I am hoping that daily criss crossing of our skies by solar dimming flights might be one of 'the casualties' of the new normal of acute shortages. (But I'm not holding my breath!)
??? Who wrote that farsi? Were they writing looking into a mirror? Farsi is written from right to left. The numbers should be on the right, not the left. The periods should be at the end of each sentence, not at the beginning, so on the far left of each sentence. Makes me wonder what he really said.
@nosey parker — This is an excellent observation and one worth delving into.
Normally, we would reach out to a native speaker to ask and report back. But in the interest of time, we turned to an AI assistant to help decode what we are seeing in this tweet. We asked several of them and essentially, they all returned the same answer.
For the edification of all, we provide the following, from Grok (grok-4.20-beta1), which was the clearest and simplest explanation for your well-founded suspicion of Dr. Ghalibaf's bullet-pointed X post.
<QUOTE>
QUESTION: I have Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Ghalibaf's tweet from last week, which I will paste here. Is there anything off with the numbering? After all, Farsi is written right to left. Explain, please...
ANSWER: This is a Twitter/X rendering quirk.
The platform doesn't properly apply the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm to list markers in Right-to-Left (RTL) text — it just tacks the numbers on the left like it would for an English list, then renders the Farsi text in RTL mode after the number.
The result is a visual mismatch: LTR-style list layout with RTL text direction.
So yes — the numbering is "off" relative to proper Farsi typesetting conventions. It's not Ghalibaf's doing; it's Twitter's RTL list support being half-baked.
<END QUOTE>
Well spotted. And thanks for getting us to do a double-take and make sure this wasn't some made-up tweet brought to you by the Bureau of Propaganda. We have no reason to doubt the explanation from Grok.
I'd hold off publishing any more Farsi until your native speaker can look at it. Israel has a big program trying to teach Farsi to the IDF. They used them in the subversive massacres that Israel blamed on the IRGC earlier. But Iranians on the ground found them almost incomprehensible because their accents were so weird. I do not trust AI at all and will not watch a YouTube which has obviously been made with it. It's too easy to present a well-respected analyst without their permission saying God knows what. They seem to be heavily shadow-banning the real analysts.
Even though I never watched an episode there was a TV series called Family Matters and for some reason my Dad loved to watch it. His favorite character was Steve Urkel and he would belly laugh everytime that he uttered, "Did I do that?" More and more the resident of the White House is reminding me of Steve Urkel, when every Monday and Friday he utters words to get the market up to new highs before and after the weekends so that the "Bulls" will push the market up to hit new highs. And it just occurred to me the play in the words Bulls Hitter. I think that describes him quite nicely, as long as the market is hitting new highs everything is okay in his world.
I wonder if Urkel is a Republican, Democrat or a third party?
Regarding the General Wrangel book mentioned at the end, Amazon has 2 versions. One is a 307 page version for $30 (hardcover, with many positive reviews) and the other a 497 page version for $45 (hardcover with no reviews). Which is the better version? I would appreciate your advice as I'd like to buy and read the book soon. My father was a Cossack in the White Army.
Hi Anna, How amazing about your family history! You'll likely really enjoy the book and the incredible efforts by General Wrangel and his men to save Russia. Can't wait to hear your impressions, even if you can't join us for the chat.
The book is not a difficult read at all, but guarantee you won't be able to put it down. We recommend this version (https://amzn.to/4tsgdQe) and if you'll indulge us, please use that affiliate link, which won't cost you any more money but will give us a few pennies.
I will order it through your link. Have you read the 2 volumes of The Great Betrayal (written by V. Naumenko and translated by W. Dritschilo)? Luckily, my father was not sent to Lienz after WW 2 or I would not be here.
Wow! No, but we'll put it on our 'to read' list... just wish there was more time in the day to do everything we need to do and read everything we want to read!
Today's "notes" reveal such a mind boggling and bazaar state the world is in. I hardly know what to think about the direction things seem to be going, in the news, media, and people's lives.
It just feels like everything is being disconnected from realty, maybe on purpose but I don't know if many people are noticing the unprecedented strangeness and speed at which it's happening.
Information is being hijacked, controlled, censored, and it's creating a volatile and possibly dangerous situation, not to mention collapse. Not many of my peers seem to be aware and questioning this, except on substacks like this, and I worry that it'll get out of control, like dominoes falling, and most won't be ready, and there's going to be hell to pay, chaos.
I don't know. I looked at the picture of the tray and thought of my initial idea of stopping by the taco place and grabbing a barbacoa taco for breakfast. It would have looked identical except for much better fresh tortillas and wrapped in foil instead of on a tray.
I mistrust pictures like that. They are don't tell a full story. We don't know what they asked for. We don't know if there were other things to add to it.
Yes, the war in Iran sucks. That said, it should have been handled decades ago. Iran has been dealing in terrorism and death for nearly half a century. Diplomacy has not lead to any improvement, let alone resolution. If anything, it has emboldened them. What should Trump have done? Sent over more pallets of cash to bribe them? That worked out so well last time. Does anyone remember Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler and how effective that was? As they say, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
Do we really trust what is said in tweets coming from Iran. You know, the ones that said the strait was open and then opened fire on Indian vessels who had been given clearance? The ones who said that they were not refining uranium for nuclear weapons and then admitted that they had nearly a thousand pounds? The ones who said that they had missiles that only had a 2000km range and then just sent one nearly 4000km to Diego Garcia?
I am very sympathetic to to the Iranian people. That doesn't mean that we should accept being held hostage by the madmen who have been running the country and sowing death throughout the region.
I even recognize that a lot of the problem with Iran was the making of the US. We provided weapons and turned a blind eye to the Shah (Pahlavi) and the abuses he dealt to his own people. Much like Gaddafi in Libya. Similar to the way that Russia funded Iraq, Much like has been done to many other countries. Like they say, it rhymes....
The skies have been unfriendly for over 50 years... which leads inquiring minds to suspect that today's reality has been a slow, well-planned event. And with the proliferation of AI, who really knows what's real anymore?
And I'm not even going to touch the topic of government lies and propaganda... our government and everyone else's.
I am hoping that daily criss crossing of our skies by solar dimming flights might be one of 'the casualties' of the new normal of acute shortages. (But I'm not holding my breath!)
Wouldn't that be a lovely silver lining?!
??? Who wrote that farsi? Were they writing looking into a mirror? Farsi is written from right to left. The numbers should be on the right, not the left. The periods should be at the end of each sentence, not at the beginning, so on the far left of each sentence. Makes me wonder what he really said.
@nosey parker — This is an excellent observation and one worth delving into.
Normally, we would reach out to a native speaker to ask and report back. But in the interest of time, we turned to an AI assistant to help decode what we are seeing in this tweet. We asked several of them and essentially, they all returned the same answer.
For the edification of all, we provide the following, from Grok (grok-4.20-beta1), which was the clearest and simplest explanation for your well-founded suspicion of Dr. Ghalibaf's bullet-pointed X post.
<QUOTE>
QUESTION: I have Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Ghalibaf's tweet from last week, which I will paste here. Is there anything off with the numbering? After all, Farsi is written right to left. Explain, please...
ANSWER: This is a Twitter/X rendering quirk.
The platform doesn't properly apply the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm to list markers in Right-to-Left (RTL) text — it just tacks the numbers on the left like it would for an English list, then renders the Farsi text in RTL mode after the number.
The result is a visual mismatch: LTR-style list layout with RTL text direction.
So yes — the numbering is "off" relative to proper Farsi typesetting conventions. It's not Ghalibaf's doing; it's Twitter's RTL list support being half-baked.
<END QUOTE>
Well spotted. And thanks for getting us to do a double-take and make sure this wasn't some made-up tweet brought to you by the Bureau of Propaganda. We have no reason to doubt the explanation from Grok.
I'd hold off publishing any more Farsi until your native speaker can look at it. Israel has a big program trying to teach Farsi to the IDF. They used them in the subversive massacres that Israel blamed on the IRGC earlier. But Iranians on the ground found them almost incomprehensible because their accents were so weird. I do not trust AI at all and will not watch a YouTube which has obviously been made with it. It's too easy to present a well-respected analyst without their permission saying God knows what. They seem to be heavily shadow-banning the real analysts.
Super interesting. Thanks for that.
Good explanation. I'm paranoid about these things for a reason. ;-) Another reason to reject AI.
Even though I never watched an episode there was a TV series called Family Matters and for some reason my Dad loved to watch it. His favorite character was Steve Urkel and he would belly laugh everytime that he uttered, "Did I do that?" More and more the resident of the White House is reminding me of Steve Urkel, when every Monday and Friday he utters words to get the market up to new highs before and after the weekends so that the "Bulls" will push the market up to hit new highs. And it just occurred to me the play in the words Bulls Hitter. I think that describes him quite nicely, as long as the market is hitting new highs everything is okay in his world.
I wonder if Urkel is a Republican, Democrat or a third party?
LOL!
To the question, "Did I do that?"
https://tinyurl.com/3sxby9z7
Regarding the General Wrangel book mentioned at the end, Amazon has 2 versions. One is a 307 page version for $30 (hardcover, with many positive reviews) and the other a 497 page version for $45 (hardcover with no reviews). Which is the better version? I would appreciate your advice as I'd like to buy and read the book soon. My father was a Cossack in the White Army.
Hi Anna, How amazing about your family history! You'll likely really enjoy the book and the incredible efforts by General Wrangel and his men to save Russia. Can't wait to hear your impressions, even if you can't join us for the chat.
The book is not a difficult read at all, but guarantee you won't be able to put it down. We recommend this version (https://amzn.to/4tsgdQe) and if you'll indulge us, please use that affiliate link, which won't cost you any more money but will give us a few pennies.
I will order it through your link. Have you read the 2 volumes of The Great Betrayal (written by V. Naumenko and translated by W. Dritschilo)? Luckily, my father was not sent to Lienz after WW 2 or I would not be here.
Wow! No, but we'll put it on our 'to read' list... just wish there was more time in the day to do everything we need to do and read everything we want to read!
So glad you ARE here.
For sure, LOL.....
Today's "notes" reveal such a mind boggling and bazaar state the world is in. I hardly know what to think about the direction things seem to be going, in the news, media, and people's lives.
It just feels like everything is being disconnected from realty, maybe on purpose but I don't know if many people are noticing the unprecedented strangeness and speed at which it's happening.
Information is being hijacked, controlled, censored, and it's creating a volatile and possibly dangerous situation, not to mention collapse. Not many of my peers seem to be aware and questioning this, except on substacks like this, and I worry that it'll get out of control, like dominoes falling, and most won't be ready, and there's going to be hell to pay, chaos.
It seems to happening already.
I don't know. I looked at the picture of the tray and thought of my initial idea of stopping by the taco place and grabbing a barbacoa taco for breakfast. It would have looked identical except for much better fresh tortillas and wrapped in foil instead of on a tray.
I mistrust pictures like that. They are don't tell a full story. We don't know what they asked for. We don't know if there were other things to add to it.
Yes, the war in Iran sucks. That said, it should have been handled decades ago. Iran has been dealing in terrorism and death for nearly half a century. Diplomacy has not lead to any improvement, let alone resolution. If anything, it has emboldened them. What should Trump have done? Sent over more pallets of cash to bribe them? That worked out so well last time. Does anyone remember Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler and how effective that was? As they say, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
Do we really trust what is said in tweets coming from Iran. You know, the ones that said the strait was open and then opened fire on Indian vessels who had been given clearance? The ones who said that they were not refining uranium for nuclear weapons and then admitted that they had nearly a thousand pounds? The ones who said that they had missiles that only had a 2000km range and then just sent one nearly 4000km to Diego Garcia?
I am very sympathetic to to the Iranian people. That doesn't mean that we should accept being held hostage by the madmen who have been running the country and sowing death throughout the region.
I even recognize that a lot of the problem with Iran was the making of the US. We provided weapons and turned a blind eye to the Shah (Pahlavi) and the abuses he dealt to his own people. Much like Gaddafi in Libya. Similar to the way that Russia funded Iraq, Much like has been done to many other countries. Like they say, it rhymes....
The skies have been unfriendly for over 50 years... which leads inquiring minds to suspect that today's reality has been a slow, well-planned event. And with the proliferation of AI, who really knows what's real anymore?
And I'm not even going to touch the topic of government lies and propaganda... our government and everyone else's.