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Ah, childhood! I remember it fondly and often. Getting grass stains on my knees, eating fruit roll-ups, and most importantly, not being burdened by constantly reminiscing about my childhood.

Life was so simple then. No responsibilities, no cares, no memories of fifteen to twenty-five years earlier to warp into the romantic if misguided belief that things used to be better than they are now. I miss it so: the absence of anything to miss!

So much about the world has changed. Namely, enough time has elapsed for me to become aware that the world has changed—and is, indeed, always changing. Things just aren’t the way they used to be, because nothing can move through time and remain exactly the same. Also, “the way things used to be” involved me not perpetually thinking about whether things are the way they used to be or not.

Over the weekend Donald Trump committed one of the worst verbal “glitches” of the campaign so far. After delivering his standard line about how Joe Biden should be forced to take a cognitive test and rambling on about how he had “aced” his, Trump then said: “Doc Ronny Johnson, does everyone know Doc Ronny Johnson from Texas? He was the White House doctor and he said that I was the healthiest, he feels, president in history so I liked him very much.” Trump was very close with this former admiral (busted down to captain for his inappropriate behavior, drinking and drug use) doctor, now congressman. I wrote about their relationship some years back: Brig. Gen. Dr. Richard Tubb, said in a letter that the doctor had been attached like “Velcro” to Trump since Inauguration Day. Tubb explained that [the] office is “one of only a very few in the White House Residence proper,” located directly across the hall from the president’s private elevator.

UAVs continually kill civilians, but the U.S. military wants to expand its arsenal with an army of new, mass-produced kamikaze AI drones.

The post Cheap and Lethal: The Pentagon’s Plan for the Next Drone War appeared first on The Intercept.

Ashes, ashes “Motivated ignorance,” writes Peter Wehner in The Atlantic, refers to willfully blinding oneself to facts. It’s choosing not to know. In many cases, for many people, knowing the truth is simply too costly, too psychologically painful, too threatening to their core identity. Nescience is therefore incentivized; people actively decide to remain in a state of ignorance. If they are presented with strong arguments against a position they hold, or compelling evidence that disproves the narrative they embrace, they will reject them. Doing so fends off the psychological distress of the realization that they’ve been lying to themselves and to others. This is why, as cognitive scientist George Lakoff suggests, the truth (facts) will not set them free. Or as his former student, Anat Shenker-Osorio, quips, truth for some people is more an “I’ll see it when I believe it” proposition and not the other way around. Motivated cognition, she told Lawrence O’Donnell, “is a helluva drug.” Motivated ignorance is a widespread phenomenon; most people, to one degree or another, employ it.

Ahmed AbdulKareem uncovers how American airstrikes, guided by Israeli intelligence operations and Yemeni informants, are amplifying civilian casualties in Yemen and shedding light on a covert military strategy with global implications.

The post Inside Force 400: Spies and Sabotage in America’s Covert War on Yemen appeared first on MintPress News.

It’s still the Independents, stupid Six in 10 key state voters turn out sporadically or are not firmly committed, Post-Schar poll finds. Let’s dig in: In a nation where many voters have made up their minds, Denning [26] and Etter [age 48] are among the voters whose decisions about the presidential race are neither firmly fixed nor whose participation is wholly predictable. As a group, these voters do not exactly fit the description of being undecided. Some lean toward a specific candidate. Some even say they will definitely vote for that candidate. But age or voting history or both leave open the question of how they will vote in November — if they vote at all. The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University surveyed 3,513 registered voters in the six key battleground states. The survey was completed in April and May, before a New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts in the hush money trial involving an adult-film actress.

In this column, professional speechwriter Chandler Dean provides partly satirical, partly genuine “How To” advice focused on a hyper-specific subcategory of speeches—from graduation speeches to wedding toasts to eulogies, and all the rhetorical occasions in between.

Yay! You’ve been invited to a thing. But on the other hand: Shit! You’ve been invited to a thing. This is the eternal struggle: our desire to be included is in perpetual conflict with our desire to stay home and watch YouTube videos of guys going to every Rainforest Café in America. So here are a few tips about how to say no to a plan without saying goodbye to a friendship.

In a perfect world, try to be out of town when this event happens.

Dear Candidate,

Thank you for your application. Should we move forward, here are the stages you can expect to encounter as you advance during a typical interview process with our team:

Why is the West holding back from the opportunity to seize the $300 billion of frozen Russian money sitting in its banks?

In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: IWTV, Tom Brady, Superman, Doctor Who, Smiling Friends, The Boys, The Acolyte, House of the Dragon, and more!

The guide is designed to oust the Conservatives from Government – but smaller parties have questioned some of the recommendations

‘How does a genius cope with the challenges of getting old?’ Explore the lesser-known works of Michelangelo’s last decades

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

Our human minds hold us back from truly understanding the many brilliant ways that other creatures solve their problems

- by Abigail Desmond & Michael Haslam

Read at Aeon

The five stages describe a grief that’s knowable and controlled. An accident in my kitchen helped me find a truer metaphor

- by Joshua Thomas

Read at Psyche

An analysis of work patterns suggests that the rise in interstate migration since 2020 has largely been the result of an increased share of people working from home.

Exclusive polling reveals that four-in-ten voters wrongly believe they will just need a polling card in order to vote in the general election

Evacuees are seeking safer ground in the face of a brutal Russian attack, reports Joseph Roche

Today I had the pleasure of sitting down with Michael Barker, editor of the Fremantle Shipping News, to chat about technology and the human condition. We went deep!