Patrick mcquillan

[OSINTdefender @sentdefender]

Former German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) chief, August Hanning, who served as the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service from 1998-2005, was arrested this morning on suspicion of treason. Per reports, including those from the Financial Times, Hanning is accused of collating and transferring, for a fee, thousands of classified documents to a foreign power. Another BND officer, who is still currently serving in the intelligence agency, known as “Manfred D” was also arrested for participating.

Even after Hanning left, the transfers continued, as per a statement from the Federal Prosecutor “Both suspects are believed to have agreed, in the spring of 2010, to have Manfred D continuously transmit valuable intelligence from the Federal Intelligence Service to Hanning in exchange for remuneration.”

[Prof. Eliot Jacobson @EliotJacobson]

Breaking News!
Code UFB!!!

For the first time in recorded history, the Niño 3.4 sea-surface temperature (SST) is above 30.0°C, reaching a preliminary SST of 30.06°C on October 5th.

The Niño 3.4 SST anomaly is now 3.41°C above the 1991-2020 baseline.

Everything is not fine.

[Outbreak Updates @outbreakupdates]

Important addition:

The Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute’s own research summary appears to describe deliberate virulence enhancement by serial passage.

In its Brucella program, the institute says repeated passage through guinea pigs was used to increase bacterial virulence.

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

I'm glad we're finally getting stories on this.

Arday was not an aberration: cover-ups, threats, and doubling down on fraud are the norm for academia.

[Jesse Peltan @JessePeltan]

ATTN: U.S. POLICYMAKERS

[Patrick mcquillan @patrickmcquil83]

@lugubrious_lad @Noahpinion using hunger as a weapon of war? state sanctioned persecution of west bank Palestinians?

[Jonathon P Sine @JonathonPSine]

China undergraduates by major 2022:
- Engineering: 6,742,664
- Philosophy: 12,400

[Dylan Small @_DylanSmall_]

Huge 3D Printing Breakthrough!

Caltech is printing metal atom by atom. A hydrogel scaffold soaked in metal salts becomes the blueprint, the gel burns away, and oxygen is stripped in a hydrogen-rich chamber, leaving alloys crafted with surgical precision.

They can change metal ratios on the fly. Flip from a copper-heavy mix to a Cu12Ni88 alloy nearly four times stronger, without altering shape or tooling. Every property, from strength to density, is now designed, not guessed.

This is metallurgy reinvented. Also a game changer for Aerospace applications.

https://t.co/Wcr2mNaKgb

[Balaji @balajis]

Don’t be surprised if China offers Terry Tao the chair of the mathematics department at Tsinghua University.

And all the funding he wants.

Because it is possible for the US to fumble the bag as the destination for global talent. And indeed it is fumbling that bag right now.

[Paul Graham @paulg]

The Trump administration has suspended the funding of Terence Tao and the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA.

[Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth) @antoniogm]

One of my conspiracy theories is that much of the American economy is fake.

Millions employed in entire workfare industries like TSA/DMV/USPS/HR, plunging labor participation rate and sky-high welfare/SSDI/SNAP rate, 20% of GDP in insanely marked up healthcare, asset bubbles in cities driven by NIMBY and FOMO, all this propped up by an overvalued dollar which the government can’t stop printing—conveniently the global reserve currency because our economic rival is a hermetic dictatorship.

The only real-ish parts are a small (people-wise) tech sector that launders that bloated paper wealth into a fantastically dynamic entrepreneurial talent sorting machine (with much of the talent having to be imported), and a ruthlessly efficient services industry that keeps cost of living down for the well-off (with much of the labor having to be imported).

[Steve Stewart-Williams @SteveStuWill]

“In short, although we tend to worry more about girls’ disadvantages in math and science, boys’ disadvantage in reading is much larger and more consistent.”

[Link below.]

[Prof. Carl Sagan @ProfCarlSagan]

The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of science.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇩🇪🇺🇸GERMAN TEENS THROWN IN U.S JAIL FOR...NOT BOOKING ENOUGH AIRBNBS

Charlotte Pohl, 19, and Maria Lepere, 18, flew to Hawaii for a 5-week island-hopping trip. CBP took one look at their half-planned itinerary and said: jail time.

Despite valid travel clearances (ESTA), they got strip-searched, tossed in cells with real criminals, and told to avoid the expired prison food.

Next morning? Deported. Because apparently not pre-booking your vacation is now a national security threat.

Friendly reminder: ESTA gets you to the gate, but one suspicious customs agent can still ruin your whole trip.

Source: NY Post

[ZUBY: @ZubyMusic]

Me: Checking in on the UK

The UK:

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

BREAKING: John Ullyot, who just resigned as chief Pentagon spokesman, and is a friend of Hegseth, says that the Pentagon is in “total chaos”.

He writes:

“It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president.

Even strong backers of the secretary like me must admit: The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it’s becoming a real problem for the administration.

There are very likely more shoes to drop in short order, with even bigger bombshell stories coming this week, key Pentagon reporters have been telling sources privately.”

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

"Only China can manufacture stuff"

[Jesse Singal @jessesingal]

We've reached the "GOP Congressmen Calling For Our System Of Government To More Closely Resemble El Salvador's" part of the arc

[OSINTdefender @sentdefender]

John Ullyot, a former senior official at the Department of Defense and close associate of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who departed last week from his position as Acting Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs after being sidelined for the role of Chief Pentagon Spokesman by Sean Parnell, has written an op-ed released tonight in Politico, claiming a scene of dysfunction, backstabbing and continuous missteps at the Pentagon which will likely soon lead to the removal of Hegseth.

Ullyot, who describes himself a longtime backer and friend of Pete Hegseth, paints a month of “total chaos” at the Pentagon, culminating in the firing of three of Hegseth’s most loyal senior staffers last week, Dan Caldwell, Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, with rumors of additional firings to come. “In the aftermath, Defense Department officials working for Hegseth tried to smear the aides anonymously to reporters, claiming they were fired for leaking sensitive information as part of an investigation ordered earlier this month. Yet none of this is true. While the department said that it would conduct polygraph tests as part of the probe, not one of the three has been given a lie detector test. In fact, at least one of them has told former colleagues that investigators advised him he was about to be cleared officially of any wrongdoing. Unfortunately, Hegseth’s team has developed a habit of spreading flat-out, easily debunked falsehoods anonymously about their colleagues on their way out the door,” Ullyot added.

After discussing last week’s wave of firings, Ullyot proceeds to at least partially confirm and describe several of the recent scandals at the Pentagon since March, including Signalgate, Hegseth’s confusing and continued denial of any wrongdoing afterwards, Hegseth’s decision to bring his wife Jennifer to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed, a top-secret briefing at the Pentagon for Elon Musk detailing war plans against China which was eventually canceled by the White House, last week’s purges, and finally tonight’s story about another Signal chat created by Hegseth with his wife and brother in which additional information about the strikes against Yemen were discussed.

Ullyot then ends his op-ed by stating, “In the first three months of his second term, Trump has continued that great record on national security, in particular refocusing the Defense Department on its core mission of preparing to fight and win wars. Unfortunately, after a terrible month, the Pentagon focus is no longer on warfighting, but on endless drama. The president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon. Given his record of holding prior Cabinet leaders accountable, many in the secretary’s own inner circle will applaud quietly if Trump chooses to do the same in short order at the top of the Defense Department.”

[Óscar Martínez @CronistaOscar]

I covered MS-13 for over a decade: its history, crimes, symbolism, cruelty, pacts with Salvadoran governments. I wrote a book about it. Never, ever, did any of the hundreds of sources I spoke to say anything that would allow us to believe Trump's strange interpretation of tattoos