This is put perfectly. Academia is full of these types, and as such constitutes a meso-example of how an entire field of human endeavor can rapidly skid downhill as scumbag mentors bring in worse scumbag mentees, year after year. ABN
…Because the Canadian government became so dependent on their role as an assembly economy, they enmeshed with China in a way that made them dependent. The political issues of Chinese influence within Canada are a direct result of this dynamic. In fact, China was the big winner from the outcome of the recent election because all of their investments into Canada are grounded on retaining Liberal government dependency.
If Trump targets China with punitive tariffs, the Canadian economy will be collaterally damaged. Canada will end up paying a tariff rate because they use cheap Chinese component parts in their finished goods. Canada has structurally designed their economy to do this over multiple years.
Understanding the unique nature of the Canadian economic conundrum, the only way to address the issue is to break out the USMCA into two separate bilateral trade agreements. One set of trade terms for Mexico that leverages border security, and one set of trade terms for Canada that leverages NATO security and border security. The only substantive similarity between them will be in the auto and agriculture sector.
If you think the multinational corporations, political leftists and UniParty Republicans in the USA are strongly opposing Trump now, just wait until later this year when the Trump administration proposes the elimination of the trilateral North American trade agreement, USMCA.
According to the World Bank, the USA economy is $27.3 trillion. Canada is $2.1 trillion.
Do the math!
[…] The expectation, according to two people close to the White House, is that negotiations to permanently remove the threat of painful 25 percent tariffs on Canada — which Trump mostly rolled back earlier this month — and other sector-specific tariffs are likely to be folded into the upcoming review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. That review is due in 2026, but the Trump administration wants to accelerate to this calendar year.
“It makes sense to separate out Canada and Mexico from the rest because they are going to want to redo the USMCA,” said one of the people close to the White House, who were granted anonymity to discuss ongoing deliberations. “They’re going to have separate tariffs that focus specifically on Mexico and Canada, and they’re going to take some actions to squeeze them a little bit.” [LINK]
You might think of parasites — and the diseases they cause — as a problem that will never affect you, and you wouldn’t be alone in that thought. But intestinal parasites affect humans and are not just a Third World concern: They affect millions of Americans. Indeed, according to the CDC, more than 60 million people in the US are infected with parasites. Explains Gordo Crozier, DO, an integrative physician in Orlando. “Because parasites are spread by pets, contaminated water and improperly handled food, they’re becoming an increasingly common health threat in the U.S.” And intestinal parasites thrive in warm weather, so risk rises in the summer.
And intestinal parasites in humans are far from harmless: They are a top cause of fatigue, says Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., author of Guess What Came to Dinner? ($15.99, Amazon) Gittleman asserts that for eight in 10 women experiencing tiredness, GI issues, brain fog, and other vague symptoms, intestinal parasites are to blame. Adds functional medicine specialist Leo Galland, MD: “Because symptoms are so varied, parasites are often overlooked as the cause.”
Women over 50 are most at risk of harboring intestinal parasites since the production of stomach acid that helps kill the invaders drops rapidly with age. “Intestinal parasites in humans mostly come from food and water, so any decrease in stomach acid increases infection risk,” says Dr. Galland. Other sources of exposure: wilderness activities, pets, travel.
Most parasites can be eliminated with a single dose of ivermectin, scabies with two doses. I am not a doctor, so be sure to check dosage and timing with a trusted source or consult with your doctor. My understanding is ivermectin must be taken on an empty stomach for parasites, but with food for viral illnesses. ABN
The White House is planning to axe thousands jobs at the CIA and other intelligence agencies, officials told members of Congress per The Washington Post.
A person familiar with the plan but not authorized to discuss it publicly also confirmed the changes to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The administration plans to reduce the CIA workforce by 1,200 over several years, and cut thousands of positions at the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies.
The Post reported that the reductions at the CIA include several hundred people who have already opted for early retirement.
The rest of the cuts would be achieved partly through reduced hiring and would not likely necessitate layoffs.
‘These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the Agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position CIA to deliver on its mission,’ the agency wrote in the statement.
This is going to be interesting. Does Trump have the courage and power to dismantle the Deep State, which most of us believe is centered in or behind or around the CIA and NSA? The whistleblower in this video claims USA has been infiltrated by a ‘powerful international group’, which controls our government — and that is the reason he is going public with his claims. Some say the powerful group is aliens but others say the whistleblower says outright it’s an international group, not interplanetary or interdimensional. The whistleblower looks and sounds credible but who knows if he is just another Deep State mind-control plant, of which there are many. Others believe the powerful group is some form of international Jewry or that Jews are running cover for an even deeper group. It is a remarkable feature of our time that we still have no idea who was running the Biden administration. Nor do we know how much Ratcliffe or Trump knows about who was running Biden’s admin, or who might be controlling them. How Trump’s actions against the CIA and NSA proceed will be very revealing. They may be nothing more than a psyop cover designed to assuage conspiracy theorists like me. Or they may be real moves by a real president who has real power and knows how to use it. ABN
The Abrahamics cause so much suffering based on the sole fact that they all believe their scriptures absolutely tell them what God wants, yet few of the sects and divisions agree with each other. Buddhism at its core recognizes the indeterminacy of all speech and our interpretations of all of it. Clinging to speech as an absolute is a recipe for moral, intellectual, and spiritual failure. When speech is deemed absolute, the mind and spirit are blocked from full realization. This is why Buddhism often suggests rather than states and why the Buddha himself refused to answer questions on subjects that lead to clinging to absolutist ideas. From a Buddhist POV, to say the Jews are the only people especially beloved by God is ridiculous. I was raised as a Christian and do my best to remain respectful of Christianity and strongly believe a good Christian is better than a bad Buddhist. Given that background, I think it’s proper for me to speak this way about Christianity. Whatever spirituality people get from it is good, very good. Clinging to the absoluteness of the words is the mistake. ABN
I honestly believe Jews are genetically prone to self-deception at very high levels. Many generations of inbreeding have produced a population which is talented at speaking but also seemingly incapable of speaking truthfully. Speaking untruthfully is a normal human trait and most humans do it quite often, but generally only with small matters or culturally conditioned matters. In my considerable experience, Jews are very good at bold-faced lying, trickery, scams. For many, perhaps including the speaker above, the irony of their self-deception never seems to occur to them.
To add to this topic, many ‘Asian’ cultures tend to have speech prescriptions and proscriptions which lead to a form of frequent lying or making things sound ‘nice’ or ‘inoffensive’. This is different from what I see in Jewish speech but related. In much of Asia the basic rule is never say anything your listener may not want to hear. This is why there are so many plastic smiles and ‘agreeable’ people in those cultures. Chinse themselves remark on the culturally idiosyncratic ‘Chinese smile’, which they rightly believe non-Chinese rarely, if ever, fully understand.
Evolutionarily, self-deception can be a big advantage because it makes the self-deceiver more convincing to others. This trait is particularly valuable in parasitic cultures or individuals, which have recently proliferated wildly within the West.
For context, all human traits are on a spectrum and almost all humans have these traits to some degree. When individuals have varying degrees of any trait, obviously groups of individuals will also present varying degrees of these traits. White people have all of the human traits and, as must be the case, they vary within and between different white populations. I mention whites because that is the case and also because whites are in the very confusing (for them) position of being beset upon by a global variety of cultural traits most whites are not used to or entirely unaware of. Examples of this are clan-based societies (such as Muslims), tribe-based societies (such as Jews), and societies ideologically indoctrinated with their cultural takes on themselves, the world, and white people (such as post-colonial ones). To not understand these matters and not feel free enough to discuss them openly is to greatly handicap yourself and your culture when dealing with other cultures and people. Freedom of speech in white societies should be used to tackle these topics, the sooner the better.
One thing I can guarantee you is no other culture in this world does not often discuss these topics. A great deal of white mind-control against this kind of speech comes from Jewish control of white media, money, politics, and more; precisely the topic the speaker above unironically wants to proscribe to protect her tribe and her tribe only. Why does the most powerful tribe in the West need special protection? The answer is obvious: they need it to preserve their power and get more of it. Only self-deception will prevent you from seeing this. Self-deception can be genetic, cultural, or induced by mind-control, which is a form of hostile internecine parasitism. ABN
Today, I want to explain how that take on modern psychology fits very well with Buddhist practice.
Buddhist practice is best understood by understanding the Noble Eightfold Path:
Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Samadhi.
If the Noble Eightfold Path is followed diligently, it will erase all dysfunctional schema from the mind. The complete erasure occurs in the eighth element of the path, Right Samadhi.
Right Samadhi is an elixir of the mind. It bathes and cleanses the mind like nothing else. Right Samadhi erases all delusion, all suffering, all dysfunctional schema. Right Samadhi is one part of the Noble Eightfold Path and also it can be understood as a culmination of the Path, the ultimate or penultimate reward of Buddhist practice.
On this site, I add something to the Noble Eightfold Path that, in my opinion, makes it even better. What I have added is FIML practice. FIML can be understood to be an addition to Right Speech and Right Mindfulness. FIML works by getting us to pay close attention to what we hear as well as what we say. When we do that using the tools FIML provides we also greatly improve our Right Mindfulness.
I deeply hope readers of this site will improve their understanding of Buddhism and learn how to do FIML.
The hardest thing about FIML practice is finding a Right Partner, someone who is able to understand the practice and willing to do it with you. The second hardest thing is overcoming a very deep-seated, instinctive human speech prohibition which prevents us from quickly shifting from talking to talking calmly and wisely about the minutia of the talking and listening that just occurred.
If you have a suitable partner, learning how to do FIML is much easier and more fun than finding a suitable therapist. Like Buddhism itself, FIML works directly with the unique reality of the lives of you and your partner. ABN
Full video: Trump holds Cabinet meeting at White House
UPDATE: This is long but you can jump ahead. I listened to maybe one-half of it, focusing on what I wanted. It provides a good view of what Trump and his people are doing and why, and how successful they are and expect to be in the future. Much better to listen to them instead of what media says about them; and necessary to do that at least sometimes. I believe Trump is the only president to ever hold cabinet meetings in public. ABN
I like talk radio. I want to listen to NPR. Many of your topics are good. But almost all of them are heavily slanted left, anti-Trump, anti-conservative, pro-Ukraine War, etc. I want to hear your side but I also want to hear the other side. It is bad media, bad for USA, and super-boring radio to feature only one side of an issue as if there is no other side at all. Indeed, most issues have several sides all worthy of discussion. Your shows would gain listeners and respect if you provided real balance. ABN
UPDATE: A good example of how bad NPR can be happened a few days ago. I was driving and a show came on NPR about how American evangelicals were supporting Trump in large numbers. One commentator was some journo who has been reporting on religion in USA for forty years; the other was some college professor of religious studies. I forget who the host was. The entire program entailed describing how evangelicals had a psychological need to be accepted and heard and that’s why they support Trump. If I am remembering correctly the speakers implied if not stated outright that evangelicals had that need because they were uneducated and lacked sophistication. I found the program extremely irritating because all three of the supposedly educated and sophisticated speakers never onceconsidered that evangelicals might like Trump’s policies because they are good policies. My sense of those three speakers is they themselves are small-minded, incurious, and selfish in how they waste airtime by telling only one side of a potentially great story. Such a waste. It was a very good topic. Next time, get some people who are able to sympathize with evangelicals and who understand Trump’s policies as they are and not as NPR frames them all the time. To be clear, I am 100% willing to listen to all positions on all topics, including what amounts to NPR propaganda, but I really really want to hear all sides. Forty years he’s been a religion journo and many years she’s been a college religion prof and they both just cooed at each other over NPR lefty banalities the entire time. The host was no better. ABN
I’ve hidden my hand my whole life. I wear long sleeves and haven’t seen a doctor about it since I was a toddler. My right hand is completely normal. On my left hand, my pinky, ring, and middle fingers are normal. The issue is only with the thumb and index finger they are the same length and to the side.
It’s not painful or limiting physically but it’s always affected my confidence which is why I hide it.
I mentioned the other day that Reddit has small subs that can be intellectually stimulating. The post linked above, including many of its comments, shows what the title says. One conclusion from this is that the shame and self-induced ‘need’ to hide that shame has wide applications across all stigmatisms and psychological conditions, which often are reified as stigmatisms. By hiding shame or stigmatism we give it an overblown life of its own. By not hiding it, we remove its power to shame us. A physical stigma is simply the luck of the draw and, while someone may be to blame for it, in the end you have to live with it. Psychological abuse or trauma is not so different. At the end of the day, it’s your cross to bear. If FIML is done with this in mind, both partners can use the FIML method to gradually bite off small pieces of whatever shame or trauma or confusion they are experiencing. Doing this repeatedly, over months and years, will slowly reveal the trauma to both partners. And this will provide a wondrous level of freedom. Psychological trauma always leaves evidence in the mind much as physical abnormalities can rarely be fully corrected. Nonetheless, both conditions benefit greatly from exposure to the sunlight of objective consciousness. And this can lead to a state of unperturbedness as the stoics say or enlightenment/ nirvana as the Buddhists say. ABN
Free speech is now our most important right. 2A is not going to stop totalitarian mind-control. They already search and seize whatever they want. So far, though, we still have a fundamental right to free speech even if we can be isolated by algorithms. We want and need more but at least we have what we have. Eva has a prominent voice and is using it well. I urge everyone to use your freedom of speech. Say what you think not just online but to your friends and family, your neighbors. Wide-open toleration of strong opinions is the bloodstream of a free society, a real civilization. ABN
The revelation that University of Zurich researchers secretly deployed AI bots to manipulate Reddit users’ opinions should chill anyone who values authentic human discourse.
These weren’t merely passive observers—they were digital persuaders that analyzed users’ personal histories, fabricated identities, and crafted arguments specifically designed to change minds.
Most troubling?
They succeeded spectacularly—achieving persuasion rates six times higher than normal human interactions.
This experiment crossed critical ethical lines.
Without consent or disclosure, researchers unleashed bots that claimed to be rape victims, misrepresented religious teachings, and spread misinformation about controversial topics.
These digital ghosts generated over 1,500 comments, each precisely calibrated to exploit cognitive vulnerabilities of their human targets.
We’ve long worried about social media’s echo chambers.
But what happens when those chambers are deliberately infiltrated by increasingly sophisticated AI systems trained on the very platforms they’re manipulating?
Reddit’s recent data-sharing deal with OpenAI suggests we’re actively providing the training material for ever more persuasive digital manipulators.
Reddit moderators rightly condemned this unauthorized experiment, but their discovery came months after the damage was done.
How many other digital conversations are currently being shaped by invisible algorithmic hands?
I view Reddit fairly often. Started using it when it had very few users and you could easily get a post on the front page. AskScience was glorious back then as conversations would go on and on and there was very little bs. That was a long time ago. Today’s Reddit is mind-control totalitarian thought-slavery on virtually all major subjects. However, if you go to small subreddits, you can find very interesting material; subreddits on narcissism and other personality disorders; on aspects of culture such as parenting or marriage customs. I highly appreciate hearing authentic voices from around the world on topics like those and many more. That said, another thing you can see on Reddit is what looks to me like spontaneous hive-mind formation. These look real to me because they can form very quickly in subs that have nothing to do with politics. Tooafraidtoask is one example where this can happen. I encourage everyone to support free-speech on all platforms and use your free-speech yourself, use it often. Keep pushing the envelope wherever you are because widespread free-speech that people use is probably our only defense against a looming and probable computerized totalitarian nightmare. ABN
Spain says hot weather caused the power outage on the Iberian Peninsula; Space Weather News says it was caused by sudden shift in earth’s magnetic field which allowed a solar storm to strike Gibraltar; a third opinion is days after cancelling an arms sale to Israel, Spain’s power grid went down. As The World Turns. ABN
UPDATE: This is a must watch for the latest, fullest information about border security and illegal aliens still remaining in USA. Homan is clear as a bell and does most of the talking and answering questions. Highly recommended. ABN
American Buddhist Net 