cuban training camp in Nicaragua. “Nicaraguans don’t play baseball,” North told Brokow in an apparent attempt to cast himself as Kissinger at Cienfuegos. “Cubans play baseball!” Of course, both the Cubans and Soviets supported the Sandanista government in Nicaragua. But as Brokaw quickly realized, North’s contention was astonishingly ignorant of the country’s long history of baseball fandom. “His declaration will come as a surprise to the Nicaraguans who have made it to the major leagues,” Brokaw wrote."
Please Stop Misusing the Phrase ‘Height of the Cold War’ - "Lest you doubt the extent of journalistic abuse of the “height of the Cold War” War Is Boring compiled an utterly unscientific sampling of major news outlets’ use of the phrase. With the exception of four years spread across the the very beginning and end of the conflict, there’s at least one article in a major news outlet proclaiming every year of the period to be “the height of the Cold War.”... All three men pointed to years leading up to and including the Cuban Missile Crisis as well as the late 1940s and early ’50s, when the U.S. faced off against the Soviets and the Chinese over Berlin and the Korean War. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a fairly obvious choice for the period of greatest tension during the Cold War. U.S. president John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev squared off over the Soviet Union’s stationing of nuclear intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba, with both sides tiptoeing up to the edge of nuclear confrontation. “As the most tense ‘height of Cold War’ episode,” Burr says, “the Cuban Missile crisis remains the inescapable candidate in terms of the seriousness of the situation, where both sides realized they faced a dangerous crisis and were nuclear forces were on high alert.” The period of the ’40s and ’50s, when Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin played a tense game of brinksmanship over control of Berlin with a blockade of the city and the Korean war briefly brought the U.S. to war with China, are also a logical candidate for the Cold War’s rightful “height.” In the latter half of the Cold War, the superpowers largely duked it out through proxy conflicts in the third world. While those conflicts exacted a bloody real-life toll on the participants, they prevented the U.S. and Soviet Union from facing. Both Burr and Hershberg also mention the events surround NATO’s Able Archer exercise in 1983 as a reasonable—if less widely understood—candidate for the Cold War’s peak. The election of Pres. Ronald Reagan and the subsequent increases in U.S. defense spending and anti-Soviet “evil empire” rhetoric made the Soviets nervous enough as it was. The Soviets’ mistaken downing of Korean Air Lines flight 007 and the U.S. deployment of Pershing II nuclear missiles in Europe, which the Soviets feared could allow for a swift NATO nuclear first strike, made the Cold War even tenser... As Russian president Vladimir Putin’s pushes to recapture the former territories of the Soviet Union, sinking U.S.-Russian relations to a low, many are quick to label it a “new Cold War.” Russia’s actions are dangerous and deplorable. And they certainly put the U.S. on notice that Moscow is willing to use military force to try and restore its former empire. But a review of the darkest moments of the Cold War — when the West came perilously close to nuclear exchange with Russia — shows that, bad as things might be now, the temperature still has a way to go before it plunges to the icy depths of the Cold War’s darkest days."
Sun Ra: A True Birthday - "Perhaps most affecting is Ra’s solo keyboard track, “Advice to Medics,” titled after his history of playing for what his biographer John Szwed describes as a therapy-through-music group that “included catatonics and severe schizophrenics.” (The biographer reports that one patient, breaking a years-long silence, approached Ra to ask: “Do you call that music?”)"
Meme - @Spacecorgi: "I love that one middle-management ore who kept arguing with Saruman about realistic factory output."
SKorea Hopes New Speed Train Links Will Help Boost Birthrate - "South Korea is launching a high-speed train service that will reduce the travel time between central Seoul and its outskirts, a project officials hope will encourage more youth to consider homes outside the city, and start having babies"
Shirley Temple, the Child Star Who Wasn't a Cautionary Tale - The Atlantic - ""Can the most famous child in the world grow up emotionally unscarred?" Twenty-five years ago, that was the question that opened the New York Times news service's review of Shirley Temple Black's autobiography, Child Star. It remains the question attached to anyone who could plausibly write an autobiography by that title—and recent examples, from Lindsay Lohan to Justin Bieber, have created a consensus is that no, usually, famous kids don't grow up unscarred. But Temple, who died Monday night at age 85, is the popular counterexample. After her prepubescent acting gigs, she went on to live a meltdown-free career as a diplomat, political activist, and mother of three. That fact made her "perhaps the best example of a child star who came out the other side sane and used her fame for a great 2nd act," said entertainment critic Alan Sepinwall on Twitter. Or, as writer Jeff Pearlman put it, she "was Justin Bieber with talent, taste, judgement and 0 inane tattoos."... One thing that stands out reading through the obituaries for Temple is that people probably shouldn't get too nostalgic for the how classic Hollywood treated Temple and kids like her. If she emerged unscarred, it's not for the film industry's lack of trying... In 1939, a woman who thought Temple had stolen her daughter's soul tried to assassinate her during a radio performance. "The tale seemed understandable to me,” Temple wrote of the incident in Child Star. As Matt Weinstock pointed out last year for The New Yorker, that's a shockingly level-headed response in the annals of celebrity brushes with the deranged: "In 1981, Jodie Foster would respond to the Hinckley incident by sinking into depression, demanding to read all her hate mail, and ironically hanging an enormous photo of Reagan getting shot in her kitchen."... "On her first visit to MGM, Mrs. Black wrote in her autobiography, the producer Arthur Freed unzipped his trousers and exposed himself to her," reports the Times. "Being innocent of male anatomy, she responded by giggling, and he threw her out of his office."... many kid actors turn out fine... Parenting likely plays a role, and Temple spoke effusively about how much affection she maintained for her mother over the years. But Temple also seemed like she possessed a steeliness that'd be unique in any era."
From 2014
A (Straight, Male) History of Sex Dolls - The Atlantic - "Pygmalion’s true modern heir might be Davecat, a man who lives in southeastern Michigan with three high-end sex dolls. His first purchase, which he named Sidore Kuroneko, he considers his wife; the other two—named Elena and Muriel—are just intimate friends. Though he didn’t sculpt them, they are his creations. He designed their bodies before they were manufactured and their personalities after they arrived. “There was never a moment when [Sidore]—or any doll, for that matter—was merely an object to me”... he’s part of a community called iDollators. These owners of high-end, anatomically correct dolls use them for sex, love, art, and companionship. If Pygmalion lived in today’s world, none of this would be too foreign to him. In Ovid’s original story, there is some implication that the sculptor was not only in love with the statue but that he had sex with it before it came to life, according to The Erotic Doll, a book by Dr. Marquard Smith, the head of doctoral studies and the research leader at the Royal College of Art’s School of Humanities... the Greek rhetorician Athenaeus wrote of a man who had a physical love affair with a statue of Cupid... a gardener was reportedly found attempting to get it on with a replica of the Venus de Milo in 1877. Throughout history, men without access to beautiful statues—but with an inclination to make love to women-shaped things—have made do in various ways. Sailors often used cloth to fashion fornicatory dolls known as dame de voyage in French, or dama de viaje in Spanish. In modern-day Japan, sex dolls are sometimes known as “Dutch wives”—a reference to the hand-sewn leather masturbation puppets made by the 17th-century Dutch sailors who traded with the Japanese. Though sailors’ dolls were just generic substitutes for the female form—any female form—there are some instances of men creating dolls as stand-ins for specific women. In 1916, after the Austro-Hungarian artist Oskar Kokoschka was jilted by his lover, the pianist and composer Alma Mahler, he wrote that he had “lost all desire to go through the ordeal of love again.” (This is a refrain that doll owners have repeated through the ages.)... the most public prelude to the modern sex doll was the mannequin-based art created by Surrealists like Man Ray and Salvador Dalí. A work called “Mannequin Street,” featured at the Exposition International du Surréalisme at the Galerie des Beaux-Arts in 1938, included 16 mannequins outfitted by different artists, while Dalí’s “Rainy Taxi” centered on a female mannequin whose half-undressed body was crawling with live snails. Man Ray once claimed that the Surrealists not only infused these works with eroticism but personally “violated” their mannequins. A persistent urban legend holds that Adolf Hitler charged one of his SS commanders to design sex dolls for German soldiers during World War II, to prevent them from slaking their lust with non-Aryan women. Whether or not this is true, the commercial sex doll does find its origins in Germany. The Bild Lilli doll—invented in the 1950s and modeled on a sexy, outspoken comic-strip character called Lilli—was an 11.5 inch plastic model, not a penetrable sex doll. In his book The Sex Doll: A History, Anthony Ferguson calls the Bild Lilli “a pornographic caricature.” Although it was marketed to adult men, the doll is widely cited as the inspiration for Barbie, so, you know, take that and run with it... The realism and utility of sex dolls took a giant leap forward in the late 90s, when artist Matt McMullen started working on a lifelike silicone female mannequin and documenting its progress on his website. Before long, he began getting emails asking if it was … anatomically correct. At the time, it wasn’t. But the demand was there, and so McMullen provided the supply. Hence, the eerily lifelike RealDoll was born. After shock jock Howard Stern got hold of one and seemingly had sex with it on his radio show, McMullen’s company grew quickly, and he now sells anywhere from 200 to 300 high-end customizable sex dolls per year... He insists that actual women have nothing to fear from his dolls. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Do I think the dolls will replace women or threaten to replace women? Absolutely not.” Throughout history—from Pygmalion and his marble bride to Oskar Kokoschka and his fuzzy companion—the creators and users of sex dolls have been overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, straight men. “In the content analysis I did of magazines and books, I don’t think any of [the examples] involved women,” says Cynthia Ann Moya, vice-president of the erotica database Alta-Glamour.com Book Gallery, who wrote her Ph.D. dissertation at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco on artificial vaginas and sex dolls from the late 19th century through the 1980s. “This is not to say that it never happened. But the mythologies that people tell each other about these sex dolls all involved men.”... “Why aren’t more women using sex dolls?” and “Why are so many men drawn to them?” Some answers are purely practical. For instance, only 25 percent of women can consistently orgasm from vaginal sex alone, which makes a doll far from the most efficient sex toy. Also, when it comes to RealDolls and their ilk, everyone I spoke with told me how heavy they are. (Female RealDolls weigh between 75 and 115 pounds.) Some mentioned it sheepishly, others matter-of-factly, but there was a general consensus that the dolls are difficult for many women to move around. There’s also plenty of speculation about the difference between men and women’s masturbation styles. In his 1936 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, the English psychologist Henry Havelock Ellis wrote that men are more visual, while women are more imaginative and rely more on their sense of touch... There are some women who buy female dolls. But McMullen says many of them purchase the dolls with a male partner—or with the intention of dressing them up and enjoying them as fashion dolls. “A lot of women like the dolls because they’re like life-size Barbies,” he says... many of the men she surveyed for her research felt shame or embarrassment about owning sex dolls. But contrary to popular stereotypes, they were just as satisfied with their lives, on average, as the general population, and didn’t suffer higher-than-normal rates of depression or other mental illness... Some doll owners are just having fun. Some suffer from social anxiety or even disabilities that might make human relationships difficult. Some people just want to take arty photographs. The whole phenomenon is surprisingly hard to nail down... “Ninety-eight percent of the iDollators and technosexuals I know treat their Dolls like goddesses”... because they don’t meet women’s expectations.” But then he went on: “Dolls don’t possess any of the unpleasant qualities that organic, flesh and blood humans have. A synthetic will never lie to you, cheat on you, criticize you, or be otherwise disagreeable.”"
Malaysian minister says heritage dish status for bak kut teh nothing to do with race, religion - "Stop turning the bak kut teh (pork rib soup) discussion into a religious issue and show respect for Malaysia’s multiracial structure, Tourism Minister Tiong King Sing said... as per the National Heritage Act 2005 (Act 645) discussions on whether to turn bak kut teh into a heritage dish has nothing to do with religion or race. The Bintulu MP said bak kut teh is not a new dish as it has been part of Malaysian society for a long time. “We know that there are halal and non-halal versions. There is even a vegetarian version of bak kut teh. “The recognition of bak kut teh as a heritage food is based on Act 645 and does not involve issues of race or religion,” he said. With that in mind, Tiong called on all quarters to respect the different cultures and religions in Malaysia so as to protect the harmony in the country... Bak kut teh was among the 10 dishes declared by Heritage Commissioner Mohamad Muda Bahadin on February 24 as national heritage dishes. Earlier this month, Umno Youth chief Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh described the action of recognising bak kut teh as a national heritage dish as “extremist,” claiming it showed “a lack of sensitivity towards the country’s Muslim population.”"
Malaysia Boleh!
Malaysia opposition MP slammed for linking Chinese villages under Unesco plan to communism - "Housing and Local Government Minister Nga Kor Ming, who is from the multiracial but Chinese-led Democratic Action Party, last year proposed to ask Unesco to recognise the “new villages”, which were set up by the British across several states in the peninsula to contain the spread of communism after World War II. His proposal triggered an immediate backlash from some Muslim academics and Islamist parties, who described it as an attempt to grant native status to non-Malays. Global recognition accorded to these villages could be seen as legitimising the struggles of the Communist Party of Malaya (PKM), Ismail Abu Muttalib, a lawmaker with the Perikatan Nasional (PN) opposition front"
April Harding on X - "Matt Taibbi was asked "why doesn't he pay much attention to the sins (or threats) from "the right"?" He gave a great answer: Why I don’t spend a lot of time on the Republicans:
1) There is a enormous army of MSM reporters already going after them from every angle, with most major news organizations little more than proxies for the DNC, to the point where stations hire Biden spokespeople as anchors;
2) The Republicans have very little institutional power nationally. It’s not their point of view prevailing in schools, on campuses, in newsrooms (where over 90% of working reporters vote blue), and especially in the intelligence and military apparatus, which has openly aligned itself with Democrats. Even if Donald Trump were a “threat to Democracy” he lacks the institutional pull to do much damage, which can’t be said of Democrats;
3) The Democrats’ ambitions are significantly more dangerous than those of the Republicans. From digital surveillance to censorship to making Intel and enforcement agencies central players in domestic governance — all plans being executed globally as well as in our one country — they are thinking on a much bigger and more dangerous scale than Republicans. I lived in third world countries and the endless criminal indictments of people like Trump and ongoing lawfare efforts to prevent even third party challenges are classic authoritarian symptoms. The Republicans aren’t near this kind of capability;
4) Last and most important, the Democrats are being organized around a more potent but also much dumber, more cultlike ideology. People like Yuval Harari and his Transhumanist “divinity” concept scare me a lot more than the Rs, and I was once undercover in an apocalyptic church in Texas. Ask your average Russian or Cuban what overempowered pseudo-intellectuals are capable of.
I have a pretty good record of picking dangerous phenomena ahead of time. I feel confident on this one, and that’s before we get to the demographic/class shifts in the parties."
It's only "fascism" if it threatens the left wing agenda
Taliban To Resume Stoning Women In Public For Adultery: Report - " Taliban's Supreme Leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada made the announcement - that it is resuming publicly stoning women to death - in a voice message broadcast on state TV."
Weird. We were told they had changed
Meme - "When your girl is pregnant but you never had sex and when your child is born, 3 random dudes that you have never seen show up with gifts for the baby. *Mary and Joseph*"
Meme - "Stumptown Coffee Roasters *woman with 2 stumps for hands with crazy look*"
Meme - *looking at computer screen* "Is that multiplayer?"
"yep."
"Are you any good at it?"
"Well... Not to brag, but I ALWAYS get first or second"
*guy leaves*
Girl playing chess: "No, wait. Come back."
Adidas Bans '44' on Germany's Team Jerseys After Historian Says It Looks Like a Nazi Symbol - "Adidas has banned fans from personalizing the German national team jersey with the number “44” after outrage over the resulting resemblance to Nazi symbolism. Historian Michael König appears to have been one of the first people to notice the resemblance between the “44” and the symbol for the “Schutzstaffel,” also known as the SS, which was responsible for planning and carrying out the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, last Friday, König included screenshots of Germany’s national team jersey, which is sold by the company, with the number “44” and said it was “questionable” to allow the shirts... Fans were able to choose the number “44” because Adidas allows them to personalize some of their apparel with specific names or numbers. In light of the criticism, Adidas quickly disabled the personalization option for the jerseys in its online store."
Meme - "First time doing anal vs when your hoe ass is used to it
*Mufasa from Lion King falling down slope* *Scar from Lion King falling down slope*"
'Tepid' GDP extends Australia's per capita recession, hinting November's interest rate rise may have been 'unnecessary' - "The federal government played a significant role in avoiding economic contraction during the December quarter, according to the ABS data... The government contribution included a one-off boost from all the polling officials temporarily employed to run the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum."
A longevity doctor says this is the No. 1 mistake that will 'make you age faster' - “Sleeping well is the No. 1 way to slow down aging”
browser - Edge on ALT-TAB to show its windows not tabs - “If you don't want ALT+TAB to show the browser tabs (but show them as one process), you can go to (System) Settings > System > Multitasking > Alt + Tab, and select Open windows only.”
Montpellier introduces free transport: Where else in Europe can you travel without buying a ticket? - “It is the largest French metropolis to boast such a scheme. Local residents can now utilise a free transport pass across the city’s bus and tram network. The scheme aims to slash emissions, reduce pollution and improve accessibility for the city’s residents… French towns and cities have been rolling out such schemes since the country’s transport management was decentralised in 2015. However the majority of these have less than 150,000 inhabitants. With almost 200,000 inhabitants, Dunkirk is the largest city to have embraced free transport so far. After it introduced fare-free bus routes in 2018, passenger numbers increased by an average of 85 per cent. The scheme is funded by a small increase in the Mobility Payment tax already levied on public and private companies in France with more than 10 employees. In total, 39 territories in France have similar schemes, including the Marseille suburb of Aubagne, the port city of Calais and the western commune of Niort… some fear it could discourage investment and development in the transport sector, and that the costs could fall on taxpayers. Increased demand spurred by ticket-free travel may also stretch capacity in busy urban areas, while similar schemes across Europe have not always proven to reduce car use… Two European countries stand out for their trailblazing free transport schemes. Estonia’s capital Tallinn introduced free public transport in 2013. In 2020, Luxembourg became the first country in the world to scrap fares on all public transport. Spain is experimenting with free train tickets for short and medium-distance journeys in a scheme that runs until the end of this year. It aims to reduce the impact of the cost of living crisis, while cutting CO2 emissions. Germany introduced a similar measure between June and August last year with a discounted nationwide public transport pass. It gave travellers unlimited use of local and regional services for just €9 a month. Together, France and Germany are giving away 60,000 free train tickets to young people this summer to encourage cultural exchange. More than 50 cities and towns in Europe have now introduced free public transport, citing climate ambitions and social equality as their primary motivators.”"
Inside one of the most secretive nations on Earth where dirty cars are illegal - "The car rule has come to the country courtesy of Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, Chairman Of The People’s Council of Turkmenistan. It’s reported Mr Berdimuhamedow – who was president of the country until 2022 when he entered into a power-sharing arrangement with his son Serdar – made the rule after ordering the impounding of all black cars in the capital in 2018. Police were said to have subsequently seized black cars and told the owners they had to pay to have them repainted white or silver. The ban was later extended to vehicles of all other colours. No official reason was given for the directive, although it’s known that Mr Berdimuhamedow is a fan of the colour white, believing it to be lucky. Not only do cars have to conform to the colour rules, but they also have to be sparkling clean. In fact, visitors report that driving with a dirty car can land you in trouble with the police, who strictly enforce the rules. And the theme doesn’t stop at cars either. Ashgabat holds the oddly-specific Guinness World Record for the place with the ‘highest density of white marble-clad buildings’... don’t expect to be able to freely use the internet if you visit as you can in other parts of the world. Access to the Internet is heavily regulated there and only a small fraction of the population can access it, with most websites banned other than local ones accessible via the Turkmenet, a censored version of the web available only in Turkmen. And you won’t be able to drop your friends back a home a message telling them about the visually breathtaking sights of the capital. Most social media apps, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are blocked in Turkmenistan, along with WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube. While many get round the ban by using VPNs, these are frequently shut down by the authorities."
Turning point for Turkey? Erdogan's AKP suffers biggest election setback in decades - "Despite media and courts stacked against the opposition, the ruling party lost the country’s five biggest cities."