“We are Forerunners. Guardians of all that exists. The roots of the Galaxy have grown deep under our careful tending. Where there is life, the wisdom of our countless generations has saturated the soil. Our strength is a luminous sun, towards which all intelligence blossoms… And the impervious shelter, beneath which it has prospered.”

Monday morning Custodes controversy

by | Apr 22, 2024 | Mondays | 1 comment

Coming back to work after a nice long vacation is never, ever fun. You know you have done it right, though, when you have forgotten at least one of your various login passwords – which is precisely what happened to me this morning. Fortunately, I had it written down somewhere, so I was able to login – and then had to cool my heels while WinDOZE figured out how to log me in through Microsoft’s servers, tripped over itself (because WINDOZE), and then forced me to reboot the PC.

Yeah, it’s Monday. What can we do?

Well, we can, of course, resort to the epic distractions contained within the Great Mondaydact Browser Mulcher. So let’s get on with it.

A lot of Warhammer 40,000 fans are seriously pissed of late – even more so than usual, more than might be easily explained by Khorne not getting his daily serving of BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!!, or Orks GETTIN’ STUCK IN DA WARP WIF NUFFIN’ TA DO!!! – and it behooves us to understand why.

Basically, Games Workshop made the stupid mistake of trying to pander to the woke idiots by pretending that the Adeptus Custodes – the guardians of the Emperor of Mankind, and we’re not talking about Donaldus Triumphus for once – used to have female recruits. This has kicked over a massive shitstorm, and rightly so, because once you know what the Custodes were, you will understand why:

And now you understand why this is such an idiotic idea:

I really feel sorry for Henry Cavill, who seems to lurch from one wonderful and promising franchise to another, only to see every single attempt of his to preserve the lore, corrupted by the Agents of Chaos. It is even more sad, because Cavill himself is a huge fan of the Custodes:

That is a man who should be playing Roboute Guilliman himself… and now he is going to suffer watching yet another beloved franchise go down in flames.


The Mighty God-Emperor

His Most Illustrious, Noble, August, Benevolent, and Legendary Celestial Majesty, the God-Emperor of Mankind, Donaldus Triumphus Magnus Astra, the First of His Name, the Lion of Midnight, may the Lord bless him and preserve him, has certainly had some great moments in debates โ€“ hereโ€™s one:

And, of course, the Deep State is doing its damnedest to destroy him right now with lawfare:


#BasedTucker is Based

That interview with Durov was SUPERB. The dude genuinely believes in what he stands for, and lives by his words.

Toe Rogan interviews #BasedTucker, at great length โ€“ it is a fascinating conversation:


Dawn of Battle

The Male Brain has lots of good stuff for us as we pass over Passover, as it were. We start with one from Moon about how Toe Rogan took down Hollyweird:

Honest Trailers breaks down No Shit Sherlock โ€“ er, I mean, Sherlock Holmes 2:

This next one will be a bit controversial. Here is a video from Useful Idiots โ€“ Akiva Bigman, which purports to refute the interview done by #BasedTucker and Pastor Munther Isaac from Bethlehem last week, in which the pastor argued that Christians are heavily persecuted in the Holy Land by ultra-Orthodox types.

Mr. Bigman argues this is nonsense:

I watched both interviews, to get a sense of who is telling the truth. Personally, I would find the response video easier to believe, if it were not for the following facts:

  • The Talmud states that Yeshua is being punished with boiling excrement, because He mocked the words of the sages (which He unquestionably did โ€“ see the โ€œSeven Woes to the Phariseesโ€), though, to be as fair as possible, there is CONSIDERABLE debate on the subject of Yeshua in the Talmud among Jewish scholars;
  • The Government of Israel explicitly denies Messianic Jews โ€“ i.e. Jews who believe Yeshua is the Messiah, but not necessarily Divine, and therefore are not actually Christians โ€“ any right to aliyah, or return, and that extends to descendants of Messianic Jews, regardless of their own views;
  • The trend of ultra-Orthodox hate crimes against Christians is very clearly on the rise, as the countryโ€™s own media admits, and the things the Ultras do to Christians in Israel proper line up PRECISELY what #BasedTuckerโ€™s guest said;
  • The countryโ€™s own top leadership elites state clearly that spitting on Christians is not a criminal act, and do not want to prosecute Ultras who commit such acts;
  • Israel does not permit Evangelical churches to broadcast TV programmes evangelising to Israeli Jews โ€“ even when the TV channels that want to do so, follow to the letter the actual laws of Israel and are totally transparent about their intentions;
  • The IDF has quite happily bombed Palestinian Orthodox Christian churches, with no evidence whatsoever that they had anything to do with Hamas, over the past 6 months, and to my knowledge has never apologised for that fact;

On the other side of the ledger, you have the fact that the Christian population of Israel has risen 1.3% over the past year โ€“ though, to be fair, well over 75% of them are Arabs, not ethnic Jews or non-Jewish Christians. And I tend to put quite a bit of that down to high Arab fecundity, combined with the fact that Christians thrive the most when we are the most heavily persecuted.

The reality is, Israel is quite happy to commit the most egregious crimes against the Palestinian population, regardless of whether they are Muslim or Christian, simply because it wants them out of Gaza and the West Bank. That is the explicitly stated goal of the ultranationalist factions currently in charge of Israel. You can agree or disagree with the validity of that position, but that is what they want, and that is precisely what they are doing right now.

More generally, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians (regardless of what you think of them), their mass starvation and displacement, and the killing of over tens of thousands, in response to a terrorist attack that killed roughly 1,300 people โ€“ at least some of whom, by the way, died at the hands of the IDF itself, not Hamas โ€“ cannot be called a proportionate response. Which is precisely the point #BasedTuckerโ€™s guest made.

Soโ€ฆ watch both interviews, and make up your own mind, really. All I will say is, the pastor in the #BasedTucker interview is calm, measured, and rational โ€“ whereas the pastor in the response interview is harsh, strident, and shrill.

Moving on โ€“ Thomas Sowell, the living legend (heโ€™s like 93 now), drops SERIOUS truth-bombs on anti-gun zealots:

Fun fact: Sylvester Stallone thinks, or thought at one point, that private ownership of guns should be banned completely, and police should go door-to-door confiscating peopleโ€™s firearms.

I think he has since mellowed considerably, and understands the problem has far more to do with mental health than with the weapons, but he was still a bit of a zealot back in the day.

PsycHacks has some EXCELLENT advice for women looking to get married, explaining how and when men are ready for marriage:

I think this is absolutely 100% true. A man who knows his value and worth, and has everything else going well in his life, is only then going to want to settle down and commit to one woman. If a woman wants to find such a man, she needs to stop looking for f-boys, and start looking for guys with a lot going on in their lives โ€“ and then, she needs to ADD VALUE to their lives, not SUBTRACT VALUE from them.


Mind-Expanding Drugs

Your General Knowledge of the week is from Dawn Pine, via adumb, andapplies graph theory to Wikipedia:


Death Smiles At Us All…


Poli-Ticking Off

Mark Dice roasts the hell out of everybodyโ€™s favourite doughboy โ€“ his impersonation of his target alone is worth the price of admission:


The very-thoroughly-married couple at Redacted analyse the Polish blockade of Ukrainian grain:


PJW wonders what is going on with the cloud-seeding experiment that evidently went VERY badly wrong over Dubai last week:


Winston Sterzel aka serpentza โ€“ itโ€™s been quite a while since we had any China-related content around here โ€“ points out the catastrophic consequences of Chinaโ€™s One-Child Policy, which is resulting in seriously problematic behaviour among young male children there:


Rulings from the Bench

Judge Nap talks to pretty much EVERYONE nowadays โ€“ Iโ€™m surprised he has time to sleep. We start with Col. Douglas Macgregor, who discusses potential Israeli use of nuclear weapons โ€“ and the utter futility thereof:

Maj. Scott Ritter analyses the extraordinary effectiveness of the Iranian missile attack on Israel:

Capt. Matthew Hoh looks at the very different reactions of the Iranian and Israeli elites to the back-and-forth between them:

Larry Johnson & Ray McGovern give an outstanding run-down of the big issues:

Sen. Rand Paul โ€“ perhaps one of the very few sane politicians left anywhere in Amerikhastan โ€“ talks about the insidious nature of the Swamp:

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs walks us through the war-weariness breaking down Western resolve over 404:

Prof. John Mearsheimer explains how Russia is steamrolling NATO, not just Ukraine:


ะ”ะตะด ะกะฒะฐั€ะปะธะฒั‹ะน ะ“ะพะฒะพั€ะธั‚!

Grandpa Grumpuss grumps, grumpily, about the supposed ability of the Western powers to control the Arctic โ€“ which is actually completely non-existent:


Polonium

Ania Konieczek talks to Maj. Scott Ritter about the happenings in Ukraine and Israel:


Timeo Danaos Et Donna Ferentesโ€ฆ

The good gentlemen of The Duran point out a home truth about the total failure of American policy, which has utterly destroyed any strategic independence Amerikhastan might once have had:


The Bald Truth

Brian Berletic of The New Atlas breaks down the latest massive Ukraine support package from the FUSA, and points out it will not make any actual difference to the eventual outcome:


Bad Medicine

Dr. John Campbell talks about excess deaths in the UK:


Dr. Suneel Dhand combines medicine and Stoicism:


Warriors of Faith

Tha Dizzle offers an excellent take on the recent attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney:

The Bishop held up a crucifix as his Izzlamist attacker tried to strike him. The knife failed to open on the Bishop โ€“ but it DID open on the attackerโ€™s own fingers, and he lost a few of them.

And people still doubt the existence of God?


Dr. Jay Smith from PfanderFilms and Al-Fadi from CIRA International continue to delve into the frankly ridiculous historical anachronisms of the Koran, this time around Pharaoh, Joseph, and other rather important little details:


Christian Prince has a great deal of fun slapping around Muzzies who believe in the stupidest things imaginable:


Sam Shamoun schools a Muslim, who really should know better, about supposed โ€œBiblical corruptionโ€:

This narrative about the Bible being โ€œcorruptedโ€ is one you will hear all the time from Muzzies. The problem they face is that their own Koran explicitly validates the authenticity, preservation, and revelation of the Torah AND the Gospels. Yet, both the Old and New Testaments flatly contradict the Koran. The only way for them to square that circle, is to argue that Jews and Christians โ€œcorruptedโ€ the original Scriptures.

Unfortunately, the moment they have to look at actual evidence, their entire argument falls apart, because the vast amount of available manuscript evidence conclusively shows that, when you subject it all to textual and critical analysis, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, Masoretic Texts, and other texts, align extremely closely with what we all have today in our modern Bible translations. And that is before we get to the immense amount of manuscript evidence we have for the New Testament.

By contrast, the moment you subject the Koran to the same standard, it completely falls apart. The Koran has been changed, revised, standardised, updated, corrected, and redacted DOZENS of times throughout its history. The Koran Muzzies use today, is not even remotely the Koran they claim to have received through Muhammad โ€“ if he even existed. And their own texts ADMIT THIS, openly.


Islam Critiqued talks about the hidden realities of Jesus in the Izzlamist cult:


Manly Men of Manliness

Terrence Popp looks at the Littlest Chickenhawk and The Daily Wire, and tries to figure out what that is all about:


Joker from Better Bachelor is tickled pink to see real women losing out to AI thots:


Burn Paedowood to the Ground

Midnightโ€™s Edge reckons the recent firings at Marvel are just window-dressing to try to divert attention from the rather dire state of things over there:


Overlord Dicktor Van Doomcock reports on the absolute state of Captain โ€˜MURKA 4:

Yeahโ€ฆ this is gonna SUCK.


Gary from Nerdrotic watches the new Civil War film, which as expected was a suckfest:


The Critical Drinker explains the whole kerfuffle around Warhammer 40K, and the idiotic change Games Workshop made to the lore:


Reading Too Much Into Things

Your Science is F***ing Weird moment of the week is from Dawn Pine, and explains how ChatGPTโ€™s GPT-4 LLM stacks up against actual physicians when taking exams:

BACKGROUND

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a burgeoning technological advancement, with considerable promise for influencing the field of medicine. As a preliminary step toward integrating AI into medical practice, it is imperative to ascertain whether model performance is comparable with that of physicians. We present a systematic comparison of performance by a large language model (LLM) versus that of a large cohort of physicians. The cohort includes all residents who took the medical specialist license examination in Israel in 2022 across the core medical disciplines: internal medicine, general surgery, pediatrics, psychiatry, and obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN). We provide the examinations as an accessible benchmark dataset for the medical machine learning and natural language processing communities, which may be adapted for future LLM studies.

METHODS

We evaluated the performance of generative pretrained transformer 3.5 (GPT-3.5) and GPT-4 on the 2022 Israeli board residency examinations and compared the results with those of 849 practicing physicians. Official physician scores were obtained from the Israeli Medical Association. To compare GPT and physician performance, we computed model percentiles among physicians in each examination. We accounted for model stochasticity by applying the model to each examination 120 times.

RESULTS

GPT-4 ranked higher than the majority of physicians in psychiatry, with a median percentile of 74.7% (95% confidence interval [CI] for the percentile, 66.2 to 81.0), and it performed similarly to the median physician in general surgery and internal medicine, displaying median percentiles of 44.4% (95% CI, 38.9 to 55.5) and 56.6% (95% CI, 44.0 to 65.7), respectively. GPT-4 performance was lower in pediatrics and OB/GYN but remained higher than a considerable fraction of practicing physicians, with a median score of 17.4% (95% CI, 9.55 to 30.9) and a median score of 23.44% (95% CI, 14.84 to 44.5), respectively. GPT-3.5 did not pass the examination in any discipline and was inferior to the majority of physicians in the five disciplines. Overall, GPT-4 passed the board residency examination in four of five specialties, revealing a median score higher than the official passing score of 65%.

CONCLUSIONS

The advancement from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4 marks a critical milestone in which LLMs achieved physician-level performance. These findings underscore the potential maturity of LLM technology, urging the medical community to explore its widespread applications.

This is probably a good time to trot out the classic โ€œall your baseโ€ meme:


Your long read of the week is a very fascinating speech by none other than Dmitriy Medvedev (ะ”ะผะธั‚ั€ะธะน ะœะตะดะฒะตะดะตะฒ), the Deputy Chair of Russiaโ€™s National Security Council, about the true nature of Russiaโ€™s strategic borders (youโ€™ll need to run it through an auto-translator):

The first one. We do not need another land. From our โ€” we will never back down. So it was and will be so. This is the principle by which our state border policy is built.

March 31, 1814 โ€” a significant date for our history. 210 years ago, Russian troops took Paris. Having put things in order in Europe, having achieved a change of power in Paris to an acceptable and other allied states, we returned with deployed banners to our home.

We did not go so far to the West either before or after. Why did we need this? Yes, it was necessary to eliminate the direct military threat. But, in addition, Russia pursued great geopolitical goals. One of the most important was the global security of our borders for a long time. And it can be effectively provided only if the country is confident in the stability of the situation beyond the direct perimeter formed by the border posts. That is, on a much wider scale. And the more the country, the greater the scale of external stability that is needed for this.

The authors of various geopolitical theories of various countries (from China to Europe and America) proceed from one obvious thesis. Any state as a sovereign subject of international relations has two types of borders โ€” geographical and strategic.

The former are stable and officially recognized in accordance with international law demarcation and delimitation lines that record the geographical limits of the state. This is one of the main elements of its political-territorial framework.

Within these borders, the state has full sovereignty. We are talking about strategic autonomy and independence from other countries, about the supremacy of power in the implementation of its domestic policy. That is, what is usually called internal sovereignty. As well as independence in foreign affairs, that is, external sovereignty.

The second, strategic type of borders is preferred to not mention once again. Talking about them โ€” seems like a political moveton.

These boundaries do not boil down to the physical size of countries, their airspace and territorial waters. They are not directly related to state sovereignty. The strategic boundaries of a state directly depend on how far its political power extends. The more powerful the state, the further its strategic frontiers are located outside its state borders. And the more large the strategic space on which such a country has an economic, political, socio-cultural influence. This is the zone of the so-called national interests of the state. Although strategic boundaries and national interests โ€” are inconsistent concepts.

In return, the strong powers that set the tone in world relations offered their wards military-political protection. The states are weak or, worse, those who came to the finals of their fame and power became puppet or vassal states for their cartridges, or, as they later began to say, ยซ friendly ยป nations (the same thing, but less offensive).

For a long time it was believed that events on the issue of the balance between geographical and strategic boundaries are developing according to the quite obvious logic. If the potential of a country has been increasing for a long time, its state sovereignty is growing, and its strategic borders are expanding. And geographic ones can catch up with them already after the fact.

In weak countries, the strategic borders of the state are within their own territories. In adverse conditions, these boundaries can be reduced to a minimum. As a result, this leads to the loss of land that is left without real control. So the Spanish colonial empire once disappeared from the political map of the world, having lost its possessions on different continents. The dominion of Portugal in Latin America, Asia and Africa has ended. These countries have become geopolitical dwarfs, unable to somehow influence key global solutions. Now the very logic of civilizational development as a punishment for geopolitical ignorance in our eyes deprives France of traditionally strong influence in the Sahara-Sahel region. And rightly so.

The second one. The presence of strategic borders outside their own territory today does not mean the intention of strong and responsible countries to enter the war with neighbors and redraw the political map. In this, the difference between our time and previous centuries, when the borders were subject to constant fluctuations and could be challenged at any time.

I will immediately note: what is happening in Ukraine, โ€” is a special case. It is not about expanding the borders of our state by the method of effective occupation, and the so-called Ukraine is not at all rei occupandi. We defend precisely our territories, which have always been and will be historical Russia. Our actions โ€” is a compelled, but quite effective response to the Russophobic policy of the Bandera regime and ยซ the collective West ยป, its desire to destroy our statehood.

In general, in Russia, like any great power, strategic borders lie far beyond geographical boundaries. And they do not hold on to military force or financial injections, but on a much more solid, almost unshakable basis.

Third. There are several levels of Russian strategic borders.

The first level is limited by the natural landscape (Carpathians, Iranian highlands, Caucasian mountains, Pamir). And the civilizational frontiers โ€” it is clear that a number of our neighbors, for historical reasons, are illogical to include in the Russian document.

History has decreed that the core of our geostrategic space is neighboring countries. They are associated with us with centuries-old traditions of cooperation, and in many cases โ€” and statehood. Together with them we are inside a common cultural and value space, in the protection of which we are vitally interested. Therefore, we perceive our partnership not as something imposed, but, on the contrary, dear, in a special way responding in the heart. But it was precisely such a strategic sphere that our enemies made their main target, trying to create conditions for mistrust and outright hostility between Russia and its neighbors.

The strategic borders of Russia also cover vast territories in the Arctic. The principle of ยซ foreign land we do not want a single inch, but we will not give our top ยป applicable to the theme of the continental shelf of Russia in the Arctic Ocean. In the same row โ€” our sovereignty over transport communications. We will not allow anyone to take our own, including the ridges of Gakkel, Lomonosov and Mendeleev.

The natural security belt (the very core of our strategic space), which is a near foreign, is of lasting importance for Russia. Not a single world power has such a respectful collective name in relation to its neighbors. The concept of this is enshrined in domestic doctrinal documents.

Key point: with the states included in this belt, we do not have territorial disputes. Over the years since the collapse of the USSR, we have maintained profitable trade cooperation, comfortable interhuman communication.


Linkage is good for you:

And some more from Dawn Pine:


MUH RUSHIAN KAHLOOOOOOOZHUN!!!

The Neo-Tsar has good reason to feel positive about his country, given its scorching economic growth:


HALO Nation

Slayergod Remy aka MintBlitz does his thing:

Also, which game has the best Cortana?

HALO 4. No question. Cortana in that game was THICCCCC


BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!

Scholarโ€™s Lore dives deep into the Maelstrom:


Creature Features

What Lurks Beneath talks about all the creepy stuff happening on the Appalachian Trail:


Oh No! Anywayโ€ฆ

Wazzocks gonna wazzock:


Comedy Hour


Meme Warfare

We start with a bunch of great Passover memes from The Male Brain:

Classic. He did get it.
Reminder: You can’t eat bread on Passover for 7 days.
“These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab.
There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadeshbarnea.”
Deuteronomy 1:1-2 (More accurately it is about 2-3 weeks directly).
True that
True that 2
Matzoh tend to do that
YES! you need to clean the house and stock up on food
Seems easy but it is everywhere
Explanation: Part of the Haggadah are the 4 sons:ย The Torah speaks of four children: one wise, one wicked, one simple, and one who does not know how to ask.
NO! After 10 he actually did.
That movie wasn’t that good

[I very much disagree – Didact]

Sounds about right
Can confirm
BECAUSE THERE WAS NO ENGLISH AT THAT TIME!

And some more regular, not-necessarily-kosher memes:

Hmmm
Good question. I think “RUN” is a strong word
RESPECT if he actually made it
I think we need a much bigger one. Maybe a flame thrower.
Trillion facepalms
Good advice
Can’t confirm, but can relate
There is a limit to how much you can hate. We are probably not there.
Would probably do the same
INDEED
Ah, the good old days
SAD BUT TRUE
CAN CONFIRM FIRST HAND
TRUE that
Actually, sleeping reduces hunger


Animal Planet

Your aminules are adorkable moment of the week:

And also your animals are absolute DICKS moment of the week (well, sort of), to balance things out, comes via Australia โ€“ where, even in the prehistoric past, LITERALLY EVERYTHING WANTED TO KILL YOU AND EAT YOUR EYEBALLS FOR JUJUBEES!!!:


REPS FOR JESUS!!!

Gym beast props this week go to Dave Johnson:


Ass-Kicking of the Eight Limbs


They See Me Rollinโ€™…


Palate Cleansers

Knife Edges

Drumlines

MOAR DAKKA!!!

We Go Feet First!

Mighty Wings

Jump-Starts

Gingervitis Injections

Russian, redhead (well, probably fake redhead), and knows how to sing AND play instruments.

Lord, have mercy.


Livinโ€™ in the Land of the Metal Gods

Also Einstein: โ€œI fear that someday people will post my pic on the Internet with bogus made-up quotations in Comic Sans fontโ€

New TYR album is out now. I am going to listen the F*** out of it, because, yโ€™know, TYR.


Rock Out With Your Glock Out


Thot Shots

And finally, after much messing about, here is your Instathot to get the week off to the right sort of start. This here is Jodeci Rochelle, age indeterminate but probably in her early twenties, from Canuckistan. That is all I know about her.

Right, off to work with you lot, then.

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1 Comment

  1. Robert W

    Prince of Egypt is quite good, not sure how any fair viewing can conclude otherwise.

    Reply

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