Yeah That's Right

Likely been mentioned here before, but, what the hell, why not yet again? My Pappy explained it all decades ago. Of course, didn't actually explain anything, simply reported what he saw.

He finally get drafted, then being WWII and all, and even in those dire times, the US military took the effort to sort the knuckleheads from the brainiacs. Pappy was closer to the latter than the former. The result was that rather than carry a rifle and get shot at by Germans or Japanese, the Signal Corp had first pick, so he built radio towers. Say, what? Turns out that back then, and it turns out more necessarily, airplanes needed signaling towers in order to know where they are and where they are going. These were and are called beacons. Not so important now, what with GPS and satellites generally.

Most of his time was spent in North Africa, mostly around Algeria. And, being the local winners, he and his crew were billeted in mansion-like housing. And, for good measure, they had a houseboy to do the scutwork. Said houseboy was a juvenile, may be 10 years old. Pappy was impressed; the kid spoke a handful of languages fluently. And not all White Man's language, either. Pappy was amazed.

Over the years I've returned to that story from time to time in idle conversation. My sister was born when I was 13, so I saw her early development with near-adult eyes and ears. And, I've also known myriad people who grew up with more than one language. So, how is such fluency possible? It sure as shit ain't like falling off a log for many, if not most, adults.

My interpretation is dumbshit simple: when a walking meatloaf begins to contemplate hearing and speech and meaning, said meatloaf has no notion of languages, plural. To the walking meatloaf it's all sounds. Just sounds. Language is not yet a concept. Just sounds. And, over time, each sound gets associated with some thing. And just things, not yet abstract ideas, like special relativity.

As the walking meatloaf is exposed to sounds and things, he is also exposed to the people making these sounds with these things, and, if the walking meatloaf isn't as dumb as a sack of hair, he'll notice that Joe has one sound for truck while Jacque has a different sound for that truck. So, the walking meatloaf doesn't care about the sounds, except that which one to use is determined by the object and the person/people making the sound.

So, in simplistic terms, walking meatloaf doesn't learn multiple languages (the walking meatloaf is ignorant of languages), but just one. Only later will he be told that one is english and another french, and still another arabic. And that's the kicker: language family doesn't matter either. It's all just sounds.

And that's about what the high priced researchers more or less found

On the whole, Dr. Blanco-Elorrieta said in a news release, a single "grammatical engine" in the brain appeared capable of powering multiple languages at once.

Well, no shit Sherlock. Engine runs just on petrol, not petrol, diesel, and natural gas at the same time. It's not obvious from the report who the subjects of the study were. It matters whether they were adults learning some second language, or like Pappy's houseboy, absorbing multiple languages (really just Language) from the gitgo.

Here's the core error

Early research viewed bilingualism as an "add on" or "disruption" to the processing of one's native language, said Judith Kroll, a psycholinguist at the University of California, Irvine who was not involved in the new study.

For the walking meatloaf, it's all one native language. A mix of different sounds, depending on the context. Context another concept that walking meatloaf is clueless.

Thought For The Day - 14 June 2026

I wonder... how is a 60-day cease fire the same as "unconditional surrender"? Emporer Nero The Donald^© (better than Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte) lying yet again. I wonder... will the MAGAnaut idiots see the difference? Will they credit Bone Spur Samurai^© with ending the war just by making (so he says now) Hormuz open again? Status quo ante isn't much to write home about. Well... unless you're a malignant lying narcissist.

Of course, he had to have something to sell. After all he's 80 today, and likely won't remember anything tomorrow.

I Told You So - 11 June 2026

Well... almost. I hope nothing more. Back on 3 June, I opined that Pulte was installed to erase the NSA tapes from 2016/Trump/Russia. Now comes this from the NYT

The president has also long been deeply skeptical of the intelligence community, primarily because of the investigation into whether his 2016 campaign conspired with Russians who, officials have repeatedly said, interfered in the presidential election that year to harm Mr. Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

A real DNI, not even Gabbard, would do such bidding. Pulte? He doesn't even need to be asked. Emporer Nero The Donald^© (better than Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte) has been very busy erasing anyone and anything which challanges his psychotic view of the world and its history.

[Well... that didn't age all that well!]
I saw the Clayton announcement and thought, "from worst to worst". Just as unqualified. Just now found this

Donald Trump has agreed to drop Bill Pulte - but his new choice is just as bad.

Great minds run in the same gutter.

Dee Feat is in Dee Flation - part the fifty first

Just a reminder from Santayana:

Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.

So, I've plucked some part of Part 44 (aka, the Covid inflation problem) to refresh your memories; and don't have to re-write the wheel. Emporer Nero The Donald^© (better than Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte) is dead set (and deadheaded, though not that old rock band version) on repeating the LBJ fiasco of guns and butter. And he'll blame the Chinese or the Democrats or Cuber (more on that is coming). Here we go again.

The Moneterists mantra is that inflation is solely the result of too much moolah in the economy, and therefore the only cure is to 'take away the punch bowl'. As it happens, sometimes it is true that excess moolah has invaded the economy, and resulted in inflation. In my short lifetime, the most infamous devolved from LBJ's "guns and butter" speech and subsequent actions. Excess real demand exceeded available widgets.

Q. Mr. President, from what you have outlined as your program for now, it would seem that you feel that we can have guns and butter for the foreseeable future. Do you have any idea right now, though, that down the road a piece the American people may have to face the problem of guns or butter?

THE PRESIDENT. I have not the slightest doubt but whatever it is necessary to face, the American people will face. I think that all of us know that we are now in the 5 ad month of the prosperity that has been unequaled in this Nation, and I see no reason for declaring a national emergency and I rejected that course of action earlier today when I made my decision.

I cannot foresee what next year, or the following year, or the following year will hold. I only know that the Americans will do whatever is necessary. At the moment we enjoy the good fortune of having an unparalleled period of prosperity with us, and this Government is going to do all it can to see it continue.

Which then got us the Volker destruction. It took some time, abetted by Nixon of course.

So now, according to Bone Spur Samurai^©, this isn't a forever war, his monuments to his monumental ego don't matter, tax breaks for the rich don't matter, and K-shape economy doesn't matter. The price of gas will drop through the floor, along with everything else, the instant the War is Won and Hormuz is instantly "open". He'll likely fall asleep then, just like at the Knicks came. The little people, black, brown, and white will take it in the neck. As usual. He, of course, gets all the butter.

Nausea

All this faux let's be nicey to each other over at CBS is making me vomit in my mouth. Here's all you need to know, to know why. It's from Pelley's interview

So I sit down, like, OK, let's talk about it. Tom accuses me of physically abusing Nick Bilton. This is a lie. I didn't come within 10 feet of Nick Bilton. In my life, I have never put my hands on anyone in anger. And when he was caught in that lie, he said, well, OK, I take that back. And I said, great.

Just like Emporer Nero The Donald^© (better than Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte) the Ellison flunkies make up shit that suits Bone Spur Samurai^©'s agenda. Anyone who believes that "60 Minutes" correspondents will have independence from the thugs up the chain of command is an idiot.

Ellison won't have to intervene with Weiss or Bilton... they're Bone Spur Samurai^©'s flunkies from the gitgo.

The Seer Speaks - part the first

The efforts of Weiss and Bilton were foretold either millennia ago, or just a few hundred years. Depends on how accurate history has been

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

"60 Minutes" is buried. Stahl, Whitacker, and Wertheim may make it through the coming season. Were I a Kalshi addict, I'd bet no. the tell

(CBS News has said it plans to hire additional correspondents soon.)

If you really think these new folks will hold the MAGAnauts to account, well...

Ms. Stahl said their decision to stay would be reversed if Mr. Bilton did not live up to his promises. "We're more or less taking his word for it," she said. "But if what he was talking about in his statement doesn't work, we're going to leave."

Well... Lesley, don't let the door hit you in the ass too hard.

Thought For The Day - 3 June 2026

Lots of folks are puzzled by Pulte being named DNI. I'm not. But I know Emporer Nero The Donald^© (better than Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte) is intent on erasing history. He can't do that without erasing all the tapes in the vaults at NSA. He knows, and many in the news business know (including me since I spent some time with Jack Anderson while he still had some relevance), that NSA really does have the receipts.

But they don't leak. Much, modulo Snowden of course. But to be safe Bone Spur Samurai^© just has to burn the tapes. Pulte will do that. No professional spook would.