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Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

The Saker

Indymedia ireland

Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Fraud and mismanagement at University College Cork Thu Aug 28, 2025 18:30 | Calli Morganite
UCC has paid huge sums to a criminal professor
This story is not for republication. I bear responsibility for the things I write. I have read the guidelines and understand that I must not write anything untrue, and I won't.
This is a public interest story about a complete failure of governance and management at UCC.

offsite link Deliberate Design Flaw In ChatGPT-5 Sun Aug 17, 2025 08:04 | Mind Agent
Socratic Dialog Between ChatGPT-5 and Mind Agent Reveals Fatal and Deliberate 'Design by Construction' Flaw
This design flaw in ChatGPT-5's default epistemic mode subverts what the much touted ChatGPT-5 can do... so long as the flaw is not tickled, any usage should be fine---The epistemological question is: how would anyone in the public, includes you reading this (since no one is all knowing), in an unfamiliar domain know whether or not the flaw has been tickled when seeking information or understanding of a domain without prior knowledge of that domain???!

This analysis is a pretty unique and significant contribution to the space of empirical evaluation of LLMs that exist in AI public world... at least thus far, as far as I am aware! For what it's worth--as if anyone in the ChatGPT universe cares as they pile up on using the "PhD level scholar in your pocket".

According to GPT-5, and according to my tests, this flaw exists in all LLMs... What is revealing is the deduction GPT-5 made: Why ?design choice? starts looking like ?deliberate flaw?.

People are paying $200 a month to not just ChatGPT, but all major LLMs have similar Pro pricing! I bet they, like the normal user of free ChatGPT, stay in LLM's default mode where the flaw manifests itself. As it did in this evaluation.

offsite link AI Reach: Gemini Reasoning Question of God Sat Aug 02, 2025 20:00 | Mind Agent
Evaluating Semantic Reasoning Capability of AI Chatbot on Ontologically Deep Abstract (bias neutral) Thought
I have been evaluating AI Chatbot agents for their epistemic limits over the past two months, and have tested all major AI Agents, ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Perplexity, and DeepSeek, for their epistemic limits and their negative impact as information gate-keepers.... Today I decided to test for how AI could be the boon for humanity in other positive areas, such as in completely abstract realms, such as metaphysical thought. Meaning, I wanted to test the LLMs for Positives beyond what most researchers benchmark these for, or have expressed in the approx. 2500 Turing tests in Humanity?s Last Exam.. And I chose as my first candidate, Google DeepMind's Gemini as I had not evaluated it before on anything.

offsite link Israeli Human Rights Group B'Tselem finally Admits It is Genocide releasing Our Genocide report Fri Aug 01, 2025 23:54 | 1 of indy
We have all known it for over 2 years that it is a genocide in Gaza
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has finally admitted what everyone else outside Israel has known for two years is that the Israeli state is carrying out a genocide in Gaza

Western governments like the USA are complicit in it as they have been supplying the huge bombs and missiles used by Israel and dropped on innocent civilians in Gaza. One phone call from the USA regime could have ended it at any point. However many other countries are complicity with their tacit approval and neighboring Arab countries have been pretty spinless too in their support

With the release of this report titled: Our Genocide -there is a good chance this will make it okay for more people within Israel itself to speak out and do something about it despite the fact that many there are actually in support of the Gaza

offsite link China?s CITY WIDE CASH SEIZURES Begin ? ATMs Frozen, Digital Yuan FORCED Overnight Wed Jul 30, 2025 21:40 | 1 of indy
This story is unverified but it is very instructive of what will happen when cash is removed
THIS STORY IS UNVERIFIED BUT PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO OR READ THE TRANSCRIPT AS IT GIVES AN VERY GOOD IDEA OF WHAT A CASHLESS SOCIETY WILL LOOK LIKE. And it ain't pretty

A single video report has come out of China claiming China's biggest cities are now cashless, not by choice, but by force. The report goes on to claim ATMs have gone dark, vaults are being emptied. And overnight (July 20 into 21), the digital yuan is the only currency allowed.

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Stallone Does Justice To The People Of Burma

category international | arts and media | opinion/analysis author Saturday March 01, 2008 12:43author by Movie Fan Report this post to the editors

"Rambo" is anything but another cynical Hollywood blockbuster

It does what it says on the tin.
A simplistic plot.
A damsel in distress must be rescued by a hero against impossible odds.
A black and white vision of good and evil.

BUT WHAT EVIL!

Like no other movie I have ever seen, perhaps Schindler's List, this movie demonstrates the evil of ethnic cleansing, tyranny and injustice that the West would like to pretend does not exist.

Nobody can see this movie and not be changed, outraged and forced to do something for the people of Burma and other peoples oppressed through out the world.

Rambo is a walking physical and psychological scar, a Frankenstein monster, a broken Hercules, unloved and unwanted.

A group of sickeningly idealistic smugly pacficist bible bashers seek his help to get upriver into Burma in a childishly sentimental and utterly wrongheaded crusade to help the people of Burma.

How wrong they are, is demonstrated in a scene of indescrible brutality when the Burmese military wipe out a village and take them captive.

Naturally Rambo comes to the rescue and wipes out the bad guys.

The final battle is astonishingly violent.

Rambo literally rips the raping murdering bastards to pieces with a .50 calibre machine gun.

Apparently the Karen rebels who are fighting valiantly to stay alive have take comfort that their plight is being raised no matter how garishly.

The Myamar government unsurprisingly have banned the movie.

One is reminded of many parts of the world where injustice is perpetrated while the West stand idly by while the security of Iraqi oil gets top priority.

I cried as I remembered my indifference to the failure of the Burmese uprising last October.

Stallone's message to the governments of the world who prefer to ignore the crimes of evil regimes throughout the world.

DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING, RIGHT NOW AND STOP MAKING EXCUSES!

author by Movie Fanpublication date Sat Mar 01, 2008 16:01author address author phone Report this post to the editors




A naive group of bible missionaries and doctors arrive in a Burmese village and set about helping sick people.
The Burmese military turn up and wipe out the village.
This scene is absolute horrifying but reflects the reality of present day Burma

author by Movie Fanpublication date Sat Mar 01, 2008 16:16author address author phone Report this post to the editors




This scene is a cry of despair.
In reality evil has triumphed in Burma.
The junta slaughtered protestors and monks last October.
There are really are no Rambos prepared to do anything.

author by Roger Ebertpublication date Sat Mar 01, 2008 17:07author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I agree with what you have to say - superficially this is just another brainless action movie.

I see a more subversive message:

1. The naive Christian missionaries represent the U.S.’s simplistic vision of bringing “democracy” to Afghanistan and Iraq. The Christians are completely ignorant of the history and circumstances in Burma. Their arrogance and ethnocentricism creates a quagmire. They unknowingly interpose themselves in a conflict and end up bringing more harm than good to those who they wished to help.

2. Rambo has a silent realization at the end of the movie as he surveys the carnage left in the wake of the film’s climactic battle. The dizzying torrent of violence has left all damaged. There are no winners. There is no sustainable peace acheived through extrinsically motivated war. Rambo’s love interest, Sarah, falls into the arms of her pathetic missionary colleague. The end of the movie doesn’t even yield a happy ending in terms of “the hero gets the damsel.” The illusion of a tightly knit happy ending is shattered. Rambo’s resolution: Pull out. He returns to Arizona. Abandon mission.

3. The climax of the movie finds John Rambo stationed behind an automatic gun on a truck. He obliterates hundreds of Burmese soldiers in his path. These soldiers become faceless, flailing bodies. The once inventive, hands-on hero is forced to conform to cold, mechanized, remote warfare. Ramb doesn’t triumph by his own merit. He is merely a gun operator.

author by Anarchistpublication date Sat Mar 01, 2008 17:26author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I think the Rambo movies are brave and fantastic.
Rambo is 100% blue collar, he isn't educated, he doesn't know the why's, he just knows what is right and what is wrong.
He is a modern everyman, the naive man who trusts in his leaders and his country and honestly does his duty, only to find Vietnam was the wrong war to fight and finds on his return home that an ungrateful pampered nation doesn't care about his sacrifice - the hero is a stanger among his own people. In the second movie he returns to Vietnam to rescue men who were abandoned and forgotten after the war was over, men like himself. In the third movie he sides with the people of Afghanistan, the ultimate underdogs, not out of American patriotism, but because evil men, it does not matter that they are Russian Soviets, are slaughtering them.
The fourth movie is a parable for the post-cold war world - the certainties of the confrontation with US imperialism and Soviet imperialism are no longer relevant - what is relevant and always will be relevant is that when innocent people are being killed, by whomever for whatever nebulus cause, it does not matter if it is politically inconvienient (nobody is doing anything about Burma rather than upset the Chinese) it is the right thing to do and always will be the right thing to do.
Rambo represents basic uncomplicated human decency which has been hiding out in the jungle of late.
The final scene where Rambo does home to the farm in Arizona with "R.Rambo" on the letter box (presumeably his father) shows that human decency, not clouded or qualified by ideology, needs to return to its place in civilisation.
The triumphant scene with the machine guns laying waste to scores of Burmese fascists represents a noble uncompromising intolerance of evil.

author by A10publication date Sat Mar 01, 2008 19:22author address author phone Report this post to the editors

When I was growing up in the 80s the Anti War /American pro Sov crowd were calling Rambo movies,typical US capitalist murdering fantasies against the peaceful Vietnamese and Russians.Foisted on by a few inane comments from President Ron Regan.Not to mind that every fruitand nut group in the Western world were echoing the same movie critiques. Now a film of simple blast away of whatever bad guys are in the way is lauded as a brilliant piece of movie making..
Shheesh,strange days indeed.

author by Séamuspublication date Sat Mar 01, 2008 21:48author address author phone Report this post to the editors

And there I was thinking that Rambo was all about killing yellow people.

author by lulupublication date Sun Mar 02, 2008 13:00author address author phone Report this post to the editors

People in 'the West' ARE trying to help the people of Burma (without even trying to make converts!), bringing medical aid etc., to the Karen people, & Free Burma Rangers, for example, but they need financial & publicity help.

author by Movie Fanpublication date Sun Mar 02, 2008 13:54author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I can remember being asked to sign a petition of protest against the actions of the Burma Junta last year when the peaceful uprising was crushed by tanks and troops.
Presumeably the murdering bastards were going to listen to a few idealists marching into the Burmese consulate in Dublin?
Burst their arses laughing.
What the people of Burma need is guns so they can overthrow the dictatorship.

author by amigopublication date Sun Mar 02, 2008 22:48author address author phone Report this post to the editors

it's a movie... its an action movie fictional..
and bad as they are, I think even the Burmese soldiers would hit the dirt if someone opened up with a heavy machine gun, rather than all standing up straight trying to return fire with an AK 47.
China is arming the Burmese military, a few weapons smuggled in for the other side won't match that, except in the movie

author by lulupublication date Mon Mar 03, 2008 18:37author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I ask meself each morning....see http://www.oneplanetpictures.co.uk/burmaset.htm

author by nomapublication date Mon Mar 03, 2008 19:03author address author phone Report this post to the editors

www.friendsofthekaren.org

author by lulupublication date Wed Mar 05, 2008 22:33author address author phone Report this post to the editors

www.csw.org.uk

www.freeburmarangersorg

www.burmacampaign.org.uk

www.jubileecampaign.co.uk

www.karenaid.org

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