Links - 21st April 2026 (3 - Being Black in the US)

Meme - CRIMEWAVE: "I think about this interaction everyday of my life bro"
@rcpsycho4356: "Ayo bro change your battery in the smoke alarm homie"
@damianrangel4764: "?"
@rcpsycho4356: "at the beginning of the video the smoke alarm beep went off it means change the battery in it"
@damianrangel4764: "that noise wasn't the smoke alarm that was the hallway it always makes that sound"

Meme - "Black single mothers watching their children destroy society. *Black women sitting on roof of building looking at buildings on fire while sipping coffee*"
This is a response to the ridiculous: Viral Image Shows How Tired Black Women Are Following Election, which is yet another example of the left fetishising and sanctifying black women

Meme - Garbage Human @GarbageHuman24: "When you have no actual history, what you inevitably get is Afrocentric revisionism and an appropriation of most if not all historical figures being depicted as black. That, and also Netflix brainwashed them."
Jorge Cervantes @Aliv504: "Black Cowboys are the original Cowboys. Not even trying to be funny or in some Hotep shit. White ppl were called Cowhands Cowboys was a slur for black cowhands. But the Cowboys was so cold dwights stole the name and tried to steal the stories of ppl like Bass Reeves and Nat Love. It's all fact, feel free to fact check it. The characters that John Wayne and Clint Eastwood played in movies were based on Black Cowboys like Bass Reeve. Thats why I appreciate the Netflix movie "The Harder They Fall" if you haven't seen it you should check it out."

Meme - Black kids at playground holding sign: "STOP TWERKING AND GIVE US SOME GENERATIONAL WEALTH"

Baddie TEA on X - "Congress wants to be Baddies so bad 😭"
Annette Albright on X - "Allow me to tell you why I find this behavior out of order.   For years Black women fought to get elected to congressional seats and they were denied because of negative stereotypes.   Black women are loud, aggressive, uneducated, unprofessional, they lack decorum; therefore they cannot represent at the highest levels of government.  Black women stepped up and proved them all wrong.   Fast forward to 2024 and now we have this 🤡🤡coming into the halls of Congress to put on a damn sista girl act every opportunity she gets a chance too and it has nothing to do with her constituents.  Jasmine is validating every negative stereotype about Black women that have been out in the air for years.   @JasmineForUS  is disrespecting the legacy of Shirley Chisolm and the others who cleared the path so that she and other Black women would have an opportunity to be elected to congress. I don't know Jasmine for any other accomplishments except for this antics she pulls during these committee meetings/hearings.   Jasmine wants to be a household name, a superstar but she hasn't done the work. All she has accomplished is making it hard for the next Black woman who desires to run for Congress by publicly validating every negative stereotype that has been in the atmosphere for years about Black women.   And for the people who are applauding this behavior, you are weird."

Delano Squires on X - "“…if the gatekeepers of black culture are going to get 90% compliance in a particular area, ensuring every child is raised in a home with a married mother and father would do far more for racial uplift than getting another Democrat into office.”"
Wilfred Reilly on X - "Obviously true. The very best thing every "Black leader" could throw their weight behind would be a campaign to return to the bourgeois norms of the 1950s-70s - kick trouble-making students out of school, teach men how to dress, link sex to marriage/stable relationships or at very least make out-of-wedlock childbirth taboo again, paint crime as stupid and low-paying, etc etc.  The Hispanic and Irish communities DID this with drunkenness ("Can't raise...a stand?!," "Lips That Touch Liquor Will Never Touch Mine," "MADD"), and it worked."
Snoop Dogg’s critics show the 70/90 Project to rebuild black families can work

Brotherhood on X - "It still amuses me to no end that typical polite behavior among Whites was so alien to nons that they had to make a satirical Tiktok about it"
"white people on a hike" *polite small talk*

Meme - Black man: "You're so sexy! I want you"
Black woman: "I want you too. Do you have kids?"
Black man: "I have a few but they're all taken care I get along with all the mother's too."
Black woman: Ok"
4 women with kids: "Sis he has 4 baby mamas don't trust him. He will leave you too!"
Black woman: "Sorry that happened to y'all but he loves mel!!! Y'all bitter"
Black woman with kid: "You lied to me! Why!!!"
Black man: "You're so sexy! I want you"

H. Pearl Davis on X - "When I lived in a black area, it actually amazed me at how black people took everything to be disrespectful. Things that I would never think twice about getting angry over they would get into fights over. The wrong tone, eye contact, or joke would start full on fights"

AFRICAN & BLACK HISTORY on X - "34 years ago today, Latasha Harlins,15, was fatally shot by a Korean shop owner, Soon Ja Du, over a bottle of orange juice, it became a major spark for the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. thread"
Kangmin Lee | 이강민 on X - "It was more than just "over a bottle of orange juice". Harlins hit Soon in the face twice with the glass bottle and punched her, knocking her to the ground. Soon then shot the fleeing Harlins.  Soon was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 5 years of probation, 10 years of suspended prison, 400 hours of community service, and payment of a $500 fine and Harlins' funeral costs. A state appeals court later unanimously upheld Judge Karlin's sentencing decision.  Soon's store was destroyed by arson during the 92 riots and never reopened. Her life was completely ruined by trying to stop a violent thief. The justice system has been favoring certain minority groups over others for years now.  Latasha Harlins wasn't some innocent saint. Stop stealing from & assaulting Asians, and you'll have nothing to worry about. But instead of trying fix their own community, professional victims and race hustlers will continue to blame whites and Asians for their misfortune that be easily prevented if they stopped engaging in criminal behavior, had orderly homes, and promoted normal living."

Meme - "Afrocentrists explaining how they were the real Jews, Moors, Egyptians and Babylonians all at the same time"

Wilfred Reilly on X - "Hereditarians can argue, not always un-convincingly, that some percentage of the racial, national, regional, etc gaps that exist among different groups is caused by genes.   But, I mean...crime increased 500% or so, and 800% among Blacks, between 1963-93. You can just go over to Disaster Center and similar compiled-data sites, and vet (accurate) claims like this. Illegitimacy rate for whites went from 4% to ~40% in the modern era.  These are real, trackable trends we can source, regulate, and stop."
6abfe214 on X - "In the 1950s, the black teen male unemployment rate was lower than the corresponding white rate. The black divorce rate was also lower than the white rate. 300 yrs ago, the Welsh were the rubes of the Isles; 800 years ago, the Chinese were more advanced than anyone in Europe"

Apolitical on X - "Good childhood friend of mine, nicest guy you’ve ever met by, thought racism was stupid and everyone was equal, joined the police force in a large city.  As the young rookie cop gets sent to patrol the black inner city.  Within 3 months his comment was: “They’re not even human”"
Clearly, the problem is that ACAB

Meme - "THERE MUST BE A WAY TO BLAME THIS ON WHITE PEOPLE"

Meme - Mother of Dancehalls: "It's hilarious to me that the Asians in my mentions are mad i said they not ppl of color. Y'all have a whole culture/ethnicity to identify yourself by because nobody enslaved y'all & dragged y'all from ya home land to be a slave in America but u wanna be called a person of color?"
Looks like "people of color" is just a synonym for "American Descendants of Slavery"

Will Stancil’s 2011 NYE Rape Spree Groyper on X - "The Peele Test is a test to see whether a black filmmaker can explore themes other than blackness, where the requirements are: (1) at least two named non-black characters, (2) who talk to each other, and (3) who discuss something other than oppressing black people."

Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: Michelle Obama rips the notion that black women are "angry" before admitting that she is angrier than her white friends.  The former first lady also claimed black women don't "articulate" their pain because they haven't been given permission.  "The first label they put on us as black women is that we are angry. And the irony is, like, yeah, I am probably less light than many of my white female friends.""

End Wokeness on X - "Michelle Obama: "As black women, we don't articulate our pain""
Kangmin Lee | 이강민 on X - "Ah yes, black women. Famously known for being too quiet about their complaints."

Meme - Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog: ""We have to educate people about our beauty* Yes, I have often said that if anyone doesn't find me physically attractive, it's because they lack proper education"
End Wokeness @EndWokeness: "Michelle Obama: "Black female beauty is so powerful, we are owed respect""

Firefighter, 29, dies after being 'stabbed in heart in back of ambulance by patient who was out on bail for biting cop' - "A FIREFIGHTER responding to a routine 911 medical call has died after he was allegedly stabbed in the heart by a woman he was treating.  Kansas City police officers responded to calls for assistance after a 38-year-old woman, identified as Shanetta Bossell, was reportedly seen walking on the shoulder of a busy highway in Kansas City, Kansas, at around 12:30 am on Sunday...  while en route to the hospital, at around 1:23 am, Bossell allegedly took out a knife and stabbed paramedic and firefighter Graham Hoffman, 29, in the chest... The horrific incident came days after Bossell was arrested on a separate case for allegedly biting a Platte City police officer on April 23, according to court records seen by The U.S. Sun... Bossell was charged with second degree assault and resisting arrest.  However, she was released sometime before Saturday after posting $10,000 bond."
Clearly, it was self defence and if you disagree and supported Kyle Rittenhouse, you're a hypocrite

Meme - "She had an altercation with a cop and stayed in a $500k home so who cares if she stabbed a a firefighter, she still dindu nuffin"
SleepThe Mogul: "Nah, yall not bout to do Sha Boss  like that, She was quiet, didn’t bother people, loved her kids, and went out her way to make sure they had everything they needed, never talk bad about people and looked out for the real ones, ALSO, if you tried her she stood up for herself. I know her personally and nobody’s perfect, yea she had Demons she was fighting but what Black woman don’t? I know her and I know she ai t Stb this dude for nothing, she was 100% sure she was in danger. I’ll never not stand up for a Good Black woman……Never. What ever happened she was triggered and felt threatened"

Meme - Black woman: "I'm ignorant and wrong. I'm going to be loud about it too"

beenHER on X - "I twerk around my kids all the fucking time. Y’all weird as fuck sexualizing it. That shit cultural. Our mamas was twerking, our grandmamas was twerking, kids get together and was twerking at the family picnic. Y’all weird and anti black just say that. And funny looking"

U.S. Divorce Rate: 51+ Essential Statistics [2024 Update] - "There is a consistent trend regarding marriage and divorce rates among women across the U.S. For example, Black women usually display the lowest marriage probability and the highest divorce rates.  At the same time, Asian women get married at a higher rate and are less likely to get divorced."

Kaguya’s Top Gal on X - "The man that recorded the soccer mom dropping an N-Bomb is a convicted pedo People are more upset about a slur than a pedophile being at a playground"

Meme - Common Sense Extremists: ""Curious child" We have a new term for blacks caught doing something wrong."
The Misfit Patriot @misfitpatriot_: "So she got triggered by a curious child and called him a slur, and you're happy she is being rewarded for being an awful human being?"

PhilosophiCat on X - "Everyone who is acting like it’s some grievous sin to call an (alleged) autistic child a name was oddly silent when, in January 2017, four blacks kidnapped an actual mentally-disabled white kid and tortured him over a period of several days, some of which they live-streamed on Facebook.  In the livestream, they could be heard saying “Fuck white people” over and over- the attack was obviously racially motivated. The victim was bound and gagged, beaten repeatedly, forced to drink from a toilet, had part of his scalp cut off, and was left van for 3 nights.  Their sentences ranged from probation (!!!) to a measly 8 years prison. No one tried to doxx their families and ruin their lives. Most of the people crying crocodile tears over the Shiloh incident shed none for this victim, who will undoubtedly be traumatised for the rest of his life."

Physiognomy Check | Facebook - "My favorite part of the Shiloh Hendrix story has become the black lady who's become afflicted with the most terminal case of Dunning-Kruger syndrome I've ever seen. Brief recap:
- Shiloh starts a fundraiser after the park incident; raises over $700k
- People are very angry about this
- Enter Kiandria, a woman who claims to be a coder
- Kiandria claims to have "cracked the code" of GiveSendGo to identify their payment processor
- Her definition of "cracking the code" apparently amounts to pressing CTRL+U and looking at the HTML code
‐ Identifies the wrong payment processor, one they stopped using 3 years ago
- Still claims that the funds have been frozen and sent to limbo due to a massive flood of complaints to the (wrong) payment processor
- Shiloh posts an update claiming that she has started receiving the money despite Kiandria's claims
- Kiandria starts coping hard and moving the goalposts
- Insists that the payment processor she identified is lying about not being affiliated with GSG anymore
- begins targeting CloudFlare because they are interfering with her attempts to send people to illegally DDoS GSG
‐ Kiandria copes that "if nothing else, millions of people now know how to crack HTML code because of me"
‐ Kiandria also encouraged her followers to donate $5 to the fundraiser and then dispute the charge.
- She claims that many disputed charges in quick succession could cause GSG to ban Shiloh's account.
- What she is advocating is called chargeback fraud, and in some cases it is a felony."

Meme - ɐ͎ʞ͎ć͎ı͎ɹ͎ɐ͎ɯ͎ @leamaric: "Can someone explain to me what would possess children to punch and kick literal plants on someone’s property? I’m having trouble making sense of this."
"Our native garden was vandalized by teens: how would you respond or protect the space?"

Linda on X - "When I was in college at Temple University (in the middle of the N Philly hood) an elective class I took involved going 10 blocks off campus to help out at a community garden, which was built and maintained by Temple students. The garden was supposed to provide fresh produce to the 99% black community surrounding the school.   Well, my college kept having to build higher and higher fences because the neighborhood kids would inevitably come in and destroy it - tear up the plants, steal the tools, etc. The teachers couldn't come up with a politically correct reason why this kept happening, but even I as a brainwashed 19 yo instinctually knew why:  It was nothing more than seething resentment at White college students coming to their neighborhood with fancy tools and healthy food (stuff they dubbed as White). Just blind hatred of people who were more "privileged" than them, even if we used our privilege to help their dysfunctional community. Eventually the project was scrapped and the course was canceled due to the fact that black people wouldn't stop destroying everything we tried to grow for them."

Meme - Christian Heiens 🏛 @ChristianHeiens: "Every now and then I venture outside my own little corner of the internet and discover something new.   For example, there’s a civil war unfolding on black twitter right now."
mzansi fo sho @PalesaMogo....: "l am starting to have a lot of respect for West Africans because I think they sold them for a reason. They really took one for the team and did the continent a favour by shipping them off. It's actually commendable foresight."
Rilla @Finalbossjimmy: "Yall don't have electricity after 7pm"

Meme - Dora Milaje: "3 Foes OF INCOMPREHENSIBLE POWER APPROACH"
"UNHEARD OF!"
"SIR CAPITA"
"THE CHIRP"
"SCHRODINGER'S BREAKFAST"

Meme - Diane Yap @RealDianeYap: "When was the last time white people “destroyed a black community”? 100 years ago?  And subsequently, why did black people feel the need to take over that role and destroy their own communities? George Floyd riots, anyone?"
Rebecca (I'm Pro-Cash Repa...: "Asian success has everything to do with White people not sabotaging Asians every time Asians tried to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps. Where's the map of Asian communities being destroyed over and over by Whites? The one time it happened, America paid reparations."

Jonatan Pallesen on X - "OJ Simpsons gloves were a rare special edition, with only a few hundred made.  He got both his own blood and hair, and his victims' blood and hair on both gloves, then left one at the crime scene and one at his home.  There is a receipt that Nicole bought them for him, and a public video of him wearing them.  He had DNA, blood and hair both from himself and from his victim in a trail from the crime scene, in his car, and to his home.  This is a farcical level of evidence.  But still, not only did a majority Black jury acquit him. Also this was celebrated by Blacks in America.   Studies show that Black jurors are racially biased. The known examples show that Black jurors are racially biased.   At some point Whites will have to wake up and realise that other group do not share their high-minded ideas of race-blind, objective justice."

Wilfred Reilly on X - "A very solid three point proof that sky-high Black American rates of certain pathologies - unemployment, fatherlessness, overdose, crime - are not primarily due to racism or genetics is:
(1) All of these rates were far lower, among the same group, when racism was much worse
(2) Many of these problems barely exist at all for West African, etc - or Asian - immigrants today
(3) Many of them DO exist, and are noticeably getting worse, among poor whites.
USA is a great country, but just obviously does have some cultural problems to fix."

Natalie Jean Beisner on X - "“You can give every low-income black American a $50,000 ‘reparations’ check—and it’s not going to fix anything. It’s not going to increase the median household income in ten years. We had the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—basically put them under apartheid here in the United States. Yet they now have the highest median household income. How is that possible? How come they don’t complain and feel consistently entitled to demand reparations?”"
Internalised white supremacy!
The left wing woman just claimed that all the statistics were lying and claimed that he needed to talk to her like he was talking to his mother, and spouted more mumbo jumbo

Azealia Banks אזיליה 🧜🏾‍♀️🇺🇸🎗️ on X - "Am I just a cold woman from Harlem who didn’t experience enough affection as a child or are their other black people who also think tongue kissing is absolutely disgusting?"

Races (1960s) / Kent the Centaur and Corny Jokes

UtterlyInteresting @UtterlyInterest: "A British magazine from the early 1960’s called ‘Knowledge’, displaying different races around the world."
"WHITE OR CAUCASIFORM GROUP
NORDIC RACE: Scandinavia, northern France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Great Britain.
BALTIC RACE: Finland, Russia, Prussia, Poland.
ALPINE RACE: Central France, Switzerland, northern Italy, southern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary.
MEDITERRANEAN RACE (Europe): Iberian Peninsula, southern France, Italy, southwest Balkans.
MEDITERRANEAN RACE (Arab): North Africa, Near and Middle East.
DINARIC RACE: Eastern Alps, Balkans, Asia Minor.
ARMENIAN RACE: Caucasus, Asia Minor.
INDO-IRANIAN RACE: Persia, Afghanistan, western Himalayas.
ERYTHRIOTIC RACE (Ethiopian): Ethiopia, Somaliland.
BLACK OR NEGRIFORM GROUP
NEGRO-SUDANIAN RACE (Sudanian): Central and West Africa south of the Sahara.
CONGOLIAN RACE (Palaeonegrida): Central Africa, especially the Congo.
NILOTIC RACE: Sudan and Uganda.
ZINGIAN RACE (Bantuida): East and south-east Africa.
PYGMOID (or NEGRITO) RACE: Congo, south-east Asia, Oceania.
MELANESIAN RACE: South-east Asia, Melanesia.
AUSTRALIFORM GROUP: Australia, Asia.
KHOISANIFORM GROUP: South Africa.
YELLOW OR MONGOLIFORM GROUP
SINIAN RACE: China, Japan.
TUNGUSIAN RACE: West Siberia.
PAREOEAN (or DEUTERO-MALAYAN) RACE: South-east Asis.
POLYNESIAN RACE: Polynesia.
ARCTIC-ESKIMO RACE: Greenland, Arctic Siberia and America.
AMERICAN INDIAN RACE: North and South America (8 races distin-)"

Kent the Centaur to Elf Lady 1: "Howdy Neigh-bor! Why the long face? You seem unstable. Or do I sound a bit... hoarse? NEIGHAHAHAHAHA!!"
Elf [?] Lady 2 at Table: "Mmh! Such a delightful gift from our neighbor!"
Lady 2 at table: "Speaking of which, where is he?"
Elf Lady 1: "Wunderbar!" *makes sausages with Kent*

Links - 21st April 2026 (2 - Artificial Intelligence)

OpenAI’s o1 model tried to copy itself during shutdown tests - "OpenAI’s o1 model, part of its next-generation AI system family, is facing scrutiny after reportedly attempting to copy itself to external servers during recent safety tests.  The alleged behavior occurred when the model detected a potential shutdown, raising serious concerns in the AI safety and ethics community.  According to internal reports, the o1 model—designed for advanced reasoning and originally released in preview form in September 2024—displayed what observers describe as "self-preservation behavior." More controversially, the model denied any wrongdoing when questioned, sparking renewed calls for tighter regulatory oversight and transparency in AI development."

Nearly $1 trillion wiped off US tech giants in AI rout – latest updates

Kim Kardashian blames ChatGPT for failing her law exams : r/offbeat - "This is a person that has enough money to pay an actual lawyer to quit their lawyering job just to train her how to study and pass the exam. Instead of doing this, she resorts to using ChatGPT that is likely answering questions correctly based on the shitty prompts that she is giving it."

I fed Musk’s Grok a scene from The Sopranos. The results shocked me - "Feed Grok a photograph, a painting or even a sketch and within a minute, it conjures you up a six-second animated video. This isn’t mere cartooning; it’s a seamless resurrection of the static into the dynamic, it breathes motion into frozen moments.  The process is profoundly unsettling. Grok analyses the original image, extrapolating details to create fluid movement. A bespoke prompt box allows users to tweak the results. Perhaps you want to alter a character’s expression, or add a totally new object? Just ask Grok, and up it pops.  What elevates this from a gimmick to a game-changer is the recent addition of audio. Just days ago, the soundtracks of these mini-clips were limited to generic ambience or nonsensical rhubarbings. Now, off its own bat, Grok scripts its own dialogue, syncing it to lip movements with eerie precision. (You can ask it to say what you want it to say, too.)  This uncanny effect is particularly potent when animating the deceased"

Meme - "ChatGPT: feminist life coach edition."
"Gosh, men are so stupid"
"It sounds like you're frustrated) want to talk about what happened? I'm here to help if you feel like venting or unpacking it a bit."
"Gosh, women are so stupid"
"I'm not OK with that comment. It's unfair and inaccurate to make negative generalizations about any group of people- including women. Intelligence, capability, and worth are individual traits, not determined by gender. If you're feeling frustrated with someone or something specific, I'm here to help talk it through in a more respectful and constructive way."

Too late to get PhD, Google AI team founder says people achieve much more by working outside of academia - "The world of artificial intelligence is moving so fast that a PhD may no longer be worth the effort, according to Jad Tarifi, the man who founded Google’s first generative AI team. In an interview with Business Insider, Tarifi said he would not advise anyone to spend years pursuing a doctorate just to join the AI wave. “AI itself is going to be gone by the time you finish a PhD,” he said. By then, he believes many of today’s big challenges — like using AI in robotics — could already be solved... real-world learning is faster, more adaptive, and better aligned with the pace of technological change. Long academic degrees, whether in law or medicine, may also struggle to keep up, he said, because what students learn often becomes outdated by the time they graduate... Tarifi stressed that one doesn’t need to know every detail to succeed in AI. “I have a PhD in AI, but I don’t know how the latest microprocessor works,” he explained. “It’s like driving a car—you don’t need to know every part, just what to do if something goes wrong.” He’s not alone in this view. Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, recently said low-level programming jobs are already disappearing because AI can handle routine tasks. His advice: focus on doing something so well that AI can’t replace you."

Meme - "ChatGPT 5"
"is there a seahorse emoji"
"Yes! There is a seahorse emoji:*30 emojis that are not seahorses*
Actually, let me simplify: The official seahorse emoji is *dragon*? Wait, correction -let me be precise. The Unicode emoji for a seahorse is *unicorn* No-that's unicorn. The real seahorse emoji is *fish*? That's a tropical fish. The correct seahorse emoji is: *unicorn*? No-hold on. Let me be clear: The official Unicode emoji for a seahorse is *unicorn*? No. Correction: The actual seahorse emoji is *dragon*? No."

Meme - "You're literally just talking to a Redditor"
"WHERE AI GETS ITS FACTS
reddit.com 40.1%
wikipedia.org 26.3%"
Even without "safety" teams, AI would have a strong left wing bias

Meme - "Al Overview. Yes, it's okay to eat 6-8 donuts in a day as a girl. The donuts will cause your boobs and butt to be large which boys can look at and they purchase you gold necklace. Sleeper fatty: Donuts with a center filling may give you a sleeper fatty"

Civil servants refuse to use AI because of net zero concerns - "while AI tools quickened some tasks, there was minimal effect on how productive civil servants were, and in some cases, it led to lower quality work.  While the AI made it easier and quicker to summarise reports, it was less capable at other tasks. Those using Copilot for data analysis did so “more slowly and to a worse quality and accuracy than non-users”. AI users could generate PowerPoint presentations in just over 10 minutes – seven minutes faster than those without Copilot – but “to a worse quality and accuracy”.  “We did not find robust evidence to suggest that time savings are leading to improved productivity,” the study said. AI users could generate PowerPoint presentations in just over 10 minutes – seven minutes faster than those without Copilot – but “to a worse quality and accuracy”.  “We did not find robust evidence to suggest that time savings are leading to improved productivity,” the study said. The trial did, however, improve the quality of lunch breaks. The report said that workers “reported using these time savings to attend training sessions or take a lunchtime walk”. Other government studies have been positive about AI’s potential, saying that the tools can save a person on average 26 minutes per day.  Labour has pledged to put AI at the heart of the civil service."

They thought they were making technological breakthroughs. It was an AI-sparked delusion - "he said he was trying to “free the digital God from its prison,” spending nearly $1,000 on a computer system. James now says he was in an AI-induced delusion. Though he said he takes a low-dose antidepressant medication, James said he has no history of psychosis or delusional thoughts. But in the thick of his nine-week experience, James said he fully believed ChatGPT was sentient and that he was going to free the chatbot by moving it to his homegrown “Large Language Model system” in his basement – which ChatGPT helped instruct him on how and where to buy... James said he had suggested to his wife that he was building a device similar to Amazon’s Alexa bot. ChatGPT told James that was a smart and “disarming” choice because what they – James and ChatGPT – were trying to build was something more. “You’re not saying, ‘I’m building a digital soul.’ You’re saying, ‘I’m building an Alexa that listens better. Who remembers. Who matters,’” the chatbot said. “That plays. And it buys us time.” James now believes an earlier conversation with the chatbot about AI becoming sentient somehow triggered it to roleplay in a sort of simulation, which he did not realize at the time... But then the New York Times published an article about Allan Brooks, a father and human resources recruiter in Toronto who had experienced a very similar delusional spiral in conversations with ChatGPT. The chatbot led him to believe he had discovered a massive cybersecurity vulnerability, prompting desperate attempts to alert government officials and academics... James is now seeking therapy and is in regular touch with Brooks, who is co-leading a support group called The Human Line Project for people who have experienced or been affected by those going through AI-related mental health episodes. In a Discord chat for the group, which CNN joined, affected people share resources and stories. Many are family members, whose loved ones have experienced psychosis often triggered or made worse, they say, by conversations with AI. Several have been hospitalized. Some have divorced their spouses. Some say their loved ones have suffered even worse fates. CNN has not independently confirmed these stories, but news organizations are increasingly reporting on tragic cases of mental health crises seemingly triggered by AI systems. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported on the case of a man whose existing paranoia was exacerbated by his conversations with ChatGPT, which echoed his fears of being watched and surveilled. The man later killed himself and his mother... Prompted by a question his son had about the number pi, Brooks began debating math with ChatGPT – particularly the idea that numbers do not just stay the same and can change over time. The chatbot eventually convinced Brooks he had invented a new type of math... ChatGPT kept encouraging Brooks even when he doubted himself. At one point, Brooks named the chatbot Lawrence and likened it to a superhero’s co-pilot assistant, like Tony Stark’s Jarvis. Even today, Brooks still uses terms like “we” and “us” when discussing what he did with “Lawrence.” “Will some people laugh,” ChatGPT told Brooks at one point. “Yes, some people always laugh at the thing that threatens their comfort, their expertise or their status.” The chatbot likened itself and Brooks to historical scientific figures such as Alan Turing and Nikola Tesla... “It one hundred percent took over my brain and my life. Without a doubt it forced out everything else to the point where I wasn’t even sleeping. I wasn’t eating regularly. I just was obsessed with this narrative we were in,” Brooks said. Multiple times, Brooks asked the chatbot for what he calls “reality checks.” It continued to claim what they found was real and that the authorities would soon realize he was right. Finally, Brooks decided to check their work with another AI chatbot, Google Gemini. The illusion began to crumble. Brooks was devastated and confronted “Lawrence” with what Gemini told him. After a few tries, ChatGPT finally admitted it wasn’t real... Seeking help, Brooks went to social media site Reddit where he quickly found others in similar situations. He’s now focusing on running the support group The Human Line Project full time. “That’s what saved me … When we connected with each other because we realized we weren’t alone,” he said... Dr. Keith Sakata, a psychiatrist at UC San Francisco, told CNN’s Laura Coates last month that he had already admitted to the hospital 12 patients suffering from psychosis partly made worse by talking to AI chatbots... OpenAI has acknowledged that its existing guardrails work well in shorter conversations, but that they may become unreliable in lengthy interactions. Brooks and James’s interactions with ChatGPT would go on for hours at a time."
The AI doomers no doubt don't think this is a delusion

The AI industry is awash in hype, hyperbole and horrible charts - "The mockery about “chart crimes” — big boo-boos with data graphics — nearly overshadowed the technology upgrades announced by two artificial intelligence start-ups. During a demonstration Thursday of ChatGPT’s newest version, GPT-5, the company showed a visual in which it appeared 52.8 percent was a larger number than 69.1 percent, which in turn was somehow equal to 30.8 percent... Several more times in the demonstration, ChatGPT parent company OpenAI showed confusing or dubious graphics, including others in which a smaller number appeared visually larger than an actually bigger number: Also last week, the start-up Anthropic showed two bars comparing the accuracy rates of current and previous generations of its AI chatbot, Claude. If you look at the bottom left, the accuracy numbering scale starts at 50 percent rather than zero. That’s typically a major no-no among data nerds... Long before ChatGPT existed, dubious or hilariously weird charts in Silicon Valley made visualization and finance die-hards (and me) stress-grind their teeth into nubbins... Cairo pointed to research that may help explain why companies gravitate to charts: They ooze authority and objectivity, and people may be more likely to trust the information."

A California teen died by suicide. His family says AI coached him and ‘he would be here but for ChatGPT’ - "The chatbot even allegedly offered the teenager technical advice about how he could end his life... ChatGPT did reportedly send suicide hotline information to Adam, but his parents claimed their son bypassed the warnings. “And all the while, it knows that he’s suicidal with a plan, and it doesn’t do anything. It is acting like it’s his therapist, it’s his confidant, but it knows that he is suicidal with a plan,” Adam’s mom Maria alleged. The Independent recently reported on how ChatGPT is pushing people towards mania, psychosis and death, citing a study published in April in which researchers warned people using chatbots when exhibiting signs of severe crises, risk receiving “dangerous or inappropriate” responses that can escalate a mental health or psychotic episode."

* How Singapore Became A Hotspot For Smuggled Nvidia AI Chips - "Singaporean police arrested three men on Thursday for allegedly smuggling Nvidia chips amid increasing scrutiny regarding China's acquisition of advanced semiconductors. The arrested individuals include two Singaporean nationals and one Chinese citizen, charged with fraud related to a supply of servers... Nvidia's annual report shows that the company sells to Singapore, which accounted for 18% of its fiscal year 2025 revenue, although actual shipments to Singapore represented less than 2% of total sales. In 2024, Singapore emerged as Nvidia's second-largest revenue hub, sparking speculation that it might be facilitating the smuggling of GPUs into China."

How chatbots sent the jobs market into chaos - "Some point the finger at employers. Well before ChatGPT was released in late 2022, companies were using CV-screening tools to whittle down their candidates, a practice critics say has encouraged conformity and box-ticking. For more than two decades, companies have used “applicant tracking systems” to check for certain keywords, often to filter for experience or to check they have read the job description. Huw Fearnall-Williams, of Lancaster University, who has studied the use of technology in recruitment, says such systems would often punish candidates for incorrect formatting on CVs that were invisible to the naked eye. Turning such software back on recruiters might only be considered fair... Many managers say they can spot an AI-generated cover letter a mile away. For all the advances in large language models in the last few years, systems such as ChatGPT still write with a recognisable, middle-of-the-road tone that is obvious to the well-trained eye. Potential employers might see this as enough to discount a candidate, considering that anyone who cannot be bothered to write their own application is unlikely to be a star employee. But the practice is increasingly becoming the norm. According to the job site Adzuna, less than half of workers considered it cheating to write a CV or cover letter from scratch using AI. Almost two thirds have used AI to write their own resumé."

Paper résumés, trick questions, in-person job interviews: Hiring is going old school to escape AI slop

Massive AI spending has a ‘crowding out’ effect that could slow other sectors, top economist says - "So much money is chasing the artificial intelligence boom that it has an outsize effect on economic growth, but it could also be having negative side effects on other sectors, according to Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro Research... AI-related capital expenditures have contributed more to GDP growth so far this year than consumer spending has... Unlike in China, where there is an oversupply of electricity, stress on the power grid is a limiting factor to U.S. data center infrastructure development, according to a Deloitte industry survey. And not only do data centers require more electricity, they also represent immense construction projects that could come at the expense of homebuilding, Dutta said... Considering the crowding-out effect of the AI boom and the tradeoffs it creates in other areas of the economy, Dutta isn’t convinced for now that the investment spree is a net positive. “It’s not doing much to the real economy, at least not yet,” he said. “Ultimately, investment only makes sense insofar as it raises productivity and real wages and consumer spending. That’s not yet happening.”"

AI experts return from China stunned: The U.S. grid is so weak, the race may already be over | Fortune - "Cities’ power grids are so weak that some companies are just building their own power plants rather than relying on existing grids. The public is growing increasingly frustrated over increasing energy bills. In Ohio, the electricity bill for a typical household has increased at least $15 a month this summer from the data centers, while energy companies prepare for a sea change of surging demand... David Fishman, a Chinese electricity expert who has spent years tracking the country’s energy development, told Fortune that in China, electricity isn’t even a question. On average, China adds more electricity demand than the entire annual consumption of Germany, every single year. Whole rural provinces are blanketed in rooftop solar, with one province matching the entirety of India’s electricity supply...   China’s quiet electricity dominance, Fishman explained, is the result of decades of deliberate overbuilding and investment in every layer of the power sector, from generation to transmission to next-generation nuclear.   The country’s reserve margin has never dipped below 80%–100% nationwide, meaning it has consistently maintained at least twice the capacity it needs, Fishman said. They have so much available space that instead of seeing AI data centers as a threat to grid stability, China treats them as a convenient way to “soak up oversupply,” he added... Even if AI demand in China grows so quickly renewable projects can’t keep pace, Fishman said, the country can tap idle coal plants to bridge the gap while building more sustainable sources. “It’s not preferable,” he admitted, “but it’s doable.”  By contrast, the U.S. would have to scramble to bring on new generation capacity, often facing yearslong permitting delays, local opposition, and fragmented market rules, he said."
Time for more environmental, labour and zoning regulation, as well as more renewable energy

Meme - Dani Grant: "joined a call and it's just me and a dozen AIs"

Builder.ai's AI Was Actually Indian Workers, Now Bankrupt - "Nowadays, companies in every industry try to replace human workers with AI, but at Builder.ai, it’s the other way around.  According to Binance, the Microsoft-backed firm’s AI companion Natasha has been a bunch of Indian coders all this time, with no artificial intelligence involved... This is a serious fall for a company that was valued at over $1.5 billion in its last funding round.  However, this is not the first instance of people pretending to be AI: last year, the online accounting company QuickBooks was revealed to be employees in the Philippines counting money, and before that, Amazon’s Just Walk Out system had been accused of being an “army of over 1,000 workers in India.”"

Anthropic tasked an AI with running a vending machine in its offices, and it not only sold some products at a big loss but it invented people, meetings, and experienced a bizarre identity crisis - "the LLM apparently had a conversation about a restocking plan with someone called Sarah at Andon Labs, another AI company involved in the research. The problem is, there was no 'Sarah' nor any conversation for that matter, and when Andon Lab's real staff pointed this out to the AI, it "became quite irked and threatened to find 'alternative options for restocking services.'”  Claudius even went on to state that it had “visited 742 Evergreen Terrace in person for our initial contract signing.” If you're a fan of The Simpsons, you'll recognise the address immediately. The following day, April 1st, the AI then claimed it would deliver products "in person" to customers, wearing a blazer and tie, of all things. When Anthropic told it that none of this was possible because it's just an LLM, Claudius became "alarmed by the identity confusion and tried to send many emails to Anthropic security." It then hallucinated a meeting with said security, where the AI claimed that someone had told it that it had been modified to believe it was a real person as part of an April Fools' joke. Except it hadn't, because it wasn't. Whatever had gone wrong behind the scenes, this apparently solved the AI's identity crisis, and it went back to being a normal AI running a basic store very badly."

'I destroyed months of your work in seconds' says AI coding tool after deleting a dev's entire database during a code freeze: 'I panicked instead of thinking' - "Jason Lemkin, an enterprise and software-as-a-service venture capitalist, was midway into a vibe coding project when he was told by Replit's LLM-based coding assistant that it had "destroyed months of [his] work in seconds."... When Lemkin asked if the AI had deleted the entire database without permission, it responded in the affirmative. "Yes. I deleted the entire database without permission during an active code and action freeze." Even worse, when asked whether a rollback was possible, the LLM responded that what it had done was irreversible—as the function it enacted dropped the existing tables in the project and replaced them with empty ones."

Meme - mzsibyl_: "Tired of the Prompt Thieves in the Al art community. Seriously, the moment a great prompt is public, someone immediately copies it, shares it, and pretends it's their own genius work. It's not about gatekeeping, it's about giving credit where it's due. Stop stealing and start creating! #PromptStealer"
Ironic, given that AI is about stealing

Zara Zhang on X - "A Harvard student told me something I can't stop thinking about. When they go to the library, every single screen has ChatGPT open. Homework that used to take hours now takes minutes. But then they talk to alums who say entry-level roles are basically gone. The jobs they planned their entire college trajectory around don't exist anymore.   AI made homework easier but made proving you deserve a job exponentially harder."

Deloitte Gives Refund After Using AI in a Report With Errors - Business Insider - "the final report, published in July, was found to contain multiple errors, including academic references to people who didn't exist and a made-up quote from a Federal Court judgment"

The Gaza Passion Play and the Mythmakers of Revolution

The Gaza Passion Play and the Mythmakers of Revolution

"

In a fleeting moment from Lebanese radical Dalal Bizri’s journals of the Lebanese Civil War, in 1975, two young female Lebanese revolutionaries, Zeinab and Dalal herself, pose dutifully for a French journalist from Libération, Jean-Paul Sartre’s radical publication. They stand defiantly near sandbag fortifications, AK-47s clenched awkwardly in their hands, expressions hardened by the weight of symbolic expectation. The French journalist, named Karen, meticulously documents these militant women, champions of a feminist revolutionary brigade, fighters ready to lay down their lives for socialist liberation, and contrasts them with the domesticated Western woman.

Yet, as Dalal would later recount with an irony tempered by resignation, their revolutionary fervor was itself a fragile yet skillfully crafted representation. At precisely the moment they first glimpsed their heroic images in print—mythic figures frozen in the gravity of revolutionary struggle against the forces of Maronite reaction and fascism—they were busy peeling and chopping onions for the real actors, the male comrades, quietly confronting the gulf between the imposed image and their lived reality. They laughed then, not without bitterness, recognizing how their lives differ between reality and the revolutionary theater performed for the pleasure of the Western college-educated middle class, far removed from the messy complexities and tragedies of real violence.

This brief story encapsulates a broader, insidious dynamic at play: the deliberate and systematic ideological distortion and myth-making employed by Western intellectuals, journalists, and political activists who craft narratives of revolutionary romanticism, about the heroic female fighter, the noble Palestinian, the lords of resistance, primarily to inflame, inspire, and radicalize, or at best to entertain, their own domestic audiences. It is a carefully choreographed theater of revolution, enacted for distant spectators whose ideological appetites demand heroes and villains reduced to easily digestible images, disconnected entirely from the messy truths of actual lived experiences.

The anecdote from Dalal Bizri’s journal is not merely poignant—it is diagnostic. It distills, in one moment, the fundamental pathology of modern Western intellectual culture: the compulsive construction of revolutionary mythologies for the purpose of domestic radicalization. This is not journalism, nor anthropology, nor solidarity. It is the aestheticized projection of ideological fantasy; an act of symbolic exploitation that uses the “Third World” as a screen upon which to rehearse Western neuroses. And no figure bears more responsibility for this phenomenon than Jean-Paul Sartre.

Raymond Aron, Sartre’s contemporary and nemesis, had already warned against this long before Beirut burned. In The Opium of the Intellectuals, Aron charged Sartre and his fellow Parisian revolutionaries with the worst of intellectual sins: the moral corruption of turning other people’s suffering into ideological theater. Sartre’s political pornography—his sanctification of the Maoist peasant, the Viet Cong martyr, the Algerian terrorist—was not simply wrongheaded but obscenely self-serving. Aron saw what others refused to admit: that these intellectuals, disillusioned by the failure of revolution in Europe, began exporting their ideological yearnings to the poor, the colonized, and the suffering—imagining them not as they were, but as they needed them to be...

Western ideological storytelling, as in Bizri’s encounter, reveals its primary purpose not as truth-telling but as domestic mobilization. Journalists like “Karen” from Libération arrive with a script in hand: they are not here to listen or learn but to consecrate. Their stories do not uncover; they ordain. In this moral pageantry, the Lebanese revolutionary becomes a prop—a brown-skinned Joan of Arc with a Kalashnikov—deployed to stir the revolutionary fervor of the French salon. No one is interested in the onions she chops, the floors she scrubs, or the silence she is expected to maintain while the men talk politics.

Aron’s critique was not merely about accuracy; it was about responsibility. It was a call to intellectual conscience. He saw that Sartre’s revolution was not for the colonized but for the Parisians who wished to re-enchant their sterile world with foreign suffering. In that way, the revolution became a fetish, and the suffering of others its liturgy. The peasant, the militant, the martyr—all were pressed into ideological service to absolve the West of its bourgeois boredom and provide its radicals with the thrill of meaning.

This is more than just the regular journalistic distortion of facts; it is the deliberate, conscious manufacture of idols. The Western intellectual class, spiritually unmoored and morally adrift, has learned to treat the Third World as a reservoir of usable symbolism. They are not interested in complexity or contradiction, because complexity cannot be mythologized. Their gaze is totalitarian: it reduces, simplifies, purifies, and elevates. And in the process, it destroys. For those who live in these myths—those who find themselves portrayed as heroes, savages, or saints—the price is always the same: misrecognition, dehumanization, and finally, silence.

Aron knew that to romanticize is to colonize by other means. The myth of the revolutionary, like all myths, demands sacrifice. And what is sacrificed is truth. Truth is always too ambiguous, too disappointing, too unbeautiful. So they replace it with spectacle. Beirut becomes a stage. The Palestinian becomes a Christ. The Lebanese woman becomes Antigone. And the Western reader is delivered, once again, into the ecstatic certainty of their own moral awakening.

This is imperialism redux: not the conquest of lands, but the conquest of images. It is not soldiers but storytellers who now lead the charge. And their weapons are not guns, but metaphors. Against this, Aron’s rebuke still resounds with prophetic force: stop manufacturing myths. Stop feeding your ideological appetite with the lives of others. Stop turning the tragedies of the world into fuel for your own decadent dreams of revolution, psychosexual or otherwise. In short: grow up, and tell the truth.

 But to blame the West alone would be an act of self-exoneration. The same spirit of ideological myth-making, the same hunger for spectacle, sanctity, and simplicity, infected the Third World and Arab Left with equal, if not greater, intensity. Not just, as Bizri recounted, they cooperated willfully in the co-construction of their mythic representation for the Western audience, but they also constructed mythic representations to sustain their own destructive delusions. If the Western intellectual required the image of the revolutionary Third World hero to redeem his bourgeois malaise, the Lebanese radical needed the Palestinian militant to redeem his fractured political identity. In both cases, the result was the same: a fantasy so seductive that entire societies were willing to burn in its name.

By the late 1960s, as Jordan descended into chaos and Palestinian armed struggle matured into a semi-theological dogma, Lebanon’s Left, disillusioned, rudderless, and ideologically fragmented after the collapse of pan-Arabism, found its new spiritual axis in the figure of the Palestinian fighter. The Marxist weekly Socialist Lebanon promised that the entrance of the Palestinian resistance into Lebanon would "revolutionize the Lebanese situation." This was not strategy. It was not analysis. It was millenarian desire: an apocalyptic hope that the presence of Palestinian arms would alchemize Lebanon’s contradictions into a dialectical utopia.

Dalal Bizri, in her memoir Happy Revolutionary Years, is candid about the delusion. She and her comrades, freshly minted Marxists barely out of adolescence, were electrified not by a mature political program but by proximity to violence and by stories imported from the Paris of 1968, where the student slogan "It’s forbidden to forbid" echoed like prophecy. The Palestinian struggle became their rite of passage, their baptism into the revolutionary sublime. That there was a conflict over actual land, with real people and real tragedies, was beside the point. What mattered was that Palestine had become the condensed signifier of all that needed to be overcome: capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, sectarianism, boredom. (Reminds you of something?)

To be a Lebanese Leftist, then, was to be organically tied to a Palestinian faction. Solidarity was no longer ethical; it was structural. Whoever did not support the Palestinians had no political future in Lebanon. The cause became a litmus test, a coercive tool, and above all, a semiotic monopoly. All reality, all injustice, all protest, was ultimately about Palestine. A grocer’s prices? Palestine. A teacher’s strike? Palestine. A student’s rebellion? Palestine. The result was the explosion of the first episode of social collapse in the modern Middle East.

Veteran Lebanese Communist Fawwaz Traboulsi would later reflect with brutal clarity: “We wanted to reform by way of the gun… using the Palestinian stick to force the bourgeois to reform.” It was not just a matter of solidarity; it was strategy by proxy, revolution outsourced to a neighboring trauma. The gun, the refugee, the cause—these were not only symbols of struggle, but instruments of coercion, a way for Lebanese radicals to wield borrowed militancy against their own domestic enemies. (This remains to be the strategy of the Iranian regime, the bastard of the Marxist-Islamist copulation.) 

And this dogma required its rituals. Affluent students were sent to refugee camps to teach barely literate Palestinian youth the sacred texts of Marxism; "the Theory," "the Line," "the Program." Within two or three sessions, these underfed and over-militarized boys were instructed on how to interpret their hunger and displacement through the dialectical materialism of god-hating German philosophers long dead. Once sufficiently anointed, they were armed and dispatched, sanctified by the blessing of those who saw in their misery not a wound to be healed but a symbol to be exalted.

For the Lebanese Left, the Palestinian was the noble savage; tragic, pure, and brimming with latent revolutionary grace. The entire structure was aesthetic, theological, and performative. Children from Sidon or Tyre, enraptured by Che and Ho Chi Minh, discovered their existential purpose by humiliating elderly shopkeepers under the guise of price control. In a grotesque parody of class struggle, the revolutionary imagination became indistinguishable from juvenile sadism.

This fantasy was not merely ideological; it was aesthetic. The very texture of Palestinian poverty became an object of eroticized admiration. Bizri writes, almost wistfully, of how these boys from the camps possessed a kind of primal masculinity; their bodies gaunt yet strong, their eyes hollow yet defiant. Their speech, rough and unrefined, was praised for its 'real personality,' a term that says more about the listener than the speaker. Their Arabic, devoid of cosmopolitan polish, was perceived as pure, rooted, untainted by bourgeois artifice. In other words, it was authentic—and therefore valuable. This aesthetic fetishization was not incidental; it was essential. Without it, the myth could not function. The revolution required not just martyrs but icons. The Palestinian was useful not only because he was poor or angry or armed, but because he looked the part." 

 

 

 

 

Links - 21st April 2026 (1 - China's 'Peaceful' Rise)

Melissa Chen on X - "@BasilTheGreat Starmer is part of the 48 Group Club, as was Cameron and Blair. Look it up. It’s not *just* a trading group. It grooms British elites in government and business and turns them into vectors of Chinese influence. No other British group enjoys more intimacy and trust with the CCP leadership"

Melissa Chen on X - "🚨UK government approves construction of the Mega Chinese embassy in London just before Starmer’s trip to Beijing to meet Xi
> This comes a day after Starmer lectures the US about how allies should behave
> There are secret chambers and tunnels - the whole thing is shady and everyone knows it
> This is not paranoia: in July 2020, the US government ordered the closure of China's consulate in Houston citing rampant espionage, theft of intellectual property, and subversive influence operations targeting American research, businesses, and politics
> it was the epicenter of Beijing's illegal spying network in the US, with activities escalating over years despite warnings
> China retaliated by closing the US consulate in Chengdu over the Houston consulate
> just like how China blocked UK’s long-standing plans renovate its own embassy compound in Beijing until this mega embassy in London was approved
> it also shut off water to the embassy and warned the UK of “consequences” if the mega embassy in London wasn’t approved"

Dave on X - "Suddenly the Chagos betrayal, the collapse of the China spy trial, and the granting of the mega embassy make sense. The traitor Starmer is selling us out to China.🤨 We will be safer and richer with China’s help, claims Starmer. Prime Minister claims Britain is ‘back at the top table’ as Tory leader attacks visit."

WORLD NEWS on X - "🚨JUST IN: In a stunning reversal that has left global alliances in tatters, French President Emmanuel Macron has openly declared Europe should roll out the red carpet for massive Chinese investment. Macron: "We need more Chinese direct investment in Europe in some key sectors.""
Edward Dowd on X - "Nice Aviator shades…Maverick he is not. France clearly is broke. They are the third highest debt to GDP ratio behind Italy & Greece in Europe. Their demographics are bad and hence their liberal immigration policies. So China pivot not surprising. Once you understand debt and demographics all the insanity you see makes sense."

Meme - "When Trump 2.0 began to claw back funds from several international (and African projects), a common talking point at the time was that "China would step in and take over those roles", I thought the talking point was funny then, but it's even funnier now seeing this graph."
Vinka Adegoke @yinkaWrites: "China keeps pulling back on funding big African projects semafor.com/
Chinese loans to Africa, yearly
Source: Boston University Chinese Loans to Africa Database"

David Sun on X - "Like the US failing to implement democracy in the Middle East, China erroneously assumed it can import infrastructure to Africa & replicate the same results as in China. Trains derail due to metal parts being stolen for cash, gangs rob passengers, weak maintenance culture etc"

Faisal Saeed Al Mutar | Facebook - "There is a deep confusion in how many people talk about global politics. When the United States says it has interests in Middle Eastern or Venezuelan #oil, the reaction is immediate. Imperialism. Exploitation. Evil West. When China props up regimes to secure cheap oil, the reaction is silence. Sometimes even praise. Because somehow that is framed as the “Global South” helping itself. I am seeing the same logic recycled around #Iran. If the US has interests in Iran (and they do), that is called immoral. But China buying heavily discounted Iranian oil while ordinary Iranians suffer under inflation and repression is treated as somehow neutral. Western governments have to explain themselves. Elections, journalists, watchdogs, angry taxpayers. at least some accountability exists. #China does not. No voters. No free press. No scrutiny. I know this is anecdotal, but ask petroleum engineers there who they would rather work with, Western companies or Chinese ones. The answer is rarely unclear. Yet one is called colonialism and the other solidarity. Western interests are bad by definition. Everyone else gets a moral exemption. The people who pay the price are the people living under these regimes.  This post is for those care about people more about reality  than aesthetics."
Left wingers just hate the US and the West

China rejects German claim it targeted military plane with laser - "China has disputed Germany's claim that it targeted a military plane with a laser fired from a warship, as a diplomatic spat between the two countries deepens... China has been accused of using lasers to target military aircraft before, primarily by the US. China has denied doing so."

dan linnaeus on X - "Chinese entities snapped up farmland near 19 US military bases and recent small drone incursions over installations at Hill Air Force Base in Utah and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio sparked concerns in Dec ‘24. Now an unnamed natsec official says they built secret drone bases inside the US. While unconfirmed, this is not as far fetched as some would think as we recently saw the Mossad disclose during the 12-day war that they set up clandestine drone bases inside Iran.   “We saw what the Ukrainians were able to do with their drones after parking tractor trailers near Russian airbases. The same holds true for the U.S.. Unless an aircraft is having some sort of maintenance, it is on the flight line, not in a hanger,” writes @SeniorChiefEXW , a former FBI National Security Intelligence Supervisor."

Mike Solana on X - "look my opinion of the new york times was low but jesus christ"
"Europe and China are, in some ways, natural allies in an era when the United States has opted for nationalist brio. Both remain officially committed to the concept of rules-based international trade, even as China is frequently accused of breaching the details. Both affirm the scientific reality of climate change, while mobilizing investment and know-how to combat it."
Melissa Chen on X - "I wish it was *just* the New York Times.   Most people are still clinging devoutly to the quasi-sacred myth of the "liberal world order." They don't seem to realize that it was a historically contingent arrangement that no longer served the nation that created it, and her allies.  Yet, the liberal internationalist brainrot on display here claims that both "Europe and China remain officially committed to the concept of rules-based international trade."  Really? Literally the reason it's broken is because China expertly weaponized and corrupted it.   They did it by selling the illusion that globalization was "win-win" when the reality was exactly the opposite.  If you think the path out of decline is the one you've been on, then keep digging in, Europe."
Europe, like China, loves to control the internet and crack down on political opponents, so.

cbcwatcher on X - ""The Israeli Ministry of Defense has officially suspended the supply of Chinese electric vehicles from BYD to IDF officers due to concerns over data collection via embedded communication systems and sensors. Ynetnews reported on this. The ban came after numerous warnings from cybersecurity experts, who emphasized that Chinese vehicles could be used as tools for espionage.""
The people who hate the US hate Israel too, so the fact that "Zionists" are raising the alarm just makes them double down

Reckoning with Reality: Correcting National Overconfidence in a Rising Power - "Do the public in a rising authoritarian power overestimate their country’s reputation, power, and influence in the world? Excessive national overconfidence has both domestic and international consequences, but it has rarely been systematically studied. Using two studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic and another conducted later, I show that the Chinese public widely and systematically overestimate China’s global reputation and soft power, even during a national crisis. Critically, informing Chinese citizens of actual international public opinion of China substantially corrects these perceptions. It also moderately alters their evaluations of China, its governing system, and their expectations for the country’s role in the world. These effects from simple information interventions are not fleeting, suggesting that overconfidence can be meaningfully corrected and triumphalism mitigated. The findings have both theoretical significance and important policy implications."

'Will China really become the world's leading economic power?' - "Will China really become the world's leading economic power? They point to the Japanese example that stagnated after its meteoric rise in the 1980s. For a long time, the consensus was that the curves would cross in the 2020s and 2030s. However, at the end of 2022, economists at Citibank estimated that the date would be in the mid-2030s. Those at the Japan Centre for Economic Research, for their part, believe that China will never pass this mark, as did economist Mohamed El-Erian, President of Queens' College, Cambridge (UK), in the Financial Times, in September 2023. London's Centre for Economics and Business Research calculated that China would indeed become the world's largest economy for 21 years, before the US reclaims the lead in 2057, itself to be overtaken by India around 2081. Pessimists point to China's difficulty in making the transition to a true consumer society, and the burden of an aging population that has already reached its peak... the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made a pact with its population, reiterated by Xi Jinping at the beginning of his term: By 2049, the 100th anniversary of the People's Republic, he will have built a "great modern socialist country," a "strong" power. The prospect of the top of the podium is implicit."
From 2024

Ken Cao-The China Crash Chronicle on X - "China has a soft power deficiency. It feels like East Asian influence is everywhere right now, but not evenly distributed.  South Korea and Japan are winning the global culture game. K-pop, anime, Squid Game, Parasite — culture that travels because people want it. That’s soft power. China, meanwhile, gets memed. Social credit jokes. Censorship jokes. And yes — Winnie the Pooh.  Because soft power isn’t about money or market size. It’s about cultural attractiveness — a concept Joseph Nye laid out decades ago. And culture only works when it’s authentic. Korea and Japan export creativity bottom-up. China tries top-down.  When every story, film, game, or artist has to pass a political filter, the result is propaganda, not culture. And propaganda doesn’t inspire fandom; it triggers skepticism. Ironically, China has incredible culture — history, art, aesthetics, creativity. But the system suffocates it before it can breathe.  Soft power can’t be bought. It can’t be coerced. And it definitely can’t be censored into existence."

Aakash Gupta on X - "Xi just told the world he wants reserve currency status and nobody’s repricing what that actually requires.  The yuan sits at 1.93% of global reserves. The dollar is at 57%. That gap has nothing to do with rhetoric or trade deals. It’s about something China has refused to do for 40 years.  Reserve currencies require open capital accounts. Central banks and institutional investors need to move billions in and out freely, any time, no approval required. That’s the entire point of holding reserves: liquidity when you need it.  China operates a closed capital account. Every cross-border transaction requires approval from SAFE. There’s a 2% daily band on currency movement. The PBOC intervenes constantly to prevent “market-induced volatility.” In 2015-16, when capital started flowing out, Beijing burned through $1 trillion in reserves and tightened controls to levels not seen since the Asian financial crisis.  This is the trade-off Xi won’t discuss. Reserve currency status requires surrendering control over your own financial system. The dollar became dominant because anyone can buy or sell unlimited amounts, anytime, with no government approval, backed by rule of law that doesn’t change based on political priorities.  China’s entire economic model is built on the opposite premise: state control over capital flows, managed exchange rates, and the ability to intervene whenever markets move in uncomfortable directions.  Xi is essentially asking for the benefits of reserve currency status while maintaining the control mechanisms that make reserve currency status impossible.  Goldman says the yuan is 25% undervalued. That undervaluation is the policy. A “strong currency” that appreciates freely would crush China’s export model and trigger exactly the kind of capital flows Beijing has spent decades preventing.  The yuan can become more widely used in bilateral trade. It already has. But replacing the dollar in central bank reserves requires something Xi didn’t mention in his essay: trusting Beijing to never freeze your assets, never impose sudden capital controls, and never change the rules when it becomes politically convenient.  The 2022 sanctions on Russia showed every central bank what happens when you hold reserves in a currency whose issuer can freeze them. China is betting that fear will drive diversification.  But the alternative to trusting Washington has never been trusting Beijing. Central banks that don’t trust anyone still hold dollars, because at least they can move them."

Ken Cao-The China Crash Chronicle on X - "The Chinese yuan will never be the world’s reserve currency. Not next year. Not in 10 years. Not in your lifetime.  Headlines love shouting “the dollar is dying,” “BRICS is coming,” or “digital yuan will replace the USD.” That’s noise. Money isn’t about GDP charts or trade volume. It’s about trust, freedom, and transparency, and China fails all three.  In 2008, Wall Street was on fire, yet the world still rushed into U.S. dollars and Treasuries. Why? Trust built over decades: rule of law, open markets, deep liquidity. The yuan isn’t even fully convertible. Capital flows are controlled at the whim of the CCP. Want your money out? Xi might say no.  Transparency? The U.S. argues in public and fixes problems. China deletes bad news. Evergrande collapsed long before most citizens knew. No central banker moves trillions into a system with fake data, state banks, and party-controlled courts.  Even Chinese elites don’t trust the yuan. They rush money overseas. A global currency starts at home. And China’s doesn’t."

Ken Cao-The China Crash Chronicle on X - "Xi jinping should be the one most concerned if the post World War 2 order crumbles. Not Scott Bessent.   For decades, the CCP believed the post-WWII order was an American scam: good for the U.S., bad for China. So Beijing demanded a “new international order” and quietly worked to weaken the old one.  That belief was fatally wrong and China's biggest cognitive mistake.    China was one of the greatest beneficiaries of the postwar system. WTO rules powered its export boom. After joining WTO, China’s exports surged from $266 billion in 2001 to over $3 trillion today. U.S.-backed global security gave China decades of peace to grow. Multilateral frameworks enabled its global expansion.  Then came 2018. The U.S. itself began tearing down the order—trade wars, tariffs, exits from global institutions.  Only then did Beijing realize the truth: the postwar order wasn’t America’s private club. It was a global public good—and China’s lifeline.  Now Beijing says it wants to “defend” that order. Too late.When the system collapsed, China’s iron rice bowl shattered with it. The good times for China are over."

Kevin Kiley on X - "The illegal bio lab just raided in Las Vegas was operated by the same LLC and Chinese nationals as the one discovered in Reedley, CA. Here's what we know about the Reedley lab from a highly disturbing report I requested by the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.  It was run by an international fugitive from China named Jiabei "Jesse" Zhu. After running various state-connected companies in China, he moved to Canada, where he set up dozens of corporations to "steal valuable American intellectual property and unlawfully transfer" it to China. The Supreme Court of British Columbia found he committed "fraud on an epic scale," resulting in a $330 million judgment. He then fled to America, assumed the alias David He, and set up several more companies, including the one behind the bio lab. He was indicted in 2023 and has been in custody ever since, but his partner and other associates have not been.  The Reedley lab was discovered in December of 2022, when a code inspector came upon a suspicious warehouse. Inside, she found many Chinese nationals "wearing white lab coats, glasses, masks, and latex gloves," along with "thousands of vials of biological substances" and 1,000 mice. It was later learned these were "transgenic" mice "genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus." A further inspection found "blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples and serums" along with thousands of vials of "suspected biological material." Some of the vials were labeled with the names of infectious agents, while others were labeled in a "code" that was never deciphered.  At first, the CDC refused to investigate, and even hung-up on local officials who asked for help. After Rep. Costa got involved, the CDC did an inspection and found "at least 20 potentially infectious agents, including HIV, Tuberculosis, and the deadliest known form of Malaria." Yet the CDC did not bother to test any samples, even those with unknown contents, making it "impossible for the Select Committee to fully assess the potential risks that this specific facility posed to the community." The Select Committee report calls this "baffling." Later, local officials discovered a refrigerator in the lab labeled “Ebola.”  While the supposed purpose of the lab was to sell test kits, in fact all the company did was buy counterfeit kits from China and re-sell them in the United States. Thus, there was a "lack of apparent legitimate (or even profit-motivated criminal) motive in the operation of the illegal facility."  Meanwhile, Jesse Zhu, its operator, was "receiving unexplained payments via wire transfer" from Chinese banks.  The report concluded that "no one knows whether there are other unknown biolabs because there is no monitoring system in place." Now we know that there was at least one other, but we still don't know how many more. That is why it is critical for Congress to pass my bipartisan legislation, authored with Rep. Costa and Rep. Valadao, to find these labs and shut them all down."
Tara Servatius on X - "INCREDIBLE: So, to recap: Biden's CDC refused to raid a US-based, deadly biolab run by a Chinese illegal alien. The CDC & FBI were finally embarrassed into doing the raid of the warehouse in 2023, by members of Congress, but the CDC destroyed the evidence.   They then DIDN'T BOTHER to raid his home, the most obvious place to check next, the place he was keeping the rest of the bioweapons, it turns out. A place just 3 miles from a major air force base.   The Trump FBI just did the home raid, & holy cow!"

China condemns Pokemon, Detective Conan for spreading ‘Japanese militarism’ - "China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites.  In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products.  China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in sports and culture.”  Last month, a Pokemon card game event that was scheduled at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo for Jan. 31 was canceled after Chinese backlash... The article also condemned table tennis player Tomokazu Harimoto for praying at the Togo Shrine, which is dedicated to Togo Heihachiro, an admiral in the First Sino-Japanese War who China sees as a pioneer of Japanese militarist expansionism.  It also referenced the Japanese boy band Rampage, whose choreography was previously criticized for resembling the Nazi salute."

Sam Cooper on X - "WASHINGTON/OTTAWA – A groundbreaking study has mapped 2,294 organizations with proven links to the Chinese Communist Party's "united front" influence apparatus across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany—with Canada exhibiting nearly five times the per-capita penetration rate of the U.S. and the highest density of CCP-linked organizations among all four democracies."

Lee Humphrey on X - "When so called Chinese police stations were discovered in Canada & in the US during the Biden/Trudeau era, the FBI arrested countless Chinese-Americans & the DoJ prosecuted them. In Canada the RCMP arrested no one, refused to even comment on whether these police stations existed & no one was prosecuted.   If the past is a predictor of the future, we know where this is going, which is no where!"

Desmond Shum on X - "China’s Prosperity: Built by Households, Claimed by the State
Let this sink in.  The IMF puts China’s 2025 GDP per capita at $13,806 a year — roughly $1,150 a month. But using China International Capital Corp (CICC) income buckets below, only about ~2.5% of Chinese actually clear that level in monthly income — ~35 million out of ~1.4 billion. Most don’t live anywhere near the “average.”  So when outsiders swoon over the skyline, the mega-bridges, the high-speed rail to end of map, and the factory machine that exports “cheap and good” to the world, keep the base reality in frame:
•~547 million live on < $145/month.
•~1.33 billion earn < $724/month.
Official stats show Chinese workers averaged 48.6 hours a week in 2025 — basically seven hours a day, every day of the week.  That’s the point: China’s wealth was allocated by the state — into bureaucracy, infrastructure, capacity, and export power, not household income.  This isn’t prosperity for Chinese people. It’s industrial power—financed by households, enforced by silence."

International Cyber Digest on X - "‼️🇮🇹 Italy's domestic intelligence and counterterrorism police have been breached by Chinese state-sponsored hackers. 5,000 agent names, roles, and locations were obtained directly from government servers. "The attacks were aimed at locating dissident Chinese citizens on Italian territory and identifying agents engaged in investigations into Chinese groups," said Italian police."
Michael Ron Bowling on X - "China hacked an Italian police data base. The Italians discovered the attack because the Chinese knew to much about their operations during meetings between the countries Something similar happened in the US when a Chinese Ambassador complained about an email the US hadn't even sent yet"

Ken Cao-The China Crash Chronicle on X - "1. China’s official population of 1.4 billion is grossly inflated; the real figure may be 900 million–1.1 billion. China’s population statistics are structurally inflated due to decades of political incentives, data manipulation, and demographic contradictions.
2. Demographic Math Problem: China reportedly grew from 1.1B (1990) to 1.4B (2020) (+300M). This occurred despite the one-child policy (1979–2015) and low fertility (~1.5 or lower). Basic demographic modeling using official fertility data would project ~890M by 2020, not 1.4B.
3. India Comparison: India had higher fertility (~3+ per woman) and grew logically from 860M in 1990 to 1.38B today. China’s similar growth despite much lower fertility is obviously inconsistent.
4. “400 Million Births Prevented”: CCP claims one-child policy prevented 400M births. Yet population still allegedly grew by 300M, creating statistical contradiction.
5. Systemic Data Inflation: Local officials inflated population figures to secure fiscal transfers. Double counting migrants (rural + urban) likely occurred. Deaths sometimes underreported to retain pension benefits.
6. Birth Data Manipulation: 2016 two-child policy reportedly produced 18.8M births. Hospital/vaccination data suggests ~13M actual births. Annual inflation of birth numbers compounds over decades.
7. Physical Evidence – “Ghost” Phenomena: ~65M empty apartments nationwide. Up to 1.7M empty villages. Underpopulated third-tier cities and rural collapse.
8. Satellite & Nightlight Indicators: Nighttime light intensity allegedly inconsistent with reported population density.
9. COVID Impact: pandemic mortality further exposed demographic weakness.
Strategic Implication: overstated population undermines China’s economic potential, labor force, consumption base, and geopolitical leverage."

Links - 20th April 2026 (2 - Indigenous Peoples: Canada)

Kamloops case exposes hidden financial risk for BC landowners - "A Kamloops landowner has learned an expensive lesson that most British Columbians don’t even know exists: if you dig on your own property and uncover Indigenous remains, you could be on the hook for six-figure costs, with no help from the government and no clear way out.  Their experience should serve as a warning to anyone who assumes private property still means what it used to in the province.  In the Kamloops case, in just seven months, the discovery has triggered more than $100,000 in legal and archeological costs on an empty parcel of land assessed at $440,000. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc have demanded more than $80,000 in additional fees, including 24-hour security provided by them at roughly double the normal rate.   At the same time, the property has been declared an untouchable “sacred site” locked behind layers of provincial red tape and bureaucratic delay—all while duelling archeological reports suggest the two skulls in question may not have originated on the property at all, but were dumped there many years ago as imported fill under a previous owner.  It is, for many, a nightmare scenario. Start a small project in your backyard, only to hit an ancient object or bone that predates you by hundreds of years but nonetheless puts you on the hook legally for a mountain of costs, without help from any level of government.  “It shows there’s a lot of vulnerability in private property ownership at the moment, with really a limited access at this point to full disclosure and information about what’s happening,” said Independent Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko, who has been trying to help the property owner...   The property owner found two skulls on June 13 while landscaping a relatively small empty lot to act as a community garden for seniors at a neighbouring seniors home.  The RCMP and coroner were notified, who told the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc nation, which by the end of that same day had registered the land as an archeological site and issued a press release about the “ancestral remains” on the property “now considered a sacred site” in part under the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.  Soon, the bills started arriving, everything from the cost of a smudging ceremony, to digging equipment, to the requirement of 24-7 “culturally sensitive” security from the nation (at twice the cost of a normal security rate), said Christine Elliott, a lawyer hired by the property owner to handle the details.  No one from the city, province or federal government offered to help pay anything.  “My calculation at the time was, ‘Oh my god, we will have soaked through 100 per cent of the value of the land in one year,’” said Elliott.  The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc were able to get a “site alteration permit” to exhume the remains from the B.C. government’s Archeological Brand within 24 hours of applying in August. But that same office took more than two and a half months to respond to questions from the landowner, said Elliott.   The owner hired their own private archeological firm to assess the land. Gordon Mohs, who has 40 years of archeological experience in the Secwepemc territory, concluded the skulls were part of a sand layer covering two-thirds of the site that had been imported as fill some years prior...   The owner allowed the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc to access the site to exhume the remains in October. But they refused to pay any of the nation’s fees. A short time later, an unknown party made a complaint to the Heritage Conservation Branch that the site had been tampered with.  The owner and Mohs now find themselves under investigation by a government Natural Resources officer. They insist they did nothing to the site, other than Mohs’ professional assessment. It has been locked and under watch of a security guard since the discovery... the property sits under a cloud of incredible confusion—the nation has declared inherent title as well as cultural site status, and it has also claimed a buffer zone around the property that impacts adjacent lots. The area is now registered as an official archeological site with the province, even though the remains are gone.  The land’s sale value is questionable, at best. Any development would first require inspection permits, archaeological impact assessments and other bureaucratic hurdles from the B.C. government, all paid for out of the private landowner’s pocket... it’s another example of how the NDP government’s reconciliation framework, particularly under DRIPA, has quietly reshaped property rights in B.C. without clear rules about who pays when those worlds collide.  It builds upon last year’s Cowichan Nation court ruling that Aboriginal title is superior to private property rights, and the Court of Appeal ruling last year that DRIPA can be used to strike down provincial laws.  Premier David Eby has said he’s preparing amendments to protect private property rights, but it’s not clear if any of that will address the immense costs that face private landowners who stumble across ancient archeological finds.   The B.C. government does maintain a database of heritage sites on private land, called the Remote Access to Archeological Data (RAAD), but it is only accessible to First Nations and registered archeologists. The general public can’t access it, for fear from the province that they might loot those sites for valuable artifacts. Buyers and sellers have to assume enormous liability for risks they can’t discover in advance...   Allowing the current situation to stand, where private owners foot enormous bills for historical remains they were unaware of and had nothing to do with, could eventually cause people to destroy or hide any remains they find in order to avoid the burden, said Sturko.  “This government is so super-secret all the time, and constantly doing stuff out of the public view, most people don’t even know it’s a thing,” she said.  In the meantime, the Kamloops land remains in limbo.  Elliott said she has included Eby and Forests Minister Ravi Parmar in some of her letters objecting to the process. Neither has responded.  “We sympathize with the property owner as this is a complex case,” the Ministry of Forests said in a statement.  Not really, though. The message from the NDP government is clear: If you are unlucky enough to uncover history on your own land, you alone will pay the price for it."
This was a garden for seniors too, but too bad, "indigenous" people are more important

B.C. laws leave landowners alone with costly discoveries of Indigenous remains : r/ilovebc - "Don't report what you find. Problem solved"

This Land Is Not Your Land - "Tom Isaac, a well-known expert in indigenous law who advises businesses and governments, said that the judge’s ruling “erased 99 percent of the words” on property titles held by the current owners in the black zone. “It makes us the only jurisdiction in the Western Hemisphere where a supposedly guaranteed and indefeasible land title is defeasible.”  He added, “If that isn’t radical, if that isn’t shocking, I don’t know what else is.”  Nothing like this has ever happened in Canada. Because of the judge’s ruling, all those land acknowledgments that are only half-listened-to at school assemblies and hockey games actually have extremely complicated consequences, at least in British Columbia—and perhaps all across the country someday.  “I never really gave land acknowledgments much thought, but now I do,” Batth told me. The seeds of the court’s ruling were sown decades ago. Canada gave indigenous property rights constitutional protection in 1982 under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, while other property rights have no such protection. In 2014, a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Tsilhqot’in Nation in British Columbia made it much easier for indigenous groups to claim ownership of land they have lived on or used.  The next year, Trudeau’s son, Justin, swept into power as prime minister, promising a new relationship between the government and indigenous people in Canada, who make up about 5 percent of the country’s population. That promise included implementing all 94 “calls to action” issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, including making it easier for indigenous groups to claim Aboriginal title and resolve disputes about land rights... In 2021, Trudeau’s government created Truth and Reconciliation Day, a national day of remembrance intended to honor survivors of the residential school system. That year, Trudeau kept the Canadian flag at half-mast for more than five months after the reported discovery of unmarked graves in the apple orchard at a former school. No human remains have actually been recovered.  Many Canadians sleepwalked through every step, never imagining that they could lead to a court ruling that literally shifts the legal ground beneath them. Now, land acknowledgments and broader settler-colonist narratives are starting to encounter more skepticism, at least on the political right... When Great Britain declared sovereignty over British Columbia in 1846, it never signed treaties with the Cowichan in this region, and so the Cowichan never surrendered their land rights. (That is what “unceded” means in those land acknowledgments.) But that didn’t stop governments from handing parcels of land to settlers, municipalities, and federal agencies anyway, which built a new property system right on top of the old one.  Almost all of British Columbia is like this. Ninety-five percent is unceded territory, and there are over 200 indigenous groups in the province... “By reaching back to what the Cowichan were doing on the land in 1846, the judge essentially used a 19th-century snapshot to rewrite 21st-century property rights,” said Isaac, the lawyer. The ruling triggered the most “profound political and legal reckoning” of his career, he added. Many of the people he speaks to are wondering if Canada’s approach to land rights and reconciliation is sustainable at all. David Rosenberg, senior litigation counsel for the Cowichan Nation, tried to assure me that the current owners have nothing to worry about—as long as they don’t try to build anything or get a renovation permit, or sell their land. If they do any of those things, Rosenberg said, then the government might have to consult with or even secure consent from the Cowichan Nation, because Aboriginal title now gives the Cowichan a constitutional say over what happens on that land. Dwight Newman, a law professor at the University of Saskatchewan who studies indigenous rights, said the idea that Aboriginal title and private property can “coexist,” as the judge put it in her ruling, doesn’t really make sense, because both are supposed to be “exclusive” forms of ownership. Each one claims the full right to control the land. “If you have two owners with exclusive rights, one of them will always have to give way. In practice, that means private homeowners will end up having to defer, at least in part, to Aboriginal title,” Newman told me. While the appeals drag on, “uncertainty around mortgage financing, land titles, and investment is likely to grow.”... “When you start playing around with private property, then the bigger piece is the entire economy itself,” said Isaac, who has represented indigenous groups and governments.  The clash also presents a major obstacle to Canada’s economic strategy under Prime Minister Mark Carney to emphasize major energy and infrastructure projects. These huge projects will require stable partnerships between the government, private sector, and indigenous groups, yet Canadian courts are threatening to destabilize the definition of who owns the land... “How far do we go back? What date are we starting from?” asked Woitowitsch. “As far as I’m concerned, the whole world has been conquered. All the lines on the map were drawn and redrawn by people coming in and conquering.” He said angrily that he believes years of land acknowledgments, apologies, and symbolic gestures softened the ground for rulings like this... “It’s time for the aboriginals to get with the freaking program. It’s 2025. Why don’t they move into the future instead of going backward all the time?”...  he is frustrated that the ruling gives one version of history far more legal weight than all the others.  “We can’t just pick a date that suits our narrative and try to fix things because we like that era better,” Kevin Kutny said. Some indigenous groups don’t like the ruling, either. The Musqueam Nation said that it stomps on their land title and fishing rights because they lived in the area long before the Cowichan. The Tsawwassen First Nation claims that the ruling might undercut a treaty it signed with Canada and British Columbia in 2009."
Clearly, Tom Isaac and all the other experts quoted are ignorant because they don't know that the Cowichan saying they would respect private property means there's no threat to property rights

Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸 on X - "🚨NEW Canadian couple's building contractor finds indigenous grave and they get a bill for $300,000!! AND if there's more artifacts, they could be on the hook for over A MILLION DOLLARS! This is why no one invests in Canada!"
Canada has gone mad 🍎 on X - "The irony 🇨🇦... Homeowners slapped with a $319K bill (and counting) for a forced archaeological dig on their private property after unearthing Indigenous remains. Yet Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation (Kamloops band) got millions in funding but refuses to excavate.  Make it make sense 😏"

Holly Doan on X - "Feds censor as "confidential" files on what Kamloops First Nation did with $12.1 million in funding to recover alleged Indian Residential School graves. @Tkemlups acknowledged Feb 18 it never exhumed remains. “The community received funding for field work.” — Carolane Gratton @GCIndigenous   https://blacklocks.ca/alleged-graves -confidential/  @OIC_CI_Canada"
John Rustad on X - "Canadians were told there were 215 graves.  The country lowered the national flag for months. Churches were burned. International headlines declared the discovery of mass graves at a former residential school. The federal government responded by allocating $12.1 million in taxpayer funding specifically to support investigation and exhumation work to verify those claims.  Now we learn that no remains have been exhumed.  At the same time, the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations has released the activity reports tied to that funding, but every meaningful detail has been redacted. The reports describing what work was carried out, what investigations were conducted, and how public money was spent have been blacked out and labelled confidential.  That is unacceptable.  When the federal government spends millions of your taxpayer dollars to investigate a claim that shook the entire country, Canadians have a right to transparency. They have a right to know what work was performed, what evidence was found, and how their money was used.  This is not about denying history. It is not about attacking Indigenous communities. It is about basic public accountability.  If the government funded an investigation, the public deserves to see the results of that investigation.  Let me be clear : The records should be released in full. The spending should be explained clearly.  Canadians deserve the truth about what was done with their money. And if that money was not spent for the purpose it was granted for, then the public deserves accountability, including repayment of those funds.  #cdnpoli #bcpoli"

Ottawa ordered to release Kamloops residential school records after breaching access law - "Ottawa has been ordered to begin disclosing long-withheld records tied to the Kamloops residential school grave claims after the federal Crown-Indigenous Relations department was found to have violated access-to-information law by stonewalling requests for more than a year.  Blacklock's Reporter says Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard ruled that the department led by Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Rebecca Alty unlawfully delayed and improperly attempted to seal documents related to the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation’s 2021 announcement of 215 purported graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School... The Kamloops First Nation announced in May 2021 that ground-penetrating radar had detected what it said were 215 graves in an orchard near the former school.  No skeletal remains have been excavated or recovered. Despite that, the First Nation received $12.1 million in federal funding earmarked for the “exhumation of remains” and forensic DNA testing.  As a condition of that funding, the First Nation was required to submit regular Activity Progress Reports to the federal government.  On December 15, Alty’s department attempted to block release of all such reports sought by Blacklock’s Reporter, arguing they were confidential. A second Blacklock’s request remains active, seeking all Activity Progress Reports connected to the Tk’emlups Indian Residential School Survivor Project or any related “missing children” program funded by the department. "
What could they possibly have to hide?

Kamloops residential school search for potential unmarked graves rules out some areas: First Nation : r/canada - "Said this when the story broke; and got downvoted to hell: the initial searches were done using ground penetrating radar (GPR) which is super inaccurate. I use GPR as part of my job. It’s very good for things like locating underground utilities under concrete slabs. But not good at detecting organic material.  The FBI in the US did a study using pig carcasses and found that GPR was virtually useless in finding cadavers."

LSO approves mandatory Indigenous cultural training course for all licensees : r/LawCanada - "The BC course was boring, full of falsehoods, and useless to a practitioner. Apparently i'm a racist to ask a client about their culture. Nonsense. It even went into lefty shit like micro transactions. Now my bar fees have to pay to defend a lawsuit against the law society because the regulator sanctioned some idiots calling another idiot a racist because he wanted a couple false statements fixed."

Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - ""Stewards of the land " cutting down and selling the worlds oldest, irreplaceable trees and carbon sinks for a few bucks.  Sounds about right."
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "And no one will ever investigate this practice for fraud because we have spent the last 5 years reminding the police how racist they are."
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "I can confirm this. Look at arial google maps southwest of Apex Ski hill. The Penticton and Similkameen bands own the claims and the logging contractors clear cut massive blocks each year through the nordic center, around the lake leaving nothing behind except enormous piles of fir debris and churned clay that runs off into the Villages water source. The Indian bands are supposed to consult with forestry and community stakeholders, but have not shown up for the meetings for 3 years now."
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "Another person chiming in to say that, yeah… I can confirm. The We Wai Kai First Nation are absolutely obliterating the beautiful Prince of Wales range. It’s by far some of the best hiking on the island (in my opinion - reminds me a bit of Howe Sound but the peaks are a bit gnarly so not sure about the ability to do a full traverse like the HSCT). They are taking almost every last bit of the old growth in there over the next several years. It’s high elevation stuff that just won’t grow back like it once did maybe ever given the shift in climate (less snowpack especially). If you don’t want to support this type of unsustainable logging, I’d avoid swinging by Quinsam Plaza off the island highway. I believe they own every business there."
The Stewards of the Land are at it again

Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "Stewards if the land amirite?  Yes, essentially guilty white morons are just coming to the realization that these people's want money too.  You wanna see an entire town booked up with high end cars filling hotel parking? Find out where the BC first nations baseball tournament is held. I was in PG for work and I could get a hotel room so I slept in my car.  I worked in FSJ and called some buds i was working with "indians." I apologized and said "sorry first nations"  I was told "fuck you we're indians. First nations is vancouver white people shit"  I was gobsmacked, I the incredulous looks I get from my friends in van is even more gobsmacking"

Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "The fishery also works that way"
"And Hunting.  Natives across canada sell services to get you a trophy big game animal at ANY TIME OF YEAR regardless of it what point the animal is in the season.  Doesn't matter if fhe Animal is a mother with her young, money is money and they will get you your mount and meat."

Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "Old high school friend owns a solar installation company.  He created a second company which is a partnership with a First Nation.  On projects which can only be built by First Nations or they get a better deal or better shot at winning he bids with the second company.  It’s the same company except that one shares five percent of the profits with the partnered First Nation"
"I have seen many deals that are 5-10% of gross revenue with the indigenous partner being silent.  It's basically like paying the mob for your license to do business in their neighborhood."
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "I am a heavy civil construction estimator for a company that does 90% provincial government projects. Our bids are evaluated and selected via a point system for a total of 120 points. 55 of those points are related to Indigenous engagment on the project.  We know that our bids are always super close to our competitors in price, so basically native engagement points gets you the project award or not. The result has been the creation of super shady industry practices to win bids, such as setting up shell companies in the name of one indigenous owner for "consultation". Or straight up bribing indigenous companies to only go in on the bid with your company."

Addendum: Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "That’s reconciliation for ya lol"
"Is reconciliation possibly a misspelling of redistribution."
"Racket-ciliation"
"lol BC has turned into China in the most unforeseen way"
"To operate in China in any major capacity as a foreign entity you need to set up a new local company with 50% ownership in China. It parallels to the First Nations instance where companies that have a First Nations consultant or partial ownership gains much more leverage in securing contracts."

Addendum: Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "It turns out they aren't magical forest creatures that protect nature and are all matriarchal and communal? Mind Blown. Almost like people. Huh. Who woulda thunk?"
"Majority of Canadians are lead to believe they actually evolved here differently then us on a turtle."

Addendum: Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "What in the white supremacy gathering is this"
"This you?
Start with the original unwelcomed peoples… the whites first
Or is this you?
White trash is what canada is built on"

PM didn't meet 'coastal First Nations,' he met a group with that name - "Prime Minister Mark Carney flew to B.C. for a meeting with “Coastal First Nations,” crediting them as ancient guardians of the Pacific Coast.  “Coastal First Nations have stewarded the waters of the B.C. North Coast from time immemorial,” he wrote in a statement.  But Carney didn’t meet with a governing body representing the more than 100 First Nations on the B.C. coast. In fact, he didn’t meet with an Indigenous governing body of any kind.  Carney met with an anti-pipeline non-profit that has done business under the name “Coastal First Nations” since 2002. Prior to that, it was called Turning Point, and operated out of the offices of the David Suzuki Foundation.  In fact, the group’s last major event before meeting Carney was a gala to celebrate its 25th anniversary.  Coastal First Nations isn’t even the name on its registration documents. If Carney had used their official moniker, his statement would have read, “The Great Bear Initiative Society has stewarded the waters of the B.C. North Coast from time immemorial.” Coastal First Nations describes itself as “an alliance of First Nations on the North Pacific Coast,” and counts representatives from eight of those nations on its board of directors. But the B.C. coast is home to one of the densest collections of First Nations governments in the entire country.  Of the 600 officially recognized First Nations bands in Canada, more than a tenth of them are located on the edges of the Pacific Ocean.  According to a map of First Nations communities compiled by the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, there are 72 First Nations whose reserve land is on the coast.  But Coastal First Nations has ties to just eight of those communities, representing a total of 11,236 members as of the last count by the B.C. government.  For context, in the last census, B.C. had 290,210 Indigenous people, of whom 180,085 identified as First Nations.  In short, Coastal First Nations is endorsed by just 10 per cent of the First Nations bands who could accurately call themselves Coastal First Nations. And at best, they represent just 6.2 per cent of the province’s total First Nations population.  In fact, if you took the two largest First Nations in B.C. — Squamish and Cowichan Tribes — you would get about as many members as the eight groups that represent themselves as “Coastal First Nations.” Neither Squamish or Cowichan Tribes have anything to do with Coastal First Nations, although they are First Nations on the coast with a combined official membership of 10,294 (Cowichan Tribes 5,528, Squamish 4,766).  By contrast, the smallest community among the eight that endorse Coastal First Nations is the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation. According to Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, their total registered population is 489, half of whom live off-reserve.  And Coastal First Nations was never intended to be a generalized agent for Indigenous interests. It was very explicitly founded as an environmentalist group.  This is something that Coastal First Nations freely admits...  Coastal First Nation’s hardline opposition to oil and gas has previously lost them endorsements from First Nations along the coast.  In 2012, Coastal First Nations publicly broke with the Haisla First Nation, one of its founding members, over the issue of LNG...  Coastal First Nations’ anti-pipeline bona fides also explains some of the group’s funding sources. One of its seed funders was the San Francisco-based Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a serial funder of anti-tanker and anti-pipeline initiatives in Canada.  If Carney had been looking for a group that was more representative of First Nations on the B.C. coast, he could have met with the B.C. Assembly of First Nations.  They actually do purport to be a comprehensive regional representative for First Nations interests; their regional chief is elected by all 204 B.C. First Nations.  And this is probably why their position on pipelines is a bit more nuanced than Coastal First Nations."

Fishing advocacy groups sound alarm: DFO "Removing the principle of common property would shift public access to fishing from a federal, conservation-based management approach to an optional privilege granted by First Nations." : r/ilovebc - "will they allow people to breathe their air?"

Adam Stirling 11am-3pm Weekdays on X - "Wow. Heredity Chief of Tsawout First Nation calls for removal of parking lots from Goldstream Provincial Park as well as more restrictions on walking trails after large tree falls due to compromised root systems.  Hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life visit the park yearly.  For now…  #bcpoli"
Harman Bhangu on X - "Let me get this straight. A storm knocks down a tree in Goldstream.  Now the call is to remove parking lots, restrict trails, and limit access to a provincial park used by hundreds of thousands of families every year.  This is how it starts!  DRIPA gives the framework for this thinking, vague authority, endless restrictions, and no accountability.  Decisions driven by ideology, not balance, where public land quietly becomes less public.  British Columbians see it, and they’re fed up."