One small step for Jeff…

American pop artist Jeff Koons is to send sculptures to the Moon later this year on a spacecraft blasting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, his gallery bragged Tuesday.

Koons, one of the most celebrated ,over hyped and expensive living artists, is famed for kitsch pieces such as “Ballon Dog” and “Rabbit,” and his work is unfortunately exhibited repeatedly in high end galleries around the world.

His latest project “Moon Phases” consists of physical sculptures that will be left permanently on the lunar surface as space junk in a transparent, thermally coated miniature satellite, the Pace Gallery in New York said counting their money.

Koons will also make unique digital versions of the sculptures — marking his entry into the lucrative new world of NFTs (non-fungible tokens). cha ching! cha ching!

The sculptures will travel on the “Nova-C Lunar Lander,” designed by private company Intuitive Machines formerly known as Counter Intuitive Machines, and will be placed tastefully on the surface of the Moon in the Oceanus Cybercoinarum not to be confused with Oceanus Procellarum.

“I wanted to create a whip smart financially meaningful NFT statement,” Koons, 67, said. “My achievement in space represent the limitless potential of monetizing the last frontier of real estate that until my haute couture deep pockets, was sadly devoid of art and the shiny stain of my human hubris.”

The gallery released no details on the number or size of sculptures heading into space, but said the location will become a lunar heritage site dedicated to Mr. Koon’s earthly reputation as an artist who makes expensive stuff from expensive highly skilled labour and processes. framed by the promotional voraciousness of mercantile interests.

It added the project would mark 50 years since America’s last crewed trip to the Moon missed the opportunity of planting a grifter art work on its virgin surface.

Source AFP news edited for satirical clarity.

Skippy’s Blockhead fantasy…

“A Blockhead Poilievre government would welcome this new, decentralized, bottoms-up (titter!) economy and allow people to take control of their mullah from bankers and politicians. It would expand choice and lower the costs of financial products, and create a wonderful job of Prime Minister for me and we could fantasize together about thousands of jobs for engineers, programmers, coders and other entrepreneurs,” read a press release from his ahead of the herd announcement.

Red Coats interview…

Kenney interviewed by RCMP in criminal probe tied to party leadership race

(During the interview Kenney insisted on changing his jacket for reasons not revealed.)

EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says he has been interviewed by RCMP as part of an investigation into potential criminal identity fraud in the 2017 United Conservative Party leadership contest.

Kenney, answering questions from reporters, says he did one interview with Mounties at their request and remains confident his campaign team followed all the rules.

The police investigation is one of two probes into the 2017 vote, which saw Kenney defeat his main rival Brian Jean to win the top job in the party and eventually become premier.

Election officials have investigated improper donations to the campaign of another candidate, Jeff Callaway, and levied thousands of dollars in fines.

Well after the race was over, it became known that Callaway’s team worked behind the scenes with Kenney supporters as Callaway publicly disparaged Jean before quitting the race to support Kenney.

Kenney says he had no knowledge or participation in illegal donations.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 28, 2022.

Court Painter ,sporting his new hair growth results, poses in front of Red Coats Interview

the Evergreen industry of warfare…

Please Note: The following article was written & updated before the invasion of Ukraine

Why Is Global Arms Industry Flourishing Despite Covid-19 Pandemic? SIPRI Report Reveals

Outlook article by Deutsche Welle UPDATED: 06 DEC 2021 9:02 AM

(The SIPRI Yearbook is released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) which researches international armament and conflict. The SIPRI “Yearbook 2021” assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security.)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, even though the IMF put global economic contraction at 3.1%, SIPRI researchers saw that the arms sales of these top 100 companies increased nonetheless — they saw an overall increase of 1.3%

A $531-billion business: The new SIPRI report shows that the world’s top 100 arms producers have continued to increase sales — even in the pandemic year of 2020 and despite the global economy contracting.
Lockdowns, crumbling supply chains, jittery consumers: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about massive economic slumps around the world. One sector, however, has proved immune to the virus: The arms industry. This is confirmed by the latest report on the world’s 100 largest arms manufacturers by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

SIPRI researcher Alexandra Marksteiner told DW that she was especially surprised by the data from 2020, the first year of the pandemic: “Even though the IMF put global economic contraction at 3.1%, we saw that the arms sales of these top 100 companies increased nonetheless — we saw an overall increase of 1.3%.”

The sales of the top 100 arms manufacturers totalled $531 billion (€469 billion) in 2020, more than the economic output of Belgium. Some 54% of this was accounted for by the 41 US companies in SIPRI’s top 100. The main companies in the industry are US-based: Lockheed Martin alone sold more than $58 billion worth of weapons systems last year — a sum bigger than the GDP of Lithuania.

Effective lobbying
Companies that big also wield political power. Markus Bayer, a political scientist at the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC), says arms companies are deliberately exerting influence. He quotes a report by the US NGO Open Secrets: “Defense companies spend millions every year lobbying politicians and donating to their campaigns. In the past two decades, their extensive network of lobbyists and donors have directed $285 million in campaign contributions and $2.5 billion in lobbying spending to influence defense policy.”

And for the arms manufacturing giants, the spending appears to pay off. Alexandra Marksteiner explains that the US Department of Defense provided targeted support for the arms industry during the pandemic. “For example, they made sure that employees of defense companies were largely exempted from stay-at-home orders. On the other hand, there were some orders that were set up so that funds could be transferred to the companies a bit earlier, ahead of schedule, so that they would have a bit of a buffer.”

Big Asian players
Simone Wisotzki has also examined SIPRI’s new figures. An arms control expert at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), she was especially struck by “the fact that arms companies from the Global South are becoming increasingly important.” Wisotzki mentions India in particular: It has three companies in the top 100, whose combined sales total 1.2% — on a par with South Korea.

However, there are far more weapons leaving the factories of India’s northern neighbor, China. SIPRI has been including Chinese companies in its studies since 2015, despite the many problems with transparency. China’s five companies on the list are benefiting from the Chinese military’s modernization program, and their shipments now account for 13% of the top 100’s sales.

Looking at the Chinese entries, Marksteiner notes that “these companies are capitalizing on what is called military-civilian fusion,” citing the largest Chinese arms conglomerate as an example: “There was a satellite system that NORINCO co-developed, and it makes quite a bit of revenue from that, and it’s used both for military and civilian purposes.”

Militarized information technology
Simone Wisotzki also notes that the boundary between civil and military technologies are becoming increasingly blurred. “Information technology can no longer be separated from weapons technology,” she says. In its new report, SIPRI specifically looks at the growing role tech companies play in the arms business.

Marksteiner emphasizes that, if you want a clear picture of the arms industry, “you can’t just talk about traditional players like Lockheed Martin.” SIPRI says that, in recent years, some Silicon Valley giants like Google, Microsoft and Oracle have sought to deepen their involvement in the arms business and have been rewarded with lucrative contracts.

SIPRI gives the example of a deal between Microsoft and the US Department of Defense worth $22 billion. The company has been contracted to supply the US Army with a type of super-glasses, called the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, which will provide soldiers with real-time strategic information about the battlefield.

The US military’s interest in Silicon Valley is easy to explain. “They realize that, in these new enabling technologies, be it artificial intelligence or machine learning or cloud computing, these Silicon Valley companies’ expertise is far beyond what you would see from traditional arms industry players,” says Marksteiner. “There is a chance that some of these companies will actually end up entering the [SIPRI] top 100.”

Russia is falling behind
Along with France, the biggest drop in arms sales was recorded by Russia. The nine Russian companies on the list sold 6.5% fewer weapons last year than in 2019. The BICC’s Markus Bayer believes this drop, to just 5% of the top 100’s total sales, is directly related to India and China having developed arms factories of their own. Both countries were previously big buyers of Russian armaments.

Bayer cites the example of aircraft carriers. The first Chinese carrier was based on a Soviet-built ship purchased by Beijing in 1998. The Chinese carrier, named Liaoning, came into service in 2012.

A lot has happened since then, says Bayer. “In the last 20 years, China has not just caught up with Russia in terms of aircraft carrier production capabilities, it’s overtaken it. Russia hasn’t put a single aircraft carrier into service in that time. And now India has developed its own carrier as well, based on what was originally Soviet technology.”

Where does Europe stand?
The European arms industry has a combined 21% of the top 100’s sales on its books. In 2020, the 26 European companies listed sold $109 billion worth of weapons. The four wholly German arms companies accounted for just under $9 billion of this total.

There are also trans-European companies like Airbus, which handled arms deals worth almost €12 billion — 5% more than in 2019. Europe is increasingly relying on joint ventures like these. Markus Bayer explains: “Europe is now trying, by political means, to expedite such cooperative ventures for the development of a ‘Next Generation Weapon System,’ the ‘Future Combat Air System,’ or the ‘Main Ground Combat System,’ so it can bear the high development costs for new systems like these.”

These joint productions certainly make sense from a cost point of view. But as far as arms export control is concerned, they can often be problematic, says Simone Wisotzki. Referring to the Eurofighter Typhoon, a fighter jet developed by Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain, the PRIF analyst comments that “it is also specifically supplied to problematic third countries, such as Saudi Arabia, which is still waging war in Yemen.” National export regulations are often not applied to joint productions — and it seems that Europe is still a long way from implementing effective joint controls on arms exports.

This article was translated from German

they did what !?…

The federal Liberals have agreed to prioritize specific policy issues backed by the New Democrats in exchange for their support keeping the government in power until 2025.

Both sides have agreed to allow “healthy debate” in Parliament while constantly communicating, including in quarterly leaders’ meetings and monthly “take-stock” meetings, to ensure they stay on the same page. The parties are free to walk away from the agreement if commitments aren’t met.

Measures the two sides have promised to advance: Health Care, Housing & Affordability, Climate Change , Sick Leave, Reconciliation, Tax Fairness, Electoral Participation

Source CTV News

  • Is it any wonder Conservative Interim Leader Candice Bergen and MP Pierre Poilievre are rage steaming!

Auntie Janet kicks ass…

Gidimt’en elder Janet Williams

1:35 AM · Mar 11, 2022·

Click link above for video


Gidimt’en Checkpoint@Gidimten

“RCMP have been entering our village several times each day to harass, surveil, intimidate, and threaten our guests. When police came to her home at 4am, March 10. Auntie Janet confronted the officers and kicked them out of our camp.”

Court Painter images based on screen grabs enhanced from the video

Court Painter relaxes after completing painting of Auntie Janet

Running down the clock…

Updated on October 4,2022 from posts of March 1 and 12 of 2022.

Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The Doomsday Clock is set every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 11 Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies in other domains. In March 2022, the Science and Security Board released a new statement in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Infamy Portraits …

in·fa·my/ˈinfəmē/noun

1. the state of being well known for some bad quality or deed.

 2. evil reputation brought about by something grossly criminal, shocking, or brutal. 2a : an extreme and publicly known criminal or evil act. b : the state of being infamous. 

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who is the president of Russia, a position he has filled since 2012, and previously from 1999 until 2008.