…not to make light of the possibly-storm-of-the-century…but…whatever category it winds up going down as…the satellite imagery made milton look like the mother of all storms from space so…on the back of helene to the point of not having finished clearing up after that one…you’d think the state resident that wants to be immunologically president would have a harder time finding voters who were down for denying climate change “is a thing”…even a fox news diet got around to acknowledging that the narrative about FEMA having money to spend on immigrants but being broke when americans needed post-natural-disaster assistance was…checks notes…slightly more completely full of shit than their regularly scheduled programming?

Fox has obtained a fact sheet assembled by the majority side of House Appropriations Committee about disaster aid. 

It says that FEMA “has enough funding in the short-term to address immediate needs for both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.”

It also declares there is “no…

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) October 9, 2024

The channel had obtained a fact sheet produced by the Republican Majority on the House committee responsible for federal funding, Pergram said. The document reinforced that FEMA had necessary funding for the short-term storm response and that funding streams for storm response and immigration were separate. “[T]he only connection,” it states according to Pergram, “is that both programs are administered by FEMA.”

…it’s…honestly it’s kinda disappointing…in the “no, I’m not mad at you – I’m just…disappointed” sense…that anyone would ever really have thought that ever sounded like anything other than “you know FEMA is responsible for both these things, right?”…but if the thing that kicked it off was pulling quotes from mayorkas basically saying it doesn’t just take the cash you need to throw at the thing in an immediate sense…which we have…we can “meet the moment” but it needs a bunch of money on a steady stream for a whole bunch of time to fully recover from one of these things…& here’s another…already…& it’s early for that so we maybe ought to expect more before the season quits…& while the budget is stuck on the “continuing resolution” setting there isn’t what you might call timely & appropriate appropriations even visible on a horizon in congress…& that could be a problem…& it is beyond clear that the reason that’s off the table is entirely the doing of one side of the aisle…but…that’s not how any of this works?

As of writing, Pergram’s report has been included in one story on FoxNews.com. The article, headlined “Resurfaced video shows FEMA worrying about faith-based partners’ treatment of trans migrants at border,” dedicates its final paragraph to summarizing Pergram’s social media post.

…or…I dunno…”works™”

There are other articles at the site that offer information challenging the claim that FEMA is “broke” and/or that the agency has shifted disaster relief funds to aid immigrants. There have been interviews that aired on Fox News in which those claims were similarly challenged.

But this gets to the tension that has undergirded the channel in the past decade: Is its mandate to retain viewers or to report the news? The former means amplifying and backstopping claims made by Donald Trump in order not to alienate them. (They saw the dangers that posed in the aftermath of the 2020 election.) Since Trump is so consistently dishonest, though, that means amplifying and defending false claims, which is the opposite of reporting the news.

…how many people do you reckon we need to book onto an overland package tour to damascus to finally get that treatment-resistant infection cleared up…asking for a…eh…just because the question seems to begged beyond belief, really?

The channel often navigates this divide by differentiating between its opinion and news coverage — a line that’s blurry in general and which is often blurred in the channel’s programming. When Watters says “we have the tape” in response to a White House denial or shows a Gallagher segment called “Common Sense Department” in which he alleges that immigration is sapping disaster response money, what are viewers supposed to assume?

We know what viewers are supposed to assume.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/09/fox-news-quietly-reports-fact-sheet-correcting-fox-news-misinformation/

…yeah…although arguably the problem is that they do more than that we know they’re supposed to…sure seems like it would be handy if maybe fox news was less of “a thing” than…say…the climate change thing they say isn’t one

There may be a psychological reason why some people aren’t just wrong in an argument — they’re confidently wrong. 

According to a study published Wednesday in the journal Plos One, it comes down to believing you have all the information you need to form an opinion, even when you don’t. 

…well…guess it doesn’t take a nobel scientist to…what’s that, now?

…fuck it…maybe all intelligence is artificial…& possibly illusory to boot…although…there’s some hope for some of us

Although people were confident about their opinions when they had only read arguments in favor of one solution, when presented with all of the facts, they were often willing to change their mind. They also reported that they were then less confident in their ability to form an opinion on the topic. 

“We thought that people would really stick to their original judgments even when they received information that contradicted those judgments, but it turns out if they learned something that seemed plausible to them, they were willing to totally change their minds,” Fletcher said, adding that the research highlights the idea that people fail to contemplate whether they have all of the information about a situation.

…but…others…not so much?

However, the researchers noted the findings may not apply to situations in which people have pre-established ideas about a situation, as is often the case with politics. 
[…]
Todd Rogers, a behavioral scientist at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, likened the findings to the “invisible gorilla” study, which illustrated the psychological phenomenon of “inattentional blindness,” when a person does not realize something obvious because they are focused on something else. 

“This study captures that with information,” Rogers said. “There seems to be a cognitive tendency to not realize the information we have is inadequate.”

…not for nothing but a greek fella said something a fair while back about the nearest to wisdom we can get is when we grasp how little we know in the grand scheme of things…before they made him drink hemlock…so…on the one hand it feels like it should have been possible to “capture that with information” in less than a couple millennia & change…&…on the other…anyone else up for bringing back “it’s time for your hemlock tea”…because I could come up with a guestlist for that party without trying too hard & most of the names have been persistent candidates for what’s considered an appropriate sentence for some pretty serious crimes so I think we can be fairly certain…& obviously reading this article has in no way led me to consider that it might be possible there are people out there with better information than me who wouldn’t agree…because I definitely know all I need to in order to justify death-by-really-painful-poison making a comeback in the modern political arena

The study also parallels a psychological phenomenon, called the “illusion of explanatory depth,” in which people underestimate what they know about a certain topic, said Barry Schwartz, a psychologist and professor emeritus in social theory and social action at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

…see…I’m probably underestimating how much I know about making people drink hemlock & how sure I am I know who should have to…that’s totally what this is saying

The idea is that if you ask the average person if they know how a toilet works, they will likely reply that they do. But upon being asked to explain how a toilet works, they quickly realize they don’t know how a toilet works, just how to get it to work by pressing a lever. 

…well, sure…that’s average people…but nobody thinks they’re average…let alone below average…so that can’t possibly mean me, right…I totally know how a U-bend handles its shit

“It’s not just that people are wrong. It’s that they are so confident in their wrongness that is the problem,” Schwartz said. 

The antidote, he added, is “being curious and being humble.” 

A new study illustrates the saying, “you don’t know what you don’t know.” [NBC]

…curious & humble, you say?

…why do I suddenly have the monty python cheese shop sketch running through my mind?

Europeans have to face the reality that if he wins next month’s presidential election, Donald Trump may quickly slash US defence spending in Europe, seek to impose a peace deal on Ukraine that leaves tracts of its territory in Russian hands and even withdraw from Nato altogether, the report by UK and German thinktanks says.

Such steps would have huge consequences for intelligence sharing and the viability of Article 5, Nato’s crucial collective self-defence clause, the report, published on Wednesday, says.

“Trump’s first term was littered with withdrawn treaties, tariffs on allies and praise for authoritarian governments. European leaders need to practically and pre-emptively bolster European defence, security and resilience against a second-term Trump presidency,” said Sam Goodman, one of the report’s authors.

The report has been prepared by the New Diplomacy Project, which is advised by Sir David Manning, a former UK ambassador to Washington, and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which is linked with the chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic party (SDP).

Its publication comes on the eve of a meeting in London on Thursday between the new Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy.

…oh…that reminds me…of the three remaining tories to get crowned the next “please don’t be worse than liz truss” leader of the party…the parliamentary party people repping their peeps went ahead & dumped the least-worst option they had left…so that’s going…not-cleverly…making jenrick & kemi the leavings to be picked over as the different shades of shit sandwich the wider membership of the party get to choose between…so one of those truly terrible selections will duly be selected & join nige in his attempt to “reform” the house of commons into a place where sense is less common than…err…common sense…so…that’s “fun”

To mitigate the impact of a second Trump presidency, Nato countries should support the creation of an allied multilateral lending institution, in practice a Nato bank, it says. This could “save nations millions on essential equipment purchases, offer low interest rates on loans to alliance members and introduce a new line of financing with longer repayment timeframes. The bank would be funded with initial subscriptions from Nato members in return for authorised capital stock”.

The UK should also prepare to sign or upgrade security agreements with Germany, the EU and France, the report says. The agreements could include developing missile defence systems, air-to-air refuelling, aircraft maintenance, air-lift capabilities, and joint-cyber capabilities. A UK guarantee to share intelligence from the Five Eyes alliance, which involves the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is also proposed.

Other threats the reports says a Trump victory could pose include a breakdown of diplomatic communication between the US and Europe, US withdrawal of troops and military assets from Europe and the widespread introduction of tariffs leading to the collapse of the World Trade Organisation.

…are there any races we won’t be off to if the tangerine man actually gets to reprise his game of send in the clowns?

…because the collapse of the WTO by dint of a US president hasn’t been on even my hypothetical-disaster-bingo card, tbh

The authors predict the Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine is likely to fail because Russia wants more than he realises and opposition to a perceived capitulation may be too difficult for him to ignore.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/09/trump-proof-european-security-by-setting-up-nato-bank-thinktanks-urge

…huh…so…pretty much exactly how that other thing laid out how that being confidently full of shit & ignoring anything that might set you straight business works, then…as if we didn’t all get treated to a surfit of examples of how that works

…here’s a thought

…how about we let the ladies talk…&…we listen a bit better?

But a year after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, these young women say Israel is still not doing enough to reckon with the kind of threats that exploded across its southern frontier on that awful morning, when gunmen streamed across the border from the Gaza Strip. Field observers near Gaza were among the first to sound the alarm about Hamas’s preparations for a large-scale attack, and among the first to be killed and kidnapped during what turned out to be the deadliest day — and largest intelligence failure — in Israel’s history.
[…]
“We are unprotected, which is a problem for us, but it is also dangerous for our work, which is very important,” said an observer near the border with Lebanon, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with Israeli military protocol. Her superiors, she said, “only want to shut us up, to not come to them with complaints, so they’re ignoring us even more.”

[…]The Washington Post spoke to seven current and former field observers and their parents, and to five Israeli military experts and intelligence officials past and present, about the unit’s behind-the-scenes role — and the assertions of its members that they have been silenced and sidelined. Many field observers attribute this partly to ingrained misogyny in the Israel Defense Forces, where men dominate the decision-making ranks. More broadly, the observers point to a top-heavy, unwieldy bureaucracy that prioritized technology over field intelligence in Gaza and that remains resistant to structural change and accountability.

…hold on…I’m being handed some new information…they did a study but deep mind beat them out for the nobel…it turns out the problem all along is that men don’t fucking listen & are always sure you don’t have any information they don’t or if you do it doesn’t matter because it won’t make them change their mind or even the subject

…who’d’a’thunk?

…#notallmenbutlet’sbehonestweallknowthatguyamirite?

In the weeks after the attack, as a broken country searched for answers, it became clear that the observers in Nahal Oz had been warning of something unprecedented — and were disregarded.

For months they had logged reports about Hamas ramping up its military activities: training several times a week, then several times a day; hoisting Palestinian and Hamas flags as they drove in convoys up and down the length of the Gaza Strip. These were not routine drills, the observers told a civilian commission of inquiry in August, but complex military exercises that would soon be put in motion to devastate more than 20 Israeli communities.
[…]
The field observers said they were confident that something big was about to happen because they understood their enemies. They knew their names and faces, as well as the intimate rhythm and routine of their days. But when the women tried to send alerts up the almost exclusively male chain of command, they said, they were told they didn’t have access to the full picture. Superiors said that the observers’ posts offered limited visibility and that there was no way they could connect the dots.

“It is a male army, where the ‘girls’ are seen as hysterical, where the commanders say, regularly, ‘If you continue to send these alarms, you will be put in jail,’ ” said Gili Yuval, who served as a field observer in the early 2000s, when Israel dismantled its settlements in Gaza and pulled its forces.

Since Oct. 7, she has spearheaded a loosely organized network of current and former observers that provided such basics as food and clothes to victims in the immediate aftermath of the attack, when the state was mostly absent, and helped to foster a sense of sisterhood and community.

“It is very hard not to factor in the biases of chauvinism,” said Shira Efron, policy research director at the Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based research group. “The men around the table decided to disregard anything coming from this female-only unit.”

The IDF declined to comment on why the field observers’ warnings went unheeded and on claims that gender bias played a role.
[…]
At the heart of Israel’s failure, Shrvit believes, was its rigid and unresponsive military bureaucracy. The top brass, far from the front lines, instinctually mistrusted the troops on the ground and the female observers who supported them, she said. While her team tried to build intelligence on the militants, shepherds and farmers who crisscrossed their area of surveillance, Shrvit said, their commanders would direct them to divert their focus — in some cases asking them to follow targets they knew from experience were incorrect.

“They would see what I see, and they would always think they knew best,” she said.

…some more than others, is my guess…but

At least 400,000 people trapped by Israel’s latest Gaza offensive, says Unrwa [Guardian]

…folks sure can pick ’em

In 2001, the observers were transferred outside the purview of Aman, Israel’s military intelligence agency, to the IDF Combat Intelligence Collection Corps, though they continued to perform the same tasks. Around the same time, the mixed-gender unit was, for reasons still unclear, transformed into an all-female force.

The IDF “takes the girls as cheap labor,” said Uzi Arad, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, because “women’s analytical capabilities are greater than men’s.”
[…]
Netanyahu and his military chiefs told Israelis that technology could deliver ironclad deterrence. His proof of concept was a billion-dollar fence along the border with Gaza, completed in 2021, that was meant to seal off the Hamas threat. Millions more were poured into cutting-edge SIGINT, or signals intelligence, units, which afforded soldiers physical distance from the field.

Israel had set Hamas back by “a decade,” Netanyahu told a cheering crowd of IDF officers four months before Oct. 7.

…why’d it have to be a billion dollar fence…I just got done reading about how harris’ campaign had raised a billion bucks…& that’s the only fenceline trying to keep a bum steer with vlad’s brand on its ass out of the white house…& now I’m remembering that robert reich piece from a few days back that talked about how a lot of the campaign spending (or the other guy’s lack of certain sorts) makes a kind of sense if you allow for nobody who could develop a positive opinion of the asshole who hasn’t by now exists so he gains nothing by trying to do anything but campaign negatively in the hope that people are unsure who they’d get with kamala & pick the devil they think they know because they totally have all the information they need to make this determination

…more or less…bob gets paid to say it better than that…pretty sure by the guardian that time…so…wouldn’t be hard to find…but…I’m out of time & have more to do today than there looks like being day to do it in…so I’ll get to the end of this one & put the time I could have spent finding that one into trying to slap up some sort of playlist

All the while, Israel’s traditional field intelligence system in Gaza — powered by informers, field observers and forces near the border — was subject to constant budget cuts, according to an Aman adviser who previously served as a senior official in Shin Bet, the country’s internal security service. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters.

…outside of the truth in politics…how many times have any of us really seen anyone do more with less & not thought if it wasn’t less they’d have done yet more & might even have enough to share? …sorry…kind of a tangent..& arguably in an imponderable direction…but I can’t help wondering if the girls-squad were calling the shots maybe a lot less folks would have got shot than on bibi’s watch

All the while, Israel’s traditional field intelligence system in Gaza — powered by informers, field observers and forces near the border — was subject to constant budget cuts, according to an Aman adviser who previously served as a senior official in Shin Bet, the country’s internal security service. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters.
[…]
“It was not glamorous, but they learned that the job required a lot of knowledge and understanding about the field,” said Ayelet Levy, mother of Naama Levy, one of the five observers still held hostage by Hamas.

…knowledge…& understanding

…you’re sure we get to have both at once?

…because I could use some good news, now you mention it

None of the women in her daughter’s unit received weapons, Ayelet said, or were trained in how to respond during a kidnapping. But Naama and her colleagues tried to engage with the gunmen who overran their base, asking them questions in English. “I have friends in Palestine,” Naama is heard saying in one of the videos filmed by militants that morning, her face bloody from shrapnel injuries.
[…]
In April, when Iran launched an aerial attack on Israel in retaliation for a deadly Israeli strike near an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria, observers on the northern base were refused updates as they hunkered down, one of them said, forced to check their phones for news during brief breaks. In September, as Israel began to ramp up operations against Hezbollah, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi visited the post but refused to meet with the observers.

…I mean…why even call them “observers” if you have no interest in their observations?

“The IDF is not taking the steps to ensure that the catastrophe will not repeat itself,” Erez said.

Her daughter and the other observers in the north often sleep four hours a day, she said, working double and triple shifts because so few women are willing to serve there.

The doors of their bomb shelters have no locks — the shelters are designed to repel rockets, not gunmen — and, with protocols varying from base to base, the observers are given weapons only if they file a special request. There are bars over the bathroom windows, one of the few means of escape for observers in Nahal Oz during the Hamas assault. When the women ask about possible infiltrations by militants, they are brushed off, they say, or told such things cannot happen.

“The arrogance and a refusal to take responsibility” that was evident before Oct. 7 “is absolutely still there,” the former Shin Bet official said.

…they must have put their best men on it

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari insisted at a January news conference that “observers are among the most important roles in the security of the state of Israel, and it will continue to be.” He said the army was committed to correcting its “failure” to protect them.

But field observers and their families — echoing the pain across this angry, grieving nation — have lost faith, threatening the social contract that is at the heart of Israel’s national identity.

“We are willing to do a lot for our country,” Erez said. “But the IDF has broken its fundamental oath.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/04/israel-female-field-observers-october-7-attacks-hamas-gaza/

…FFS…if this is what today’s gonna be like…maybe we all ought to just turn around go back to bed

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/oct/09/what-is-gender-apartheid-activists-international-law-women-girls-rights-afghanistan-iran

…the struggle is real

I’ll never be an optimist – but how do I resist becoming cynical? [Guardian]

…good luck out there

Netanyahu-Gallant rivalry complicates Israeli response to Iran attack [WaPo]

…& ehud barak was out there giving it out that israel saved the world from a nuked-up assad & with hamas & hezbollah reeling now would be the time to take out those nuclear sites in iran…the ones that are bunkered down deep enough they came up with stuxnet to fuck up centrifuges rather than trying to launch something at them…oh…& he was very careful to say that in the history of israel it had never asked the US to step in & achieve a military aim for them

…not quite “@russia, if you’re listening…”

…but…yeah…going back to bed is how I wish today was going…how about you?