US policies are shifting global alliances

That India has for some time been a rising economic power, there can be no doubt. It has now surpassed China as the world’s most populous country and having a large domestic market undoubtedly helps in the creation of large businesses and industry. For the longest time, relations between US and India were cool, mainly because India, starting with its first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, pursued a non-aligned foreign policy that chose to not align itself with either of the then two main power blocs of the US and the USSR. As a result, The US tended to see India’s traditional rival Pakistan as more of an ally and favored it.

That changed quite dramatically with the rise to power of Narendra Modi as prime minister, a right wing Hindu chauvinist who assiduously cultivated good relations with the US, especially with Trump. And for a while, the two seemed to be best friends. But recently, there has been a dramatic cooling of relations, with Trump putting some of the harshest tariffs on imports from India.

Isaac Chotiner tries to understand the dramatic shift by talking with Milan Vaishnav, a senior fellow and director of the South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. As Vaishnav says, the 50% tariff on India is a major blow to India..
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More instances where I am on Rat’s side

(Pearls Before Swine)

It annoys me when I see people write on or dog-ear the pages of library books. Even with my own books, I never write on them or bend pages. I use bookmarks and if I want to note pages for future reference, I use small sticky tabs that peel off easily..

Here is another peeve where I agree with Rat.

(Pearls Before Swine)

Even if I am not straddling the line on either side, if I am too close to one line, I back out and re-park so that I am almost in the middle of the two lines. Not only is it a courtesy to those parking next to me, it also reduces the risk of the other driver accidentally hitting my car.

Meet Tilly Norwood, who may be the next big star

She is introduced in this clip.

As you would have read in the first frame, she and everyone else in that clip are entirely the creation of AI.

Meet Tilly Norwood, an up-and-coming on-screen talent who might just be the next big thing.

Norwood, as can be seen in the exclusive clip above, appears to be a talking, waving, bona fide person – she can even cry.

Except she’s not a real-life person: she doesn’t exist off a screen (yet), having instead been birthed via the increasingly sophisticated capabilities of AI software.

But then again, so has the entire sketch above, including all the other actors you see.

Norwood and the sketch are both the work of Particle 6, the UK production company created and led by Eline van de Velden, a former actor-turned-producer who also happens to have a Master’s degree in physics from London’s Imperial College.

“We want Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman, that’s the aim of what we’re doing,” van der Velden tells Broadcast International.
…

The sketch is also acting as the first on-screen appearance for Norwood, and discussions are now in the works to see if talent agencies want to sign up the AI creation.

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September jobs data not released

Today is the first Friday of the month, the day when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its monthly report giving the number os jobs gained or lost in the previous month plus any revisions to the numbers for the two preceding months. The last two jobs reports were awful, with job growth essentially stalled since May, indicating that the growth in economy has slowed dramatically, possibly indicating a recession. Trump fired the commissioner of the BLS in early August following the dismal job numbers for July (claiming that she had dishonestly manipulated the numbers to make him look bad) but things got even worse when the August numbers were released.

However the BLS did not release any numbers today and the official reason is that it is due to the shutdown. But that seems likely (what a surprise!) to be a lie.

The data for the release have already been collected, according to two former heads of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). But the Trump administration has so far defied calls to publish the report.
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Earlier this week William Beach, who led the BLS for four years under Trump and Joe Biden, also said the jobs data for September “have been completely collected and processed” by the BLS. “The jobs report is likely written in final draft,” he wrote.

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Chicago fights back against ICE thuggery

The Guardian sent a reporter and camera crew to cover what is happening in Chicago as ICE sends its thugs there to harass the people of the city and how the people are responding.

The video also highlights Kat Abughazaleh, a 25-year old woman who is running to get the Democratic nomination to represent the 9th congressional district and was flung to the ground by an ICE thug during a protest. The district is currently represented by a Democratic congresswoman who is not running for re-election.

Abughazaleh’s platform aligns with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. She favors expanding government support for childcare, universal preschool, Medicare for All (including healthcare for undocumented immigrants).

She is a supporter of LGBTQ and transgender rights, as well as the Green New Deal. Abughazaleh favors increased regulations on artificial intelligence.
…

News organizations in Illinois nationally and internationally covered Abughazaleh’s announcement and subsequent campaign. Politico cited Bernie Sanders who encouraged progressives to run as independent candidates in the light of declining popularity of the party, and The Washington Post noted the possibility of her campaign being part of an anti-incumbent movement akin to the Tea Party. News coverage of Abughazaleh’s use of digital media, including Bluesky (rather than Musk’s X), predicted her skills would help her appeal to younger voters. Coverage also compared her to other younger candidates (including several new media “stars”) with progressive political stances who are seeking major US political offices, such as Zohran Mamdani, Isaiah Martin,Jake Rakov, George Hornedo, Saikat Chakrabarti, Elijah Manley, Mallory McMorrow, and Deja Foxx, and placed her in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s camp of “younger, energetic, left-leaning Democrats” who are “blunt about Democratic errors and missteps.

We definitely need to light a fire under the weak Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries who have shown themselves incapable of rising to meet the challenge posed by Trump and MAGA authoritarianism.

The damage done to autism research

I wrote before how the actions of the Trump administration are eerily reminiscent of the Lysenko era in the former Soviet Union when Trofim Lysenko used the power of the government to suppress genetics research that did not agree with his prejudices, setting back agriculture in the country for decades. It is clear that the ghost of Lysenko now haunts the White House and the office of RFK Jr, as they have both decided that they only want to see research that supports what they already believe

The extraordinary press conference where Trump and RFK Jr. inveighed against the over-the-counter pain-killer Tylenol (the brand name for the drug acetaminophen) took people by surprise, even though we should be used be used by now to this duo pushing crackpot theories that have little or no factual basis.

For years, scientists have studied a possible link between pregnant mothers’ use of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, and neurological conditions like autism and A.D.H.D. The findings are complex. Some studies suggest a link; others do not. None have found proof of a causal relationship.

Yet Trump spoke as if the connection were definitive. He instructed pregnant women to avoid the drug. “Don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it. Fight like hell not to take it,” he said.

It s easy for him to say. But what are pregnant women supposed to do when they need an analgesic?
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WNBA in MAGA’s crosshairs

Professional sports in the US is dominated by male teams whose players get the big contracts and media focus and thus are able to build up a big fan base. Soccer is one instance where the women’s teams have been much more successful than the men in international competitions and thus get a lot of attention though this has still not translated into financial parity.

Now it appears that women’s basketball, after a rocky start, is gaining in popularity and not just with female fans.

This season, the W.N.B.A.’s fan base was 57 percent male and 43 percent female, according to statistics provided by the league. Men have actually made up more than half of viewership for years, but they were mostly middle-aged before. Now they’re skewing younger. The number of boys under 18 who watch W.N.B.A. games has grown by 130 percent over the past four years.
…

“The quality of the players has definitely gotten better,” said Joe Lacob, the billionaire who owns both the Valkyries and the Warriors. He said 55 percent of ticket holders at the women’s games in San Francisco were male.

The women are gritty and fierce, playing fast and sinking more 3-pointers than ever before.

Lacob sits courtside for most Valkyries games, and his guy friends are constantly asking him for tickets, he said. At one recent game, I spotted several heavily tattooed football players for the 49ers sitting beside him.

“People are not dumb,” Lacob said. “They see that it’s better. It just clicked.”

The Valkyries managed to become the first W.N.B.A. team to sell out all their home games, helping to propel the league to record attendance numbers. When you’re in their arena, the Chase Center, it feels like one big party.

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What happened to the gentility of golf?

I do not follow this game except for passing glances at headlines but was under the impression that decorum among players and spectators was highly valued, at least in public. Even TV commentators would theatrically resort to hushed voices whenever a player was about to hit a shot, even though they were nowhere near the action and could not disturb the player even if they shouted. I remember the fuss some years ago when some wag among the spectators would shout “You da man!” at key moments in major tournaments when a player was about to hit the ball, much to the discomfiture of players and officials who could not locate him.

The usual competitive ugliness that is endemic to most sports would take place behind the scenes in golf. Hence I was surprised to see this report of spectators at the Ryder Cup match between the US and Europe, taking place this weekend in the US, making rude chants at a European player. What surprised me even more is the tone of the article suggested that this was no longer considered that shocking.
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Jimmy Kimmel keeps hammering Trump and Conservative networks put him back on the air

He is not letting up in his attacks on Trump.

Now conservative networks Sinclair and Nexstar that own about 25% of ABC affiliates and who had vowed to not show Kimmel’s show have reversed course and now say that he will be back on.

In a statement, Sinclair said it received “thoughtful feedback from viewers, advertisers and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives”.

“Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience,” the firm said.

The company said that it had “ongoing and constructive discussions” with ABC where Sinclair proposed measures to strengthen accountability and viewer feedback, including having a “network-wide independent ombudsman”. ABC and Disney have not agreed to the measures, and Sinclair noted that it “respects their right to make those decisions under network affiliate agreements”.

Nexstar separately said: “We have had discussions with executives at [Disney] and appreciate their constructive approach to addressing our concerns.”

I suspect that the ‘thoughtful feedback’ consisted of furious viewers yelling at them. Basically, they ended up getting exactly what Al Pacino offered a senator in The Godfather: Part II who tried to strong arm him into giving him a bribe.

I predicted that since money is their god, if Kimmel’s ratings stayed high, as they have, they would cave. It is interesting that they announced this decision on a Friday when most of the late night comedy shows do not have new shows, so that they would be spared immediate ridicule.

But I expect them to be mercilessly lampooned by all of them come Monday.

Trump must be bigly annoyed but hasn’t said anything yet.

Back to the days of half-baked medical advice

We all recall the days during the Covid pandemic in 2020 when Trump would hold press conferences where he would promote whatever the latest crackpot idea that he heard about to treat Covid, such as injecting disinfectant or hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine or ultraviolet light or the animal dewormer Ivormectin. And since as president he commanded much media attention, a lot of people listened to him.

It looks like we are back to those days, only much worse since Trump is now backed by another crank in RFK Jr. whom he has appointed to the post of secretary of the department of health and human services and who has long espoused anti-vaccine views as well as promoting false theories as to the causes of major ailments.

They seem to think that they have found the cause of autism and that it is the over-the-counter analgesic Tylenol, long a staple of home remedies for fevers and minor pain. He and RFK Jr have launched a major attack on it, claiming that it can cause autism.
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