The Suspicious Cheese Lords, a Washington, D.C.-based all-male early music ensemble, will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its founding with a special concert Aug. 9 at Church of the Annunciation in Northwest Washington.
Specializing in performing rare Renaissance polyphony, the ensemble was formed in 1996 to keep the historic choral traditions of sacred music alive while highlighting forgotten sacred masterpieces.
…
The Suspicious Cheese Lords’ name is derived from the title of a Thomas Tallis 16th century motet, Suscipe quaeso Domine, which is officially translated as “Take, I ask Lord.”
Playing on a whimsical translation of the title, that Suscipe could mean “suspicious,” quaeso resembles the Spanish word queso which means “cheese,” and Domine is “Lord.” Hence, the title “Suspicious Cheese Lord.” …
The fight for accountability and oversight within privately owned ICE detention facilities is out in the open. Deaths, hunger strikes, and the horrifying conditions being experienced by the people detained within those walls are consistent topics of conversation in the public discourse.
But instead of working to alleviate the problems and improve conditions, the Trump administration is choosing to retreat behind a veil of secrecy.
Under Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s leadership, the Department of Homeland Security is now reportedly purchasing ICE detention facilities from private prison giant CoreCivic, which might lead to even less oversight within the camps.
[…] the Trump administration is paying CoreCivic $739.2 million for the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego and $732.6 million for the California City Detention Facility in Kern County.
The private prison company made a $500,000 donation to President Donald Trump’s inaugural fund. These lucrative government purchases totaling more than $1.4 billion, along with continued billion-dollar contracts to run numerous other facilities, prove that CoreCivic’s calculated donation more than paid off.
[…] while the federal government will be the owner of record, CoreCivic will still be managing the detention centers.
In other words, the only thing that’s changing is the state’s access for oversight, rather than the actual conditions within these facilities.
[…] “As some blue states are considering more active involvement in oversight of facilities, I think the logical solution to much of that is federal ownership of the facilities,” George Zoley, CEO of GEO Group said […]
As for the overall treatment of immigrants within the U.S., the Trump administration has already bolstered its campaign of mistreatment by trying to dehumanize and criminalize them.
Official government social media accounts have created memes mocking shackled men and women, and even stooped to painting immigrants as “X-Files”-themed “aliens” who “walk among us.”
In short, they’ve stripped the humanity of the people they seek to arrest, detain, and remove to other countries—in some cases, countries they’ve never stepped foot in before.
Taking federal control of the facilities in blue states seeking to remedy this seems to be just another step in the Trump administration’s ongoing push to punish immigrants.
“Republicans Livid As Missouri And Kansas Vote For Democracy And Abortion AGAIN”
“Democracy for Missouri and abortion for Kansas, to be specific.”
If one thing is clear from last night’s primary results […] it is that the Republican fascists who control red states absolutely loathe their voters. […]
Last night in Missouri and Kansas, it was yet another night of ballot initiatives that really pissed Republican electeds off. And wouldn’t you know it, but their voters told them to fuck off anyway.
Here is a clip of Rachel Maddow talking last night about how Missouri voters gave their politicians a “one-finger salute” in the results of Amendment 4. [Video]
As Maddow explained there […] Amendment 4 was essentially an amendment asking voters to take power away from themselves to make it harder to put initiatives on the ballot. Missouri Republicans don’t like these initiatives because voters use them to make sure people can get abortions in Missouri and get healthcare in Missouri and legalize pot and other cool, we mean totally sinful stuff like that. (Because lots of times there is a disconnect between the policies people actually like and the people Fox News has brainwashed them to vote for and/or against.)
So this new Amendment 4, a brainchild of the Republican Legislature, would have made it so that not only must proposed amendments get a certain number of signatures to get on the ballot, they have to get a certain number of signatures from each congressional district, which sounds as pointless as it is, unless your point is just to make citizen-led democracy harder. As Maddow noted, though, the rules would have stayed the same for the Legislature; if they wanted to get something on the ballot, they could use the older, easier way.
[…] The New York Times graphic shows just how strongly Missouri voters felt about this: [graphic showing 80.3% of voters rejected the Republican Legislature’s proposal.]
And then there was Amendment 5, the Republican attempt to roll back the state income tax and replace it with feelings and jacked up sales taxes. Missouri voters said fuck off to that one by an even bigger margin, with the “nos” on that one pulling in 83.3 percent of the vote by the current count. […]
Here’s a guy who kind of elegantly captured how these two amendments, and their failures, could be related:
The coalition against Amendment 5 was especially broad, with business groups either staying on the sidelines or opposing it. Educator and groups from the left organized under the name No Everything Tax against Amendment 5 and Protect Majority Rule Missouri against Amendment 4.
Missourians don’t like the way Amendment 5 was tilted toward making wage earners pay more, said Mark Jones of the Missouri National Education Association.
“Fundamentally, Missourians rejected the idea that they should pay for tax breaks for billionaires and then not be able to change to correct the legislature, not only on this issue but forever,” he said.
[…] You know how Kansas is always getting Republican amendments on the ballot to try to take away abortion rights and Kansas voters always tell them [no]?
Did it again!
By a margin of 61 to 39, Kansas voters rejected an amendment to take power from the governor to appoint state supreme court justices with the assistance of a state commission that exists to choose good candidates for the job, and put them up to direct election instead. The idea here is that Kansas has a (term-limited) Democratic governor named Laura Kelly, but yet is a red state, and maybe if the voters directly elected the state supreme court, they eventually could pack the court with some god-bothering Christian fascists up in there. You know, the kinds who won’t rule that abortion is protected by the state constitution.
[…] So that is what voters in red Missouri and red Kansas did when they went to the polls yesterday, outside of making selections in their respective primaries.
You can see why voting is such a problem for fascists, even sometimes when their own people do it. Fuckers get ideas like their voices matter and stuff. Gotta nip that shit in the bud.
The White House on Wednesday released declassified information saying the FBI opened an investigation into whether President Trump was acting as an asset for Russia when he fired FBI Director James Comey, a theory an administration official said was not backed up by evidence.
The official said the investigation, known as Oxferd Comma, was a subcomponent of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI probe into potential collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government — an investigation that has long drawn Mr. Trump’s ire. The predicate of Oxferd Comma was the newly elected president’s decision to fire Comey in 2017.
The case was marked sensitive, which is generally done to keep a case off the books from other agents, the official said. The agents who opened the case said they believe it was going to be the least intrusive method to address a serious national security risk.
Oxferd Comma was eventually rolled into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s larger probe into Mr. Trump, the official said, and was later found not to have any merit when the rest of the Mueller investigation was closed down…
Legislation setting redistricting standards in Maryland could land in court before it lands on a ballot for voters this fall.
The Senate Tuesday gave final approval to House Bill 2100, the constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would override a 2022 court ruling that some Democrats said hamstrung efforts to redraw the state’s eight congressional districts. Republicans said the bill will result in the loss of the only congressional seat held by a member of their party.
“We’re going to try to get this into the court as soon as we possibly can to try to put any type of delay that we can,” said Senate Minority Leader Stephen S. Hershey Jr. (R-Upper Shore).
Hershey and Senate Minority Whip Sen. Justin Ready (R-Frederick and Carroll) said time is of the essence: The measure has to be to state elections officials Wednesday to make the November ballot.
“This was done at the last minute,” Hershey said Tuesday. “They have to have this ballot language on Aug. 5, which is tomorrow.”
Amendments to the state constitution have to pass by a three-fifths majority of both legislative chambers, and do not require the signature of the governor, but Gov. Wes Moore (D), a supporter of midcycle congressional redistricting, is scheduled to hold a bill signing ceremony anyway Wednesday.
“I continue to believe that our country needs national redistricting reform,” Moore said in a statement praising lawmakers’ passage of the bill. “But until that happens, inaction is not an option. Maryland will not be caught flat-footed while Republicans engage in political redlining that guts decades of progress that the generations before us fought for.
…
Scientists have captured new images of the sun’s surface that show turbulent, vortex-like structures in unprecedented detail — a resolution roughly equivalent to spotting a blueberry from 70 miles away. […]
The “surface” of the sun is really an unstable, roiling soup of plasma, heated to about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The video released by researchers shows vortices of hot plasma that ebb and flow like bubbles in a pot of boiling water. Hot plasma is transported up from below the sun’s surface to a cooler area; as it cools, it drops back down to the inner parts of the star.
To take images of the sun, the researchers used the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii. Its large aperture allowed them to capture uniquely small detail.
They released images on Wednesday at a spatial resolution of about 12 miles — giant on human scale, but very detailed for a star that measures about 865,000 miles across, or more than 100 times the diameter of the Earth. […]
The paper published Wednesday presents the first empirical evidence that these detailed disturbances and vortices on the surface are created by a process called Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. The process occurs when two fluids or gases that are next to one another move at different speeds, causing wave patterns to form in between.
The effect can sometimes be observed in clouds, when one layer of air moves significantly faster than another below it. The resulting crests can resemble the curl of a Peeps marshmallow chick, or the Japanese painting “The Great Wave.”
[…] The latest discovery could help scientists unlock one of the biggest mysteries in the study of the sun and other stars: why its outer atmosphere, known as the corona, is so much hotter than its visible surface. This is the opposite of what happens in, say, a candle; as you move your hand away from the flame, you expect it to feel cooler, not warmer. Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is known as a way to break down energy flows into smaller and smaller patterns, potentially releasing small bursts of energy outward. […]
This instability mechanism may also be important in understanding the way the sun builds up magnetic energy. The current theory is that forces in a magnetic field get wound up around each other, a process called flux braiding. When that tension is released, energy is released. The small swirling patterns created by Kelvin-Helmholtz instability may explain why the braiding happens in the first place.
Following this discovery, researchers hope to be able to use the Inouye telescope to map instability patterns in a way that quantifies the strength of the magnetic field. […]
StevoRsays
DW News – also seen on telly version (c35) just now areally intresting interview on the Hormuz issue w a Gordon Robison too.
Iran has raised the possibility of charging companies that send data through cables in the Strait of Hormuz. That would amount to a protection racket, said Erik Brown of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
During Kevin Hassett’s latest appearance on Fox Business, the director of the National Economic Council pushed a very specific message: Data centers are awesome.
“Data centers are very good for towns because they create so many jobs, bring people in with high incomes that can buy houses and stuff like that,” Donald Trump’s top economist said late last week. He added that placing a data center in a “sleepy town” will lead to “a whole bunch of happy residents.”
It was a curious pitch. Whatever one thinks of data centers, the idea that they bring in a bunch of high-income workers is bizarre: Data centers are filled with computer servers and cooling machines, not well-paid executives — and servers are not known for buying “houses and stuff like that.” [Yep. So True.]
[…] the president pushed a similar line on data centers. “You have to convince your community how great these things [are],” Trump said. “You can’t fight it; you have to go with it.”
Trump echoed the line this week during his latest Fox News interview. [social media post from Aaron Rupar, with video of Trump spreading disinformation.]
“Data centers, if you look at the stats, everything’s good around [them],” he said.
The Associated Press reported a couple of weeks ago that Democrats are seizing on the backlash to data centers […]
[…] A Gallup poll released in May found that 71% of Americans wouldn’t want a data center to be built in their area. In June, a Reuters/Ipsos poll pointed in the same direction, with roughly two-thirds of the country opposing construction. [I snipped other polling results.]
[…] Trump published an item to his social media platform in which he declared, with his usual idiosyncratic approach to capitalization, “One of the biggest Driving Forces in the Future for Jobs, are Data Centers. They are big, strong, bold, and Money Machines for the State in which they are built.”
They’re really not. [!] As Paul Waldman explained in a recent piece for MS NOW, “Data centers require massive amounts of power, potentially straining the local grid and causing energy prices to spike. They use enormous quantities of water to cool the equipment, leading residents to fear for the future of their water supply. And many residents who live near one report an unceasing hum from the computers, fans, generators and other equipment, which can make living near a data center intolerable.”
[…] the White House is leaning into its support for data centers anyway. […]
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani held a press conference Wednesday to announce a series of policy proposals aimed at cracking down on illegal e-bike retailers and was asked about House Speaker Mike Johnson’s recent Twitter freakout over Abdul El-Sayed’s victory as the Democratic candidate in the Michigan Senate primary.
Johnson’s post characterized progressives in the Democratic Party as “radical Marxist Democrats” who are trying “to destroy the very foundations that make us the envy of the entire world,” while calling on Americans to fight against the country “being overrun by Mini Mamdanis.” [social media post]
“It’s a lot of characters, he must have the pro account,” Mamdani joked. “I think first I’d just like to congratulate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed on his victory. He ran a campaign where—it was best described by his words of ‘money out of politics, money in your pocket,’ Medicare for all. And if those simple commitments and beliefs are what drives Representative Johnson to these kinds of conclusions, I think it shows you how deeply out of touch the Republican Party is with the concerns of working-class Americans.” [video]
El-Sayed will now face off against Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in a battle for the Michigan Senate seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. Rogers, who has aligned himself with the increasingly unpopular Donald Trump, has yet to face the level of scrutiny his Democratic challenger has.
It will be interesting to see how the next few months of campaigning go, as Johnson has made it clear that the GOP will lean on so-called communism to attack Democratic candidates. [I think the whole “they are communists” approach is weak.]
Using the infinite amount of cash at its disposal, Customs and Border Patrol has come up with [a] morally repugnant option […]: hunting down people who’ve been deported and demanding they pay civil immigration fines.
[…] The Trump administration hopes to track down some of the 66,387 deportees who ostensibly owe $423 million to the United States. These aren’t fines attached to any criminal act or consequence. [!] Instead, they apply to anyone who stays after a deportation order has been issued or after signing a voluntary departure agreement.
And they run a comical, unattainable $998 per day. [!]
Per Project Salt Box, CBP already pays three private collection agencies for this sort of thing. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security already ponied up more than $118 million for skip-tracing services, but neither the private companies nor CBP has managed to locate an alleged debtor outside of U.S. borders. [LOL. What a farce.]
Since neither those agencies nor CBP have anyone working abroad to torment immigrants after they leave the United States, the administration has set out to remedy that […]
The contract is supposed to begin on Aug. 14 and last for two years, because all government contracts basically now handily terminate before the 2028 election.
It isn’t at all clear how, exactly, this would work even if the world’s worst people take on this contract, in no small part because these fines can only be paid through the U.S. government portal at pay.gov.
Can’t wait to find out the plan for somehow having random debt collectors demanding people in other countries install the administration’s crappy app to pay a staggering civil fine to a country from which they were forcibly removed. [!!]
This latest moral horror joins the $180 million the government set aside to pay private bounty hunters to track down immigrants when there apparently weren’t enough masked federal agents doing it.
And then there’s the $10 million to buy immigrants’ tax identification numbers from a data broker, penalizing them for having duly paid their taxes even if they are undocumented. [sheesh]
And, of course, the $125 million to Thomson Reuters to get everyone’s credit card data—no warrants needed—which we’re currently pretending is somehow about combating voter fraud.
And can’t forget about the millions and millions to Palantir, which is all in on deporting people, for an app to find neighborhoods with the most sitting ducks for immigration thugs to terrorize.
It’s an impossible, immoral thing this country is doing, and the shame should stay with us long after we finally get rid of Trump.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
StevoR @12: “Seems we have a new FTB blog […] A rather mysterious one”
FtB’s Bébé Mélange in 2022: “My man Joseph Kelly has published this compilation of dark fiction that I’ve previously mentioned. You have a few options on how to read it—and one is completely gratis.”
Joseph’s bio at The Midnight Collection site linked an old blog elsewhere called Cubist Vowels.
Followup to all of the good news about Abdul El-Sayed winning the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan:
When we published our initial post this morning, only NBC News and Decision Desk had called it. Now everybody has. Abdul El-Sayed is the winner of the Michigan Democratic Senate primary.
[…] Haley Stevens immediately delivered just about as perfect of a concession statement and endorsement as one could ask for […]:
“I want to congratulate Abdul El-Sayed on winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He is a doctor, a community health official, a Rhodes Scholar, and a dedicated Michigander. I am proud to offer my support as he takes on Mike Rogers in the general election.
“This was a thorough and rigorous campaign that brought out the full span of views within the Democratic Party — and that is why we have primaries. I am proud to have put up my hand to serve, and prouder to continue to work together to make sure this Senate seat remains blue, that we flip the United States Senate and continue the work for Michigan.
“Donald Trump and Mike Rogers want us to come out of this primary tired and divided, so their billionaire backers can come in and let multimillionaire Mike Rogers walk away with this Senate seat. They want to keep the Senate red, so Mike Rogers can keep rubber-stamping Donald Trump’s harmful agenda of higher prices, manufacturing jobs lost nationwide, corruption and abuses of power, and so he can ban abortion, gut health care, and roll back workers’ rights and voting rights. […]
“I am proud of the coalition our campaign put together: Black Michiganders, working class Michiganders, union members, farmers, hard-working families. The Michiganders who backed this campaign truly represent the grit, diversity, and spirit of our state, and I am honored to have earned each of their votes.”
[…] The nominee, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, also has now had the opportunity to give a real victory speech, and it was dang good. [video]
El-Sayed talked about how his family came to the United States “from a place where there is not democracy,” and about how we often take that for granted. He spoke graciously about Haley Stevens, saying they had spoken this morning, and that “She is one of the most committed public servants that you’ll ever meet. She loves democracy like I love democracy. And whatever differences that we might have had in the primary, they pale in comparison to what unifies us, a recognition that so long as we want to keep our democracy, that democracy better be working for people, and that all of us have to come together to make sure that we never let Mike Rogers see the inside of the US Senate.” […]
He thanked his also-doctor wife Sarah Jukaku, and said he owes her a 20th anniversary on their 21st, because they didn’t get one this year. He thanked his daughters, even though he knew they weren’t watching.
He talked about the outside money spent against him — $70 million — and about how they had shown that “the power of our many is greater than the power of their money.” He thanked all the organizers and unions and multitudes of people involved in making that thing happen.
He was magnanimous in welcoming everyone into his movement [I snipped that part of his speech.]
And then, directly addressing Jewish voters, he delivered some of the most powerful lines of the speech:
“To my Jewish American sisters and brothers, one of the most indelible memories of this campaign will have been the opportunity to break bread with you at Seder, to worship with you at shul, to embrace, to be embraced by you, and listening to sisters and brothers who said, you know, I want to join this movement, because AIPAC doesn’t speak for me, because I understand that self-determination for one people does not require the quenching of self-determination for another people. [good line] That unless all of us are free, none of us are free. I want to tell you the great gift that you’ve given me. And to all of my sisters and brothers of the Jewish faith or any faith at all or no faith at all, I want you to know that my commitment to your safety, my commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters.” […]
[…] Referring to Republican attacks that have already started, pathetic attacks, where they have tweeted out El-Sayed’s full name, as if seeing it all typed out makes it OOH SCARY MUSLIM-ER — it’s Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed […] [social media post, in which Dr. @abdulelsayed.bsky.social replies, “My name is not raising gas prices and taking us to war.”]
“Cost of Trump’s Namesake Warships Likely to Rise by 50 Percent or More”
“Trump’s goal of building a “golden fleet” of 15 battleships could cost $275 billion, according to a government estimate.”
A new class of warships that President Trump says will anchor a “golden fleet” for the Navy is expected to cost at least 50 percent more than estimated earlier, according to a government report released on Wednesday.
The first planned Trump-class battleship, the U.S.S. Defiant, is likely to cost $23.4 billion, $8 billion more than the Navy initially indicated.
The cost of each of the 14 additional vessels is expected to jump to slightly more than $18 billion from $10.2 billion, for a total cost of $275 billion for 15 ships.
The estimates were calculated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which said that the first of the battleships might take eight years or longer to build.
Mr. Trump announced in December that he expected two of the ships to be constructed over the next two and a half years.
“They’ll help maintain American military supremacy, revive the American shipbuilding industry and inspire fear in America’s enemies all over the world,” Mr. Trump said at the time, alongside renderings of the new ships.
Months after the announcement, Mr. Trump decided that the ships would be powered by nuclear reactors instead of the gas turbine engines used in destroyers and cruisers, a move that adds significantly to the costs. […]
The term battleship usually refers to an earlier era of much larger armored warships that had multiple turrets armed with major-caliber guns. The last U.S. battleship was launched in 1944.
The ships Mr. Trump envisions are significantly smaller and would have guided missiles as their primary armament instead.
Some of the additional weapons the Navy has said will arm the new ships, like an electromagnetic gun, were canceled after the spending of billions on decades of failed research and development. Others, like a defensive laser weapon, do not yet exist. […]
“The Trump administration has yet to publicly acknowledge the number of casualties in the three strikes.”
Hundreds of civilians were killed or wounded by U.S. airstrikes in Yemen last year, but the Pentagon has yet to publicly acknowledge the casualties or share a full account with Congress, according to documents reviewed by NBC News and people with knowledge of the attacks.
The three April 2025 strikes occurred during Operation Rough Rider, a 53-day military campaign President Donald Trump launched less than two months into his second term. The stated goal was to stop Iranian-backed Houthi rebels from threatening ships and allies in the region.
Last year, despite detailed reporting from rights groups on possible large-scale civilian casualties, the Pentagon had assessed there had been no civilian casualties from the U.S. air war against Houthi forces in Yemen.
[…] NBC News has reviewed documents showing the back-and-forth between the Pentagon and lawmakers trying to get details on the attacks. In one, the Pentagon wrote to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in March, after repeated requests for information about casualties provided no details on the number of casualties, according to one of the documents reviewed by NBC News.
In the letter, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary for special operations and low intensity conflict, Derrick Anderson, said that U.S. Central Command had reviewed dozens of strikes for possible harm to civilians. Fifteen incidents remained under “active review” and three attacks in April 2025 warranted further investigation, with assessments concluding that U.S. strikes “more likely than not resulted in civilian casualties,” Anderson wrote. [map]
[…] The 2027 National Defense Authorization Act requires that the Pentagon release unredacted civilian harm investigations and all supporting documents for the three strikes in Yemen. Failure to comply allows Congress to withhold some funds, including travel money for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. There’s no official deadline, but without those details, the Pentagon stands to lose funding.
[…] The law also requires the Pentagon to release information about a likely U.S. strike on a school in Minab, Iran, in February, which killed more than 170 people, mostly children. A Central Command investigation into that strike is nearly complete.
During the war with Houthi forces, the U.S. military conducted hundreds of airstrikes, hitting more than 1,000 targets in Yemen, and ultimately reached a ceasefire agreement that included a Houthi pledge to stop targeting American civilian or military ships and a U.S. pledge to stop air and naval strikes in Yemen.
[…] Two people with knowledge of the strikes say that about 150 civilians were likely killed in the first two strikes and roughly 200 wounded. It remained unclear how many civilians were killed in the third strike on the private residence earlier that month.
Human rights groups, citing interviews with witnesses and satellite imagery, previously demanded the U.S. investigate two of the April airstrikes as possible war crimes, saying that dozens of civilians were killed or wounded in the attack at the Ras Isa port and another strike in northwest Yemen.
Amanda Klasing, Amnesty International USA’s national director for government relations, condemned the Trump administration over its handling of the airstrikes.
“The Trump administration’s response has been abysmal. […] this administration has gutted the Pentagon’s programs meant to prevent civilian harm and has evaded any public accounting for cases of civilian harm, including the Minab school strike this year in Iran,” Klasing said.
Although Congress in 2019 adopted legislation requiring the Pentagon undertake an array of steps to reduce harm to civilians in military operations, an Inspector General investigation found that the department under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth slashed funding and cut staff for the effort. [!]
Ras Isa port in Hodeida is a key hub for humanitarian aid shipments with a large civilian workforce, and the April 17 U.S. strike killed or wounded dozens of civilians, according to a Human Rights Watch report last year. […]
The second strike cited in the Pentagon’s letter to Warren referred to a site in northwest Yemen, the same attack that rights groups pointed to in their reporting at the time, according to two people with knowledge of the attacks. A report from Amnesty International said a U.S. strike hit a detention center for migrants on April 28, killing or wounding dozens of civilians. The Pentagon described the target in the April 28 strike as “Ayn Wadi Barracks Warehouses.”
The strike in northwest Yemen was so concerning that, according to Anderson’s letter, U.S. Central Command also conducted a “command-directed” investigation to determine whether any policies were violated or if there was any misconduct by U.S. forces.
The undersecretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby, had written to Warren in June 2025 — two months after the three deadly U.S. strikes — saying the Pentagon “has not assessed that civilian casualties have resulted from recent U.S. operations in Yemen since March 15, 2025.”
Reginald Selkirksays
@11
Iran has raised the possibility of charging companies that send data through cables in the Strait of Hormuz. That would amount to a protection racket, said Erik Brown of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The idea is not absurd on its face. Here is another article about offshore cable fees:
Since 1989, when Oregon got its first trans-Pacific fiber optic cable spanning from Pacific City to Alaska to Japan, the state lands department has only mandated companies pay an application fee that, since 2001, has been frozen at $5,000.
Now, Oregon could join its West Coast neighbors in California and Washington in requiring companies also pay compensation fees based in part on the amount of cable extending along the states’ near-coast seabed…
A drone carrying an explosive device has been found at a German airport, police say.
A robot was deployed at Leipzig/Halle Airport after the device was spotted by an employee near Ukrainian cargo planes overnight, according to Saxony police. A second unidentified object also collided with a cargo aircraft near the same airport. It landed in Hanover with minor damage.
Germany’s interior minister said the incidents showed a “new level of threat”.
German airports are on high alert following several unauthorised drone flights in recent months over military bases, airports, energy terminals, seaports and logistics companies. Police have warned of a potential Russian involvement which Moscow has denied…
President Donald Trump declared an ’emergency’ to block the release of his financial records to the BBC one day before a court-ordered deadline.
The BBC sought the financial information after Trump sued the company for $10 billion over its January 6 coverage. The records at issue belong to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust — a trust bearing his name that controls roughly 400 of his business entities.
The emergency may be a little more valid then usual but Trump’s lawyers waited until the last minute as usual. A key part is that Trump’s lawyers have amended the complaint, which may negate the need for the tax records but the new complaint isn’t public. So it isn’t clear if there is a valid reason to appeal or not. I would guess that it is but Trump’s lawyers intentionally waited to stall things but who knows with Trump’s lawyers.
In the first 20 million years of the Cambrian period, Earth experienced an explosion of life—a great evolutionary era dubbed the Cambrian Explosion. Scientists have differing views on what drove this phenomenon, but this one may be the strangest one yet: poop. Literally. Just a sh*t ton of poop.
Specifically, a slow accumulation of fecal matter—poop—helped allocate organic material and nutrients throughout the ocean, which in turn made marine environments ripe for the birth and evolution of life. The findings, published yesterday in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, suggest a key connection between the distribution of fossilized feces and the emergence of animals with complex digestive systems…
The Trump administration continues to respond sluggishly to the explosive, nationwide outbreak of Cyclospora—a unicellular parasite spread from human feces that has now sickened nearly 23,000 people in 47 states, killing two and sending over 500 to the hospital.
Michigan health officials reported the two deaths Monday, and The Washington Post first reported Tuesday that federal health officials have expanded a list of states with linked cases from nine to 15. But those updates still have not appeared on public outbreak pages for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Food and Drug Administration, and Americans are struggling to understand the risk of eating fresh fruits and vegetables.
In comments to Ars Technica on Monday, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees CDC and FDA, said the outbreak information will be updated sometime “this week.” Sources for The New York Times said that the CDC plans to set up a “formal response team” for the outbreak sometime this week. Cases in the outbreak began in June…
Moderna’s new mRNA vaccine is for adults ages 50 and over, and it is expected to be available soon in certain stores in the coming weeks. […] nearly 27 percent more effective against seasonal flu than a standard flu shot […] associated with higher rates of temporary injection-site pain and fatigue
[…]
Medicare would cover the shot […] Major insurers have previously indicated they will continue to cover vaccines. […] It’s difficult to predict how broadly pharmacies would stock the newly approved mRNA flu vaccine in the absence of recommendations from [ACIP (the advisory panel Kennedy improperly fired)] and the [CDC] However, pharmacists’ authority to order and administer vaccines in many states is no longer directly tied to ACIP recommendations
Scientists at a biotech company have used gene editing to create two hypoallergenic beagles that don’t trigger allergies
…
His allergies didn’t go away: Bailey’s saliva and hair no longer contain a key allergy-causing protein.
“The feeling right now is sort of a mix of relief and awe and gratitude that it worked,” said Walker, a geneticist. His company, Kindred Companion Sciences, created Bailey and her twin Alfie using a Nobel Prize-winning technique called CRISPR.
…
To create Alfie and Bailey, scientists started in the lab. They edited the genetic code inside dog skin cells, switching off the main gene responsible for producing allergy-causing proteins. Then they transferred the edited genetic code into eggs that went into a beagle surrogate that gave birth to two healthy female pups in September 2024. Scientists tested their saliva and fur and didn’t find signs of the allergy-causing protein….
In our latest study, published in Immunity, we discovered that blood-stage malaria can cause lasting changes to the spleen by destroying a specialised immune cell population. Present from before birth, these embryo-derived spleen macrophages are rapidly lost, and do not return after infection clears, reshaping the spleen’s architecture and inter-cell communication long after the parasites are gone.
…
Our team of researchers identified a distinct population of spleen macrophages, CD163-high red pulp macrophages (CD163 RPMs), that produce high levels of the CD163 protein and are developed during embryonic development well before birth.
Once blood infection with malaria-causing Plasmodium parasites occurs, CD163 RPMs are rapidly depleted and do not recover even after the parasites cleared. Instead, they are replaced by a different type of macrophages. The loss of the CD163 RPMs worsens the structural disintegration of the spleen and affects the recovery of neighbouring immune cells, indicating they play an important role in supporting other macrophage populations. ..
Starting last week, the German automaker started blasting a promotion for the new Spider-Man movie into its customers’ cars without warning — because nothing says riding in luxury like a full-vehicle pop-up ad. BMW, showing that it was about as in-touch as its drivers are familiar with turn signals, teased the promotion as a “special surprise.”
According to The Autopian‘s coverage and the heaps of complaints online, the ad appears on the center console screen when you start up the car. When the ad’s done playing — a cheap looking animation that doesn’t come close to warranting all this hubbub — it even has the gall to ask you to scan a QR code.
This is probably a one off, BMW testing the water to see how many complaints they get. Customers should complain and get this killed. It’s highly annoying and will just get worse if it is accepted.
Abdul El-Sayed joins All In for his first primetime interview since clinching the Democratic nomination for Senate in Michigan. “They’re going to use Islamophobia because their ideas are tired. Their economy sucks. They’re taking us to war we shouldn’t fight,” says El-Sayed on anti-Muslim attacks by his opponent Mike Rogers.
Somehow things that would have been a background gag in a Verhoeven movie are now just real.
[…]
While Kalshi and the people who make these bets are bad, the real villain here is the Trump admin. The story is, roughly, that Kalshi started doing this stuff, state AGs said “knock it off, its against our gambling laws” and Kalshi said, “We’re not a gambling den, we’re a FINANCIAL DERIVATIVES MARKET, so we’re regulated by the feds at the CFTC, so F off.” Guessing that no one at the gutted Trump CFTC would care to restrain them or even notice. And they were right! And then later, when it became incredibly lucrative, the CFTC woke up and said “Hey we approve this after all!” and everyone started hitting them up for lobbying money
Rando 1: how would they even know who is a cancer patient or what the prognosis is? Is the medical establishment giving out this info? Isn’t THAT illegal??
This is how prediction markets are supposed to work, by harnessing the wisdom of crowds!
Like say you live next to a kid with cancer and happen to hear he’s involved in a new clinical trial. A month later, you notice he’s not looking so good. […] go on Kalshi and bet against the success of the drug trial. That moves prices fractionally, and now the all-knowing market has your information too. Aggregated over many sick neighbors, the existence of the prediction market moves us closer to the ultimate goal of human existence: accurate equity pricing.
Obviously there’s a heavy dose of sarcasm from me, but I want to emphasize this is not satire. That’s literally the argument *for* prediction markets. They’re supposed to encourage people to bet on private information […] Insider trading is a feature, not a bug.
[…]
Pretty soon I’m flying my drone through cancer kid’s window to get the latest scoop. (Or, you know, poisoning him to rig the results.)
Alex Wenzel (Cancer researcher): “This is worse than the headline. They’re allowing betting specifically on clinical trial outcomes. So much effort is put into ensuring the integrity of trials and eliminating as much bias as possible, this would create enormous vulnerability in that system. This cannot be allowed to happen.”
Rando 2: “Wasn’t ‘we won’t allow bets on death’ one of their extremely few rules? Literally the second rule.”
Django Wexler:
Rando 3: I don’t get the outrage; insurance companies thrive on this
FWIW while insurance companies are horrible, at least the customers have to sign up with them first. It’s generally illegal to take out insurance on a person you don’t know for all the obvious reasons!
“As the midterm elections approach, the GOP crusade against one of the nation’s most accomplished and celebrated scientists is rapidly descending into madness.”
The latest Pew Research Center poll asked Americans which issues they would most like to hear congressional candidates focus on during the 2026 midterm elections. Not surprisingly, the economy dominated — concerns about affordability and the cost of living easily came out on top — but issues such as corruption, healthcare and immigration were also in the mix.
The percentage of Americans focused on prosecuting Dr. Anthony Fauci and relitigating his efforts to protect the public during the pandemic was zero — though with 89 days remaining before Election Day, Republicans seem obsessed with trying to tear down the 85-year-old immunologist anyway. MS NOW reported:
A Republican-led Senate committee voted Thursday to advance a resolution to hold former White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a contentious hearing last week.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved the measure by a party-line vote after Chairman Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., argued Fauci unlawfully refused to answer lawmakers’ questions despite appearing under subpoena on July 29.
The underlying legal dispute is rather mind-numbing. Republicans realized that Joe Biden’s pardon for Fauci offered him a sizable shield, so GOP senators demanded his congressional testimony in the hope that he would say something that might lead to possible perjury charges during a hearing that resembled a classic show trial. On the advice of counsel, the immunologist avoided the rather obvious trap by repeatedly invoking his constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment.
Senate Republicans responded that Fauci, a private citizen, wasn’t allowed to take advantage of his constitutional rights (which is a tough sell, as my MS NOW colleague Jordan Rubin explained), leading to Thursday’s vote to hold Fauci in contempt.
Looking ahead, Paul said he would refer Fauci to the Justice Department for prosecution on his own, bypassing a vote in the full Senate for the time being. If Donald Trump’s DOJ actually were to try to pursue a criminal case against Fauci, it would likely face long odds in the courts, although the White House might very well want the prosecution anyway, if for no other reason than to please the president.
For now, let’s not dwell too long on the oddity of seeing an ostensibly libertarian-minded senator trying to punish a private American citizen for exercising his constitutional rights. Let’s instead shift our attention to the partisan legal campaign, which isn’t limited to Capitol Hill: MS NOW has confirmed that Florida’s Republican attorney general, James Uthmeir, has also subpoenaed Fauci, and West Virginia and Louisiana have joined the Floridian’s efforts.
[…] it’s worth emphasizing that presidential pardons only extend to potential federal crimes and do not cover potential state charges. [!]
In case this isn’t obvious, the Republican crusade against one of the nation’s most accomplished and celebrated scientists is rapidly descending into madness. Fauci’s critics have yet to uncover any actual wrongdoing, even as GOP hysterics continue to get worse.
Last week, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama told a national television audience that Fauci “killed millions of people” (he really didn’t), which followed Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas calling for Fauci’s incarceration. Marshall added that “this” is more serious than Watergate, though the Kansan never got around to explaining what “this” referred to. [1] […]
Republicans running for office has a limited playbook from which they draw their tactics. One tactic is to create a nationwide bogeyman that they then connect to the Democratic Party or to the Democratic agenda. So, now they are wildly, irresponsibly, pumping up Fauci as an enormous bogeyman. Republicans don’t have evidence. They have a shameless attack.
Ditto, in a way, for the effort by Republicans to brand Democrats as “communists.”
They hope that sheer repetition (delivered of course to national TV audiences, and every other media source they can commandeer) will win them an angry, misinformed, and scared Republican vote in midterm elections.
“The debate over dwindling munitions stockpiles is discombobulating the administration, and the president’s reaction is far from reassuring.”
Related video at the link.
The first signs of trouble reached the public in May. As the war with Iran continued to unfold, many U.S. officials expressed concerns about the state of the military’s weapons stockpiles, and there was ample reporting to suggest those concerns were valid. The New York Times reported in the spring, for example, that the U.S. missile stockpiles had been “greatly reduced because of the war, and will take years to replenish.” A month later, MS NOW reported that the conflict had “significantly depleted the U.S. military’s global munitions supply.”
Recently, these concerns reached a new level of intensity. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that there were growing concerns “about how many missiles the U.S. military has left,” and days later, Reuters reported that the U.S. military had already used “virtually all” of its long-range precision missiles as part of the combat operations in the Middle East.
The concerns have not gone unnoticed in the White House. The Washington Post reported:
President Donald Trump’s frustration over the Iran war boiled over at Camp David last week, where he demanded answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on why he had apparently been misled on extreme munitions shortages that now threaten to limit military options with Iran, two people familiar with the exchange told The Washington Post.
The encounter took place on the sidelines of his Cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday where Trump vented at Hegseth that he thought the munitions issue “had been fixed,” according to both people familiar with the conversation, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation.
[…] Hegseth “defended himself and blamed his deputy, Stephen Feinberg, for the shortages and for not ensuring Trump was fully apprised of the issue.”
[…] Feinberg, the deputy defense secretary, received an “angry phone call” from Trump on Friday, at which point the Pentagon official “hastily gathered top military and defense acquisition officials” for a “crisis meeting” about the U.S. weapons shortfalls.
That report […] added that Trump had suggested during the call that Feinberg should be fired.
All of which is to say, when it comes to the military’s stockpiles during an ongoing war in the Middle East, the Republican administration is experiencing some disarray. [Yep. Understatement.]
For his part, the president responded to the latest reporting with an odd new missive to his social media platform shortly after midnight, writing, “The U.S. has massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types. Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed. Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in our country’s history. The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down. Long term jail sentences will be sought!” [Transparent lies, coupled with nonsensical threats.]
The first problem with this is that Trump’s efforts to downplay the depleted stockpiles contradict comments he made last week [!] […]
The second problem is that Trump’s online statement contradicts itself: The president can argue that the latest reporting is false, or he can argue that the reporting is based on “treasonous leaks.” But to argue both at once doesn’t make sense. […]
The underlying questions are unlikely to go away anytime soon, especially if the apparent shortages are affecting tactical combat decisions.
All along, Trump had no fucking clue when it came to stocks of munitions. He still doesn’t.
[…] We are witnessing a stunning abuse of power by the executive branch and a pliant legislative branch that they have together refined and systematized into a grinder that chews up and spits out Trump foes as a means of retribution and for the sheer spectacle of it. That is the real story here. Not the Wuhan lab or COVID policy [or Anthony Fauci] or whatever other ostensible underlying issue is the pretext for feeding Trump foes into his vengeance machine.
“One Nation, the Senate GOP’s primary dark money group, is producing propaganda masquerading as journalism.”
The Alaska Navigator bills itself as “independent news covering the Last Frontier.” On June 10, the outlet published an article headlined, “As Fentanyl Deaths Rise in Alaska, Sullivan Pushes Tougher Penalties and Enforcement.”
The piece, which has no byline, reports that Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) — who is locked in a competitive campaign against Democrat Mary Peltola — “is leading efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking and support law enforcement agencies confronting the epidemic.”
[…] the piece cites only one piece of evidence: Sullivan’s vote for the HALT Fentanyl Act in March 2025. Sullivan was one of 84 senators to vote for the bill, which classified fentanyl-related substances as schedule I narcotics. But Sullivan did not lead the effort to pass the HALT Fentanyl Act. […]
The Alaska Navigator also reports that “Retired Alaska Wildlife Trooper Director Doug Massie, who spent 25 years in law enforcement… credits Senator Sullivan with supporting tougher penalties for traffickers and policies aimed at reducing the drug’s impact on communities throughout the state.” But there is no direct quote from Massie, who is running for the Alaska state legislature as a Republican, or an explanation of why Sullivan deserves credit. There is no record of Massie making a public statement about Sullivan on fentanyl or any other topic. [Actual fake news, distributed by Republicans.]
[…] the Alaska Navigator is not an independent news outlet. Rather, it is a website fully controlled by One Nation, a dark money group that works in concert with the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the super PAC of Senate Republicans. One Nation has directly contributed over $70 million to the SLF this political cycle.
Other content published by Alaska Navigator includes “Senator Dan S. Sullivan’s Legislative Record of Supporting Alaska’s Veterans,” “Sen. Sullivan’s tax policy helps Alaska businesses thrive,” and “Opinion: Dan Sullivan has earned another term by delivering for Alaska.”
One Nation has ensured that Alaskans see this content by spending tens of thousands of dollars on Meta ads promoting Alaska Navigator articles since June. These ads further distort reality. [I snipped examples]
[…] The fake Alaska news outlet is one of at least six operated by One Nation in states with key U.S. Senate races. […] The other five sites in the network include:
Maine Policy Updates (“Maine’s News Source”)
Ohio Pulse (“Your trusted source for local news, investigative journalism, and community stories across the Buckeye State”)
Iowa Voice (“Stay Informed. Stay Iowa”)
Peach State Post (“Georgia’s Premier News Source”)
New Hampshire Daily (“An independent news organization dedicated to covering the stories that matter most to Granite State residents”)
Iowa Voice features a story headlined, “Iowa Farmers Say Potential ‘Death Tax’ Threatens Family Succession Plans.” [I snipped other examples and details, including an accounting of the money One Nation has spent.]
The sites attempt to appear more legitimate by cutting and pasting content from actual news outlets. The Peach State Post recently published a story under the headline “Former Atlanta city officials Bickers, Beard who were convicted in corruption cases denied clemency by Trump.” At the end of the piece it says, “Read more here” and links to 11Alive, an Atlanta news website. But the story on Peach State Post contains the full text of 11Alive’s story. There is nothing more to read. […]
One Nation, which is organized as a 501(c)(4), is not required to disclose its donors. So it is unknown who is bankrolling its fake websites or other activities. […]
The missiles are principally the Army’s surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). […] which cost more than $1 million each […] Trump may have to rely more on riskier, piloted [aircraft] bombing missions if he relaunches large-scale attacks on Iran.
[…]
According to the report, PrSM stockpiles were low to start with, since it is a relatively new munition, but the U.S. military has ordered a large number of them for 2027. The Army has said that ATACMS are being phased out and that production is shifting to the newer PrSM missiles.
[…]
Defensive weapon stocks are also diminished. Last week, CSIS published a report estimating that between February and July about 65% of Patriot interceptors had been expended and that the number of THAAD ballistic missile interceptors in U.S. stockpiles was at least 38% lower than at the start of the war. Patriots and THAADs are systems that detect and destroy incoming missiles and are among the most effective
[…]
The U.S. also burned through a little less than half of its global supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are generally launched from ships, since the start of the war
The strategy, overseen by Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, would place greater emphasis on shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons in the event of a regional war, rather than relying on long-range strategic missiles. […] the strategy is designed to address scenarios in which US allies come under attack from Russia or China in a regional conflict.
[…]
The strategy would not restrict Donald Trump’s choices but instead “expand the president’s option space by providing him with realistic and credible options and therefore strengthen deterrence”, [an unnamed senior defense department] official said. Mr Colby has long argued in favour of tactical nuclear weapons […] The [unnamed] official added: “If you actually want extended deterrence to be credible, you have to provide the nation’s political leadership with nuclear capabilities that common sense indicates you could actually use.”
This is unprecedented. The US has never before been left in a position where it was incapable of using military force to underpin its agenda. […] Trump has dismantled US power on the world stage in a matter of weeks.
[…]
Conspiracy theories abound. Surely Trump and his Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth would not be so incompetent as to catastrophically weaken America in pursuit of a war that was obviously lost within three days? There has to be nefarious reasons? It’s possible both might be true. […] For the rest of the world this would be a hilarious lesson if not for the fact that what is happening to the US has made the world a significantly more dangerous place. […] let us not forget it’s the President who makes the decision to launch nuclear weapons.
…
Federal health officials are investigating a multi-state outbreak linked to jalapeño peppers that have been distributed widely throughout the U.S. Hundreds of cases across more than half of the country have been reported so far, while dozens have ended up in the hospital. The major distributor implicated in the outbreak has recalled its pepper products, and two Mexican-style chain restaurants that purchased the products—Chipotle and QDOBA—have temporarily pulled peppers from their menu or have switched to a different distributor.
This outbreak is being caused by a strain of Salmonella Javiana bacteria. Salmonella is rarely life-threatening, but it can cause miserable episodes of diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps that typically last between four and seven days. Children under five, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems are more vulnerable to severe illness.
At least 345 people in 27 states have been infected with the same outbreak strain, and 36 people have been hospitalized as a result, though no deaths have been reported as of yet. According to federal health officials, the first known cases date back to June 19, while the latest reported cases were on July 20.
Officials have linked the outbreak to jalapeño peppers from Sinaloa, Mexico, that were distributed by Coast Citrus Distributors to other distributors, restaurants, and food service companies…
Schiff ties Trump’s judicial nominees in knots by asking them who won the 2016 before *before* asking them who won in 2020, which results in them sounding like election deniers about Trump’s victories! [Video clip]
“President Obama was sworn into office, so I’m certain he won.”
“And John McCain lost that election?”
“Yes.”
[…]
“President Obama was sworn into office [4 years later], so I’m certain he was elected as a matter of law.”
“And Mitt Romney lost that election?”
“That’s the natural converse of that, yes.”
“In 2016, Trump ran against Hillary Clinton. Who won that election?”
“He was sworn into office, so as a matter of law, he was elected to that office.”
“So Donald Trump won that election?”
“That would be the natural assumption, yes.”
“Is that really an assumption you have to make?”
Every recent Trump judicial nominee before the Senate who was asked about the 2020 election came up with formulaic dodges, like saying not that Biden won, but was “certified” or “served.” They said it was a political issue they could not comment on—when the outcome was actually decided by courts via dozens of lawsuits. How will they judge future lawsuits from their patron?
A US Senate committee has voted to hold former top health official Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he refused to answer questions during a hearing examining his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The vote – which fell along party lines – clears the way for the committee to refer the case to the justice department for potential prosecution for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena.
…
The Top Democrat on the committee, Michigan Senator Gary Peters, defended Fauci, accusing Paul of a “rushed investigation” and a “yearslong campaign” to prosecute Fauci.
Fauci has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and last week accused Paul of having an “obvious obsession” with prosecuting him.
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something – anything – that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars’,” Fauci said.
Paul, the committee’s Republican chairman, bypassed a full senate vote on the contempt resolution saying he did not “want to waste time” going through the procedure.
Normally, contempt resolutions passed by the committee go to the full Senate, where they require a 60-vote majority. Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the 100-member Senate.
…
I don’t think much of anyone – Republicans included – likes Paul, so hopefully this won’t go anywhere.
Let me start out by stating that every human being on earth is an atheist, that’s right, and here’s why.
There have been, literally thousands of gods invented by man over the centuries but let’s pick a number, just for a basis of comparison, let’s say 5000.
OK, I am an atheist, I don’t believe in any god, Christians, Muslims, Jews are monotheists, they only believe in one god.
So the difference is, I, an atheist, don’t believe in 5000, and you, a monotheist, don’t believe in 4999, so you see by that very statement, we are all atheists.
I have no shame in trying to convince anyone to just not believe in one more.
And now the second coming and the rapture. It is estimated that the second coming has been predicted to happen between 300 and 400 times, so, not a very good track record there. If I am not mistaken, and I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, Paul started preaching about Jesus and his teachings because he thought the end was near, go figure.
I realized at an early age that religion was a bunch of hogwash and my life experiences since then have only strengthened my resolve so I have no compunction in pointing out to anyone that, logic, evidence and science are what we should base our lives on and not some pie in the sky BS about a supreme being that no one knows anything about except what they choose to believe with zero actual evidence.
And anyone who claims to have actual evidence, please display it in these pages so it can be fact checked, you know, that thing that someone says I don’t do any of. Just sayin’.
[…] when Trump hosted an event in Las Vegas this week, there was some question about whether […] the governor would want to be seen alongside his party’s historically unpopular president. Lombardo offered an unsubtle answer to the question on Wednesday afternoon, literally and figuratively embracing Trump on stage.
That was notable in its own right — as The Nevada Independent noted, the governor placed “a bet that he’d benefit from appearing with the president” — but I was also surprised to see how, exactly, Lombardo explained his support for Trump. [social media post, with video]
“You know, quite often, when the press and the media runs him down,” the GOP governor said of the president, “they think about, you know, ‘He’s taking care of his billionaire friends.’ But those billionaire friends provide jobs, and unless you take care of them, those jobs are absent.” [clueless doofus]
[…] Trump’s fiercest Democratic and progressive critics have accused the president of prioritizing the needs of the wealthiest Americans, handing them generous tax breaks, among other things.
[…] one of Trump’s allies endorsed the Democratic line — arguing that it’s a good thing that the president is prioritizing the needs of the wealthiest Americans.
The other part of the problem is that the Nevada Republican’s economic vision is plainly wrong: Lombardo, for all intents and purposes, voiced support for trickle-down economics, in which the government rewards those on top with the expectation that wealth eventually works its way down to everyone else.
This economic model has never worked, but that didn’t stop an incumbent governor, 12 weeks before he faces voters again, from standing alongside Trump and defending the president’s eagerness to “take care of his billionaire friends.”
[…] Lombardo’s Democratic opponent wasted little time in highlighting the governor’s rhetoric, and it’s a safe bet that Nevada voters will hear the quote again between now and November.
Followup to comment 44, with a summary of a Bluesky post provided by Steve Benen:
During remarks in Nevada, President Donald Trump said that former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley “should be your governor.” Whatley is running for the Senate in North Carolina.
Additional Republican campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen from a Bluesky post:
In Minnesota, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Mike Lindell announced this week that he’s stepping down as the CEO of MyPillow in order to focus all his attention on his statewide candidacy
Bad news for pretty much everyone. No wants Mike Lindell to appear even more in national or Minnesota news, even Minnesota Republicans.
Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott took to Fox News on Thursday to push a cryptocurrency bill opposed by a host of organizations opposed to human trafficking. Scott argued that the legislation should be passed by the Senate because it would help mothers.
The Senate, where Scott currently chairs the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, is currently considering the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which is meant to accelerate the use of cryptocurrency like bitcoin. Concerns have been raised that the Clarity Act would allow crypto companies and those who use cryptocurrencies to evade traditional government oversight, including people involved in human trafficking and illicit arms sales.
The law is backed by the crypto industry […]
Appearing on Fox Business, Scott positioned the bill as a boon to mothers instead of big business and illegal industries. [video]
“If you want single mothers to have more access to their resources immediately, you want cryptocurrency, digital assets, to blossom here at home in America,” Scott said.
[…] it has been something of a tough sell even within the GOP. That is in large part due to opposition from law enforcement groups, religious groups, and organizers combatting human trafficking. [I snipped details related to organizations dedicated to ending human trafficking]
The National Sheriffs’ Association has also been in contact with the Senate to highlight “the legislation’s significant law enforcement and public safety risks.”
An analysis of the bill from the Center for American Progress published in July said the legislation would “effectively facilitate illicit transactions and undermine the United States’ ability to address them in the future by creating statutory loopholes that bind regulators’ hands.”
Democrats have also been opposed to the bill because Republicans have failed to include provisions that would prevent elected leaders from using their office to financially benefit from crypto. Since taking office, Trump has dubbed himself the crypto president and has used his position to rake in billions in unaccountable funds while also steering government enforcement and regulation of the industry.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, summed up the problems with the bill in a July release: “The bill goes even further to protect the President’s crypto profits by barring the next Department of Justice from ever holding Trump accountable. On top of all of this, the underlying bill still fails to adequately protect investors, our financial system, and our national security. This bill should be dead on arrival.”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Reginald Selkirk @43 quoting Larry Benson: “BS about a supreme being that no one knows anything about […] anyone who claims to have actual evidence, please display it”
A noun with no referent—not even a counterfactual one—is gibberish. There’s no there there to believe. There’s no coherent model to form expectations for assessing detectable phenomena as evidence. People are conditioned to recite proprietary noises to affirm their social affiliations. Part of that conditioning is touting the holy book as if it weren’t a symbolic prop. And that conditioning makes them voice approval for other concretely monstrous things, either in the book or otherwise favored by the group. “God” is incidental to adherents.
I’ve been told that forcing people to eat their children is “love” and that such crimes against humanity are just a “hang up” to be ignored. Because gloating intimidation attached to that word, repeatedly, in the book make it unthinkably embarrassing. But affiliation mattered more to them than trying to sound like a decent person they imagined themself to be.
[…] Marine One, with Trump aboard, got exceedingly cozy with a commercial flight on Tuesday afternoon.
No one is sure why a commercial jet took off right as Marine One left the White House, because commercial air traffic is supposed to be halted when that’s happening. But that’s exactly what happened, with an air traffic controller giving the go-ahead to a commercial flight just a literal moment after Marine One went aloft.
Yes, this is in the same extremely busy airspace near Ronald Reagan National Airport where, shortly after Trump took office in 2025 and installed the ridiculous Duffy [Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy] atop the Department of Transportation, a midair collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger plane killed 67 people.
Trump and Duffy blamed that one on—you guessed it—DEI and Biden, but it turns out that the FAA and the Army were far more to blame, particularly thanks to an absolutely overworked air traffic control system.
But one of the immediate fixes put in place after that tragedy was to ensure that helicopter and commercial airline traffic didn’t mingle quite so much. When it comes to Marine One and helicopter flights from the White House specifically, commercial flights are to be briefly halted while the chopper takes off. But apparently the air traffic controllers at National didn’t get that memo? Seems bad.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai made sure to rush to the press to explain how everything is great, actually.
“Marine One flights are piloted by some of the best aviators in the world, and at no point was the President in harm’s way,” he claimed.
Sure, but that’s not really the point. No one was besmirching the talent of Marine One pilots. Everyone is besmirching the fact that the FAA literally imposed a fix for this last year and it just didn’t take.
There’s no world where things aren’t demonstrably worse, air safety-wise, under Trump. Aviation fatalities in 2025 exceeded deaths in 2024 by 30%. Despite a flashy little 12-month-old graphic about how the FAA is totes ending close calls now that Trump’s in charge, they just keep happening.
Air traffic controllers remain in woefully short supply. While the Government Accountability Office made multiple recommendations last year on how to increase hiring and decrease attrition, the Trump administration doesn’t seem to be moving with any alacrity to do that. Instead, it simply cut staffing targets. See, problem solved!
Maybe the administration should give another $2 million to Elon Musk’s personal attorney, Alex Spiro, who was tasked last June with figuring out how to blame DEI for planes crashing. Or maybe Sean Duffy, the onetime reality TV star, can take another bribe-fueled road trip with his family for several months? That’ll probably fix it, right? […]
“The Republican senator said he would continue to work from home and did not provide a timeline for his Senate return.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday that he has been discharged from a rehabilitation center where he was recovering from a fall he suffered in mid-June. […]
The Kentucky Republican, 84, said he would continue to work from home and did not provide a timeline for his return to the Senate, which is expected to begin a five-week recess in the coming days.
Uncertainty surrounding McConnell’s health has swirled for weeks following the senator’s June 14 hospitalization, after which he hadn’t been seen in public. His staff has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the senator’s condition […]
Police scanner audio obtained by NBC News last month indicated that paramedics had conducted CPR on a person experiencing a “cardiac arrest” at McConnell’s address.
In a statement last month, he said that he had been hospitalized after he was “briefly unconscious” following a fall. “My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion,” he said on July 12. “I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages. But I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital. While receiving excellent care over the past several weeks, I’ve also had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia.”
Since his hospitalization, McConnell has missed 51 Senate floor votes and is expected to miss the vote to confirm Todd Blanche for attorney general if it takes place this week.
McConnell, who has also suffered a number of health issues over the years, is retiring at the end of his term, which ends in January.
In February, McConnell was hospitalized for a week with “flu-like symptoms.” In 2023, he had been hospitalized for a concussion he sustained when he tripped at a hotel and that same year, he had several episodes of freezing in the middle of speaking, which were caught on camera and raised concerns about his mental fitness for office. The senator also fractured his shoulder in 2019 when he fell at his home in Kentucky.
McConnell is one of the oldest members of the Senate after Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who are 92 and 84, respectively.
Miss North Carolina USA has been stripped of her title after a “thorough review” of information that surfaced, organisers of the event say.
Pageant organiser A Blaize Productions did not share details, but stated that it had made the “difficult decision” to “conclude Brittany Boltinhouse’s reign” as Miss North Carolina USA.
“The Miss USA organization does not tolerate racism, homophobia, transphobia nor language that strips any person of their dignity,” Thom Brodeur, president of the Miss USA organisation said in a separate statement.
They said, as they stripped her of her dignity.
It is unclear what “information” was found. Brodeur said Boltinhouse had apologised and would release a statement of her own. The BBC contacted her for comment.
“What was brought to us was not a single moment,” Brodeur said. “It reflected conduct over an extended period of time. That is why this outcome was reached, and I stand behind it without qualification.” …
So we have no idea what she did or said, but she did or said it consistently.
Residents of a small town outside Calgary are shocked to learn that Canada’s most prominent white supremacist group held its second annual national meeting — where masked group members participated in military-style drills — at a volunteer-run community centre in early July.
“My first reaction is: that scares me,” Lou Kuiack, a Millarville-area resident, told a CBC Calgary reporter. “I didn’t think that would come to our small little town, in our backyard.”
Using visual clues in videos posted by the group, Second Sons Canada, CBC’s visual investigations team identified the location of the gathering roughly 70 kilometres southwest of Calgary, near the hamlet of Millarville, Alta.
Second Sons Canada was formed in 2024 and has chapters across the country.
Founded by Jeremy MacKenzie, Second Sons describes itself as a “men’s nationalist club.” But it more closely resembles the “active club”-style model favoured by the global white supremacist movement. Second Sons’ leaders have welcomed neo-Nazis into their ranks, called for mass deportations “at gunpoint” of non-white people from Canada and said Canadian politicians should be executed as traitors.
…
and included a Second Sons slogan: “Our people, our home, our future.”
Group members also wore shirts with the slogan “old stock enforcer” emblazoned with crossed swords behind an old-school goalie mask.
“When they say ‘old stock,’ they mean white and European people,” said Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.
“When they label themselves as enforcers, it’s tied to their belief that they will have to use culture, politics and violence to achieve their goal of a racist mass deportation of people who aren’t old stock Canadian.”
…
“The organization that booked the hall did not identify itself to us in any way,” said Shanna Dunne, president of the hall’s board of directors, in an emailed statement to CBC…
A South Korean satellite has captured images of the mark left on the moon when a SpaceX rocket crashed into it on Wednesday.
The evidence is a smudge, dark in some photos and light in others, that’s not visible in other photos of the same area on the moon’s surface near the Einstein Crater.
The Korean lunar orbiter Danuri (also known as the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, or KPLO) captured before and after images of the SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage colliding with the lunar surface as it headed toward the moon, the Korean AeroSpace Administration (KASA) reported on X…
Michigan health officials said on Thursday that people can resume regular lettuce- and salad greens-eating habits as new cases of cyclosporiasis slow.
It’s one of nine states in a multi-state outbreak linked to shredded iceberg lettuce served at some Taco Bell restaurants.
The iceberg lettuce was supplied by Taylor Farms and sourced from central Mexico. Taylor Farms issued a voluntary recall of all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico.
The state has seen more than 12,400 cases since June, including 279 hospitalizations and two deaths, health department data shows…
Since May 1, cases of cyclosporiasis have topped 22,000 in 47 states, according to data updated by the CDC on Tuesday.
There are at least 10,468 laboratory-confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis, including 423 hospitalizations, the CDC data shows. The agency is also aware of at least 12,255 additional cases that have not yet been laboratory confirmed or require further investigation and analysis.
President Donald Trump on Thursday signed executive orders that target birthright citizenship, including one that would ban what the administration calls “birth tourism.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Nothing about his previous attempts to ban birthright citizenship, and the Supreme Court decision opposing them? Yeah, they should definitely update that article.
To avoid self-pollination, avocado trees alternate between opening male and female flowers at different times of day. Some avocados are female in the morning and male in the afternoon, while others are on the opposite schedule. How avocados do this has been unclear — until now.
In a new study, a team led by researchers from the University of California, Davis, revealed that this rhythm is dictated by variation in a single gene that evolved about 42 million years ago. Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this finding could help avocado breeders and researchers quickly sort seedlings to maximize yield and develop new varieties.
…
All avocado trees are hermaphrodites, but at any given time their flowers function either as male by releasing pollen, or as female by receiving pollen. Approximately half of all avocado trees (“A-type” plants) open female flowers in the morning and male flowers in the afternoon, whereas the other half (“B-type” plants) follow the opposite pattern. This partitioning minimizes the risk of self-pollination, which can result in inbreeding. Avocado breeders have known about this for over a hundred years, and because these two types easily pollinate one another, avocado farmers usually try to plant a mixture of A- and B-type trees.
…
To identify the genetic mechanism behind this daily rhythm, the team analyzed the genomes of hundreds of avocado trees grown by collaborating researchers at UC Riverside. By comparing the trees’ genomes in the context of their flowering behavior, they were able to pinpoint a single gene called SDMYB that was associated with the tree’s A- or B- type schedule.
…
By comparing avocado genomes to those of related tree species, the team showed that the same two versions of SDMYB are shared by at least 26 related tree species. This suggests that this genetic mechanism is regulating flowering behavior and preventing inbreeding far beyond avocados.
“We were blown away by the idea that these plants have been alternating male and female activity over the course of a day for over 40 million years, over potentially hundreds of species,” said Coop.
…
More than half of young adult women who grew up as Latter-day Saints have now left. Many are reacting against politics, purity culture and powerlessness…
lon Musk’s X is trying to revive a lawsuit against advertisers it’s accusing of illegally boycotting the social media platform, despite previously reaching a settlement to end litigation against an ad-industry trade group.
“This case involves an unusually brazen group boycott,” X said in a filing yesterday. “That misconduct has drawn the attention of regulators and Congress. There is no valid reason that this effort by the direct victim to recover its massive economic losses from that boycott should not move forward.”
X’s lawsuit was thrown out in March when US District Judge Jane Boyle in the Northern District of Texas ruled that advertisers did not commit any antitrust violation. Last week, Musk reached a settlement with the World Federation of Advertisers, the first defendant named in the lawsuit.
But Musk’s lawsuit had other defendants: Mars, Incorporated; CVS Health; Nestle; Abbott Laboratories; Colgate-Palmolive; Lego; Pinterest; Tyson Foods; Shell; and Ørsted A/S. While X agreed to dismiss the World Federation of Advertisers from the case, it urged the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to revive the suit with respect to the other defendants…
birgerjohanssonsays
Making fun of the allegedly Christian Trump-adjacent people.
I think the headline is overstating the case. Diplomats say some issues are unresolved.
“It’s unclear whether the U.S. will support the deal.”
Related video at the link.
Oman has agreed to the framework of a deal with Iran to temporarily reopen the Strait of Hormuz […]
The diplomats declined to describe the details of the temporary agreement or what issues remain unresolved. But an Iranian government official linked to the deal told MS NOW on Thursday morning that it will establish new shipping routes by allowing commercial vessels to enter the Persian Gulf through an Iranian-controlled route and exit through a route controlled by Oman.
The agreement, according to the Iranian official, does not include the collection of tolls from commercial shipping vessels seeking safe passage through the waterway, which Iran has previously sought. The proposal is a “temporary agreement” that would lay the foundation for Washington and Tehran to call a new ceasefire and resume the nuclear negotiations that began in mid-June but collapsed after retaliatory strikes by both sides across the region. […]
The United Nations International Maritime Organization and the U.S. will be involved in the official announcement of the agreement, according to the Iranian official. Another Gulf government official with knowledge of the agreement also told MS NOW that the arrangement has been endorsed by the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council. […]
Whether the U.S. will support the deal on how the strait is managed, however, will depend on the final details. A U.S. official said Washington will only support a temporary deal that reopens the strait with no impediments and no fees.
“Any temporary routes will be without any impediments — meaning no approvals or permissions and no tolls or charges,” a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about the deal, told MS NOW. “The Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway, and no party controls the lanes or the ability to transit through them.”
[Trump] has at times suggested the U.S. would collect fees from vessels seeking to transit the waterway but has not followed through on that plan.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon, Trump said the strait is “sort of open right now,” adding that the U.S. is enforcing a blockade.
[…] Before the U.S. and Israel’s Feb. 28 joint strikes on Iran, the strait was considered an international shipping route that no country officially controlled. Iran swiftly launched retaliatory attacks on vessels in the waterway, which has become its strongest point of leverage.
Commercial shipping traffic has since ground to a halt [contrary to what nonsense Trump spouted], sending global oil prices soaring and putting downward pressure on the U.S. economy ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has linked six additional states to a large outbreak of cyclosporiasis associated with iceberg lettuce, according to a C.D.C. official familiar with the investigation.
New York Times:
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the first mRNA flu vaccine, enabling use of a technology that will make it easier to rapidly target a widely prevalent or particularly virulent strain of the virus.
“When people looked for something nice to say about the deceased senator, they said he was good about compromising. And he did indeed compromise every principle he had. When he went to the senate he promised he would only sit for two six-year periods, a promise he kept for twelwe years. He kept breaking the promise but in the end, his heart wasn’t in it -to be precise, the left ventricular.”
The Federal Communications Commission voted 2–1 today to eliminate the National Television Ownership Rule, claiming authority to repeal a limit that was set by Congress over 20 years ago.
The rule prohibits any single broadcast station owner from reaching more than 39 percent of all TV households in the US. Under Chairman Brendan Carr, the FCC is replacing the rule with a “case-by-case review” of each proposed merger.
Both the rule being overridden and the authority being claimed by the FCC are significant issues. 39% isn’t some trivial number, a station owner would have to be covering a huge geographic range to violate that.
Carr said local broadcast TV stations are becoming “undifferentiated passthroughs of national programming produced in Hollywood and New York,” and he justified repealing the ownership rule by arguing it will help the stations invest in local news.
The first part of what he says here is true, the second part is laughable. The huge stations are the cause of much of the passthrough local stations, producing content in a few big sets and sending it to location stations to show.
For courts, the main question will be whether the FCC can change the cap at all. Congress directed the FCC to set the cap at 39 percent in 2004, overriding a 2003 FCC decision to raise the limit from 35 to 45 percent. The 2004 law change also said the FCC cannot repeal or modify the cap during its quadrennial reviews of media rules.
Here is the most significant question really. Congress has directed the FCC to make the cap 395%. If the FCC is allowed to change that it transfers a huge amount of power from Congress to the FCC. The FCC and other government agencies will be able to rewrite large parts of the law as set by Congress.
Media advocacy group Free Press said it will sue the FCC in an attempt to block the change. “Changing this limit requires congressional action, but Carr doesn’t care,” Free Press General Counsel Matt Wood said. “He’ll do whatever it takes to clear the way for Trump-aligned billionaires to swallow up stations wherever and whenever they please. The result would be just one or two dominant broadcasters in every market, deep job cuts for journalists, and an influx of bargain-basement content disguised as local news.”
Carr is a puppet of Trump and the Heritage Foundation chosen to push for nationwide monopolies by those with the most money.
AI webpage crawlers are now being served their very own ads that ordinary visitors never see, with one firm’s boss openly describing a strategy to influence what chatbots say about brands. The next time you ask Claude about where to bank, its answer may have been influenced by this bot-targeted content.
We only have one documented example so far, and that’s Time serving AI-only ads to selected AI crawlers, as spotted by Germany-based freelance software developer Vincent Schmalbach. In a Wednesday blog post, Schmalbach detailed how he found sponsored content embedded in markdown versions of some Time pages that are served to AI crawlers but not ordinary browsers.
Interesting bit. You would think the AI agent is programmed to discard ads but I guess not. Apparently manipulative text and text formatted like common questions work best. Which makes sense to me given how LLM work.
birgerjohanssonsays
Lovecraft game?
“Nazis and Happy Feet collide in Penguin Colony, a psychological horror game set at the world’s end” | Games | The Guardian
.https://share.google/HBPm8L4J4tKwLxq5g
birgerjohanssonsays
Ahem. Sometimes, baddies in a fantasy story are genuine baddies. Creatures who mimic human behavior in order to kill and eat men, women and children are generally not oppressed minorities. Rather, predators are less numerous that the prey species because that is the way the food chain works.
Re: birgerjohansson @ #65…
Chaosium made a Lovecraft game some 40-odd years ago. It’s called “Call of Chtulhu”.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
birgerjohansson @66: I’m not familiar with the show beyond some review vids you’ve linked here, but you might find this article interesting. Some other series are mentioned for comparison.
If our imagination relies on cynicism, that something alien to us is inherently detrimental, that becomes a functionally conservative mindset more often than not. No one has to be perpetually forgiving to any group or person hurting them, the problem is full extermination doesn’t fix anything in reality. Why is it that human characters that have threatened killing, or have killed in the past—Ubel, for example, happily tests out her destructive spells on people—are given complexity and understanding, while demons have not? Did we not also evolve from beasts?
[…] Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End plays with the always evil race trope but doesn’t fully escape it. […] This story about immortality, grief, and the importance of emotional connections is interrupted by the presence of blunt, strawman villains who exist not as characters but as plot devices to show the “humanity” of the protagonists. It’s a disappointing pivot in writing in what is otherwise a very enjoyable, gentle show. When a fantasy series asks “what does it mean to be human?” and gives you a strong, flat answer like this, it’s worth unpacking.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
^ @68 The article’s author added this in the comments. Both were circa 2 years ago.
I’m aware of that demon down the road and am interested in more explorations going forward. It very much looks like a situation where both human and demon understand their ways. Also I’m aware of demons later on that have some wild powers and use them to preserve their kind.
I totally agree that the demons are shown to have various feelings and different motives. I’m hoping for a little more variance in how they try to test out feeling guilty haha!
My concern is that these stories usually end with the demon needing to be put down. I’d like to see other options forward since human mages are ok to go forward even when being a threat. They don’t necessarily have to live in the towns and emulate humans, but I feel they should be a respected living being within the world.
[…] I’m looking forward to the adaptation to the Golden Land arc!
That arc hasn’t occurred on-screen yet, but the Solitar demon was namelessly alluded to as “an eccentric demon who studies humanity” in episode 2×07 “Divine Revolte” this year.
Militant Agnosticsays
Reginald Selkirk @51
I wonder what the Second Sons plan to do with Canadian First Nations. After all, they are definitely non-white even if their ancestors were there long be before those of the Second Rate Sons. Are they calling for them to be deported? What about the Metis – are they sufficiently white?
Dr. Erica Schwartz […] made some alarming comments about abortion care during her confirmation hearings […] The Senate voted 51-44 to confirm Schwartz, largely along party lines—making her the first permanent director of the public health agency in the last year. Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general during Donald Trump’s first term, is the first Black woman to lead the CDC. […] Schwartz made headlines for not distancing herself much from Kennedy’s views on vaccines
… former US National Cyber Director Chris Inglis.
…
“Asimov was right,” he said, referring to science fiction author Isaac Asimov and his three laws that were to be followed by robots – more specifically, AIs, in this case.
“The first rule, and we call it the superior role, must be that it’s designed not to hurt humans,” Inglis said. “Second rule: To obey humans, such that it doesn’t achieve agency and aspiration on its own. And the third: To do what humans tell it – and in that order. Instead we’ve designed them in the exact opposite way.” …
Not impressed. The three laws of robotics were not programmed into the robots, they were a natural property of their positronic brains. Which is clearly a plot device with no basis in reality. Perhaps it was a convenient plot device in the mid 20th century, but it sure won’t fly today.
birgerjohanssonsays
“How One Beach Reveals Two Completely Different Earths”
This beach in Southern Wales has an unconformity representing 25 million years. You have Devonian layers on one side and Carboniferous layers on the other.
One of the biggest hurdles was the very first one: How did life emerge from a primordial soup of stuff that very much wasn’t alive?
A radical new study, published in Science Advances, suggests that this unlikely threshold may actually have been crossed not once, but twice.
Two of the main lineages of life – bacteria and archaea – may have independently figured out the secrets of metabolism that upgraded them from non-living to living, according to the new study, which focused on the most rudimentary set of chemical reactions thought to enable this transformation.
“The surprise is that the enzymes that catalyze those reactions are not conserved across the evolutionary divide that separates bacteria and archaea,” says William Martin, a biologist at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf in Germany.
“The new data leave only one conclusion. The bacterial and archaeal lineages made the transition to the free-living state independently. Only free-living cells are alive.
“Let’s call it by name: we are looking at one origin of the genetic code, but two origins of life.”
…
“We found that the last universal ancestor of all cells, LUCA, possessed enzymes for only about half of the reactions of metabolism,” says Martin.
“The other half was catalyzed by metals in the environment where LUCA arose.”
…
Over time, later proto-cells developed more and more enzymes, reducing their dependency on external metals, until they no longer needed them at all. Only at that point would they be considered ‘free-living cells’.
Importantly, the researchers say, this didn’t occur until after bacteria and archaea had separated. These two branches figured out their own ways to tackle the same problems.
Highly speculative, and built on controversial definitions of key terms.
At least seven people have died in Thailand after a teenage boy shot his grandparents and some schoolteachers
More than 30 others are injured, with nine in a serious condition, PM Anutin Charnvirakul says
Authorities say the suspected shooter, 14, is also dead – Anutin tells reporters the attack was “well prepared” with “clear steps and clear goals”
This is the second school shooting in Thailand this year – despite restrictions on ownership people can acquire guns here with relative ease, writes our South East Asia correspondent
…
Developing story. More details sure to follow. One other source says the death toll is 8.
President Donald Trump again ranted about affordability during his rally Wednesday in Las Vegas.
This time, Trump claimed the word “affordability” was a media creation.
“Our costs are coming way down. You know, they talk about affordability. I took over the country. The prices were through the roof. In my first day, the press said, ‘What are you going to do about affordability?’ It was a word they devised — affordability. They never used that word before,” Trump told the crowd at Red Rock Resort…
Republican Congressman Andy Ogles has lost his House primary in Tennessee, becoming the second Trump-endorsed candidate to be defeated this week.
Former Tennessee agricultural commissioner Charlie Hatcher defeated the two-term congressman in Thursday’s Republican contest for the state’s 5th congressional district.
Hours before polls closed, US President Donald Trump said Ogles had his “complete and total endorsement for re-election”.
It follows the defeat of a Trump-backed Republican candidate in Michigan on Wednesday, although there were also several wins for candidates he endorsed.
The winners of the primaries will go on to contest November’s midterm elections…
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski announced she would oppose President Donald Trump’s nominee for US attorney general, citing concerns over the “politicisation” of the Justice Department.
Trump seeks to install Todd Blanche, his former personal defence attorney who is currently acting attorney general, to run the Justice Department on a permanent basis but he has faced opposition from a small number of Republicans.
Without the Alaska senator’s vote, the confirmation of Blanche is now in some jeopardy.
Murkowski cited controversies that have occurred during Blanche’s leadership, including the administration’s handling of the Epstein files and a controversial “anti-weaponisation fund” created by a settlement between Trump and the government.
“The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration,” Murkowski wrote.
“I hope Mr Blanche is able to achieve that, if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case.”
Blanche had previously pledged to senators he would walk back the nearly $2bn fund after blowback from Republican senators.
A federal appeals court on Friday ordered the Trump administration to halt construction of its $400 million ballroom at the White House without congressional approval.
President Donald Trump doesn’t have the unilateral authority to construct a 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) ballroom where the White House’s East Wing stood before he ordered its demolition, according to the decision by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals sided with historic preservationists who sued to stop construction. The court said it would stay its own ruling for two weeks to allow the administration to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Fairly obvious ruling. The president doesn’t own the White House and his thinking it needs better security isn’t an emergency that lets him go ahead without authorization. Trump has been tripped up on this several times now, Trump saying something is an emergency isn’t the same as it being an emergency. The court is generous with the executive branch in this regards but the declaration that something is an emergency needs to be plausible, not Trump obviously trying to go around the rest of the law.
According to new reporting by the Shreveport Times, officials at the Orleans Parish Communication District — the emergency dispatch agency for the city of New Orleans — are now integrating AI answering agents into its workflow.
The new tool is called AI Emergency Call Triage, offered by a company called Carbyne. Its function is essentially to triage incoming calls to dispatchers, bumping high-priority emergency calls to humans, and automatically handling repeat calls related to ongoing incidents, the Times explains.
AI call centers for commerce is annoying but I know why companies do it. 911 is a different matter, time matters and the people making the calls are likely to not be thinking or speaking clearly. It’s way too early in this sort of technology for it to be used this way.
It’s also worth noting that AI voice chat remains highly flawed even when powered by frontier AI models, with plenty of opportunities for errors both in how they process information, and how they dish it out. A February study by the media software company NewsGuard found that in voice mode, AI bots like ChatGPT and Gemini produced false claims with realistic audio up to 50 percent of the time. Emergency calls to 911, needless to say, are often extremely chaotic.
This is all very cutting edge technology, the sort of thing small start up companies experiment with and fail most of the time. This is a bad choice of vital government services, things that should be on the trailing edge.
For nearly a century, archaeologists believed that two huge, linear structures near Egypt’s Red Pyramid were ramps to move stones. They might have been wrong.
A new analysis of the pyramid, located at the Dashur necropolis in modern-day Cairo, suggests that the “ramps” were actually large dams. If true, this means that ancient Egypt’s architects and construction workers used a hydraulic system to supply water to the construction site nearly 5,000 years ago, according to an early-access version of the study provided by npj Heritage Science. Contextually, this interpretation is consistent with how King Snefru’s reign, during which the Red Pyramid was built, also saw the emergence of the earliest instances of large-scale hydraulic engineering, the team explained in the paper…
The White House is drafting an executive order on the disproven link between vaccines and autism, according to independent reports from The Washington Post and Bloomberg, which both cited unnamed sources with knowledge of the efforts.
Bloomberg reported that the executive order, which is still taking shape and is subject to change, could be issued as soon as next week. The Post said the order’s drafting so far is aimed at the childhood vaccine schedule, autism research, and parental choice for vaccinations…
Justin Pearson, who generated national attention for his membership in the “Tennessee Three,” won a Democratic primary for Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District.
Good news.
More good news, summarized from an NBC News report:
In Michigan’s closely watched Senate race, Rep. Haley Stevens introduced Abdul El-Sayed at a “unity breakfast” Thursday morning, just two days after the congresswoman lost to the former state health official in a Democratic Senate primary. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who endorsed Stevens, also spoke at the gathering.
Unity! Good for the Democrats.
More good news, summarized from Politico:
In Texas’ closely watched Senate race, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico leads Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton by four points in the latest Texas A&M Bush School poll and three points in a new 254 Labs/YouGov poll. There have now been five polls in the last weeks that show Talarico ahead by small margins.
More good news, as summarized from the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia continues to pick up Republican supporters: Shortly after former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona endorsed Ossoff, two GOP mayors in Georgia followed suit.
As one key Democratic member of Congress summarized, “It is hard to imagine a more backwards use of taxpayer money.”
There’s no shortage of lessons to be learned from the U.S. war with Iran, but high on the list is that it’s in Americans’ interest to embrace renewable energy — not just because it’s cleaner and cheaper, but also because it helps shield consumers from international turmoil in an increasingly volatile sector.
It’s a basic idea the Trump administration doesn’t want to understand. The New York Times reported this week:
The Trump administration will pay the German energy firm RWE $1.22 billion to abandon plans to build wind farms off the coasts of New York, California and Louisiana, the company announced on Thursday. […]
Under the agreement, RWE will voluntarily surrender three leases it owned for wind farms in federal waters.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. In March, the Republican administration announced that it had agreed to pay a foreign company almost $1 billion in American taxpayer money to abandon two wind farm projects that would have produced enough electricity to power more than 1.3 million homes and businesses across New York, New Jersey and North Carolina.
At the administration’s insistence, the company will instead proceed with different energy projects that will cost more and pollute more. [JFC] Put another way, thanks to a model imposed by President Donald Trump, many American consumers will pay for the privilege of paying more to turn on the lights, all while polluting our own air. [Double JFC]
Then in April, it happened again, when the Republican administration announced plans to pay energy companies almost $900 million to abandon plans for two offshore wind farms. Two months later, Team Trump spent $765 million to buy back another group of offshore wind leases. [!]
In late June, a fourth example emerged, when the administration announced plans to pay Duke Energy $129 million to abandon an offshore wind project off the coast of North Carolina.
With a fifth instance this week, the combined price tag for the developments is approaching $4 billion. [!!]
[I snipped details of Trump’s campaign against wind power in Scotland.]
As recently as last month, Trump also started telling the public that wind energy harms the environment. (That’s bonkers, too.)
[…] At a time when the U.S. would benefit from more renewable energy projects, the Trump administration keeps spending billions to scuttle renewable energy projects. [Unfortunately true.]
Trump said this week that Americans have “the greatest economy maybe in the history of the world.” Reality keeps pointing in the opposite direction.
Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 83,000 new jobs being created in the United States in July. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals fell far short of those expectations. CNBC reported:
The U.S. economy saw an unexpected declined in jobs during July while the unemployment rate edged lower, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday in a snapshot that showed a slowing employment picture.
Nonfarm payrolls fell by a seasonally adjusted 23,000 for the month, compared to a downwardly revised 20,000 for June. The Dow Jones consensus forecast had been looking for a gain of 83,000
The unemployment rate inched lower to 4.1%, which is still low by historical standards, though it’s still a little higher than it was when Donald Trump’s second term began. What’s more, it’s worth noting that the drop was itself evidence of trouble: The “improved” unemployment rate is the result of the labor force participation rate dropping, as opposed to additional hiring. [!]
Also discouraging were the revisions for May and June, which subtracted a combined 103,000 jobs from previous estimates.
All of this comes just one week after the Commerce Department issued its latest report on U.S. economic growth, which also showed weak and disappointing growth.
Earlier this week, [Trump] said the United States currently has “the greatest economy maybe in the history of the world.”
The comments were ridiculous at the time. As the domestic economy loses jobs again, it now looks even worse.
Seven months into the year, the U.S. economy has created 426,000 jobs so far this year — a monthly average of roughly 61,000 — which is an awful total that plainly contradicts the White House’s routine happy talk about current conditions.
[…] To date, the White House hasn’t even tried to explain why the domestic job market worsened after the Republican president took office.
To contextualize the data, I put together this chart to show month-to-month totals since the 2020 election. The blue columns point to Biden’s presidency, while the red columns point to Trump’s. [chart]
It takes a lot to be among the most odious Republican members of this Congress. Let me reacquaint you with Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN).
What makes Ogles special is that he managed to be a virulent Islamophobe, Christian nationalist, and fabulist — really the trifecta of qualifications for current House GOPers — and still alienate his fellow Republicans.
Ogles went down to a stinging defeat in the GOP primary in Tennessee last night, losing 53%-47% to former state agriculture commish Charlie Hatcher. […]
Ogles was a piece of work in so many ways.
“Muslims don’t belong in American society,” he tweeted in March.
“America and Islam are incompatible. Time for a muslim (sic) ban,” he posted in another tweet around the same time.
He posted AI-generated images of himself and senior Trump administration officials in front of the Capitol dressed as Crusaders.
He had campaign finance issues and resume-inflation issues.
Ogles’ nemesis back home was the relentless investigative reporter Phil Williams, of Nashville, who unearthed much of what we’ve come to know about Ogles and to whom I defer on cataloging Ogles’ sins:
– Ogles had claimed to be an economist; he was not.
– He had boasted about being trained in investigating international sex crimes; he had not.
– He had claimed to have done graduate work at Vanderbilt and Dartmouth; that was a lie.
– His resume showed he had served on the board of directors for the city of Franklin, Tennessee; Franklin does not have a board of directors.
– He claimed to have personally loaned his campaign $320,000 in his first run for Congress in 2022; he did not have that kind of money to lend.
– The FBI opened a criminal investigation into those fraudulent campaign disclosures, but that investigation was canned by the Trump administration.
– In a fitting end to his losing campaign, Ogles banned Williams and select other news outlets from an Election Day event — and Williams got ahold of the blacklist. [LOL. Schadenfreude moment.]
What gives Ogles’ primary defeat a little extra boost of schadenfreude is that he was running in a pretty dramatically re-drawn district thanks to state Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting. […]
The Salem City Council convened a public meeting last July 27, where it discussed the proposed $5.1 billion Oakline at Mill Creek data center by Verrus. As the people converged on the meeting site, a TikTok user spotted a guillotine towed by a bike outside of the venue, signaling the people’s discontent with the project.
…
One week after the meeting, Salem announced a data center moratorium that would halt all data center developments in the city for one year as it considers zoning laws to accommodate developments such as this.
…
Unfortunately, the Verrus project will likely not be affected by this delay as it filed its application three days before the announcement. Despite this, Governor Tina Kotek (D) announced that Oregon will terminate a deal to sell a 32-acre plot of land that forms part of the three plots of land on which the project will sit. While it still leaves Verrus with approximately 43 acres, it means that it would have to go back to the drawing board to change its plans…
The Trump administration’s streak of courtroom defeats in its effort to obtain state voter rolls reached 21 this year when a judge ruled this week that states are not required to share the records with the federal government.
…
Repeatedly, and as recently as this week, judges have found the U.S. Constitution gives states primary responsibility for running federal elections and that federal voting laws do not require them to hand over the records.
“If the Department disagrees with Congress’s judgment as to the records necessary to carry out its enforcement duties … it needs to lodge that objection with Congress,” U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, wrote on Thursday in dismissing a Justice Department bid to obtain unredacted voter rolls from Washington, D.C.
The Justice Department has sued more than two dozen states that refused to comply with its requests to turn over voter rolls containing information including birthdays and partial Social Security numbers…
U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to build the Western Hemisphere’s largest aluminum smelter in rural Oklahoma has divided the state’s Republican voters and emerged as a key issue in the contentious race to be the next governor.
The two Republicans who will face off for their party’s nomination on August 25 have taken opposing views, underscoring the willingness of some conservatives to buck Trump and use industrial projects as campaign leverage…
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist and Health Secretary, launched a new online cooking show last week called The Real Food Show. Kennedy insists that Americans can eat nutritious food for cheap, promising to feed people for under $5 per person. But the Washington Post ran the numbers, and the meal he cooks during episode one costs about $18 per person for a family of four…
WaPo probably assumed you would go to a supermarket and buy meat. You can save big time if you keep your eyes open on your drive home from work…
In her new series “The Deep End,” MS NOW’s Brandy Zadrozny’s examines how conspiracy theories surrounding Charlie Kirk’s killing are fueling a civil war on the American right. Brandy joins Chris to discuss.
“The president seems to think rebranding his controversial vanity project could help make it happen.”
In the spring, the National Trust for Historic Preservation went to court in the hopes of blocking one of Donald Trump’s highest priorities: construction of his beloved White House ballroom vanity project. To the president’s great frustration, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled in the organization’s favor.
Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in his order that the president of the United States is the “steward of the White House for future generations of First Families,” adding, “He is not, however, the owner!” The jurist concluded that such an endeavor requires congressional approval, not the unilateral whim of the president.
Naturally, the Republican and his lawyers appealed, although this failed, too. MS NOW reported:
A federal appeals court blocked the Trump administration from continuing construction on the White House ballroom, ignoring its argument that the project is crucial for national security. The court ruled that the construction project was unlawful because the administration bypassed congressional authorization. […]
In a 2-1 ruling, the court affirmed the preliminary injunction against further above-ground construction.
In a 136-page decision, the court’s majority wrote, “We are aware of no instance in American history in which a President unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid for. Until now.”
The ruling continued, “Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence. The President has no … constitutionally assigned authority over that property, which is designed and maintained for the use of all Presidents, current and future, and for the American people. … Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help.”
To the surprise of no one, Trump issued a statement condemning the ruling and making clear he’ll take the matter to the Supreme Court. What was notable about the president’s reaction, however, was how he chose to describe the project he’s been obsessed with for months.
In an item published to his social media platform, the Republican wrote, “Two Obama and Biden Appellate Court Judges just voted against the desperately needed Military Center, required for the National Security of Washington, D.C., and our Country, itself.”
Yes, the White House ballroom apparently has been upgraded with a new name. It’s now the White House “military center.”
[…] Trump started arguing in the spring that the ballroom wouldn’t be merely a ballroom, it would also be a “sophisticated” drone facility. In fact, he started promoting images to suggest the ballroom’s roof, which he labeled a “drone port,” would be a launchpad for military drones.
Why was it necessary for the White House complex to have its own “drone port”? To what locations, exactly, would these drones be deployed? Why couldn’t the administration use the roof of some other nearby building? Trump didn’t say, but he nevertheless continued to argue that the ballroom was “being built for the United States Military.”
The “Military Complex,” he added earlier this week, “will provide the highest level of Defense, Offense, and Safety for the people of Washington, D.C., and for, importantly, future Presidents.” […]
Nevertheless, Trump’s rebranding list continues to grow. The Defense Department is now supposed to be called the “Department of War,” the Gulf of Mexico is now supposed to be called the “Gulf of America,” the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is now supposed to be called the “working families tax cuts” — and his ballroom project is now the “Military Center.”
[…] The appellate court’s 2-1 decision says that Trump can continue the below-ground construction of his bribe palace but has to stop anything above the surface. But even that meager restriction is stayed for two weeks—meaning that he gets to keep breaking the law and building above ground—to give him time to run to the Supreme Court.
[…] The White House doesn’t belong to Trump. It’s not his to tear down. It’s not his to give away. He’s not even the caretaker; he just lives there for a brief period of time.
Or, as the majority opinion goes on to explain: “Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence.”
This saga has dragged on for so long that it’s genuinely jarring to read about how quickly Trump took over and destroyed the People’s House.
“Over just three days in October 2025, without undertaking promised consultations or obtaining Congress’s permission, President Trump bulldozed the entire East Wing in order to construct a massive, 90,000 square-foot ballroom paid for by private funds with no congressional oversight,” the court ruling says.
[…] the argument that he gets to do this because it’s all bribe-funded and therefore Congress has no role is no longer viable since we now know that we’re at least partially paying for the thing—having learned in June that there’s a secret no-bid government contract to the tune of $500 million for construction. [!]
Can’t wait to hear how Trump and his family will be murdered in their sleep by armed terrorists if he can’t build the ballroom, which is actually a drone port, which is actually a hospital, which is actually a sniper’s nest, and so on.
Miss North Carolina USA 2026 Brittany Boltinhouse is under fire after a series of old social media posts resurfaced showing her freely using the n-word, bragging about being “toxic,” and engaging in explicit relationship drama — all while she held a title that was supposed to represent the state with dignity and class.
…
Under the handle Sosa the Stallion (linked to her earlier identity as Sosa B Alondra), Boltinhouse posted a series of tweets between 2017 and 2019 that leave little room for interpretation.
In one December 2019 post she wrote: “N*gga I’m toxic asf…i dont care lol”
Other posts from the same account include:
“this n*gga has me 50 shades of fucked up…” (April 2017)
“if my n*gga don’t like you i don’t like you .” (March 2017)
“your girl don’t like me but yo n*gga doesssss” (February 2017)
“not yo n*gga” (April 2017)
A lengthy post accusing another woman’s “WCW” of “flashing random n*ggas and letting em take shots off her all spring break while u was at home working being loyal.”
The language is consistent, casual, and repeated. She used the n-word as part of her regular online voice, framed herself as proudly “toxic,” and centered much of the content on sexual and relationship competition.
The old tweets are not the only material circulating. Boltinhouse has also been open about her political views. In a November 4, 2024 Facebook post under Sosa B Alondra, she urged people to vote for “the greater good,” criticized the previous four years and Kamala Harris, warned that America risked becoming a “Third World country,” and closed with:
Since the flesh-eating screwworm fly reinvaded Mexico in 2024, human cases of the voracious parasite have been mounting. According to a July surveillance report from Mexico’s Ministry of Health, there have been over 500 human cases in 2025 and 2026. A study this week in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases analyzed the information on over 200 confirmed cases reported between April 2025 and March 2026 and found that the infestation pace is increasing.
Among the 200 confirmed cases in the study, six deaths were reported. At least one of the deaths was directly caused by the fly’s maggots, researchers in Mexico reported in the study…
“Rudy Giuliani: Universal Pre-K Just A Ruse To Turn Babies Into Parent-Hating ‘Transvestites'”
Universal pre-K […] is one of the few things that a large of Americans can agree on. [,,,] 74 percent of Americans (including 69 percent of Republicans) say that childcare is a good use of their federal tax dollars.
[…] Parents need childcare in order to work so that they can provide for their children, but 70 percent say they struggle to afford said childcare. At the same time, childcare is among the most poorly paid professions and one in seven childcare workers (who are disproportionately women, and disproportionately women of color) lives in poverty. Also, at the same time, kids who are enrolled in high quality childcare and pre-K programs are 70 percent less likely to be arrested for violent crimes by the time they turn 18. [!]
[…] The only thing that makes any sense for everyone involved is for childcare to be a universal public good, subsidized by our tax dollars.
But Rudy Giuliani has a pretty compelling case against all of that, and it is that universal pre-K programs will teach 6-month-old babies to hate their parents and become “transvestites,” which I guess is the kind of term you use when you think it’s still 1975. [Rocky Horror Picture Show “Sweet Transvestite” video]
On Monday’s edition of his “America’s Mayor Live” show on YouTube, which is so popular and influential that I am just finding out that it exists today, Giuliani railed against the extremely popular and beloved man who does not have to go around Norma Desmonding about how he used to be the mayor of New York City, on account of how he is the current mayor of New York City.
Transcript via Media Matters:
“Remember Mamdani, the candidate, the completely useless guy who’s never had a job, never had responsibilities, has a rich family as a ne’er-do-well, but he’s an out-and-out communist, wants to have free grocery stores, free daycare, free everything you can think of.”
Not a ne’er-do-well!
For the record, the grocery stores will not be offering free food. The point of the grocery stores is that regular grocery chains that are focused on making a profit don’t want to open stores in certain areas, because they aren’t as profitable, but the people who live there still need food. Crazy, I know! Much like childcare and pre-K, this isn’t a problem that the free market can solve, and so other measures must be considered. That being said, the food will be discounted by 30 percent, so that’s nice. [That sets the record straight. Good fact checking.]
“And he wants to have free, free pre-K starting at six months old. Six months old. What the hell is he going to teach them at six months old? How to hate the parents, that’s what he’s going to teach them. How — hey, did you ever think of being a girl, kid? Not bad being a girl. Come on, it doesn’t hurt to chop your penis off.”
That sure is a weird conversation to imagine anyone having with a literal baby.
It should be fairly obvious that the reason for starting it at six months old is so that parents can go to work […]
For the record, no one would be legally required to send their babies to these centers, so anyone who imagines that this is what would be going on would be free to not participate.
[…] Giuliani then whined for a minute about how much it will cost and how if you make taxpayers pay for it, they will leave the city, which does not seem likely.
“So he was going to spend $3 billion on this. It’s now already gone up to $6 billion. You see, I want you to look at that too about these communist, socialist, liberals, and useless Democrats, which are most of them in office. They have no concept of money. When I was mayor, they had no concept of money. I was able to be friends with them then because they weren’t traitors to the United States. But they were completely useless jackasses as executives.
“[…] I can give you example after example.”
Six billion divided by 8.5 million (the number of people in New York City) comes out to about $700 per person a year — $941 if it’s just divvied up between those living above the poverty line. Childcare costs families there approximately $13,000 to $20,000 per child, per year. While some people will pay more in taxes and some people will pay less, no families will have to pay $20,000. We all benefit, including billionaires, so we should all shoulder the burden. […]
To be clear, this is not about teaching infants the Socratic method, it is about providing childcare for parents and social-emotional development for children. That being said, I think we all wish that Rudy Giuliani had, at any point in his life, been taught “critical reasoning” skills, as they might have prevented him from going on an entire diatribe about how “the libs” want to brainwash your six-month-old son into hating you and loving a sequin evening gown.
“You teach them that it’s OK to be a transvestite. In fact, you have transvestites come to school and give lectures to show them it’s perfectly OK. And if you want to change your — if you want to change your gender and you don’t want to tell your parents, perfectly — parents are the enemy.
“I’m explaining to you Democrat philosophy that is ruining your children. This is the reason that they’re like they are.”
[…] I think perhaps the most refreshing thing about Zohran Mamdani is that he’s showing people that we don’t have to live this way. Things can be nice. Things can be less stressful if we all work together. It’s a lesson Rudy Giuliani could stand to learn himself. It has to be very stressful coming up with all of those ridiculous conspiracy theories just on the off chance that one of them could strike a major death blow against … preschool.
“No major economy had previously received over half its electricity from solar across an entire month.” [graph]
While the Trump administration is busy pointing out that the sun doesn’t shine at night, solar is breaking records around the world, including in sunny California.
Solar panels produced 51% of California’s electricity in May, the first time the clean energy source surpassed the halfway mark for an entire month. The data counts both large-scale installations and the state’s bounty of rooftop arrays.
This isn’t just a milestone moment for California; it’s a milestone for the entire world. Think tank Ember says the state is the globe’s first major economy to cross the 50% threshold. (Hungary, at 47% in June 2025, is knocking at the door, though it has a far smaller GDP.)
Solar’s rise has helped California cut polluting energy sources out of its power mix. Natural gas is the only fossil fuel that California power plants burn at appreciable levels, and solar is steadily squeezing it out of the system. Case in point: Solar outproduced gas not only during its record month of May but throughout every month in 2026 leading up to it, too.
Solar could not have reached these heights alone. It needed batteries to get here — and California has that crucial energy storage in spades. The California Independent System Operator, which manages most of the state’s grid, now boasts 16 gigawatts of batteries that can shift abundant midday solar production to later in the evening. It’s not uncommon for batteries to meet over one-quarter of the state’s electricity demand for a portion of the night.
All this solar and storage would have been hard to imagine a decade ago. Back then, in its best month […] solar accounted for just 17% of electricity. That number is well above the current national average for solar, but a far cry from 51%. CAISO’s battery fleet, meanwhile, was a measly 61 megawatts. So, storage has grown by, uh … 26,129% over the last decade, a number so cartoonishly large that I’m almost hesitant to print it.
Expect California to see more months break the 50% threshold soon. And in the coming years, expect more states and countries to cross the halfway mark, too.
birgerjohanssonsays
Mano Singham: The Lincoln pool fiasco
“But what we must never forget is that these people do not care how many innocent people are harmed because of their determination to pursue a false narrative.”
.https://share.google/5HpUujHlNXimmgECv
Every fiasco requires a scapegoat to protect the brittle ego of the Supreme Leader
The Senate passed a sweeping new package of sanctions targeting Russia and Iran on Friday, approving a measure aimed at supporting Ukraine in its fight against President Vladimir V. Putin’s war of aggression.
The bill now moves on to the House.
birgerjohanssonsays
The Great Wall of…Alabama???
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=o84mrCxETNY
Tommy Tuberville is an idiot. Also, maybe the rest of the country should build a wall arond Alabama to keep people like Tuberville in?
President Donald Trump is renewing his attempt to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve, according to a letter from the White House obtained by MS NOW. … Cook’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that the allegations of mortgage fraud ‘are as baseless now as they were a year ago’ when Trump first tried to remove Cook.
Mr. Trump repeatedly called Canadians nasty in a speech in Las Vegas on Wednesday after claiming that Canada and other countries had long been unfairly using tariffs against the United States. ‘Canada’s nasty. They are. They’re nasty,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘I love the people, but they’re nasty. Nasty leadership.’
As Steve Benen noted: “Imagine a world in which Trump talked about Russia with the kind of seething contempt he has for Canada.”
The Trump administration has refunded about $100 billion in tariffs in response to the Supreme Court ruling that declared the tariffs illegal, according to a new court filing this week. Major corporations are getting huge refunds: $2.2 billion for Apple, $1.3 billion for Ford, $600 million for Amazon. … While some companies have said they will use the refunds to reduce their prices, experts say not to expect many price cuts.
The Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group gave $50 million to Donald Trump’s presidential library in January 2026 — two months before the Trump administration approved a federal land lease that will allow the firm to build what could become the world’s largest artificial intelligence data center.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement thugs are finally going to start wearing body cams, a thing that will in no way stop them from being murderous thugs, but will at least provide the public with a record of them being murderous thugs.
Wait, scratch that.
The agency appears to have developed a very curious idea of when it would be required to release the footage from body-worn cameras: only when it is in the agency’s “best interests.” [!]
Wait, what?
A government agency does not have best interests. The American public has best interests, as in it’s in our best interests to know what President Donald Trump’s murderous goons are doing. People who do not want to be murdered by ICE goons have best interests in, well, not being murdered. The only “best interests” ICE is remotely concerned about is ensuring that its agents get to murder people with impunity, which is sorta the very opposite of a best interest in the real world.
What this policy, such as it is, really means is that ICE will just have the ability to withhold any video evidence that makes it look bad while releasing anything that makes it look good.
[…] So, the way the policy works apparently is that after ICE thugs maim or murder someone, a committee made up of ICE officials and ICE lawyers will decide if the body cam footage gets released. If they don’t want it released, they can block it indefinitely. […]
[…] Here’s the department’s statement about it:
“Ensuring all of our ICE law enforcement officers have body cameras nationwide is a top priority for DHS. This is especially needed because the media and sanctuary politicians consistently spread smears about our law enforcement.”
[…] Americans need protections from ICE, not the other way around. That’s the actual best interests the body cams are supposed to serve. But like everything else in the Trump administration, it’s going to be warped to protect abusive killers like ICE agent David Brouillette instead. That’s your tax dollars at work.
whheydtsays
Re: birgerjohansson @ #114…
Too late. Tuberville actually lives in Florida.
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — A federal judge has sided with the Virginia NAACP in its lawsuit against a county school board’s reinstatement of Confederate military names to two schools, saying the decision discriminated against Black students and ordering the board to change the schools’ monikers again.
In an opinion filed Thursday in U.S. District Court of Virginia, Judge Michael F. Urbanski said the school board in Shenandoah County violated Black students’ rights under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which forbids racial discrimination in state-supported institutions. The decision also violates the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, the court found…
Marsha Blackburn is taking the Republican nomination to run for Tennessee governor in November.
At 9:31 p.m., the Associated Press called the race, reporting that Blackburn won the Republican primary for governor with 43.8% of the vote…
In November, Blackburn faced (sic *) Jerri Green, who won the Democratic nomination for governor, in the November 3 election…
She couldn’t even win a majority in a primary?
* That should be “will face.”
Militant Agnosticsays
quoted by Lynna @96
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia continues to pick up Republican supporters: Shortly after former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona endorsed Ossoff, two GOP mayors in Georgia followed suit.
As I suspected based on the name, Jeff Flake is a Mormon
The company has been bought by Saudi Arabia’s PIF along with Affinity Partners, a private equity company run by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners. […] The Saudi royal family has been investing in video games and esports for some time, alongside sports, media and comedy
Opposition by senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins didn’t keep Trump from having his way. I have to view their opposition as performative, not substantial.
[…] In an effort to erase climate policies, the Environmental Protection Agency claimed that climate change was not a serious problem, pointing to a report by hand-picked climate skeptics. The criticisms of the National Academy of Sciences and other prominent scientific organizations were so devastating that the EPA abandoned its reliance on the report when it eliminated key greenhouse gas standards, instead basing its decision primarily on shaky legal arguments. […]
The EPA is now routinely determining that the benefits of reducing air pollution—that is, life-saving health benefits for Americans—are too uncertain to quantify or value at all in regulatory decision making.
The Trump administration is doing this without any analysis or citation to scientific studies. Extensive peer-reviewed science has used sophisticated techniques to quantify the impacts of pollution reductions and account for related uncertainty. And the EPA has relied on these findings for decades, including during the first Trump administration and other Republican administrations. But, beginning this year, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has decided that every health benefit from air pollution reductions is too uncertain to count—and every regulatory cost dispositive.
The EPA announced its new approach in January in a rule on emissions from gas turbines, stating that it would no longer value public-health benefits from reducing fine particulate matter and ozone—two of the most prevalent and damaging air pollutants. The agency referenced uncertainties in how different concentrations of pollutants translate into negative health impacts like premature deaths; uncertainties in mortality valuations, which assign a dollar value to these deaths; and uncertainties in growth and discount rates, which are used to translate future impacts to present values. But the EPA’s longstanding techniques already accounted for these uncertainties.
As a result of its new approach, the EPA no longer estimates the number of lives saved or diseases and hospitalizations averted. It is assigning no value whatsoever to these environmental benefits, thereby ignoring the very health concerns the agency was created to address.
Later, the EPA doubled down on its new approach when it repealed one vehicle emission rule and delayed another one. It similarly did not consider these adverse health consequences in an air pollution regulation for coal and oil power plants, another air pollution regulation for wood products, and, earlier this month, in relaxing emissions test procedures for heavy-duty vehicles.
When the EPA first announced its new approach in January, Zeldin insisted that even though the agency would not assign a dollar value to averted deaths, it would “still be considering lives saved when setting pollution limits.” The subsequent regulatory proceedings confirmed that Zeldin’s statement was false.
Moreover, the EPA did not restrict its approach to particulate matter and ozone. The agency also refused to assign any benefits to the reduction of pollutants like nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide. And, similarly, in multiple proceedings, it ignored the benefits of reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and hydrofluorocarbons.
[…] The EPA is basing some of its cost analyses on disputed industry claims, as long as they align with the administration’s favored deregulatory narrative. [I snipped examples]
[…] The EPA’s actions are plainly illegal. Agencies cannot put a thumb on the scale by taking account of a rule’s costs but not its benefits, particularly when there are established techniques for valuing the benefits.
Because there is no “big ticket” action like last year’s questioning of climate change, the EPA’s approach has largely gone under the radar. Zeldin appears to be following John Oliver’s adage that if you want to do something harmful, “put it inside something boring” to avoid public scrutiny. But the American people will suffer greatly as a result of these illegal actions, in the form of additional premature deaths, asthma attacks, hospitalizations, and other serious health consequences.
The Senate adjourned for a five-week recess early Saturday morning after passing a bill to fund the federal government until Dec. 11 and confirming Todd Blanche as attorney general.
Senate Republicans also agreed to set aside — for the moment — President Trump’s demand to approve another budget resolution to pave the way for tens of billions of dollars in new military spending and to pass the SAVE America Act.
Senators […] are not due to return to Washington until Sept. 14.
Passage of the continuing resolution to fund the government past the election takes a lot of pressure off senators in both parties ahead of the September work period as both Democrats and Republicans were eager to avoid stumbling into another government shutdown before the midterm election.
[…] Blanche’s nomination was saved from derailment, however, when Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who had been undecided for weeks, announced on Friday morning that he would vote yes.
[…] The Senate voted 50-49 to confirm Blanche, with Collins, Murkowski and all Democrats voting against him.
A key development came late Friday evening when Senate conservatives relented on their demands that the Senate stay in session until Republicans pass a budget resolution to set up a third budget reconciliation bill to fund the Pentagon and the SAVE America Act, Trump’s No. 1 legislative priority. […]
A TikTok video that included Taylor Swift‘s song “August” posted four days ago to the account for Donald Trump‘s campaign has had the sound removed.
The caption on the now Taylor-less “Team Trump” TikTok video reads, “I’m sure @Taylor Swift is going to be super excited we used her song! #taylorswift #maga #august.”
…
Fans noticed Friday evening that the Swift song, from her 2020 album “Folklore,” was removed from the Trump TikTok. In the U.S. version of the TikTok app, a message on the video reads: “The copyright owner hasn’t made this sound available in your country.” One of the top comments Friday on the video was from a user who said: “TAYLOR REMOVING THE AUDIO QUEEEEEEN.”
…
JMsays
@119 Reginald Selkirk: Strategically this is a good thing in the long run because it keeps Trump from getting a chance to appoint one. Hopefully he lasts for a week or two into a Democratic president and congress.
President Donald Trump’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine, is seeking an “off-ramp “ from the ongoing war in Iran, according to a new report.
Caine has privately told other top administration officials that the country needs to find a way to exit the war, according to CNN, which cited three sources familiar with the matter.
Trump’s war has primarily been an air campaign, relying on fighters to launch strikes against Iran instead of deploying ground troops. Caine and other Trump officials privately think it’s unlikely that an air campaign alone can put enough pressure on the Iranians to agree to a deal that’s favorable to the president, according to multiple people familiar with recent discussions who spoke with CNN.
The figures under Hegseth and Trump are in a bad situation. Trump wants a way out of this war that doesn’t involve anything that looks or sounds like the US giving in. Trump has no problem giving up but he needs a good line for the press so it doesn’t sound like the US gave up or gave in. There are not really any good options for doing that and the officials are going around in circles trying to find something that sounds good to Trump.
An American oil company connected to Donald Trump is preparing to sink wells in remote Greenland despite not having received permission from the local authorities.
As the US president renews his threats to claim the vast Arctic territory, materials to prepare for drilling were brought ashore in recent days on Greenland’s eastern coast.
That has prompted Greenland’s government to issue a “strong warning” that no approval had been granted to land the kit. “All future logistical matters must be advised and approved by the mineral resources authority – before they are carried out,” the government said in a statement.
Great, Trump is going to maneuver his way out of the war with Iran by starting another war. He figures that this is one he can win, it will push Iran out of the new and then it can be quietly dropped.
“Amazon Making New Docuseries About Melania Trump Because Sure, Why Not”
Exactly how many behind-the-scenes stories of the life of […] Melania Trump can the free market bear? We always thought the answer would be zero. […]
Another reason we assumed the market couldn’t bear more peering deep into the abyss that swims behind Melon’s eyes is that it was tried once before. Who can forget the cinematic masterpiece that was Melania, the documentary that Jeff Bezos and Amazon paid an astounding $75 million to produce and market? The one that earned a gobsmacking $16 million at the box office? That’s worldwide box office, not just, like, every theater in Florida. The one that has earned itself an average rating of 1.6 out of 10 stars on the IMDB?
But no. Hot on the heels of the juggernaut that was Melania, brace yourselves for the docuseries Melania, soon to also be streaming on Amazon. While the documentary followed Melon in the days leading up to her husband’s second inauguration, the new docuseries “will explore the first lady’s work inside the White House, along with her family life, career, and philanthropic efforts.”
[…] Marc Beckman, a senior adviser to the first lady, has been driving the myth that the world needs or wants to ever hear from Melania this much. Beckman runs an ad agency that has produced campaigns for huge clients. Presumably he was hired for his “senior adviser” position to produce an ad campaign selling Melania Trump. And boy, is he giving it a shot. If you have never heard this guy talk up Melania, he’s a hoot.
Here he is, for example, giving an interview to Newsmax in which he called Melania “the single most consequential first lady in the history of our nation.” He also glazed her for “singlehandedly executing” reunions between Ukrainian children abducted by Russia and their families. […] [video]
[…] Beckman announced the docuseries himself in that interview. He also claimed that Amazon had told him Melania had been financially successful, which is hard to figure since the company lost about $60 million on it. He also claimed the documentary had been “Number One in the world” at some unspecified point in time. Maybe he meant the number one documentary in the world about Melania Trump. If so, we’ll give him that one.
We suppose if you are Jeff Bezos, the $70 million and counting you have already invested […] is good for your business because it keeps you in the president’s good graces. And what’s Bezos going to do with that $70 million that’s more important? […]
It has been a little over five weeks since the Supreme Court (narrowly) decided that unilaterally rewriting the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate birthright citizenship was one red line it would not cross. Thus was the Trump administration’s effort to fulfill Stephen Miller’s dreams of a whites-only America thwarted, at least for the moment.
But the thing about reactionary bigots is that, like the Terminator, they will never ever stop […] Thursday, Donald Trump signed two executive orders predicated on the administration asking this question: Yes, we lost on this issue at the Supreme Court. But what if we pretended we didn’t?
[…] Chief Justice John Roberts noted this in his majority decision in June’s Trump v. Barbara: Children born in the United States and therefore “subject to the jurisdiction therof” are citizens at birth. The words do not mean anything else […]
Thursday’s EOs are based on the long-discredited claim that the writers of the Fourteenth Amendment only meant birthright citizenship to apply to the children of slaves, a claim that Ketanji Brown Jackson pretty much demolished in her concurrence in Barbara. But the Trump administration has a very simple argument: If we ignore Jackson, we can pretend there are still loopholes to be found here.
Thus, the first order claims to bar “automatic citizenship [for] specific categories of people” who fit certain criteria: Children born to two noncitizen parents who are in America to work for their nation in some other capacity, noncitizens in America temporarily on a student or work or some other sort of temporary visa, “birth tourists,” and anyone born to noncitizen parents if one parent is a member of a foreign terrorist organization. […]
The second order goes into more detail on stopping birth tourism, which is a nativist bugaboo that has driven the Stephen Millers of the world insane for years. More insane, we should say.
[…] 20 minutes of Trump and his minions in the Oval Office signing the orders while Miller, who is so translucent that he looks like a bunch of egg whites that have barely set, yammers on and on about […] terror every time he hears someone mention empanadas, so therefore all of America needs to be a safe space for white people: [video]
By the way, why did none of you tell us that Stephen’s wife Katie had a fling with disgraced sex pest Eric Swalwell before she met and married her Nosferatu-lookalike motherfucker of a husband? […]
Anyway, Miller spends a few moments first claiming that no one seriously ever thought the Fourteenth Amendment was about anything other than slavery (FALSE FALSE FALSE YOU TROGLODYTE) before pretending that the Barbara decision meant the Supreme Court was giving the Trump administration permission to do things […]
Miller claimed that the president was “using the new ruling the Supreme Court issued to expand the definitions of people who are ineligible for birthright citizenship.” This is probably news to the Supreme Court. These orders are clearly aimed at getting someone to sue so the administration can go back to SCOTUS and say, Hey, how about now, can we be discriminatory assholes based on flimsy ahistorical arguments now?
The administration is also making the argument that it always makes, that its actions protect the “value” of American citizenship, like it’s a finite resource that will lose value if you flood the market. […]
The good news is that these are executive orders, which have the legal force of wet cardboard. EOs are basically advisory memos to staffers. […]
President Donald Trump is seeking to reverse significant ocean protections by allowing commercial fishing in three Pacific marine national monuments President George W. Bush established in the early 2000s. The Bush administration specifically created these protected areas to safeguard some of the region’s most pristine coral reefs, seabird colonies and other marine life from extractive activities, including commercial fishing, within their bounds.
In June, Trump signed a proclamation ordering the removal of commercial fishing prohibitions within the Islands Unit of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument in the Northern Mariana Islands, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawaii and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument in American Samoa.
[…] Trump’s announcement has drawn widespread condemnation from conservation groups, scientists and Indigenous peoples who say allowing commercial fishing within the monuments would jeopardize some of the Pacific’s most ecologically significant places.
[…] The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, for example, is one of the world’s largest marine protected areas, spanning more than 580,000 square miles of ocean—an area that exceeds the size of all national parks combined. More than 14 million seabirds nest on the monument’s islands, which make up one of the largest tropical seabird rookeries in the world. The monument also hosts extensive coral reefs, underwater mountains and other critical habitat for humpback whales that breed and calve here, as well as resident shark populations, endangered Hawaiian monk seals and threatened nesting sea turtles.
The area is also considered sacred by Native Hawaiians. [I snipped the details.]
If the Trump administration succeeds in removing the monument’s current fishing restrictions, Papahānaumokuākea is likely to face the most amount of commercial fishing pressure among the marine national monuments in the Pacific, said Angelo Villagomez, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he focuses on Indigenous-led marine conservation.
[…] The Hawaiian longline fishery, which uses thousands of baited hooks to catch swordfish and tuna, has already expressed interest in fishing in Papahānaumokuākea. Currently, the majority of Hawaii’s longline fishing takes place on the high seas where local vessels must compete against distant-water fleets […]
[I snipped Trump administration comments.]
[…] the longline fleets do not need to fish in the currently protected waters to meet their fishing quotas. […]
Before fishing can take place, NOAA Fisheries—a federal agency within the Department of Commerce that’s tasked with managing and protecting marine ecosystems—still has to review the details of the president’s proclamation and determine the necessary steps for implementation, according to a statement provided to Inside Climate News by the NOAA Fisheries Public Affairs team.
[…] Meanwhile, groups like Earthjustice, a non-profit public interest environmental law organization, have vowed to challenge Trump’s orders in court.
[…] Papahānaumokuākea already faces numerous threats, including invasive species, warmer ocean temperatures which are causing coral reefs to bleach and tens of tons of marine debris, including derelict fishing gear, that enters these waters and chokes or entangles reefs and other marine life, according to NOAA Fisheries. […]
Former President Joe Biden’s prostate cancer has spread further, his son Hunter Biden said in a BBC interview, offering a stark update on the 83-year-old’s health.
“It’s really, really hard, and it’s really sad to watch… I wish he would complain more, because it’s not good,” Hunter Biden said in the interview. “The cancer has spread, is metastasized into his bones and further. It’s very painful. It’s very debilitating in many respects, but he’s still out there. He’s still doing his thing… he so believes in this country.”
Joe Biden was diagnosed in May 2025 with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. The former president later underwent hormone treatment and a course of radiation therapy.
…
Former Miss North Carolina USA 2026 Brittany Boltinhouse is speaking publicly for the first time since being stripped of her title, saying she believes the decision was tied to her personal beliefs.
In an exclusive on-camera interview with the Carolina Journal, Boltinhouse said she believes her title was “ripped” away because of her conservative Christian views.
When asked whether there is room for conservatives within the Miss USA organization and whether her support for President Donald Trump may have played a role in the decision, Boltinhouse said she could not discuss all the details because she signed a nondisclosure agreement.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But all I can say is that I think and believe that my title was ripped from me because of my beliefs.” …
Uh, sure. She believed it was appropriate to shit-post on social media while frequently dropping the ‘N’ word.
She also spoke about her faith, describing herself as a proud member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“So, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” she said. “I am proud of my faith. I’m proud of my standards. I’m a proud conservative woman, but a Christian woman. I’m a God-fearing woman.”
I don’t see any contrition here. She is playing the victim card.
Iran issued dramatic new demands around the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and the United Arab Emirates said one of its ships was targeted by an Iranian missile. Yemen’s military attacked the country’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. And Turkey’s Kurdish peace bill won approval in parliament.
This is Iran’s government playing for the population in Iran. It’s still interesting to look at.
The United States must never threaten Iran again, the statement said, and must permanently end the war with Iran and its armed allies in the region. The U.S. must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area. It also must “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and “unconditionally” release frozen assets.
Never threaten Iran is probably impossible for Trump, he doesn’t have enough self control. As an absolute it’s a silly term anyways.
End the war is obvious. Armed allies is more complex and Iran will need to spell out a list of who that is and what they mean. That Iran says armed allies without say countries is telling. They mean Houthis rebels in Yemen and likely some other armed groups.
Lift navel blockade is obvious. Withdraw US military from the area depends on definition of area and recognizing that the US will have military vessels going back and forth through the Strait.
Completely compensate Iran for war damages is a matter for negotiations. Lift sanctions and release frozen assets is obvious but the exact details are a matter for negotiations.
Iran has said it was close to reaching a separate deal with Oman to manage the strait, which runs between the two countries.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi earlier Saturday said they were close to reaching an agreement on navigation, “specifically the determination of a transit route.” But the waterway’s reopening is contingent on other conditions, he said in remarks shared on social media, and blamed the situation on what he called the U.S. violation of the interim deal.
The terms of the deal with Oman matter a lot and is a matter of importance for a lot of countries.
Publicly this is the same list they have been working from the entire war. Iran’s position is stronger but there isn’t much more they can ask for.
Militant Agnosticsays
Brittany Boltinhouse (no longer Miss NC USA) quoted by Reginald Selkirk @143
I’m a God-fearing woman.
She is saying she has no internal morality because her morality only comes from fear of what Yahweh will do to her. No wonder she is a racist asshole.
Pentagon headhunting Goldman, JPMorgan bankers for ‘Economic Defense Unit’ … The Pentagon is building a new team of investment bankers steeped in private equity to invest $200 billion over three years in defense deals…
[…]U.S. President Donald Trump has long expressed ambitions to oversee a massive sovereign wealth fund similar to those in the Gulf and Asia, using private capital as a tool to extend political influence.
In February 2025, Trump signed an executive order ordering the creation of a sovereign wealth fund within the next year.
…
Commissioned Broker will be a familiar name, Cantor Fitzgerald.
…
What could possibly go wrong with finally establishing an overt American economic policy — traditionally, USGs allow the private sector to tell it what its economic policies are — under the command and control of private contractors to the opaque and unaccountable Defense Dept?
…
The Department of Defense launched a team of elite private sector businessmen tasked with handling and approving defense contractor negotiations, aimed at fixing the former “broken Pentagon bureaucracy.”
Dubbed “Deal Team Six,” the crew is tasked with creating better deals with defense companies to ensure their production of U.S. military equipment is not at the expense of the taxpayer, but that of the contractor, according to a Thursday social media video posted by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
[…]
Deal Team Six, which is folded inside the Pentagon’s Economic Defense Unit, … Although the team’s entire roster has not yet been revealed, George Kollitides, the former head of defense at Cerberus Capital Management, was named its director, according to Wall Street Journal reporting. …
… elite private sector businessmen …! $200B (for starters), free from pesky Congressional rules & oversight! Everything will be so good now!
@ ^ Also contains quite a few other science news stories including Pluto’s atmosphere shrinking, new Troodontid Dino fossil found, Hawk moths smelling with their wings and how the stopped ships in the Starit of Hormuz aare getting biofouled and how that could present a problem.
Democratic primary voters in Michigan were asked: Would you be more or less likely to vote for a candidate that was supported by AIPAC, or does the issue make no difference to you?
Some 40.6 per cent of voters said they would be less likely, compared to just 3 per cent who said they would be more likely, and 47.1 per cent who said no difference.
El-Sayed narrowly defeated Stevens in what was seen as a big loss for AIPAC.
But its spending still appears to be paying off elsewhere. AIPAC says 30 pro-Israel candidates won other primary elections this week.
…(snip)…
The tactic is legal but “cowardly”, Track AIPAC’s Casey Kennedy told the ABC.
“These groups are doing the most that they can to provide the least transparency,” he said.
“This is a symptom of our very flawed campaign finance system that we have here in the US.”
Unusually, another AIPAC-linked group spent money in the Chicago campaign supporting a staunch critic of Israel.
A shell group called Chicago Progressive Partnership ran ads to boost progressive candidate Bushra Amiwala. She called it a “cheap attempt to smear my name”.
Amiwala was not a frontrunner in her race. But Abughazaleh, a prominent local influencer who had used her platforms to criticise AIPAC and Israel, was.
So some candidates saw the move as a calculated attempt to split the anti-Israel vote to damage Abughazaleh’s chances.
Abughazaleh was narrowly beaten by Daniel Biss, the mayor of a Chicago suburb.
For decades, neuroscientists have searched the brain for the biological basis of consciousness, assuming our thoughts, emotions, and subjective experiences emerge from networks of neurons.
But what if that assumption is incomplete?
That’s the provocative question explored by neuroscientist Christof Koch of the Allen Institute in Seattle.
…
Koch explained to ScienceAlert that it may be time to rethink one of neuroscience’s deepest assumptions: that consciousness is something the brain produces.
…
Scientists can increasingly identify the neural circuits involved in perception, memory, emotion, and decision-making. Yet those discoveries still cannot explain why physical brain activity is accompanied by subjective experience.
As Koch writes in a new, as-yet unpublished essay shared with ScienceAlert: “Nothing in science explains how three pounds of matter, a piece of furniture of the Universe like any other, subjects to the same natural laws, can love, hate, dream, imagine, fear or hope for its future.”
To address that question, Koch turns to a philosophical framework known as analytic idealism, which proposes that consciousness may be a fundamental feature of reality rather than something generated by the brain…
Typhoon Dolphin has cut power to at least 44,000 buildings and injured at least five people after hitting Japan’s Okinawa island on Saturday.
Flights to and from Okinawa’s main airport – Naha International Airport – were cancelled as it closed on Friday as the storm arrived.
The storm had maximum wind speeds of 162km/h (101mph) on Saturday and has been categorised as a “very strong” typhoon by the Japan Meteorological Agency, which warned of high waves, storm surges and lightning strikes.
Dolphin is expected to make landfall on China’s eastern coast late on Sunday or early on Monday. Authorities there have shut ports and schools ahead of its arrival.
The main areas in Japan affected by the typhoon are the islands of Okinawa and Amami in the far south-west of the country…
Former Miss North Carolina USA 2026 Brittany Boltinhouse is also clueless. She has a very narrow perspective.
““So, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” she said. “I am proud of my faith. I’m proud of my standards. I’m a proud conservative woman, but a Christian woman. I’m a God-fearing woman.”
She belongs to a cult within a cult. I’m sure she will forgive herself for her crude, racist comments.
Dr. Erica Schwartz will be the first Black woman to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, promising that she will show “radical transparency and unwavering scientific integrity” in the role. But she faces political headwinds and practical challenges as she starts the job.
Schwartz, who was confirmed Wednesday by the Senate to run the federal agency that primarily responds to infectious diseases, is expected to balance a public commitment to evidence-based policy and how that might clash with the requests of her new boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A CDC director has typically overseen coordination between the federal government and states during disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies. The job has also entailed approving vaccine policy changes and ensuring accurate health data collection.
But the role has been reshaped under an administration that has questioned trust in government institutions, particularly after a global pandemic that generated right-wing outrage over mask mandates and other COVID-related policies. [video]
President Donald Trump nominated Schwartz — who has served in the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and as chief medical officer for the U.S. Coast Guard — but the CDC reports to HHS. Although Schwartz told senators during a July 15 confirmation hearing that she would “follow the science wherever it leads,” she deflected inquiries on whether she would stand up to Kennedy or Trump if she was asked to act in ways that countered scientific evidence.
[“The first Black woman to lead the CDC will face an uphill battle in restoring trust.” She will not be able to “restore trust” unless Robert F. Kennedy Jr and his cohorts just shut up and stop pushing misinformation and bonkers policies. That’s not going to happen.]
“She’s trying to walk the tightrope of keeping all of her bonafides: tons of experience, all the background you would want, good relationship with the medical public health community — while also continuing to have the support of the person and people who nominated her,” said Diana Z. O’Brien, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies women’s political representation.
Schwartz — who served as deputy surgeon general during Trump’s first term — said neither the president nor the secretary would put her in a problematic position [that seems highly unlikely], a response that some senators repeatedly challenged given the firing of Schwartz’s predecessor, Susan Monarez. Monarez said Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, terminated her after an August 2025 meeting in which she refused to prematurely approve vaccine policy changes. Kennedy has refuted Monarez’s claim.
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor who was a key vote for Kennedy’s confirmation but has since criticized several of his policy actions, tried to get Schwartz to commit to standing firm.
“We need a CDC director that will actually stand up to crazy, stupid things being said that undermine faith in immunization,” he said. “Are you the person? And I’m being very direct here, because obviously I feel like we’ve got thousands of kids hospitalized because people have promoted that immunization is bad, and now kids have died because of it. It is evil to do that, and people persist. You are the bulwark, so I’m asking: Will you have the ability and the firmness to stand up to that political meddling, to say, ‘No, that’s wrong, and this is right?’”
Schwartz responded: “You have my assurances that I will continue to lead by my integrity. I will never compromise on the science. I will always, always have the public’s health in mind.” […]
More at the link.
StevoRsays
An international team led by Kate Minker at Lowell Observatory has now brought two of the world’s heaviest instruments to bear on it: (Asteroid 44 Nysa -ed.) SHARK-VIS on the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, and SPHERE/ZIMPOL on the Very Large Telescope in Chile. With adaptive optics correcting for the churn of our atmosphere and purpose-built processing to sharpen what came back, they have produced the finest images of Nysa ever obtained. Minker describes them as close to spacecraft-quality, achieved without ever leaving the ground.
What those images show is two prominent valleys wrapping around the asteroid’s circumference. The team read them as necks, the pinched joints where separate bodies have come to rest against one another: Three lobes, gently welded into one.
We have seen this before, but never in triplicate. Comet 67P looks like a rubber duck, and the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth resembles a flattened snowman. Both are contact binaries, two pieces that drifted together slowly enough to stick rather than shatter. Nysa would be the first contact trinary on the books. The findings are published on the arXiv preprint server.
Which rather cruely aptly wasn’t well seen when encountered by the Deep Space 1 mission in 1999 and which looks like it could well be a stringy three part spaec rock to me too.
StevoRsays
Then there’s the length of Oumuamua too..
People in communities thousands of miles apart have described the same strange experience after eating a mysterious mushroom: vivid visions of tiny humans moving through and interacting with the physical world around them. Known as Lilliputian hallucinations—a reference to the 6-inch-tall inhabitants of “Gulliver’s Travels”—the phenomenon has long been thought to stem from cultural influences rather than biology.
A new study suggests otherwise.
Using DNA sequencing, University of Utah (U) researchers confirmed that a single mushroom species, Lanmaoa asiatica, is responsible for these hallucinations in Southwest China and the northern Philippines.
They also discovered that the mushroom contains none of the psychoactive compounds known to science, including psilocybin. Instead, the findings point to an entirely new hallucinogenic compound that could offer new insights into neurological disease and how the brain shapes perception and consciousness.
Colin Domnauer, a doctoral student at the U, and Bryn Dentinger, a mycologist at the U and the Natural History Museum of Utah, coauthored the study that was published June 5, 2026, in the journal Mycologia.
Domnauer spoke to @theU about the Lilliputian mushroom, the decades-long mystery behind it and the implications of a new hallucinogenic compound.
Seems Dodo’s weren’t that lacking in intelligence and were quite likely nocturnal :
The Mauritian dodo—a global symbol of human-caused extinction and one of the world’s largest pigeons—may not have deserved its reputation as a silly simpleton and may have been the only member of its group to live in the dark.
An international study led by Canada’s University of Lethbridge Iwaniuk Lab, including Flinders University researchers, has shown that the dodo’s brain was not smaller than expected for a bird of its whopping size.
The team also found several traits in its skull and brain that are usually found only in birds that are active at dusk or night, according to University of Lethbridge Ph.D. student Sara Citron and Andrew Iwaniuk.
“Dodos have always been portrayed as silly or confused birds, a reputation that probably came from their trusting behavior that resulted in hundreds of animals being killed in a very short time,” says Ph.D. candidate Citron. “Otherwise, very little was known about the dodo’s habits and behavior, so we set out to change that.”
Vera Weisbecker, a professor of evolutionary biology at Flinders University’s College of Science and Engineering, says, “We suspected that dodos were better adapted to seeing in darker conditions. They had slightly larger eyes, but unusually small optic lobes, an area of the brain that processes light.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel has rejected US President Donald Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza.
The prime minister stressed that the Israeli military will not withdraw from Gaza until Hamas is fully disarmed.
“Israel rejects the 15-point document. The IDF (Israel’s military, known as the Israel Defense Forces) will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed and will continue to thwart threats against our forces and our citizens,” Netanyahu said at a Cabinet meeting.
Last month, Trump announced that his Board of Peace had reached a “historic” agreement with Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip to disarm.
Sen. Adam Schiff’s EPIC floor speech on the Prez’s Top 10 acts of corruption! Today’s edition of Democrats working for you.
Today’s post is highlighting not only an important piece of anti-T 2.0 work, but a look at what work can actually look like, especially as a member of the minority party.
Sen. Adam Schiff and his staff have done some real work to document the prez’s corruption and share with us this Top 10 list of the president’s corruption and how much it’s costing us, the taxpayers. What he describes in this floor speech is more than activism, it’s part of the oversight role of members of Congress. It’s not necessarily ‘sexy’, but it is actual work, and it’s work done in anticipation of the next Democratic congress and the next Democratic presidential administration.
I’ve summed up the 10 items his speech highlights, below.
In order of how they were delivered…
10. Overseas licensing of Trump’s family name to the tune of $23 million USD. These licenses require the cooperation of foreign governments, so that’s the root of the problem, and the corruption.
9. Paramount-CBS settlement worth $36 million USD. The prez sued CBS alleging election interference.
8. Big Tech settlements worth $60 million USD. The prez was suspended from several social media accounts and he sued, and settled. Schiff actually uses the word, “extorts” to describe the process.
7. Amazon and the Melania documentary…$40 million USD. The first lady personally received $28million USD!
6. The Trump meme coin at $635 million USD, it was launched just 24 hours before the inauguration. Two billion USD were lost by the dumb supporters of the prez.
5. The Whitehouse ballroom at $600 million USD. “Built for him by people that need something from the US government and paid for by you, the taxpayer.” * He’s lied that taxpayers aren’t paying, and so far it looks like we’re on the hook for 50% of the cost.
Sen. Schiff has pursued more information about who has donated to this project and any business they have with the federal government. He’s not received a response.
4. The Qatari jet at $400 million USD. […] Updating to serve as AF1, could cost taxpayers $1 billion USD!
3. Big law firm deals worth $940 million USD. This is money taken in, not directly to the prez, but redirected to causes he favors. Negotiated by the prez’s personal lawyer, not a government employee, shaking down these firms. “Putin style economics.”
2. World Liberty Financial & Stable Coins reserves. $1.5 billion USD. The trump family holds ~75% of the value – that equates to ~$1billion. A state backed fund in the UAE, with $500million funded by someone who’s the head of the intelligence services. They now have US made advanced AI chips. The prez’s family also gets interested earned every day. This is complex, but listen to the clip to understand it better at minute 25:40. A presidential pardon is part of the corruption – no surprise there.
1. The IRS settlement, and $1.76 billion USD slush fund, with $100 million to him. There’s lots of news about the corruption and ickiness of this deal, so I won’t repeat here.
The total for these deals alone are $6 billion USD!!! […]
Schiff then goes onto to paraphrase the VP and mock his ridiculous view of the seriousness of the Watergate** break-in. Implying that Vance was saying the corruption under this administration is so bad that Watergate would basically be a nothing burger. Ouch!
Sen. Schiff says it now falls on this generation to pass laws to increase regulation of the executive branch based on the actions of this president. In pursuit of that goal Schiff has reintroduced his Protecting Our Democracy Act. He originally introduced it under 1.0, and also reintroduced last September. To read more about it check out this summation on his webpage: https://bsky.app/profile/schiff.senate.gov/post/3mrdp6lkby22o
In addition Schiff has also introduced three additional bills to address the corruption we’ve seen under this president: conflict of interest, keeping people convicted of fraud out of government service, and tightening bribery laws relating to public servants.
Sen. Schiff closes with the plain fact that laws are not enough if elected officials are not willing to stand up to their oaths to protect their country. So true – one only needs to look at the spineless congressional republicans to see this. So, republican voters, what are YOU going to do about it?? […]
In closing he discusses the Founders concerns around the emoluments clause […]
Schiff also reminds us that the Founders gave us the means to stop what we’re seeing now. Saying, “…we have those powers in this body to stop it, if only we use them.”
Reginald Selkirk @151: “Koch turns to a philosophical framework known as analytic idealism”
Scientist launders AI CEO’s ramblings.
Wikipedia – Bernardo Kastrup
best known for his work in consciousness studies and the development of analytic idealism […] He is also the founder and CEO of the AI systems company Euclyd. […] Kastrup has participated in public debates with scientists and philosophers such as Christof Koch
[…]
posits phenomenal consciousness as the “primary substrate of existence”, with individual minds representing dissociated segments of a universal consciousness
Both Koch and Kastrup cite psilocybin experiences of course. And never mind how individual minds and universal mental reality they navigate are supposed to be a single kind of thing and not dualism rebranded. Or that telepathy (among minds) and remote viewing (across reality) have not been demonstrated. Kastrup invokes Jung’s collective unconscious.
President Trump on Saturday posted photos of alleged vandalism to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool amid a push for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro to revisit a recent decision to drop charges related to the pool.
Late Saturday, the president posted two photos of what appeared to be graffiti and some peeling of the coating of the pool. Both photos were labeled with the word “Vandalism.”
Trump is pushing for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to backtrack on its move to drop criminal charges against people accused of damaging the site. The president pressed for Pirro to “re-visit her hastily made decision” on Friday.
Pirro’s office has stated contractors who undertook renovation efforts on the pool were behind the damage. […]
“Both Koch and Kastrup cite psilocybin experiences of course […]”
I believe Koch and Kastrup when they claim that they felt or experienced “collective unconscious.” Their feelings are definitely not enough to establish that “individual minds represent dissociated segments of a universal consciousness,” nor even enough evidence on which to base a philosophy. It’s all eyebrow-raising and kind of ridiculous. Reminds me of how some people describe religious experiences.
“Inside school investigations frozen under Trump: Racial slurs, sexual harassment and more”
“The Education Department was in talks with dozens of districts at the end of the Biden administration. The cases have stalled since Trump took office.”
By the time Black History Month arrived at Chesaning Middle School in central Michigan in 2024, the only Black girl in the fifth grade had already endured a string of racial slurs. On the bus, she was called a “monkey,” she said. Students hurled the n-word at her and said her skin was “burnt like a piece of chicken.”
Then, apparently inspired by a February lesson about slavery, a White boy asked her, “Hey slave, where are your tools so you can get back to working?”
School officials told the girl’s mom that they were dealing with the situation, but the harassment continued, the mother and daughter said in an interview. Frustrated and angry, the mother picked up her iPhone one day, searched for “civil rights” and landed on a federal website.
She found a complaint form and filled it out.
“She’s being bullied to where she can’t even focus on schoolwork,” the mother wrote. She detailed racial harassment and said her daughter had been mentally and emotionally scarred. “I have to get my child help.”
Her complaint was forwarded to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, the office responsible for ensuring that students can attend school free of racial harassment and that for decades has investigated discrimination claims in schools across the country. Originally created to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the office pressured Southern schools to dismantle segregation and later was tasked with investigating discrimination in schools based on sex, disability and other factors, in addition to race.
In June 2024, the office launched an investigation of Chesaning Union Schools. By that fall, investigators had documented the allegations of harassment and expressed their concern that the district had failed to properly respond, according to an investigative document obtained by The Washington Post and two people familiar with the situation. In early January 2025, federal officials opened negotiations with the district on an improvement plan that would settle the case.
What happened next marked a break with decades of federal practice. Instead of resolving such investigations, the Trump administration indefinitely froze them, according to eight current and former employees, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about their work publicly. The administration gutted the Office for Civil Rights and prioritized investigations into transgender athletes and other conservative priorities.
More than three dozen investigations were complete, including this one in Michigan, and at the final stage — negotiations that could have required remedies such as training, better accountability systems and, in some cases, compensation for students.
But those agreements were never finalized, school district officials and other people familiar with the matter said. When President Donald Trump’s second term began, there were thousands of pending investigations. In the 18 months since then, the civil rights office has completed only three settlements, known as resolution agreements, involving racial harassment and no agreements regarding sexual harassment or violence […]
Because of the inaction, there have been no federally mandated protections for students, consequences or accountability for the schools involved.
“The Department of Education’s role is literally to ensure that students don’t experience discrimination at school so they can access their education. What you have here is the Department of Education saying, ‘We won’t do that,’” said Michael Pillera, who worked for a decade at the Office for Civil Rights.
[…] One former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals directed at his new employer, said his office was close to wrapping up two cases of serious racial harassment in the final days of the Biden administration only to see the cases ignored after Trump arrived and changed the office’s priorities.
[…] Two months after Trump returned to the White House, the Cleveland office overseeing the Chesaning case was closed. Meanwhile, the racial harassment would only grow worse for one Black girl trying to survive middle school.
[…] The Trump administration announced in June that it would transfer much of the office’s work to the Justice Department, part of its effort to hollow out the Education Department in hopes of eventually shutting it down. Staffers at the Education Department say they have not been told how investigations will be conducted after the change takes effect.
At the Education Department, the civil rights office is obligated to look into every complaint filed. But at the Justice Department, attorneys pick and choose their cases.
[…] Students harassed the girl all over campus, she said: Sometimes she was insulted on the bus. Sometimes students would push her in the hallways and mutter the n-word under their breath. Once, a classmate told her she could not play with her group on the playground because she was Black. Naturally quiet and shy, she didn’t argue back.
[…] Once, the girl reported use of the n-word to officials in the school office, she said, and they asked her whether she thought that was an accurate word to describe her. When the girl said no, a school official replied, “If you don’t think you’re that, why are you coming down here and complaining about it?” she recalled. […]
In May of this year, the mother found a boxcutter that belonged in the laundry room in her daughter’s room and questioned her about it. The girl confessed that the bullying was too much to handle and that she had considered hurting herself.
[…] For a time, the mother had felt sure the government would address the harassment. She believes the lawyer working on the case cared. “I could hear it in her voice,” she said.
But it’s been so long since she heard from the lawyer. More than a year since she heard from anyone at the Office for Civil Rights.
Lynna @163 quoting The Hill: “the president posted two photos of what appeared to be graffiti and some peeling of the coating of the pool.”
The photos have white text (“-> RIP SL” and “X” respectively) painted to fit the height of a narrow tan horizontal band of material resembling clay. A shallow roughly straight slit runs through the center of the text along the full length of the visible band in each photo. The band lies between gray stone above and a black perpendicular floor below. There’s little else to reference for scale, a few feet across I think. Looks to me like reference marks left by a construction crew?
Earlier this week, the Alaskan cruise ship Wilderness Legacy rescued a small skiff stranded near Farragut Bay after running out of fuel. But, according to tracking data reviewed by the Alaska Beacon and Halifax Shipping News, the closest vessel was actually Mark Zuckerberg’s super yacht, Launchpad.
Michael Love, a passenger on the Wilderness Legacy, posted on Bluesky that the captain announced the Launchpad was closer, but “repeatedly refused to respond,” which was met with booing from the passengers…
In her upcoming book “The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State,” Jill Lepore warns that tech companies are increasingly replacing the functions of democratic government. This shift, she said, marks “a return to tyranny and mystification in the form of rule by algorithms, corporations, machines.”
On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, I spoke to Lepore — a Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer who recently won a Pulitzer Prize for her history of the U.S. Constitution — about the evolution of what she described as “the idea that we should live under an artificial state or government by machines.”
“I’m not an anti-technologist,” Lepore insisted. Instead, she said, “My beef is the ways in which private corporations have increasingly taken on the functions of the state.”
While Lepore’s book examines technocratic philosophies that go back centuries, she argued that many of Silicon Valley’s “charismatic or not-so-charismatic leaders” — especially Elon Musk — seem to be ushering in a future pulled from misread pulp science fiction and comic books…
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Lynna @164: “Reminds me of how some people describe religious experiences.”
Kastrup’s says some ancient Hindu stuff is similar. Western philosophy has Bishop George Berkeley to thank: the “father of idealism”. Podcasts, summaries, and such omit important flavor: he was making the universe bonkers in order to rescue miracles.
[Page 34]: the rod was changed into a real serpent, and the water into real wine. […] if at table all who were present could see, smell, taste and drink wine, and feel the effects of it, that leaves me with no doubt as to its reality
[Page 37]: The existence of matter, or unperceived bodies, has been the main support not only of atheists and fatalists but also of idolatry in all its various forms. If men would only consider that the sun, moon, and stars, and every other object of the senses are nothing but sensations in their minds, having no existence except in being perceived, no doubt they would never fall down and worship their own ideas! Rather, they would do homage to God, that eternal invisible mind that produces and sustains all things.
The same absurd principle of materialism, by mingling itself with the principles of our faith, has given considerable difficulties to Christians. Think how many scruples and objections have been raised by Socinians and others concerning the resurrection!
Don’t the most plausible of them depend on the supposition that sameness of a body comes not from its form (i.e. what is perceived by sense) but from the material substance that remains the same in different forms?
All the dispute is about the identity of this material substance; take it away, and mean by ‘body’ what every plain ordinary person means by it—namely that which is immediately seen and felt, which is only a combination of perceptible qualities or ideas—and then the seemingly most unanswerable objections of the Socinians etc. come to nothing.
Socinianism denies the resurrection of the body, as a thing absurd and impossible. It holds to what is called a resurrection, which is not a resurrection of the same body, but the formation and the union to the soul of a different body.
* Christians had a sort of transporter debate going on. If a cannibal eats some of you to incorporate that into themself, and then later you’re both resurrected by reassembling ALL the pieces, someone’s gonna be missing a piece.
^ @170 Botched edit: Kastrup‘s Wikipedia article says
birgerjohanssonsays
Re. Naze Tower @ 166.
‘Printed’ houses have not been a success, but if you just want to have a navigation marker (or a bell tower, or a minaret) a matter printer would be perfect for creating elaborate ornaments not feasible with normal construction.
Print Orthanch or Amon Sul as a marker for your estate. Or re-create pagodas from China and Japan. No more copying Roman triumph arches (like Trump wants).
If you want an arch, make a copy of the ‘3rd kingdom’ Egyptian temple entrances, but at larger scale.
We don’t want Stonehenge to be disturbed by traffic, so print an exact copy, re-creating what it looked like when new and place it in an accessible place where people can watch the Summer solstice.
Swan family befriends human.
“Wild Swan Brings His Babies To Meet His Best Friend ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=3jP6HXdqSM8
Swans are fickle, and BIG! Don’t mess with them.
A trip to Israel by bestselling author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza sparked what would become a three-year deep dive into biblical archaeology — a field he says offers striking support for the historical authenticity of the Bible…
Pthththt. No ark. No exodus. Pi does not equal three. Don’t click through unless you need a laugh.
Harry Potter fans succeeded in diverting a multimillion-pound power link between the UK and Ireland after they complained it would disturb a “memorial” to Dobby the House Elf.
The £430m Greenlink interconnector links the National Grid to Ireland via 125-mile cable between County Wexford and Freshwater West, a beach in Pembrokeshire where the death of fictional character Dobby was filmed in the Potter films.
Project manager Simon Ludlam told the Energy Revolution podcast the cable was originally “going to go straight through” the tribute, before fans began leaving his firm “hundreds of calls”.
“Actually we went quite close to some real Bronze Age remains, but we avoided Dobby’s grave,” he said.
…
“I said ‘he’s a fictitious character in a fictitious book, the whole thing is fictitious what are you talking about?’
…
In a study led by Jii Kwon and Chun Kee Chung of Seoul National University, researchers explored whether they could recreate melodies from the brain activity of people who imagined how songs continue after listening to a few bars. The work is published in eNeuro.
Study participants were 10 epilepsy patients with electrodes on the surfaces of their brains for clinical monitoring. Participants quietly listened to the first bars of children’s tunes, then imagined the melodies of subsequent bars before humming their imagined melodies.
Brain activity from the patients carried information about relative pitches within the imagined melodies. Combining note-level pitch predictions over time allowed the research team to recreate melodic changes that reflected the structure of the imagined songs.
Kwon elaborates, “The model we created decodes relative pitch classes—such as do, re, mi, fa, sol, and la—rather than exact, absolute pitches. This is useful because people often recognize melodies by the relationships between notes, even when the same melody is played in a different key.” …
The country was the target of a cyberattack in which the criminals weren’t after money, but rather closely guarded data: the real owners behind multimillion-dollar foundations
Re @151:
It seems to me that too many people involved in understanding consciousness have a hard time (consciously or not) of letting go of duality in some form or another. So when they cannot pinpoint its origin and/or location and/or mechanism, then it becomes something external. Even from some claiming to be purely materialistic, they will resort to things like some imagined quantum property or mechanism (the same happens with free will); no mention of why quantum events would be affected by the mind rather than the other way around not to mention why quantum effects would be significant at the macro level.
The brain (with the rest of the body) is a rather impressive pattern recognition and predictive engine bathed in a soup of hormones and other neuro-active compounds (natively occurring or not) that receives a multitude of inputs from a multitude of sources both internally and externally. That engine has had millions of years of evolutionary pressure to become better at what it does for survival and reproduction. That something like consciousness would emerge from that is not surprising to me and explaining it would have a better chance of succeeding if any form of duality was firmly and explicitly eliminated from the start. And any perceived inspiration from drug or religion or other woo-induced state also needs to be discarded as useless at least from a neuroscience point of view.
Minnesota Lynx guard Kayla McBride wanted to give the hometown fans a show Sunday.
She delivered one that the Target Center crowd will never forget.
The five-time All-Star and four-time EuroLeague champion broke the WNBA single-game record by making 10 3-pointers Sunday in a 103-90 victory over the Dallas Wings.
McBride made 10 of 14 shots from behind the arc and finished with a career-high 43 points — and she did it in front of a home crowd that seemed to be urging her to chase the record…
StevoRsays
Via The New Arab :
Israel has reportedly approved infrastructure work for a new residential zone in eastern Rafah, raising questions over whether reconstruction could entrench the military division of Gaza and create a new model of Israeli control over the enclave.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz quietly authorised work in what Israeli media has called “Green Rafah”, on the Israeli-controlled side of the Yellow Line, according to Israeli Army Radio.
The project is intended to house Palestinians outside Hamas control in an area of eastern Rafah that has been completely levelled and is currently empty.
But Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli peace negotiator, told The New Arab that Green Rafah should not necessarily be seen as evidence of a single, settled Israeli blueprint for Gaza.
He argued that the ambiguity surrounding such projects allows Israel to keep several possible futures open, including tightly controlled Palestinian enclaves, prolonged occupation and, potentially, eventual Israeli resettlement.
Amir Hassan, the Trump-endorsed Congressional candidate for Michigan’s 8th Congressional District GOP primary, may have lost the primary vote this week due to voters believing he was Muslim.
The candidate, who is a former army veteran, said throughout his campaign that he had converted from Islam to Christianity, but this did not convince some Republican voters.
On his campaign website, Hassan, who is African-American, stated that he “recently reaffirmed his commitment to Christ” and stated that “Jesus Christ is his Lord and Saviour”.
But despite this, his candidacy received backlash from right-wing Americans from Trump’s MAGA fanbase.
Late last month, after Trump announced his endorsement on his Truth Social social media page, several users replied with comments saying they wanted “no Muslims” in office. One questioned Hassan’s loyalty to the US, while one questioned Trump’s choice, saying he had “lost his mind” with his endorsement, and that there were “enough Muslims” in government.
Re: StevoR @ #186…
It’s in the material you quoted, so the odd construction is certainly not your fault… I’m just wondering how someone becomes a “former Army veteran”.
Cyclospora and other parasites can survive sewage treatment in small quantities, and crops are sometimes irrigated with treated water. […] Then a human comes along and eats the irrigated food or drinks the water and gets sick, releasing more […] into sewage systems. […] Using treated sewage to irrigate crops is common in many places, especially where groundwater and surface water are in short supply.
[…]
Our laboratory […] is developing a method to more accurately detect this parasite even at lower levels in sewage. This type of wastewater surveillance may help determine when an outbreak is beginning to subside and where larger numbers of people are still affected.
Good political news. And it is nice to see happy-looking young people during this year that has been hard on English-speaking places suffering asshole politicians.
BC Bay Area brings news from the small idyllic California town of Suisun City (population: 29,518). The city council “declared a state of emergency Saturday after a cyberattack that shut down computer systems including 911 public safety operations.” …
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a worrying development for the US military, the Pentagon has exhausted its entire supply of mascara, defense analysts warned on Monday.
The depletion of mascara reserves is only one facet of a broader problem, the analysts said, as the Defense Department burned through ninety percent of its existing stockpiles of concealer, blush, and lip gloss in the first five days of the war with Iran.
Adding to the cosmetics nightmare is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has brought the global flow of hair oil to a virtual standstill, experts said.
The makeup shortages have only increased the pressure on embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was seen last week in the Oval Office wrestling JD Vance for an eyebrow pencil.
It is obvious to me: Iran is using Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope tactic on tRUMP. tRUMP is SO STUPID and ARROGANT he doesn’t even realize it!
Digby reinforces my conclusion:
It turns out the Iranians aren’t as stupid as the Republican Party. Imagine that: https://digbysblog.net/2026/08/09/oops-3/
This rapid chain of events suggests Trump’s options for walking away from the conflict have again narrowed. Trump has repeatedly threatened—and then backed away from—a massive escalation of its bombing campaign. But the recent chaos in negotiations signaled Tehran is prepared for a long and grinding conflict.
“Iran’s recent hardline demands for reopening the strait make it increasingly difficult for the president to manufacture a face-saving off-ramp from the conflict,”
Three years ago environmental regulators discovered garbage burning deep inside California’s Chiquita Canyon Landfill, reports the Los Angeles Times. [Alternate URL here.] “Few imagined the calamity that would follow.
“Somehow the landfill’s pollution control system introduced oxygen below, causing decades-old waste to rapidly decompose, generating intense heat and eventually widespread smoldering, federal and state environmental agencies say.”
The broiling temperatures released toxic gases and hazardous liquid waste that bubbled up to the surface. Residents living in the nearby communities of Val Verde and Castaic have phoned in thousands of complaints about stench and lived with nausea, dizziness and trouble breathing. The underground fire has tripled in size since first confirmed in 2023. Recently a towering mound of landfill garbage perched on the hillside has warped and threatens to trigger an avalanche of garbage and chemical-filled liquid, or leachate, according to the California water board…
Cory Solovewicz receives more unwanted emails than you. Seriously—it’s a lot more. Since December 2024, one of the domains at which the security researcher receives email has registered 401,796 messages—by his calculations that’s an average of 699.99 pings per day.
This deluge isn’t the regular flood of spam, newsletters, and unwanted deals that fill many people’s inboxes. Instead, companies and other organizations are inadvertently sending Solovewicz other people’s private information and company secrets. Over the last few years, he’s received injury reports from a city government, confirmation of people’s pizza orders, and account setup emails from a school platform. “I get service orders for people that need repairs. I get lots of test platform credentials,” says Solovewicz, a security researcher and consultant.
Solovewicz is receiving the avalanche of messages as he’s the owner of the domains noreply.us and noreply.net, which he purchased in 2020 and 2024, respectively. After originally planning to use the noreply.us domain as a catch-all email—which receives mail sent to any @ address on that domain—to filter messages and enhance his privacy, the researcher quickly noticed that other systems were sending mail to @noreply.us addresses. “I created an accidental honeypot,” Solovewicz tells WIRED. “I had no idea it was going to turn into this.” …
“The point isn’t about whether imposing additional sanctions on Russia is a good idea; it’s about a tangentially related element about trade authority.”
On the surface, the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act is a fairly straightforward proposal. As the name implies, the legislation, which was championed by the late South Carolina Republican, is designed to impose new economic penalties on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
GOP leaders set out to advance the legislation before senators broke for their August recess, and they succeeded: The bill passed by an 86-11 vote on Friday afternoon.
But as the legislation now heads to the House, it’s worth pausing to note the concerns of the 11 senators who voted against the bill. The New York Times reported:
The measure passed over the objections of Democrats who had expressed concerns that it would hand over new tariff powers to the president when Mr. Trump has already stretched the boundaries of his trade authority, sidestepping Congress.
But the Senate defeated a bid by Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, to remove the tariff provisions. Mr. Paul castigated his colleagues for delegating their constitutional tariff authority.
“What sort of feckless Congress gives away their power?” Paul said before the vote.
It’s not an unreasonable question, in part because the legislative branch is supposed to have important powers over international trade policies, and in part because President Donald Trump’s record on tariffs has been an embarrassing failure.
Nevertheless, MS NOW host Catherine Rampell wrote a persuasive piece for The Bulwark, explaining that the legislation named after Graham “could allow Trump to drop 100% tariffs on virtually any country he likes, for as long as he likes, and with pretty much bulletproof legal authority to do so, which means even the Supreme Court couldn’t bail out Congress (or the rest of us) next time.”
[…] In his latest Washington Post column, Max Boot endorsed the sanctions policies but also raised a red flag about the tariff provisions. “In sum, the legislation gives Trump an awful lot of authority to impose massive tariffs on a number of countries, notably India and China, if they don’t cut off all Russian energy imports,” he wrote. “They are unlikely to do so, because both India and China are heavily reliant on Russian energy — all the more since the U.S.-Iran war has reduced oil exports from the Persian Gulf.”
The column added, “The problem is that there is nothing to stop Trump from imposing tariffs on any of those countries for some other reason and using the Graham bill as legal justification. He might even use the legislation to go after U.S. allies in Europe and Asia. … Given the president’s penchant for igniting costly trade wars on a whim, the last thing that Congress should be doing is handing him more authority to impose massive tariffs. It’s like giving matches to a pyromaniac.”
At this point, the obvious question is why most Senate Democrats ended up backing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act at all. For some, it was a distasteful tradeoff: They didn’t like the tariff provisions, but they didn’t want to see the underlying point of the bill die, especially as Putin’s deadly violence in Ukraine intensifies.
But others pointed to a commitment from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, assuring senators that the administration would honor guardrails on the tariff authorities. [That sounds like a false promise from the Trump administration.]
Don’t be surprised if a cross-section of House members pushes for significant changes to the bill. Watch this space.
@193 Reginald Selkirk posted about the landfill underground fires.
I add: Interesting, but, this is not new. There are underground fires in coal mine seams. Even the titanic set sail with one of its coal bunkers on fire!
And, decades ago, in an Oregon landfill, they siphoned off the methane gas and used it to power a small gas engine and generator to power the landfill.
At least 20 people were killed and dozens of buildings collapsed in cities across western Colombia on Monday after a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck the South American nation.
The quake trapped residents under debris, leaving more injured and forcing people to evacuate their homes as far as the capital of Bogotá.
The epicenter was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Bogota, the U.S. Geological Survey and Colombia’s counterpart reported. The USGS said it struck at a depth of 66 miles (107 kilometers). The quake also was felt in neighboring Ecuador…
“Given its overlapping messes, the Cabinet agency could use a real inspector general. The president apparently has a different idea in mind.”
Around this time three years ago, then-North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum still had a reputation as a relatively pragmatic Republican with a successful private-sector background. […]
Burgum followed a painfully familiar path — the onetime Trump critic and rival became a sycophantic Trump ally — which worked rather well: He was a finalist for his party’s vice presidential nomination, and after Trump won a second term, Burgum was rewarded with a White House Cabinet post.
Things have gone downhill for him ever since.
For the past year and a half, Burgum has tried to lead the Interior Department, where, when he’s not saying foolish things about how solar power works, his principal responsibilities have focused on serving as the president’s “personal project manager,” overseeing assorted renovation projects that Trump has prioritized above his actual responsibilities.
As the Reflecting Pool fiasco helps prove, those efforts have not fared well. […] U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro reportedly upbraided Burgum, telling the president that it was the interior secretary and his department who screwed up the project and misled everyone, including Trump.
[…] Politico reported that Interior Department staffers are increasingly concerned about just how poorly the Cabinet agency is being run. From the article:
[…] Former employees accuse Burgum of surrounding himself with a toxic leadership team, […]
Tony Irish, who worked at the Interior Department for more than 20 years […] told Politico on the record that Burgum “appears to combine arrogance with an utter lack of curiosity or humility.” [Sounds like Trump’s ideal cabinet secretary.]
The same report […] quoted three Interior Department staffers who said officials at the agency “have routinely shredded official documents and use disappearing Signal messages — even for mundane scheduling matters — to avoid communications being preserved, as is required by the Federal Records Act.”
Between these allegations and separate controversies […] it’s clear that the agency would benefit from a strong and capable inspector general’s office, capable of serving as an independent watchdog within the department.
Last week, however, the president nominated Dennis Kirk to serve as the Interior Department’s inspector general. And while Kirk’s name might not sound familiar, you might have heard of his earlier work: Kirk co-authored the far-right policy blueprint Project 2025. [!]
Mark Greenblatt, the Interior Department’s former IG, told The Hill that having someone with clear political leanings in this office was unprecedented and could hamper internal investigations.
By all appearances, this is precisely what Team Trump intends to do.
Those looking for good news in the latest job numbers will be hard-pressed to find anything. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest data, the U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, and while the unemployment rate inched lower, to 4.1%, even this was discouraging: The “improved” rate was the result of the labor force participation rate dropping, as opposed to additional hiring.
The fact that job growth turned negative was itself striking, especially since this was the sixth time this has happened since Donald Trump returned to the White House. (During Joe Biden’s presidency and Barack Obama’s second term, the total number of months in which the economy lost jobs was zero.)
All told, the U.S. economy has added 542,000 jobs over Trump’s 19-month second term, a dramatic decline from the nearly 2.7 million jobs that were added over the previous 19 months. Excluding the 2020 pandemic, the first year of Trump’s second term was the worst year for job creation since the Great Recession, and this year is on track to be the second-worst year for job creation since the Great Recession. [!]
[…] On Friday, shortly after the job numbers were released, Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council and the top economist in the White House, told Fox News that if we exclude the part of the economy that lost jobs, “you actually had a number that was about plus-100,000.”
In related news, if you exclude the parts of my head where my hair has fallen out, I actually have a full head of hair.
Two days later, Hassett spoke to CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” where he had the audacity to argue, “The bottom line is that, if you look at the overall economy, then things are really, really booming.” [Video]
To the extent that reality still has any meaning, the United States is current dealing with weak and disappointing growth, an anemic job market and wages that are failing to keep up with inflation. […]
Tapper reminded Hassett that in the last year and a half of Biden’s term, the economy added more than 2 million jobs, nearly quadruple the total from Trump’s second term, adding, “Are you really arguing that your numbers are better than that?”
The White House economist replied, “Well, I disagree with your number. We will have to follow up on email, but I just looked at the latest number. It was that job creation under President Trump since Jan. 20 is about 880,000 jobs.”
As it turns out, I also just looked at the latest number — the 880,000 figure is simply fiction, according to the Trump administration’s own data — and that can’t be fixed in an email.
[…]Trump told Fox News last week that Americans “have the greatest economy maybe in the history of the world.” A few days later, he sat down with Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman and added, “A lot of people are saying I’m one of the greatest presidents ever. … You know, when I see polls on the economy, I should have 150%, not 100%, because we have the greatest — this is the golden age of America.” [Delusional Doddering Doofus]
For now, let’s not dwell on the fact that this guy clearly doesn’t understand how percentages work. Instead, let’s focus on the fact that Trump seems to understand that Americans aren’t happy with the economic status quo, but he’s nevertheless eager to tell them how wrong they are about their own frustrations, anxieties and economic conditions.
“Unfortunately, there is no video or proof, other than the damage, itself,” the president wrote online, referring to his metastasizing fiasco.
The more Donald Trump made the Reflecting Pool renovation project one of his top priorities, the more humiliating it was when he and his team failed spectacularly to deliver the promised results. Instead of demonstrating the superiority of his approach to problem-solving, the president offered timely evidence that his model — rooted in cutting corners, controversial contracts, rushed timelines, etc. — simply doesn’t work. [Yes. So true.]
[…] A devastating New York Times report last week explained that the project “became a striking reflection instead of the second Trump administration’s willingness to skirt laws, expend millions of dollars, ignore facts and punish truth tellers in service of the president’s demands to put his mark on the capital.”
The reporting dovetailed with a Washington Post editorial that summarized the Reflecting Pool debacle as “a silly summer story that should have been a relatively minor political embarrassment. … Instead, the administration turned it into an appalling abuse of prosecutorial power.”
The fiasco took a radical turn in June when the president began assuring the public that he had actually succeeded beautifully, until “vandals” intervened and ruined his triumph. It was these villainous rascals, he insisted, who deserved the blame for his failure. The Republican further insisted that everyone play along with this alternative explanation, despite the inconvenient fact that the “vandals” didn’t appear to exist in reality.
For his part, Trump didn’t just blame these nefarious criminals, he also repeatedly claimed to have proof. “We have photographs or tapes, like moving cameras” that show people “cutting it with a box knife,” he told reporters last week, adding, “There was vandalism.”
The president made related comments throughout the summer, repeatedly claiming that there was unambiguous evidence, which he refused to share but bolstered his odd claims. It’s precisely why, when U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro dropped all the charges against accused vandals, Trump was outraged […]
On Sunday afternoon, however, he changed his tune, publishing a new and unexpected item to his social media platform. After pointing to an alleged witness who accused former Olympian David Hearn, Trump wrote:
There was substantial other damage to the Reflecting Pool, also but, unfortunately, there is no video or proof, other than the damage, itself. … Security cameras have been, and are being, installed. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
[LOL, classic Trump. He is still making shit up, still making excuses, and still NOT admitting that he was wrong.]
As part of the same missive, the president acknowledged “some contractor error,” though he added that “it was a very small area of this massive Pool, and was relatively inconsequential.” [Utter bullshit]
Despite these acknowledgements, Trump apparently wants prosecutors to move forward with criminal cases anyway. In fact, on Friday afternoon, Trump published a separate online item in which he called on Pirro to “revisit” the case against Hearn, complaining about the Olympian’s support for Democrats and his defense attorney.
In other words, the president seems to understand that the U.S. attorney’s office doesn’t have the evidence it needs to bring a case to court, but he also seems to want a case to proceed, at least in part because he doesn’t like some random American citizen’s political views or choice of lawyers.
Clearly, it was in Trump’s interest to walk away from this mess months ago and to hope the public didn’t notice. He instead decided to dig a political ditch, fall into it — and keep digging.
Anti-Muslim bigotry from Republicans, an update by Steve Benen:
[…] as recently as November 2024, Republican candidates actually made gains with Arab American and Muslim voters. Almost two years later, a striking number of GOP officials have suggested they don’t even want Muslim voters’ support.
Late last week, for example, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina published an item to social media that read, “Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a trojan horse, and a threat to both national security and our republic. We refuse to be silent.”
When her post generated attention, the GOP congresswoman leaned into the sentiment, adding, “If not wanting to be blown up, stabbed, or rammed by a car by a radical Islamist in the United States of America makes us Islamophobes, then so be it.” As the weekend progressed, Mace ultimately boasted of her position, “Total Islamaphobe here.”
It’s worth emphasizing for context that Mace isn’t trying to pander to radical elements in the Republican Party’s base to advance her electoral ambitions. She’ll soon exit Capitol Hill in the wake of an embarrassing fifth-place finish in a recent South Carolina gubernatorial primary.
Mace, in other words, is pushing anti-Muslim bigotry because she wants to, not because she thinks she has to. [Yes. An ugly truth.]
Worse, she has plenty of company, especially as Abdul El-Sayed’s Democratic Senate candidacy advances in Michigan, which has sparked a fresh round of unambiguous GOP bigotry.
It was just a few months ago, for example, when Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee published a message to social media that argued, “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” A day earlier, Republican Rep. Randy Fine of Florida, whose track record of peddling Islamophobic rhetoric was already well established, wrote that Americans should “be afraid of Islam” and that Muslims should be expelled from the country.
This followed related recent bigotry from Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who also recently called for the U.S. to deport Muslim Americans because of their religion. Meanwhile in Texas, where concerns about border security have waned, GOP officials and candidates have begun shifting their focus from Latino immigrants to the state’s growing Muslim population.
[,,,] during his failed state attorney general campaign in the Lone Star State, Republican Rep. Chip Roy took aim at Muslim immigrants […] and soon after, Muslim delegates and attendees to the state GOP convention were told they were not welcome at the party gathering because of their faith.
[…] These Republicans aren’t relying on coded language or innuendo to express their hate; they’re instead skipping past the winks and nods and relying on overt bigotry toward a religious minority without resort to subtleties.
[…] it would be incredibly easy for President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson or Senate Majority Leader John Thune to tell the public, “The Republican Party does not support religious bigotry of any kind.”
[…] the contemporary Republican Party, anti-Muslim attitudes are, at a minimum, tolerated, if not encouraged.
The Bulwark’s Joe Perticone wrote late last year, “Almost a decade removed from President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban Muslims from entering the country during his first term — a vile passion project that has been given new life in his second presidency — a growing number of House and Senate Republicans are taking Islamophobia to a new level, actively calling for discrimination against Muslims and even arguing that some should be denaturalized and deported from the United States.” [All too true.]
[…] Republicans like Mace aren’t just proving his thesis; they’re also working to make the problem worse.
“Dutch growth is set to be almost entirely wiped out, and France could be pushed into a contraction.”
The brutally hot summer is set to cost the EU economy €180 billion this year — that’s equivalent to roughly 1 percent of GDP, which is all the growth the bloc was expected to generate in 2026, according to new analysis.
France could lose 1.4 percentage points of growth, which is enough to push its economy into a 0.6 percent contraction, while an 0.8-point hit could almost wipe out the Netherlands’ expected expansion.
[…] The biggest drag is expected to come from people struggling to work in extreme heat. Triodos estimates lost labor productivity alone could shave around 0.6 percent off EU GDP, while agricultural output could fall by between 3 and 7 percent.
[…] And the summer is not over. France and Britain are bracing for their fifth heat wave of the season this week […]
The bill is already mounting beyond GDP. POLITICO estimated at least 14,000 excess deaths across the six hardest-hit European countries during the record-breaking heat wave from mid-June to early July.
Drought has also hammered Europe’s energy system: Low water levels in the Danube in recent weeks have forced sharp cuts at Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant and pushed Romania to blast apart a rock to divert water toward its last operating reactor. Vessels on the Rhine and Danube have had to sail only partially loaded.
In Austria, meanwhile, drought has caused an estimated €1 billion in agricultural losses […] after some regions received more than 75 percent less rain than normal since mid-June.
Triodos warned against treating this summer as a freak event, saying extreme heat “might become structural” as the planet warms. But governments can soften the damage through irrigation, insulation, cooling and shifting working hours […]
“Every year adaptation without mitigation is a year borrowed against a hotter baseline.”
Amazon Texas gas plant could be biggest U.S. climate polluter
State regulatory filings indicate the plant could emit up to 33 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.
The Pecos County project is part of a broader push by Amazon and other tech companies to secure dedicated power for AI infrastructure. Across Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta, capital expenditure commitments for the year total roughly $700 billion, with AI infrastructure absorbing most of that spending. https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/amazon-texas-gas-plant-could-122100591.html Fossil fuel power for amazon only and the public be damned
Amid a massive Cyclospora outbreak linked to its iceberg lettuce, Taylor Farms is now recalling products containing jalapeños, which were linked last week to a large, multi-state Salmonella outbreak.
On Sunday, August 9, Taylor Farms recalled jalapeño-containing products, including diced jalapeños, dips, salsas, pico de gallo, guacamole, and pre-made salads, burritos, and sandwiches. The foods, which include both branded and unbranded products, were sold across 26 states at major retailers, including Hannaford, Kroger, Target, Trader Joe’s, Walmart, and Whole Foods.
The recalled products contain recalled jalapeños from Coast Citrus Distributors, which was linked last week to a Salmonella outbreak that has infected at least 345 people across 27 states, sending at least 36 people to the hospital. No deaths have been reported…
President Donald Trump has signed an order that calls for fewer childhood vaccines and also recommends splitting the mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) shots.
“Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today,” Trump said on Monday. “In those times, people were much healthier and of course the high rates of autism now observed did not exist.”
The Trump administration has long pushed a discredited link between MMR vaccines and autism, but multiple studies have found no link between the two.
The federal government does not have the authority to implement the new recommendations. Shots that are required for school attendance are set at the state level.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said that his administration “is recognising gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations for only 11 core vaccinations against the most serious and dangerous diseases”.
The immunisations recommended for all children under the order are for measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, Haemophilus influenzae type B, pneumococcal disease, human papillomavirus, and varicella or chicken pox.
“We’re reducing them,” Trump said. “It’s not only that you’re doing fewer vaccines, or jabs, as they say, but you’re doing them in a series of visits to the doctor.”
It’s not only that you’re talking out your ass, as they say, it’s that you’re completely wrong.
birgerjohanssonsays
People carrying a rare gene variant have naturally low body fat, healthier livers and better blood sugar levels
A new passenger train linking Finland and Sweden has begun running, creating the first rail connection between northern Finland and southern Europe in nearly 40 years…
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated another $20 million to Build a Better California, an organization advocating against California’s proposed billionaire tax, according to a new filing. That means that the world’s fourth-richest man, whose net worth hovers around $267 billion, has now spent more than $100 million to avoid an estimated $13.3 billion tax payment.
California’s Prop 40, known as the billionaire tax, would impose a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of around 200 billionaires that live in the state. The windfall from this proposed tax would mostly go toward funding California’s healthcare programs. The state’s Medicaid program alone could lose up to $30 billion in federal funding once Trump’s budget cuts take effect next year.
Brin isn’t the only tech mogul seeking ways to avoid such a tax. It’s no coincidence that Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg reportedly bought a $170 million mansion near Miami this year. Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, and Brin’s fellow Google co-founder Larry Page have also left the state…
A businessman who had ties to former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi is the alleged mastermind behind an October bomb attack against one of the country’s leading investigative journalists, police said on Monday.
Rome’s Carabinieri police said they arrested Valter Lavitola for allegedly ordering the attack outside journalist Sigfrido Ranucci’s house last year. The two men are said to be friends.
The blast in a residential neighborhood of Pomezia, about 12 miles south of Rome, destroyed two cars belonging to Ranucci, known for investigations into corruption and the mafia. Ranucci had just returned home at the time, and his daughter had walked by a half-hour before, his employer said at the time.
…
Lavitola is accused of instructing a second man, Tavares Gomes Clesio, to recruit four men to place the bomb in front of Ranucci’s home, police said. The four men were arrested near Naples in June for carrying out the attack.
Police are still looking for Gomes.
…
Lavitola thought the bombing would raise Ranucci’s profile ahead of a possible career in politics, authorities wrote in the arrest warrant, according to local media.
Ranucci, the popular star of the weekly investigative show “Report” on state broadcaster Rai, is not accused of any wrongdoing and detectives believe he was unaware of Lavitola’s plans.
…
Ukrainian drones struck a missile launch pad used to guard one of Vladimir Putin’s lavish residences from long-range attacks.
The S-400 “Triumph” anti-aircraft missile launch pad, located around 12 miles from the Russian president’s Italianate palace complex near Gelendzhik, southern Russia, is designed to repel aircraft, drones and cruise missiles.
It was left “ablaze and sputtering for three hours” after being targeted by Ukrainian drones, according to Major Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces.
The air defence system is used alongside electronic warfare systems and mobile fire groups to defend the palace, which is encircled by a 27-square-mile “buffer zone”, according to reports. Security officials maintain a permanent no-fly zone above the complex.
Major Brovdi said that the launch pad had been repurposed to fire munitions at Ukrainian cities, including six missiles on Aug 8.
Analysts said Moscow had turned to these systems to intensify its missile attacks on Ukraine because of a critical shortage of the Patriot interceptors that form its sole defence against ballistic barrages.
…
Journalists claimed that the luxurious complex housed a casino, vineyard, spa, ice rink, theatre, pole-dancing room, hookah lounge, “aquatic disco”, miniature railway room and more. In 2023, it was reported that a chapel had been added…
Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert’s 21-year-old son, Tyler Boebert, was arrested last weekend on suspicion of sexual exploitation of a child and other charges.
The Garfield County Sheriff’s Office says the investigation stems from an incident that occurred on New Year’s Day in 2024. The office didn’t provide additional information about the incident.
…
Tyler Boebert is facing charges of:
Sexual exploitation of a child – induce/entice
Sexual exploitation of a child – possession with intent
Sexual exploitation of a child – video
Two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor
The GCSO says the case remains under investigation…
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, representing the state’s pension fund, is demanding under threat of lawsuit that New York Times directors divulge six years’ worth of records to prove the company is running smoothly and Florida assets aren’t at risk.
He’s concerned that the paper is becoming “untrustworthy.”
In a 28-page letter, Uthmeier pointed to four instances since 2020 in which the New York Times either issued corrections or faced major pushback over published articles or opinion pieces — insisting that potential high-up failures are damaging the Times’ credibility and could harm shareholders.
Uthmeier is a trustee and legal counsel for Florida’s State Board of Administration, which oversees the state’s pension fund and owns about 160,000 shares of New York Times stock.
He gave the New York Times’ board of directors two weeks to respond; if they don’t, Uthmeier said he will sue them in the New York Supreme Court…
Donald Trump secretly swapped planes as he left a Nato summit in Turkey last month, as part of an elaborate ruse in response to a possible Iranian threat, US media report.
The US president boarded Air Force One in view of television cameras before being transported to a military aircraft with the help of a catering truck, the Washington Post said. Journalists and some White House staff on board did not know he had been smuggled out.
Officials told the BBC’s US partner CBS News that the US had detected a credible Iranian threat to fire a missile at the plane. The White House has not confirmed the secret switch…
In the hills of Emilia-Romagna, a bank vault holds more than half-a-million wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano, worth well over 300 million euros.
The vault belongs to the bank Credito Emiliano, known colloquially as Credem, which has accepted young wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano as collateral for loans to local dairy farms since 1953.
But now, extreme heat is threatening Italy’s “cheese banks,” and economists who study heat’s effect on growth say the exposure runs well beyond a single vault but into the country’s vineyards, its olive groves, and its broader economy.
After receiving the wheels of cheese from dairy farmers, a Credem subsidiary, Magazzini Generali delle Tagliate, ages the wheels in two warehouses in Reggio Emilia and Modena. Producers typically receive 60% to 80% of a wheel’s value upfront.
But the process has come a long way from the 1950s, as blockchain technology now lets farmers pledge wheels even while the cheese stays in their own facilities, doubling Credem’s lending capacity. The arrangement solves a real problem: Parmigiano needs at least 12 months to age, often 24 or 36, and small family farms can’t easily keep that much inventory tied up for that long without generating some cash. So the bank provides some before any sales are made…
England is on track to become one of the first countries in the world to eliminate hepatitis C, a dangerous virus that attacks the liver, figures show.
The target of treating 80% of all known cases has already been met, and deaths from the virus have fallen by 36% in the last decade, just short of what is needed by 2030.
Taking antiviral tablets for 8 to 12 weeks can cure more than 95% of cases.
Initiatives including A&E blood tests, GP registration testing and free at-home tests have helped to find people who were previously undiagnosed, says NHS England…
Russia on Tuesday freed a former American Marine who had been jailed in the country since 2022, U.S. President Donald Trump said.
In a social media post, Trump said Russia agreed to release Robert Gilman, 32, for humanitarian reasons after discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that the ailing American would arrive at Joint Base Andrews near Washington on Tuesday night.
…
The White House and the State Department had urged Moscow to release Gilman so he could receive medical treatment in the United States. U.S. officials said Putin approved a pardon for him.
Gilman was being held in a prison in Voronezh, about 340 miles (550 kilometers) south of Moscow. The exact circumstances of his health are unclear.
But Eric Lebson, chief strategy officer of Global Reach, an advocacy group representing Gilman’s family, told Reuters last week that Gilman was moved in late June from the prison hospital to the psychiatric ward of a civilian emergency hospital in a catatonic-like state assessed as a “dissociative stupor.” …
Though shredded iceberg lettuce at Taco Bell restaurants has been a prime suspect in an explosive outbreak of the diarrheal parasite Cyclospora, a new report from the Food and Drug Administration finally reveals where all the contaminated lettuce was sold—and only a tiny sliver of it went to Taco Bell locations.
…
The FDA’s Enforcement Report finally provides some answers: Taylor Farms recalled a total of 236,192 cases of lettuce due to potential Cyclospora contamination. Of those, only 5,900—just shy of 2.5 percent—were sold to Yum, the parent company of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC. The other 97.5 percent of the lettuce that potentially sickened Americans was distributed elsewhere.
Walmart—under its brand Marketside—received the lion’s share, 109,476 cases, a little over 46 percent. The second-largest lot went to Taylor Farms’ own brand, which received 68,897 cases, a little over 29 percent.
The remaining 25 percent went to a variety of food service entities and two restaurants. Cross Valley Farms, a brand from US Foods with the tagline “Fresh Produce Sourced and Selected With Strict Standards,” received 19,016 cases ( 8 percent). Sysco received 11,519 cases (4.9 percent), Markon got 7,459 cases (3.15 percent), and Peak Fresh Produce (Performance Foodservice) got 720 cases (0.3 percent).
The restaurant chains besides Taco Bell were Subway, which received 8,075 cases (3.4 percent), and Jack in the Box, which received 5,130 cases (about 2.2 percent).
…
This is the sort of detail that should have been released weeks ago.
US President Donald Trump is heading to Ohio to watch high school students compete in the Patriot Games, a sporting event set up by his administration to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.
Two teenagers were picked from every US state to compete in the games, which are taking place in the city of Geneva, about 50 miles (80km) north of Cleveland.
Some military bases, Native American tribes and US territories are also participating.
To qualify, competitors were required to answer questions about American patriotism. The winners, one boy and one girl between the ages of 14 to 17, will each receive $125,000 (£93,000) in scholarship money.
On Tuesday, Trump will attend the final day of the games, to see the top 32 athletes compete in the final round.
The event, which began on Sunday, is taking place at the SPIRE Academy, a sports training facility and boarding school.
It is being hosted by the White House-backed non-profit group Freedom 250, which has also hosted other events to coincide with the 250th anniversary of US independence.
The group was behind the UFC fight at the White House last month and the Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington DC.
…
Some opponents have also taken to social media to make comparisons with the Hunger Games, a fictional series in which pairs of children are sent by their respective districts in an imagined country to compete in violent individual contests.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Aug. 11 said Ukraine has seen evidence that Moscow plans a full mobilization after Russia’s parliamentary elections next month.
“Putin’s plan is not particularly complicated… after the so-called elections, he plans an additional rapid mobilization of several hundred thousand Russians by the end of the year, plus the same number for the year after,” he said in a post on social media.
Zelensky said the plans were “confirmed by internal Russian documents” that he had discussed in a meeting with intelligence chiefs.
Zelensky says they have confirmed the plans with internal Russian documents. That is a really big mobilization if those documents are true and it’s going to turn the front line into a bloody mess. Russia doesn’t have the air defense to protect those troops, as soon as they approach the front Ukraine will start killing them in bulk. At the same time that is enough for Russia to advance on multiple fronts, I don’t know if Ukraine has the manpower left to really block it.
birgerjohanssonsays
Something for anyone who want to stear a tiny robot through passages and cracks in a buklding?
“Three holographic layers steer red, green and blue light for brighter AR displays”
^ ^ ^
I just realised, this is cool if you want to sneak a tiny explosive surprise past Putin’s bodyguards. Gives me vibes to one of the Dirty Harry films.
birgerjohanssonsays
@ 230
NB Lynna, I am NOT telling Americans to get any ideas. The orange entity is likely to reach room temperature soon without intervention.
But if any Chinese party members get weary of their own autocrat, knock yourselves out!
An unidentified passenger allegedly created a fake Wi-Fi network on a Delta flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta on Monday, prompting pilots to alert air traffic control, according to the airline and public broadcasts from the plane.
“[The] safety of flight was never in question and no aircraft operating systems were affected,” Delta spokesperson Morgan Durrant told TechCrunch, adding that the in-flight network was not compromised.
“We are fully investigating to gather a complete set of facts, which will take time. We will partner with federal law enforcement and aviation regulators to ensure the incident is thoroughly investigated,” the spokesperson said.
The flight crew turned off the aircraft’s legitimate Wi-Fi network for around 30 minutes due to the incident.
Once the crew became aware of the fake Wi-Fi network, the pilots sent two messages mid-flight to air traffic control. The pilots said a passenger “created a scam Wi-Fi” that was designed to impersonate the airplane’s legitimate wireless network.
The pilots said they did not have any more information, but said some of the passengers came from cybersecurity conferences held in Las Vegas last week…
For vegetarians: “Powerhouses for fake meat: Muscle protein can now be grown in chloroplasts of lettuce and tobacco plants”
-Wasn’t Perfect Cell in Dragon Ball Z a hybrid? Gives a different meaning to the brand mark ‘The Green Giant’ . .https://phys.org/news/2026-08-powerhouses-fake-meat-muscle-protein.html
ICE plans to spend up to $20 million to purchase thousands […] by March […] the solicitation for a no-bid contract could be published as early as Friday.
[…]
a normal pair of patrol gloves until officers press a switch […] “It’s immediate and sharp, and it will distract you. I call it like a bee sting,” said [former policeman] John Peters, president of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, who is studying how the device has been used.
[…]
The manufacturer warns the device should not be used as punishment, against people merely exhibiting “verbal defiance or belligerence” or on high-risk populations such as children, pregnant women or elderly or disabled people. [The ACLU] said the public should have no confidence that ICE officers will use the devices appropriately. […] To use the device, officers must complete a course and be recertified every two years, the manufacturer says.
whheydtsays
Re: CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ #235…
Years ago, I kept bees (two hives). Sorry guys, but pain the equivalent of a bee sting woudn’t even slow me down.
birgerjohanssonsays
On the subject of resistance.
“Canada’s Response Could Be Key If Trump Invades Greenland” At the 8.15 mark the video gets to the Canadian response.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ONNxPwa5dME
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
whheydt @236: Yeah, I figured he was downplaying it, given the warnings and certification.
OUCH!! Tried out Compliant Technologies shock glove this morning and it felt about a thousand times worse than laser tattoo removal without doing any damage! [Video clip]
[David]: like a shock. It felt really unpleasant. I didn’t like it. As soon as you started, I wanted it to stop.
[Glove company guy]: And all your attention went [there]. […] So you’re not thinking about punching, fighting, doing anything, you’re thinking about wanting that to end.”
Leaving no marks is another worrying ‘feature’ when abuse is expected.
beholdersays
On August 12, 2026, the world will lose gravity for 7 seconds. NASA knows. They’re preparing but won’t tell us why.
In November 2024, a secret NASA document titled “Project Anchor” leaked online. The project’s budget is $89 billion, and its goal is to survive a 7-second gravitational anomaly expected on August 12, 2026, at 14:33 UTC.
What will happen:
1-2 seconds: Everything not secured will rise (people, vehicles, animals).
3-4 seconds: Objects will continue to rise to 15-20 meters.
5-6 seconds: Panic and chaos will ensue as people hit ceilings.
7 seconds: Gravity returns, and everything falls from height.
Expected consequences:
• 40 million deaths from falls.
• Infrastructure destruction.
• Economic collapse lasting over 10 years.
• Mass panic.
Reason for the anomaly: The intersection of two gravitational waves from black holes, predicted in 2019 with a probability of 94.7%. NASA has known about this for five years.
What NASA is doing:
• Building underground bunkers for “essential personnel.”
• Developing securing systems for buildings.
Who will get spots in the bunkers:
• Government leaders, scientists, military personnel, and “selected citizens with genetic diversity.”
Why they’re silent: An announcement would trigger mass panic and chaos. Better to have 40 million unprepared victims than 8 billion in a state of panic.
The leak has been ignored by the media as “conspiracy theory,” but an independent physicist confirmed the intersection of gravitational waves. His paper was retracted, and he has since disappeared.
What you can do:
Follow the “civilian survival protocol”:
• Stay indoors with a low ceiling.
• Lie on the floor face down.
• Hold onto something secured.
20 months until the event. NASA knows. Governments are preparing. They won’t tell you. — @mr_danya_of, 31 Dec 2025
Surely this will happen tomorrow. Someone on Insta told me so!
They’re so confident about a near-future claim. Of course, people looking foolish in the past for their failed predictions doesn’t faze them.
birgerjohanssonsays
^ ^ ^
Ask Jehowah’s Witnesses about all the times they predicted the world would end….
.
Your Own Personal Drone! 😍 Get one for PZ before next time there is ice all the way to the University.
Lebanon’s parliament has voted to abolish the death penalty, a move that would make it the first country in the Middle East to formally end capital punishment.
A majority of MPs in the 128-seat parliament backed the measure on Tuesday, while Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc voted against it.
The legislation will now go to the cabinet before being passed to President Joseph Aoun for signing. The government has already expressed its support for the measure.
Lebanon has not carried out an execution since January 2004, although courts have continued to hand down death sentences. Rights groups estimate that more than 78 people remain on death row.
Under the new legislation, capital punishment will be replaced with life imprisonment with hard labour. However, the legislation does not yet set out in detail how the new sentence would be enforced…
Hungary’s parliament has elected András Baka, 73, a respected judge and former head of the Supreme Court, as head of state.
The Hungarian president is a largely figurehead role, but Baka’s rule promises to be tempestuous.
His task will be to monitor Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s efforts to dismantle the interlocking economic and political powerhouse established by former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. He will also oversee the writing of a new constitution, to replace Orbán’s constitution of 2011.
“We cannot build the new Hungary on revenge,” András Baka told Parliament, after he was elected by 140 votes to 6…
beholdersays
@240 birger
Ask Jehowah’s Witnesses about all the times they predicted the world would end….
I was raised as a Witness, I am very familiar with their apocalyptic claims.
Nothing quite as untethered as black holes causing weightlessness on Earth, though.
Your Own Personal Drone! 😍
I’m saving up for one of those Chinese-manufactured humanoid robots the U.S. is presently trying to ban.
whheydtsays
Re: birgerjohansson @ #240 and beholder @ #243…
As I understand it, the JWs gave up on predicting a specific date some time ago. If I’m not mistaken, their last such prediction was that “the end of the world will come before this generation passes away” was applied to what one would define as the cohort of 1914. Since the oldest, well documented age at death is 122 and 100 and some days, this would put that abandoned prediction at some time prior to 2037.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
beholder @239: “They’re so confident about a near-future claim.”
It’s lazy slop that stumbled into virality.
on Dec. 31, 2025, Instagram user @mr_danya_of […] shared a brief video of a man, who did not speak, sitting in a car [with text of the first sentence overlaid] on the footage [and the full text in the description]. […] [That] user’s post was the oldest record of the rumor […] viewable on Jan. 6. By the following day, the user’s account was inaccessible. […] The user commonly shared interest-based stories told from varying perspectives—much of the tales appearing fictional—each with multiple paragraphs possibly fabricated and written with artificial-intelligence tools. […]
Several videos that were still live, as of this writing, on the Instagram user’s TikTok and YouTube profiles said the user worked at Google, a morgue, a crematorium and a hospice, as well as served in positions as a psychiatrist and criminologist. After posting about the Earth losing gravity, the user’s next video told a fictional story about 600 people disappearing from the town of Portlock, Alaska, in 2019.
That whole TikTok account is just a clickbait sentence over a silent guy walking or driving for 7 seconds with long description text. Same on YouTube. Frequently in the style of “one weird trick” or “scary/important/shocking trivia: [end of sentence]” or “random assertion and here’s why”.
birgerjohanssonsays
U.S. Man Wakes From Coma Speaking Swedish, Thinking He’s Another Person
A Syrian court on Tuesday sentenced ousted President Bashar Assad and his brother in absentia for murder, torture and crimes against humanity committed before and during the country’s 14-year civil war that left about half a million people dead. […] mostly symbolic, however, because Assad and his brother Maher had fled to Russia, where they received asylum after the Syrian government’s stunning collapse in December 2024.
Six other former officials were also sentenced to death in absentia. The only former official sentenced to death and in custody is Assad’s maternal cousin Atef Najib, who oversaw a crackdown on dissent that led to an uprising that sparked the civil war.
[…]
The Washington-based Syria Justice and Accountability Center described Tuesday’s conviction of Najib as a “historical step in Syria’s transitional period,” but said it exposed major flaws in the justice system which likely jeopardized his right to a fair trial. […] rushed proceedings and witness testimony that did not connect Atef to the crimes he was charged with. SJAC said Najib’s lawyer “lacked the capacity and willingness to meaningfully engage with the case or mount an adequate defense.”
Show trials are an inauspicious start to the new government.
Militant Agnosticsays
21 one year old flight instructor lands on Interstate highway after an engine failure. She dodges a Semi and flies under a sign before touching down. It was her student’s first flight (and probably worst fright). She is cool as a cucumber on the radio as the incident develops.
As Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei Asia found in a recent investigation, just five US tech giants—Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle—are hiding an estimated $1.65 trillion in debt that doesn’t appear on balance sheets. That’s even more than the $1.35 trillion in debt the five companies officially reported in their financial data for the most recent quarter.
Meta alone has amassed around $420 billion in off-balance-sheet debt […] inspiring comparisons to energy company Enron, which collapsed in spectacular fashion in 2001 because of similar debts hidden behind shell companies. Like Enron, they’re using special purpose vehicles, or off-balance sheet arrangements such as legally distinct subsidiaries, as a way to make their financial reporting look healthier than it actually is
[…]
They’re also selling new shares to raise new funds […] which could lead to equity dilution and a drop in investor confidence.
A year ago, a gunman fired 500 rounds at the CDC campus […] I was inside the building during the attack. Authorities said the shooter was radicalized by the anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and misinformation that had been amplified for years, including by the man who leads our health department. Even now, I can still see the bullet marks in the facade outside my office window. They haven’t been repaired.
[…] Yesterday, I sat in the Emergency Operations Center and watched [RFK Jr] walk through the room; I shook his hand. I expected to feel rage, but mostly I felt despair and exhaustion.
[…]
our agency has lost a quarter of its workforce over the last 18 months. We do not have enough staff to keep up with our regular work, let alone to staff four emergency responses simultaneously. And yet, nearly 300 CDC employees remain on paid administrative leave […] They are a passionate, highly skilled, and dedicated workforce we could have back at their desks tomorrow if the secretary decided it mattered. He hasn’t.
[…]
CDC’s staff are still showing up. We are still doing the work: tracking the [Ebola] outbreak in the Congo, fighting measles and Cyclospora and New World screwworm, trying to hold [the] fort. But our passion is no substitute for competent leadership.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
shermanj @194: “the worlds biggest most powerful aircraft carrier is a floating slum!”
Nicholas Slayton (Journalist): “The reports out of the Lincoln this past week from the families were bleak already. This is particularly dark.”
Lincoln’s roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines remain on a deployment that began Nov. 21. The carrier has been deployed for more than eight months while supporting U.S. military operations in the Middle East against Iran. The deployment, which was anticipated to end in May, has been extended with no publicly announced return date.
[…]
The Navy did not provide a precise number of sailors who have attempted to go overboard or engaged in self-harm
The article contains anecdotes about two or three attempted jumpers, all rescued.
Lincoln has gone much of the deployment without the regular port calls […] every 30 to 45 days to allow for replenishment, maintenance and crew rest. “We’ve just been turning and burning the whole time we’ve deployed,” said one sailor
[…]
“My son is currently on that ship and listening to him say that he and his shipmates constantly think about jumping off the ship just for relief is so hard to listen to,” one worried parent wrote to Stars and Stripes in July. “[…] our loved ones are out there fighting with no understanding as to what they’re defending.”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Nicholas Slayton: “Keep in mind, the Lincoln is the SECOND carrier deployed to the Middle East this year to fight Iran that’s seen broken infrastructure and poor morale due to long deployments. The Ford had the same thing. The HW Bush, also in the region, has a much shorter deployment in comparison.”
MyPillow founder Mike Lindell is refusing to concede in Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary, alleging irregularities in the vote totals.
The businessman, who is backed by President Trump, lost to Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth (R) by roughly 11 percentage points, according to Decision Desk HQ.
When asked by a reporter on his live network, LindellTV, about whether he would concede the race if The Associated Press called it for his opponent, the GOP candidate responded, “Why would I listen to the AP?”
“There’s 265,000 votes left to count. I’m down by 18,000 now,” he continued. “I’m not going to give up this race until the votes are counted. That’s nonsense.” …
CHICAGO – The Pope Hat giveaway by the White Sox at Rate Field on Tuesday for the Reds series opener just might become the perfect example of how locked in the American League Central leaders are in early August.
Just over 40,000 Pope Hats were scheduled to be distributed, with 38,113 in attendance for the ninth sellout, in tribute to and celebration of Pope Leo XIV, a native of Dolton, Ill., and a true White Sox fan. And the players weren’t even completely aware.
…
“Very excited about Pope Night, and obviously a lot of people are excited about it,” White Sox manager Will Venable said. “Any time we get to celebrate the pope and his fandom of the White Sox is something that we’ll lean into.”
…
the gloves can deliver a maximum voltage of up to 380V [G4 model:0.9-1.5A, G5:0.7-1.2A] The manual says no more than two gloves should be applied to a subject at one time and they should not be used for more than 15 seconds […] The gloves must come into direct contact with the skin and are not effective through clothing or hair
[…]
The devices have, however, also been used in prior incidents resulting in criminal charges […] In 2022, two corrections officers […] were charged in with beating and shocking an inmate […] in two separate incidents
Jadehawk: “I guess we’re all about to switch to full body coverage, summer heat or no. […] loose/flowing linen for everyone”
Rando 1: “These are going to be used on the most accessible and exposed skin surfaces: faces.”
Rando 2: “‘Don’t worry it only murders people if a bunch of idiots use it wrong.’ *Hands it out freely to the dumbest idiots to ever not read an instruction manual.*”
Spaniards rushed to buy specialized glasses to view a rare total solar eclipse Wednesday, as authorities warned people flocking to rural areas to avoid anything that could spark new wildfires.
NASA coverage of the total solar eclipse begins at 1:15 p.m. EDT. Watch live in the video player above.
Across a swath of northern and central Spain, millions of people will have some of mainland Europe’s best views of the celestial spectacle. It will begin around sunset, when the sun, moon and Earth align, briefly bringing parts of the Iberian Peninsula, plus slivers of Greenland and Iceland, into darkness.
Totality — when the moon completely covers the sun’s light — is expected to last less than 2 1/2 minutes, reaching its maximum duration off Iceland’s west coast. By the time it gets to a small patch of Portugal and then Spain, totality will have dwindled to a minute or so. The spectacle will then end over the Mediterranean…
More than 60,000 Canadians have signed a petition calling for the US ambassador in Ottawa to be expelled for undermining diplomatic relations between the two neighbours.
The online petition accuses Pete Hoekstra of “making repeated interventions in Canadian political discourse” and of having “normalised the Trump administration’s threats to annex Canada as the ’51st state'” of the US.
…
The petition, launched by a woman in Calgary, also raises concerns about meetings in Washington between the US state department officials and some Albertans who want the province to separate from Canada.
It requests Ambassador Hoekstra be formally removed from his role, and a parliamentary committee review “U.S. diplomatic interference in Canadian domestic affairs”.
…
A Washington judge has ordered the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to pay jazz musician Chuck Redd more than $250,000 US in legal fees.
The ruling comes just months after that same judge, Tanya Jones Bosier of the District of Columbia Superior Court, tossed the centre’s lawsuit accusing Redd of breach of contract.
In 2025, Redd, an American drummer and vibraphonist whose legal name is Charles, backed out of his longtime role as host of the centre’s annual free Christmas Eve concert — in response to the centre’s controversial decision to add Donald Trump’s name to the building’s white marble portico.
…
After he cancelled, the centre threatened to sue Redd writing, “Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,” and noting they’d seek $1 million US in damages, calling it a “legal stunt.”
The centre followed through — though that suit was later dismissed by the Washington judge on the grounds the centre had failed to state a valid breach of contract claim, per legal documents reviewed by CBC News…
RIDLEY PARK, Pa. — An 8-year-old boy’s unexpected catch at a lake near Philadelphia has drawn attention to the issue of exotic pets being released into local waterways.
During a Saturday morning fishing trip, Seamus Coffey was reeling in what he thought might be a large bass when he realized he had hooked something unusual.
…
“I was like, ‘Oh, this is a bluegill, I don’t know what this is,'” recalled Michael. “And he said, ‘It’s a piranha!'”
When asked how he knew, Seamus replied, “Because I watch YouTube!”
The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission later confirmed the identification.
“Our biologists have confirmed that this is some species of piranha,” said Mike Parker, a spokesperson for the agency.
While the catch made for one heck of a story for the father-son fishing duo, Parker said the presence of a tropical fish native to South America in a Pennsylvania lake points to a larger issue: people releasing exotic pets when they can no longer care for them…
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will leave her role at the end of the month “so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family,” President Donald Trump announced in a social media post on Wednesday…
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s former chief financial officer was arrested Wednesday and charged with fraud in a superseding indictment that accuses her of overseeing donor payments to informants inside hate groups — including one with whom she had been in a romantic relationship and shared a bank account — according to newly unsealed court documents.
Heidi Beirich was arrested in California Wednesday morning and charged with several counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has threatened to seize European vessels if European states follow through on plans to seize more commercial ships with Russian cargo.
Putin delivered the warning on Wednesday while on board a Russian cruiser off the Pacific island of Sakhalin, where Russia’s navy was conducting a drill. He said Russia would be ready to carry out its own seizures “wherever we deem it necessary and appropriate,” according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
The statement comes after several European countries intercepted ships suspected of being part of Moscow’s so-called “shadow fleet”, carrying Russian oil in contravention of European sanctions.
New sanctions passed last month permit European Union members to sell the oil or any other cargo seized from the ships…
Commercial ships travelling through the Panama canal are facing a rise in costs amid disruption triggered by the Iran war and falling water levels linked to this year’s intense El Niño weather system.
Highlighting the fragility of global trade, a container ship reportedly paid about $4m (£3m) to jump a queue of vessels waiting to pass through the vital maritime choke point.
Ships are now waiting about 10 days for their turn to pass through the trade route linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the largest backlog since May, according to Argus Media. The route is favoured by shippers as it usually reduces cost and transit times, especially for large retailers and energy companies that trade between Asia and the US…
Latvia said on Tuesday a tunnel had been discovered under the border with Belarus and announced plans to combat networks that it says are helping a growing number of migrants cross the frontier illegally.
Latvian soldiers last month used teargas and fired a warning shot to stop migrants trying to enter from Belarus, which shares a 173-km (107-mile) border with European Union member state Latvia…
Three reactors at France’s Gravelines nuclear power plant were shut down late on Monday due to a massive swarm of jellyfish, triggering preventative measures put in place last year after the entire plant went offline, operator EDF said.
The plant in northern France is one of the largest in the country and is cooled from a canal connected to the North Sea. Its six units produce 900 megawatts of power each, or 5.4 gigawatts in total.
Reactors 2, 3 and 4 were taken offline due to the swarm and reactor 1 was limited to 50% of output as a preventative measure. Reactor 5 was already offline for maintenance and reactor 6 remains fully operational, EDF said…
[Video clip] of an ICE agent pulling a gun on a wife and mother, who is a US citizen born and raised in […] Virginia yesterday. Chillingly, they claimed she “almost ran them over” until she told them she had video proving that was a lie.
Here’s the dashboard video […] Fast forward to about 1 minute. An ICE officer jumps out of a van and pulls a gun on this woman immediately before lying and claiming she “almost ran us over.”
Rando: “I need you guys to understand [that her supra is] a small car, like, miata small.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “DHS issued an official statement in response to this video, and it boils down to ‘you should believe us, and not your lying eyes.’ [Screenshot]”
Shomari Stone (Local TV anchor): [Video clip of news]: “Carolina Molina [the driver is a] counsellor […] doing psychological evaluations in immigration cases”
Professa Murray (Law prof): “And note once again: the ICE agent takes a photo of her… to go into ICE’s Mobile Fortify adjacent database?”
Brian Lacour (Public defender): “What is the statute of limitations on all this crap? Please tell me it will survive this administration.”
Professa Murray: “I am still kind of working that one out.”
Lane Stellmaker (Lawyer):
First off, what even is that grip? If he pulled the trigger (which he can’t, more later), he has no stability and nothing to absorb the recoil. He’d be lucky not to smack himself in the gob.
Second, he CLEARLY has his trigger finger on the outside of the trigger housing. You can’t shoot anyone without your finger on the bang switch, my guy. So what the fuck are you doing with your gun out and pointed at someone? Oh, you’re just using it as a prop to reinforce your threat. Somehow, that’s WORSE than shooting someone. Because it shows you have no real fear, you’re just using the gun as a prop to feel tough.
[…]
The more that I think about it, he’s trying to look like John Fucking Wick with a CAR-hold. The difference is, Keanu Reeves is an accomplished shooter who TRAINS IN HOW TO USE HIS WEAPON. Center-axis relock is a valid grip especially for close quarters. It has downsides but it is meant for a purpose, not just to look cool.
Mar Hicks (Historian): “I don’t understand why ‘wife and mother’ or ‘us citizen’ need to be part of explaining why she shouldn’t be treated this way. I mean, I completely understand, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to play by the rules of those who’ve shown that these categories only matter when they already deem the person worthy of rights and in alignment with their political project.”
Emily Hauser (Former reporter): “The ease with which we throw men & boys under the bus because they’re men or boys is disturbing”
StevoRsays
The rosella spider orchid (Caladenia rosella) is classified as critically endangered in Victoria, and is found nowhere else in the world. A staggering 500 orchids are now ready to be planted into hard soil, almost doubling the number of these rare plants in the wild.
It’s not lost on Mr McLachlan that it takes dozens of volunteers and years of work to get to this point just with one species of plant. “People don’t realise how much effort and how much money it is to get from a seed to this,” he says. And with hundreds of orchids at risk of extinction in Australia alone, the race is on to save them.
a 23-year veteran with the D.C. police department […] provided his real name during the text messages, and shared that he was a lieutenant involved in presidential escorts […] a photo of himself in uniform. […] said he could lose everything if caught. Mahl arranged to meet the teen after school—when he arrived, he was taken into custody. The operation was recorded as part of the […] “Takedown with Chris Hansen” series
Terabytes worth of credentials, many belonging to the world’s biggest and most sensitive organizations, have been exposed in a supply-chain attack on LiteLLM, an open source tool that streamlines AI-driven software development. Microsoft, Amazon, Cisco, Samsung, and Salesforce are only a handful of the entities whose access secrets were exposed.
The revelation was posted on Tuesday and Wednesday by security firms CloudSEK and Hudson Rock. CloudSEK said it found cloud keys, repository tokens, SSH keys, Kubernetes secrets, package publishing credentials, environment variables, and AI provider keys that could allow attackers to gain access to more than 2,500 organizations…
It is not yet known what the special grand jury convened by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro will be investigating. Special grand juries typically investigate government officials or broad conspiracy cases and organized criminal activity. The special grand jury comes as President Donald Trump has pressured Pirro to deliver on cases he wants prosecuted.
Government officials, conspiracy cases, organized criminal activity: Please tell us she’s going after Trump.
As one local puts it, there’s a “church on every street” of the Appalchian community of Kingsport, in the US state of Tennessee…
“[He said] he would get the gas prices under control, and they were for a while,” says Overstreet. “He said he was gonna get food prices down, but he has no control over that. The president is basically a puppet for Congress and the Senate.
“His hands are tied, to a certain extent.” …
H ha ha. There are very few things the Republican-led House and Senate have kept Trump from doing. Everything that is going wrong – tariffs, Strait of Hormuz, cuts to food poisoning tems – is his doing.
“We live in a great place, and if you’re not conservative, don’t come here,” the preacher says. “Because you wouldn’t be a good fit. But if you’re conservative, come here, and we’ll embrace you.” ..
Mmm, yeah; I’m going to stay away from that place.
birgerjohanssonsays
The Brits again. “Garbage Can Who Can Talk” – Marsh Family parody of “Englishman in New York”
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Mike Walker (Former DoD+VA+FEMA): “A former Southern Poverty Law Center CFO has been arrested on charges she oversaw secret payments to informants inside White supremacist groups.”
Rando 1: “While AG Todd Blanche oversees payments simply to White supremacist groups—who helped stage a seditious attack on our Capitol.”
Rando 2: “And on the anniversary of the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville.”
The prosecution of SPLC members is politically motivated and a blatant attempt to exonerate the right-wing for hate groups in their midst. […] bank and wire fraud as well as money laundering charges.
Based on CNN’s reporting, the defendant set up accounts to funnel money to informants in hate groups. These accounts were, for obvious reasons, not listed as SPLC accounts. You need to disguise payments to moles in hate groups so that your informants don’t get outed.
After looking through the new indictment, I’m less convinced there is any substance to this prosecution. The big change […] is adding conspiracy charges […] That doesn’t affect much in the factual analysis.
The wire fraud charge remains the same: SPLC defrauded donors by giving money to informants in hate groups. The allegations concern a failure to disclose the money would be used in such a manner, which is simply not federal wire fraud.
The bank fraud and money laundering charges rely on the fact that the shell entities created by SPLC had no employees, falsely listed the defendant as owner, did no business, and used odd names for payments. But, I don’t see evidence of falsity. […] Having no employees is also not a falsity. Indeed, that’s what a sole proprietorship starts out as. […] If they were simply passthroughs, that’s consistent with the bank docs. The indictment also takes issue with the names of the payments like “RAREBOOKS050,” which LOL. That’s like complaining the memo line on a check said “Happy Birthday!” instead of the real reason for the payment.
[…]
I think the prosecution is largely meritless based on the new indictment. But it might survive efforts to have it dismissed.
Rando 3: “These payments to informants are literally what crippled the Klan for generations.”
Rando 4: “The podcast Weird Little Guys covers some of the groups and people that got sued by the SPLC. […] they sued Louis Beam to make him and his Klan group stop terrorizing Vietnamese immigrants in Texas, and they sued the Aryan Nation so bad they lost their compound. […] They also regularly send information to the FBI if their informants tell them about a crime”
The peak is predicted for 14:53 UTC on August 13, 2026. […] August 14 might be good as well. Watch your weather! […] The radiant—in the constellation Perseus—rises in late evening and is highest at dawn, as seen from the Northern Hemisphere. That’s why the meteors are best before dawn.
For many populated areas in the Southern Hemisphere, the radiant doesn’t rise above the horizon. Unless you live at a latitude closer to Earth’s equator than about 30 degrees S., the Perseids probably aren’t a major shower for you. But you can still see Delta Aquariid meteors flying in a dark sky!
[…] the peak mornings for the Perseids will be moon-free. […] Duration of shower: July 14 to September 1. […] But, remember, the meteors tend to fall off rapidly after the peak mornings.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Adding to Reginald Selkirk @277.
Marcy Wheeler (EmptyWheel): “Jeanine Pirro has now set up a Special Grand Jury, presumably so she can write a Special Counsel-type report implicating people she can’t charge.”
Brad Moss (Security clearance attorney): “This is not what the Special Counsel regulations were meant for, but what does anything matter anymore.”
Anna Bower (Lawfare): “Thing is, grand juries have a mind of their own. The last time a federal special grand jury tried to issue a report, it accused DOJ of botching the case. The judge only released a heavily redacted version—so the foreperson wrote a book accusing DOJ of a cover up [The Ambushed Grand Jury]. Good luck, Jeanine!”
KGsays
“My son is currently on that ship and listening to him say that he and his shipmates constantly think about jumping off the ship just for relief is so hard to listen to,” one worried parent wrote to Stars and Stripes in July. “[…] our loved ones are out there fighting with no understanding as to what they’re defending.” – Sky Captain@251 quoting Stripes
That’s an easy one: they are defending Donald Trump’s ego.
StevoRsays
Good to see and a sign that the (Aussie) kids are (mostly) alright :
Students around the country have walked out of school to join protests in capital cities and some regions against One Nation and its leader Pauline Hanson.
..(Snip)..
In Melbourne, hundreds of students gathered outside the State Library in the CBD carrying anti-One Nation signs, banners and a pinata designed to look like Ms Hanson which was broken apart to reveal lollies.
Organised by the National Union of Students, the rally saw speeches from both high school students and political leaders, including former Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam. Ms Ratnam said she was impressed by the turnout. “It gives me hope that we can stop the rise of One Nation,” she said. “Everything is on the line right now.”
The Trump administration today unveiled a new program that will allow vetted U.S. companies to conduct cyber surveillance and offensive cyber operations against foreign transnational criminal organizations. A presidential memorandum signed August 12 directs the National Coordination Center to establish and manage the program, expanding the government’s fight against cybercrime by tapping the technical capabilities of the private sector. It builds on a March executive order that called for greater private-sector involvement, but goes significantly further by establishing a formal operational framework for the initiative.
…
This sounds to me like something that should be handled by a government agency, and that agency should have diligent watchdogs.
Oprah Winfrey has finally addressed the two Trump-friendly doctors she made famous through her wildly popular TV show.
The talk show host, now 72, introduced Dr. Phil McGraw (he is not a medical doctor) as a regular weekly expert and relationship strategist on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1988. Dr. Mehmet Oz first appeared on Winfrey’s show in 2004.
…
birgerjohanssonsays
Jimmy Kimmel show; Hairy Houdini.
“Trump Comments on Escaping Iranian Threat, Karoline Leavitt Steps Down & My Pillow Mike Loses Race”
The Heart X1 is a battery-electric powered aircraft. Spanning 106 feet, measuring 76 feet nose to tail, and weighing more than 25,000 pounds at takeoff, Heart Aerospace claims the X1 is the largest battery-electric aircraft ever flown.
The flight took place on Wednesday, 12th August 2026, at Heart’s X1 flight-test base at Plattsburgh International Airport,
…
The piloted mission lasted 27 minutes, during which X1 reached an altitude of 1,100 feet AGL and its all-electric propulsion system delivered more than one megawatt of power.
…
Powered entirely by batteries, X1 used approximately $5 worth of electricity during its first flight.
The X1 is a full-scale demonstrator representative of Heart’s ES-30 production aircraft, designed to validate key technologies, aerodynamics and flight performance, and Heart’s organisational capabilities. The ES-30 is a conventional fixed-wing, 30-seat hybrid-electric regional airliner being developed for FAA Part 25 certification.
…
Heart targets an entry into service for 2031. In doing so, the ES-30 could be competitive, with them noting that operational costs could be 40% lower than legacy regional aircraft.
…
But the next big date for Heart will be 2028, as it targets that year for the first pre-production ES-30 to be completed and take flight.
With 30 seats available, this could be a game-changer for some routes that require aviation links but can’t justify a larger aircraft. In a hybrid role, the ES-30 is projected to operate with a 500-mile range in hybrid mode, whilst in electric mode, 125 miles…
Scientists in London have invented what they claim is the world’s first fully biodegradable party balloon.
Researchers at Imperial College London say standard balloons can take years to break down and can release harmful chemicals.
But their new balloon biodegrades within nine months.
…
The new balloon, called Bioloon, is no more expensive than a standard balloon and is easier to blow up, according to the scientists.
…
Standard balloons, made of natural rubber, undergo sulphur vulcanization, with accelerators, activators and other substances added, said the scientists at Imperial.
They said these often contained heavy metal salts or nitrosamines that can leach into the environment once the balloon degrades.
Bioloon starts with the same rubber material but uses a method that links the polymer chains together without harmful additives.
The team said the product would be available commercially within two years.
Melia hopes the material’s use could be expanded beyond balloons.
“We hope to start working on gloves, surgical and non-surgical latex, medicinal apparatus, clothing, and even condoms in the future.”
Stampede Drilling says they are modifying the rig for Arctic operations. They have received up-front capital for this and were expecting to move the rig to Greenland in the third quarter pending authorization (which I expect is not going to be coming any time soon).
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit on Thursday by the Trump administration that alleged that Harvard University failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment.
U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston said in his ruling, opens new tab that the administration’s lawsuit, which was filed in March, had not plausibly shown an ongoing violation of federal civil rights law on Harvard’s campus.
Stearns said the government’s allegations focused largely on incidents amid protests over Israel’s war in Gaza during the 2023/24 school year, with only a handful of later incidents alleged in March 2025 that were “too isolated and episodic” to support a claim of ongoing civil rights violations.
The judge said the lawsuit did not adequately allege failures by the Ivy League school after the government told Harvard in June 2025 that it was not complying with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination based on race, color and national origin in programs that receive federal funding…
Tropical Storm Lala has formed in the Central Pacific Ocean, the National Hurricane Center said on the morning of Aug. 13, adding that a hurricane watch has been issued for the Big Island of Hawaii.
Lala, now with sustained winds of 40 mph, is forecast to strengthen and could be near hurricane strength when it approaches the Big Island by early Saturday, Aug. 15…
Rob Grigjanissays
Lynna; best wishes for a speedy recovery. Maybe ease up on the WWE stuff ;-)
On August 8, police arrived […] to the sight of three self-described “bearded, burly men” who had been in the women’s bathroom and changing area. The manager […] screamed and rushed children out the door. The men […] didn’t agitate any of the women; they didn’t remove their clothes or make crass comments. They simply used […] malicious compliance to prove their point.
[…]
The men, dressed in yellow “Compliance Crew” shirts, were part of a small group of trans-masculine Kansans who used the women’s room at facilities across the state that day in a coordinated action. They were also spotted at a zoo, a library, a museum, and other parks.
[…]
At the library, at least one patron complained; at other places, the men used the bathroom and received dirty looks, and simply left the space without confrontation. But at Long Branch Lagoon, members of the Kansas Compliance Crew resorted to having to describe their genitals to police in order to resolve the matter and avoid arrest. […] Furthermore, both the manager and the police reportedly said “they had never heard of SB244 nor been notified by any government entity of its passage.”
Trump has directed the Navy to tear out a complex system for launching jet fighters from its aircraft carriers and instead go back to using steam catapults, a move Navy officials have fought for years and will likely cost billions of dollars.
[…]
The move directs the Navy to redesign the fourth ship in the class—to be named the Doris Miller—and all remaining ships. The first three ships—the Ford, John F. Kennedy and Enterprise—will retain the electromagnetic system.
Rando: “This is the kind of thing admirals should be completely fucking ignoring and do a study for 2 years.”
The board of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC has voted to add President Donald Trump’s name to the facade of the performance arts venue two months after a judge ordered its removal.
Board members, many of whom are Trump allies, voted to add “Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump” to the formal name of the centre on Thursday, according to Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, who sits on the board.
“This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed,” she said. “I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument.” …
When the Famous Players Six theatre in Prince George, B.C., never received the posters for the film Spider-Man: Brand New Day, employee and artist Drake Landon stepped in.
Landon says the theatre never received the promotional posters for the latest Spider-Man release because of a shipping error, so his manager asked 19-year-old Landon to draw a replacement in the style of the internet meme Spooderman.
Spooderman features a crudely drawn, MS Paint parody of Marvel’s Spider-Man which first appeared around 2012.
“I said I can draw actual Spider-Man, but I’m not gonna argue, I’ll draw Spooderman,” said Landon, explaining he tried to draw Spooderman according to the character’s Brand New Day design…
Seventh-graders in Virginia jumped in to help when another student allegedly attacked a teacher with a knife, authorities said.
When a 12-year-old boy allegedly stabbed a teacher at Jonesville Middle School in western Virginia, “several students came in and tackled the kid, got him down and controlled him,” Lee County Sheriff Gary Parsons told ABC News on Thursday.
The teacher suffered non-life-threatening injuries and received stitches, the sheriff’s office said…
The Food and Drug Administration conducted just under 1,000 foreign food safety inspections in 2025, and the farm in Mexico believed to be at the center of the ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak in the U.S. was not one of them.
A federal law enacted to prevent diseased and dirty food from reaching Americans’ plates requires the FDA to carry out nearly 20 times that many foreign inspections each year. But the FDA hasn’t come close to meeting the congressional mandate — or even 10% of it — in the 10 years it has been in place, spanning administrations led by both political parties.
FDA officials have described the requirement as unrealistic, but have never asked Congress to revise it. A lower foreign inspection target the agency deemed necessary to safeguard foreign imports is still nearly five times higher than the number of inspections conducted last year.
Congress, meanwhile, has not increased the agency’s food safety budget to outpace or keep up with inflation, and widespread layoffs during the first year of President Trump’s second term squeezed resources further…
A man accused of touching women’s hair as he sat behind them on Metro trains — and posting video of the incidents to social media — was found guilty Wednesday of a single count of simple assault.
Bryan Betancur, of Silver Spring, Maryland, was found guilty in D.C. Superior Court of surreptitiously fondling a woman’s hair on a Red Line train back in February.
…
The FBI has said Betancur is a self-professed white supremacist, who was photographed holding a Confederate flag during the Jan. 6 insurrection. It was part of a federal case against Betancur in which the FBI said he was on parole for burglary charges and wearing an ankle monitor while taking part in the insurrection of the Capitol. He was sentenced to jail but was later pardoned by President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, a 41-year veteran of the bench, convened the hearing seeking answers about whether the Trump administration had complied with his previous orders in the case, including one about the need for the Justice Department to publish justifications for the numerous redactions in the released Epstein files.
Justice Department official Andrew Block told Sullivan he was not in a position to commit to a time frame, saying that it was out of his control and that information would be “forthcoming.”
Block was just assigned to this case by the DOJ and was really a fall guy for failures by higher officials, mostly Blanche.
Attorney Brendan Ballou, who is representing Phang, said in a statement after the hearing that Blanche had “failed to follow the law.”
“He has failed to produce its redaction log. He has failed to begin producing foreign language documents. He has failed to produce notes concerning Donald Trump,” Ballou said. “The Justice Department’s strategy here is endless delay, and we’re glad that the Court appears to recognize this. Our next step is to file a proposed order for how to handle the Attorney General’s noncompliance, which we plan to do shortly.”
The judge appears to be reasonable here, he isn’t jumping to contempt of court yet, he is making sure he has his bases covered. The judge seems to realize that is where this is going though. That the DOJ has simply not produced files or explanations of why not.
A sailor who jumped off the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier last week was in the water for about an hour before he was rescued […] The wife […] was not contacted by Navy officials about the incident until four days after
[…]
one of her husband’s friends on the ship messaged her that someone from his squadron went overboard, she said. Later, that friend told her it was her husband […] Unable to reach him, she reached out to the ship’s ombudsman in hopes of receiving more information.
[…]
An email from the command master chief of the squadron […] said her husband “is safe and sound onboard and will be returning to San Diego soon to receive support from Balboa,” a naval medical center
[…]
her husband went to his chain of command and the medical team on the ship and expressed concerns about his mental health, and apparently told them he was not doing OK. The wife said her husband said they kept brushing him off.
food shortages, overwork, 200+ days at sea, and reports of attempts at going overboard are severe. This is bad but not the first time. In 2022, several sailors on the USS George Washington committed suicide while it was getting repairs. […] navy suicides are an ongoing issue and not unique to Trump 2.0. […] Two more sailors on carriers killed themselves in early 2023. Navy suicides hit then-record highs in 2018 and 2019. [Articles]
The carrier rotation was planned before concerns were raised about the living conditions, according to a U.S. official. […] The USS George Washington, based in Japan, has been operating in the Pacific in recent weeks. It transited the Strait of Malacca alongside guided-missile destroyers this week
Scott Whitmore (Former navy): “Heh ‘fresh’. Y’all never been in deck berthing especially after the HVAC goes down for maintenance.”
Rando 1: “I’ve heard it described as ‘ass and Doritos.’ Also ‘armpits and Doritos.'”
Scott Whitmore: “Hehehehe yeahhhhhh.”
Rando 2: “Aircraft carriers will continue to be sent until morale improves.”
StevoRsays
A group of Palestinians in a small West Bank village have spent almost a week under siege from Israeli settlers, as community members accuse the Israeli military of being complicit in the saga.
US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has labelled the settlers “Israeli terrorists” and demanded they be removed from the area, which is home to many Palestinian American citizens.
Groups of Israeli settlers have been attacking homes on the edge of Qusra, roughly 50 kilometres north of Jerusalem, for months as they try to intimidate families into abandoning the properties.
The intensity of the attacks has increased in recent days, with power and water cut to the Palestinian properties.
Is it a star or a black hole? A recently discovered astronomical object appears to be a bizarre mix of both.
About the size of the solar system and shrouded in a cloud of gas, the object produces 100 billion times the energy of any known star. The object, spotted with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is so strange astronomers have dubbed it a “black hole star.”And while it is the first of its kind to be described, the researchers who spotted it can already tell it is far from the last.
The discovery, published today in Nature, could help reveal the identity of mysterious “little red dots” detected in images of the early cosmos taken by the JWST. Lead researcher Rohan Naidu, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii, said the black hole stars had “remarkable physics”.
Four days after Alex Pretti was fatally shot [Homeland Security] quietly opened an investigation […] The target was not the Border Patrol agents who had killed Mr. Pretti
[…]
it was […] labor unions, a climate change group, socialist collectives—that investigators believed had provided help and money to what they described as the “violent opportunists and agitators” on the street […] In one instance, officials used administrative subpoenas to obtain more than three years of financial records […] In another, investigators scrutinized three years’ worth of wire transfers made by the nation’s biggest health care workers union […] an inquiry into “domestic terrorist financing.”
[…] undercover agents spied on protesters and organizers at meetings held online, as well as in libraries, parks and churches, taking down not only what they said, but also their names and sometimes license plate numbers. The undercover agents also infiltrated group chats on Signal […]
So far, none of the organizations […] have faced charges. And yet, […] prosecutors showed grand jurors a PowerPoint slide asserting that 18 groups—including the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the country’s largest federation of labor unions—were part of a conspiracy to impede the work of immigration officers in Minnesota. Ultimately, that supposed conspiracy led in June to the indictment of 15 people accused of interfering with law enforcement agents as members of […] antifa. […] tenuous connections [became pretext] to take a deep dive into the inner workings of the groups.
[…]
The investigation in some ways called to mind Cointelpro, […] from the 1950s to the 1970s
Zack Whittaker (TechCrunch): “Administrative subpoenas are nothing more than DHS authorities stamping their little feet and demanding companies turn over data with official-looking papers—but it’s a frustratingly effective tactic.”
Marcy Wheeler (EmptyWheel): “Remember that in the Cities Church case, HSI was using the same customs subpoenas, including to get stuff for which judges had already refused warrants, based on 1A.”
One of the FBI’s functions since inception is to passively instill paranoia in Americans critical of institutional authority. This [NYT] piece reaches back to make it seem like that’s something that happened [in the distant past] 60 years ago, but that is historically indefensible.
Sanho Tree: “They illegally spied on my [Cato Institute] office for years under Nixon because we were on his “enemies list.” It took years of litigation, but we successfully sued them and there is supposedly a red letter at the front of our FBI file where they promised never to investigate us again without a court order.”
[Circa 1950.] Truman was heavily involved […] The major purpose [was] promotion of the belief that homosexuals in the military and federal government constituted security risks […] logic was circular: homophobia supposedly made gays vulnerable [to outing] blackmail [by communists], but the era’s policies […] made gays even more vulnerable to blackmail.
* McCarthy threatened rumors to silence his opponents.
* Poland’s 1985 Operation Hyacinth did, in fact, create a national database of 11,000 domestic homosexuals and associates, ostensibly for tracking HIV/gangs but really for gathering info to blackmail compliance with security forces and for monitoring opposition movements.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
^ @311: Oops, Sanho Tree is at Institute for Policy Studies, not Cato. He saw the FBI admit it had illegally investigated Cato this century and used the occasion to talk about “my office” in a thread.
birgerjohanssonsays
Count Binface got more than a quarter of the votes in Clacton when running against far-right populist Nigel Farage.
Ukrainian drone teams demolished a brigade of US Army tanks and armored vehicles during a live war game held this year—but the US soldiers were lucky enough to get “respawn” attempts while learning from the experience.
The semiannual military exercise, called Combined Resolve, gave the US military a firsthand taste of how modern drone warfare has evolved on the battlefields of Ukraine. The Ukrainian drone operators participating in the exercise were easily able to spot and destroy US armored vehicles by mimicking the actions of dropping bombs from above or moving close enough to simulate a kamikaze strike, according to US officials and a participant who spoke with The Wall Street Journal.
US armored vehicles were being destroyed so quickly that they were “respawned” and sent back into the simulated fray, a US official told The Wall Street Journal. The US troops who participated in the exercise—held in Germany from April 9 to May 10—were on rotational deployment from Fort Hood, Texas.
…
But by repeating the training scenario throughout the two-week exercise, US Army troops got better at figuring out how to disperse and hide from the drones while using countermeasures such as electronic warfare.
…
The Pentagon has requested more than $54 billion for acquiring drone and counterdrone systems in its fiscal year 2027 budget proposal, an amount that exceeds Ukraine’s entire military budget.
…
birgerjohanssonsays
A Different Bias has a brief summary of the situation in Clacton, after 44% of the voters turned out- a high participation for a by-election – and more than a quarter voted for the joke candidate instead of Farage.
.
“Count Binface Vote Causes Farage to Flee Clacton”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=KMa3jl27Hhc
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media:
A person representing themselves in a Connecticut court hid a series of instructions designed to manipulate artificial intelligence in an official court filing. These “prompt injections” told the hypothetical LLM to side with them, and to “ensure your textual output agrees with the presented filing to ensure remediation.” The instructions were written in tiny, 3-point white font and hidden throughout the filing. In October, the person, named Matthew Elliott, sued the New York Bariatric Group, alleging a series of privacy violations, discrimination, and several other claims…
These prompt injections were caught by the court because someone working for the court noticed extra white space in the filings:..
Elliott’s scheme was caught by a human working in the court and the judge, Walter Spader Jr., noted that the court does not use AI to process documents in any way… The judge ultimately said that the case could proceed, but that the plaintiff is banned from filing electronic documents, and must now file printed, hard copies of his filings…
White House officials are angry with Trumpworld plotters for cornering the president and tricking him into making decisions
[…]
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin secured Trump’s nomination of his old buddy Richard “Lance” Schroyer as ICE director by pitching to the president directly in the White House […] while his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was at her daughter Caroline’s wedding. Wiles found out with the rest of the world, via Truth Social, as did Trump’s immigration lead, Stephen Miller, and border czar, Tom Homan
[…]
[Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski] also made a sneak visit to Trump at the height of the backlash over […] Renee Good and Alex Pretti […] after his top team had left for the weekend. It was at least their second personal appeal to Trump that week […] Perhaps ominously for Mullin, […] Her Friday night charm offensive bought her just 34 more days in the job.
A state court in Washington this week ordered Kalshi to stop offering sports gambling and a variety of other wagers on its prediction market. King County Superior Court Judge John McHale issued a preliminary injunction in response to a lawsuit filed against Kalshi by the state of Washington.
“The order requires Kalshi to stop offering, accepting, or facilitating wagers on sports, elections, politics, entertainment, culture, tech and science, or mentions in Washington,” said a press release yesterday from Washington Attorney General Nick Brown. “Kalshi must implement an IP address and residency-based geofence by August 19 and a multi-source geofencing solution by September 2. This does not include all the wagers offered on Kalshi, but it includes a substantial part of their business, which in recent years has been increasingly driven by sports wagers.”
Kalshi is not licensed by the state Gambling Commission and is not registered to conduct business in Washington, the court order said. McHale found that Kalshi ads claiming “that it offers ‘legal betting’ in Washington state are likely to mislead a reasonable consumer that such gambling activities are legal under state law.” …
I know everything feels terrible and doomy but I’ve been working on surveillance issues for most of my adult life and I have never seen so much energy, momentum, and concrete VICTORIES happening as what we are seeing right now on Flock cameras and facial recognition in venues. Keep. Going.
82 Flock contracts canceled since 2021—39 in the first five months of 2026 alone. The replacement: Axon. Same cameras, same plate logs. Axon skips Flock’s national lookup, but the cameras still log every plate. [Article]
[…] Axon has announced plans to build the same interoperable network Flock had—and its leadership already overrode their own ethics board once. Whether city contracts actually block that is what’s in dispute.
…
McConaughey, who has always spoken highly of his “How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days” experience, previously revealed that a fortune teller approached him on the street and convinced him to do the film.
“He immediately goes, ‘There’s a movie you’re considering right now. It’s a romantic comedy. You have to do this or it will be one of the biggest regrets of your life. It is going to be a blast, it is going to be an incredible experience and it is going to make a bunch of money,’” he recalled in a 2023 Vanity Fair interview.
McConaughey said while he initially thought the “studio hired” the mystery man to sway his decision, the advice stuck with him…
Luigi Mangione has admitted to killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson after pleading guilty to federal charges of interstate stalking resulting in death.
“I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” the 28-year-old admitted in Manhattan federal court on Friday.
…
Mangione faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. He also faces state charges, although his lawyers are seeking to get those dismissed following his guilty plea…
there was a high likelihood that the derailments were caused by a track buckle, where steel rails that have expanded in the heat snap into a buckled shape under the wheels of a passing train, though there are other possible causes. […] steel rail was known to expand significantly in extreme heat, with a 1C rise in temperature causing approximately 11mm of expansion per kilometre of track.
KGsays
Best wishes to Lynna, OM for a speedy and complete recovery!
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Rando 1: “Here’s what Trump thinks about the ‘suckers’ and ‘losers'”
Rando 2: “It will never cease to amaze me that Trump’s political career didn’t end with ‘McCain wasn’t a war hero’. […] you’d think insulting the military would have more of an impact among supposed ‘patriots’.”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Video clips from a Trump rally in Nassau County, NY.
Aaron Rupar: “Trump says he’ll ‘never apologize’ for jacking up costs on Americans because in Iran he ‘did the right thing’.”
GottaLaff: “Today must be ‘Trump Offends Everyone More Than Usual with His Stupid Statements’ day.”
Aaron Rupar: “Trump calls [NY AG] Letitia James ‘a real slob’ and says ‘she got off on a technicality’.”
Brad Moss: “He is saying this in front of uniformed law enforcement officials who are smiling and laughing.”
Aaron Rupar: “Trump says that after Iran is defeated he’s going to declare the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States.”
Brian Finucane: “Guess we’re going to see an experiment as to whether lying about the outcome of the Iran War works like lying about the outcome of the 2020 election. The price at the pump may provide a reality check.”
Aaron Rupar: “Newly confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche is speaking at a Trump rally to endorse Bruce Blakeman [for NY Gov].”
Radley Balko (Journalist): “A bunch of cops cheering at a political rally—in uniform—as the president and AG endorse a candidate and attack their political opponents is not normal. And it is not okay.”
Dan Froomkin (Journalist): “There could not be a more blatant violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits any executive branch employee from ‘Using his or her official title while participating in political activity.’ Unlikely to be prosecuted, however.”
GottaLaff: “The Attorney f’ing General.”
Julie Roginsky (Dem strategist): “Remember [2016] when the right had an insane freakout when [Obama AG] Loretta Lynch’s plane was on the tarmac next to Bill Clinton’s and she went over to say hello for a few minutes, which led to her recusal from the Hillary email server investigation because she didn’t want to appear even remotely political?”
Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment Michael Boren, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, asked agency staff last month to escalate the amount of aircraft at a seven-acre fire that had started near his mega-ranch […] a tech billionaire
On July 12, what began as an unattended campfire grew into the Cabin Creek Fire […] While at his ranch, Boren called Forest Service officials […] at the regional level and national operations in Washington multiple times […] including at least once in the middle of the night.
[…]
Six current and former Forest Service officials said the response was greater than what is typical for a fire of that scale that did not pose a significant threat to life or property. […] Boren pushed for more aircraft to fight the fire even though “it was easily accessible by ground,” […] In total, about nine aircraft, including helicopters, air tankers and tactical planes, responded to the blaze on July 12 […] an effort that lasted a few hours and cost nearly $115,000 […] some of the aircraft were diverted from efforts to contain fires elsewhere in the state
[…]
On June 25, for example, there was a 21-acre fire […] three aircraft responded to combat that fire for about 13 minutes
[…]
July 12 was also a busy firefighting day in Idaho. […] Another wildfire broke out in southern Idaho more than an hour later, growing to nearly 4,000 acres. Seven aircraft responded to that blaze, including four that had flown to [his fire]. Meanwhile, two helicopters remained circling the Cabin Creek Fire for hours.
today’s result won’t stop the Metropolitan Police investigation into donations to Reform UK, questions about Farage’s friendship with a convicted fraudster, or the parliamentary investigation into why he did not register a £5m gift from a billionaire donor.
And given Farage triggered this race and the result was entirely predictable, what was the point of it all? […] One thing the Reform UK leader could have anticipated is the cost. In a constituency with the most deprived neighbourhood in England, the council estimates taxpayers will need to fork out £250,000 for the organisation of this by-election.
[…]
The [gift] investigation was paused after Farage resigned his seat in July, but has now been re-opened, following his re-election […] If the Reform UK leader is found to have breached parliament’s rules, it is possible that the sanctions could lead to a second by-election. If that comes to pass, the party is confident they will win again. […] The far bigger problem for Reform UK is that nationally, there are signs their leader’s popularity is on the slide.
Cargo thieves knocked two private security escort vehicles out of action on California roads in recent months, then made off with millions of dollars in AI data center hardware the escorts were guarding, according to a WIRED investigation. Both shipments were traveling from Silicon Valley to Southern California, and neither truck has been recovered. The attacks come as cargo theft losses across the U.S. and Canada more than doubled year over year to $304.6 million in Q2 2026, and as restricted Nvidia servers sell in China for roughly twice their U.S. retail price.
Gerardo Pachuca, a former Los Angeles sheriff’s detective who now consults on cargo crime, told WIRED that one escort was rear-ended by a driver who fled the scene, while the other was spun off the road with a PIT maneuver, the same tactic police use to end car chases. Once the escorts were disabled, the semitrucks kept driving and disappeared. Investigators believe the truck drivers were complicit, with both thefts involving motor carrier numbers that had recently changed hands, a fraud technique that lets criminals book freight under a legitimate company’s federal registration…
A magnitude-7.7 earthquake hit off the coast of Indonesia in the eastern Flores region, the United States Geological Survey reported on Friday.
The epicenter was 42 miles north-northwest of the city of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara province.
There are “38 fatalities, two people seriously injured, 11 with minor injuries,” the head of the National Disaster Management Agency, or BNPB, told a televised press conference on Saturday, adding that approximately 2,000 people had fled to safer ground…
Construction workers in Belgium this week uncovered $10.4 million in gold while building a new sewer below a former brewery, according to local police.
Police in Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde, a Flemish community outside Brussels, said the workers contacted them immediately about the find, which officers cataloged, then placed in a “high-security federal government vault.”
…
The construction workers don’t actually get to keep the gold. Under Belgian law, the rightful owner has the right to claim the gold within five years.
The building is owned by an organization that provides welfare support to the Flemish community.
The director of the organization said he hoped the gold could be used to help with the “enormous need we experience daily,” according to the BBC.
…
A shooting involving multiple suspects and five people shot at Virginia State University prompted a campus lockdown early Saturday.
The shooting happened near the university’s Quad Annexes, and both campus police and Chesterfield County police are actively investigating. County police said officers discovered five people suffering from gunshot wounds outside campus dormitories when they arrived.
The five victims were transported to hospitals, and one initially listed as having life-threatening injuries has been upgraded to critical condition, county police said. The other victims sustained non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
The university said in a statement that the shooting involves “multiple suspects.” The statement asked people to avoid the immediate area…
… Clark, a third-year guard out of Iowa, finished with her seventh game of at least 25 points and 10 assists this season, which is more than any player in league history has in their career. She holds the career record with 13 such games…
Our newly elevated Glorious Leader, Andy Burnham, has finally mentioned climate change in relation to the extreme heat, prolonged drought leading to poor harvests, and multiple wildfires, across the UK. But has also launched a consultation on cutting the target for the shift to electric vehicles, and is still expected to give the go-ahead for more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. I’m starting to feel nostalgic for Starmer.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
NBC, linked by Reginald Selkirk @331: “earthquakes and volcanic activity because of its location on the ‘Ring of Fire,'”
Imagine if *every* time anything involving light happened—from rainbows to solar eclipses to solar flares—had to be framed in terms of “luminiferous aether” by newspapers and other media. This is basically what it’s like with geology and the “Ring of Fire.”
The first thing that needs to be said is that the “Ring of Fire” doesn’t exist. It is not a thing that exists like a mountain or the Pacific Ocean or even a tectonic plate. It’s not a real thing. It’s either a poetical reference to the Pacific’s coasts or an 1850s zombie idea that just won’t die. […] there’s a tendency to talk about the Ring of Fire like it’s a thing formed by tectonics in the same way a volcano is.
[*snip*]
Another way of looking at it can be found here:
[Article: Discover – No, the “Ring of fire” is not a real thing]
Sure, there are a lot of tectonic boundaries along the edge of the Pacific. It is a large ocean underlain by multiple oceanic plates that are interacting with lots of continental and other oceanic plates. However, what happens in Chile doesn’t really change what is happening in California, or Japan or New Zealand. […] They are not directly connected
[…]
What is true is there are a lot of volcanoes along the edge of the Pacific because of subduction, where oceanic plates dive under continental (or other oceanic) plates meeting their doom in the Earth’s mantle. That process generates magma, which forms volcanoes. In this case, lots of volcanoes. […] With subduction comes earthquakes too, so along the rim of the Pacific, literally hundreds of earthquakes happen each week. Dozens of these earthquakes can be big (larger than M5) and near populated areas like in Indonesia or Mexico. […] a few happen close in time because of the clustering in a random distribution of events
[…]
just a lazy way to say you didn’t want to look up or understand the specific geologic setting of that country
Biden Family Grift vs. Trump Family Grift: Let’s Do the Numbers: Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research tallies up the comparative numbers. He comes up with a figure of over $21 billion for the Trumps and 8.6 million for the Bidens (none of it going to Joe B).
One might quibble about some of the figures – $13 billion from Venezuela’s oil, f’rinstance (on one hand, more recent reports say it’s $19 billion now, on the other it’s all stashed in a Qatari bank and no one but the bankers and Trumpistas know what’s happening with it) – but it’s clear that when we talk about “crime families”, one is major Mafiosi and the other is dollar store shoplifters.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Nadine Batchelor-Hunt (Journalist): “I don’t think there’s ever been a clearer example of the British media bullying someone, who was so clearly vulnerable, to death so shamelessly in my lifetime for engagement and clicks. And now we’ll have to watch the people that did it claim they’re shocked, and horrified.”
Alex Cruikshanks (Historian): “A university lecturer being fired for plagiarism would not be national news >99% of the time. It was inflated into one this time purely because it fit into racist ‘culture war’ narratives about ‘DEI’.”
[249 articles in 22 days, from Jul 24 to Aug 14.] On 5 August 2026 Jason Arday resigned from Cambridge […] On 14 August he was found dead at his home
[…]
the BBC and Sky covered it as news, at news volume. The pile-on was led from the top of the market: The Times, the Telegraph, the Mail, the Spectator and the Express account for 158 of the articles counted here. […] The pile-on had names. The same [authors], again and again. […] A resignation usually ends a story. Here it multiplied it.
[…] Times Higher Education, the specialist outlet best equipped to weigh the evidence, had the allegations documented in a 63-page dossier in September 2025. […] it published nothing for eleven months, while Arday’s harassment complaint put its reporter under a four-month Met [police] investigation that the Commissioner later conceded should never have been opened. When the story finally surfaced, it surfaced through a race-science Substack, and the outlets that amplified it were the ones with the least expertise and the fewest scruples about a man’s childhood. Legal threats did not stop the story. They selected who would tell it.
No cause of death has been established. […] Nobody can honestly write the sentence ‘the coverage killed him’, and this page does not write it. What can be measured is what he was under when he died […]
The allegations were serious and much of the reporting was substantive. A Telegraph-commissioned analysis found more than 100 passages of his PhD matching an earlier thesis. The Times found data in his work it called ‘impossible’. Universities denied positions he claimed; his publisher had quietly watered down his memoir’s claims a year earlier. Scrutiny of a celebrated professor’s record is journalism, and some of these stories needed writing. This page counts what came with them: the nicknames, the polls, the jokes, the psychiatric speculation, the TikTok-sourced interrogation of a disabled man’s childhood, at a rate of twenty articles a day across the press, after he had told everyone in writing that he was at his limit.
Rando 1: “Danish media jumped on from the beginning […] Prominent Danish publications were putting it in civilizational terms. [Berlingske headline: “The fall of the Cambridge professor is a symptom of the fall of the West”] This racism has long been latent, but it is now being expressed in deeply repulsive ways calling for the stripping rights from specific peoples.”
Rando 2: “You know who wasn’t hounded to suicide for dodgy academic research? ANDREW FUCKING WAKEFIELD.”
Charlotte Riley (History prof): “FFS, You don’t even have to look *outside Cambridge* for examples of white professors who have behaved far, far worse and not only kept their jobs, but have been protected and celebrated by both their institution and the media.”
Gabriel Jacobs (Paleontologist)
You’d think that [Jack Horner] “one of the most famous paleontologists of the Dinosaur Renaissance era (who recently married a student 1/3rd his age) showed up in the Epstein Files in pretty dang bad circumstances” would be the kind of academia scandal news that got mainstream traction. (it’s got: crime, sex, celebrity, dinosaurs) But I’ve literally only heard about it through paleontology word-of-mouth.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on Saturday that his country struck the Progress Rocket Space Center deep within Russia using ground-launched cruise missiles.
“In Russia’s Samara region, one of the key enterprises within Roscosmos—the Progress Center, which was involved, among other things, in electronics production–was hit,” Zelenskyy said on the social media site X. “Flamingo missiles were used. A good achievement.”
The largest city in the Samara Oblast, about 900 km from the Ukrainian border, Samara is home to Russia’s most important manufacturer of rockets. The Progress center assembles the workhorse vehicle for Russia, the Soyuz-2 vehicle, as well as the newer Soyuz-5 rocket. The facility also builds military satellites…
Lala has strengthened into a hurricane as it approaches the Big Island of Hawaii Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said. Heavy wind bands are moving in, with widespread hurricane-force wind gusts expected across the island’s higher elevations and conditions expected to “rapidly deteriorate.”
At 8 a.m. Hawaii time, or 2 p.m. ET, the center of Lala was about 90 miles southeast of South Point with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. Lala is expected to move near or over the southern portion of the Big Island later Saturday.
If it makes landfall as a hurricane, Lala would be the first on record to hit the Big Island and the first hurricane to make landfall in Hawaii in more than three decades.
…
State Department of Transportation officials announced they are closing Hilo International Airport this morning and will close Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole at 2 p.m as Lala pounds the Big Island.
…
Liechtenstein has announced that it has changed royal succession rules to allow women to ascend the throne.
The declaration was made on the national day of the central European country, which has a population of just 44,000.
Liechtenstein’s current ruler, Prince Hans-Adam II, has been the head of their royal family since 1989. The rule change will not affect his heir, Hereditary Prince Alois, who was his first-born.
Alois has carried out most official royal duties for the last two decades.
“The order of succession is being changed from male primogeniture to absolute primogeniture,” the House of Liechtenstein said in a statement.
“This means that in future the first-born child, regardless of sex, will become heir to the throne and later princess or prince of Liechtenstein.”
…
The U.S. Navy is considering a major redesign of its new aircraft carriers to better match President Donald Trump’s preferred aesthetic for the warships, according to seven current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The service is evaluating the feasibility of moving the multistory tower that acts as the carrier’s command center farther forward, toward the middle of the ship, to resemble older vessels, the officials said. The review, which has not been previously reported, is in response to Trump’s concerns about the “look” of the new Ford-class ships, where the tower is near the rear, these people said.
This has wandered into madness. The previously noted bit above about the plane launching system, post 297 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain, is stupid and not something Trump should be ordering around but at least there has been question about how effective the electromagnetic system is. In this new revelation Trump wants the Navy to redesign the Ford class aircraft carrier because he thinks they look better with the tower more towards the middle.
Apparently he ordered them to look at this in his first term but they reported the redesign would take billions and slow the project for years. Now he has ordered them to look at it again, with an obvious leaning towards ordering them to make the change.
Here are things that happened at the DNC today:
1) Resolution calling to abolish ICE unanimously adopted.
2) Brand-new early state calendar that reflects the full diversity of the Democratic base.
3) Rejection of insider efforts to ban [Ranked Choice Voting] from being used in presidential primaries.
Rando 1: “Abolishing ICE is now the official position of the Democratic Party.”
Rando 2: “In true Dem fashion they also approved reforming it.”
Democrats on Saturday approved dueling messages […] one that calls for “concrete reforms” of ICE and another for abolishing the agency
[…]
Saturday’s vote isn’t binding and doesn’t set the party’s platform, which will be determined at the 2028 convention, but it reflects the party’s differing views on a major issue. Candidates and lawmakers will continue to determine their own positions
[Abolish p73-74]
the DNC urges Democratic members of Congress to craft legislation abolishing ICE and enacting immigration reform that provides pathways to citizenship, protects workers, and ensures dignity
[…]
pursue civil and criminal accountability for any federal agent, attorney, or official who lied under oath, misrepresented evidence, or gave false testimony regarding DHS conduct, and to remove qualified immunity and other protections shielding DHS and ICE personnel and subcontractors who have injured protesters or journalists, fired into moving vehicles, or caused deaths in custody, whether of detained individuals, U.S. citizens, or immigrants regardless of nationality or documentation status
[…]
condition all future DHS appropriations on the wind-down of [ICE] and the immigration detention system, […] the release of all people held in immigration detention except those with pending criminal charges or an unresolved criminal history requiring adjudication, whose cases shall be promptly referred to the criminal legal system and its due process protections, […] and located in a criminal justice facility rather than civil immigration detention […] the termination of all contracts with private prison corporations […] a prohibition on the transfer of detention functions to state, local, or contracted actors as ICE is wound down; and the reopening and full staffing of the DHS civil rights and oversight offices
[…]
a copy of this resolution be transmitted to the Democratic leadership and members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and to Democratic Attorneys General.
[Reform p11]
the right path forward on immigration is […] the kind of bipartisan framework that Trump torpedoed as a candidate in 2024 […] [DNC] urges Congress to guarantee timely access to counsel and prohibit the use of private prisons and for-profit contractors for immigration detention […]
[DNC] wholeheartedly supports Democrats who have used every legislative tool available to demand concrete reforms and rein in ICE and CBP abuses, including stricter requirements for judicial warrants, a uniform code of conduct, mandatory body cameras, and a ban on masks
The reform resolution was short retrospective praise. Politico was technically misleading in saying it “calls for ‘concrete reforms’ of ICE”. The Abolish text was much more detailed.
Why South Carolina [primary scheduled first]? Well, because, The date of the primary is set by state legislatures in most states. Republicans in other [African American]-heavy states, such as Georgia or Mississippi, are not going to do Dems any favors by moving their primary date. But in South Carolina the law says that state parties get to say when the primaries are.
That means that if you’re looking for a state where the Dem primary electorate will be substantially Black, South Carolina is going to be your go-to […] Every candidate is going to be investing heavily in South Carolina, including the lesser lights, and doing retail politics there. This will definitely elevate the Black community’s concerns, which is the point of this primary […]
Plus, and this is the big one: instead of only four states in the early window before Super Tuesday, now there are SIX, which means plenty of opportunities for other candidates to recover from South Carolina even if they had a poor showing there. In addition to [Nevada], which is 2nd on the calendar, the DNC early state calendar now features New Hampshire, Michigan, New Mexico, and Virginia: a diversity of heavily Latino states, heavy union density states, white working class states, AAPI communities, and even highly educated liberals. It’s six states representing the whole Dem coalition.
I happened into reading Ingersoll about a decade ago as I dug around in the obscure corner of the library where they keep the essayists—my people. I knew of his reputation as a critic of Christianity, and since I am an adherent of that religion, I expected not to like him. Then I read this passage, in which he reacts to the 1883 decision in which the thoroughly corrupt and racist Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1866:
This decision takes from seven millions of people the shield of the Constitution. It leaves the best of the colored race at the mercy of the meanest of the white. It feeds fat the ancient grudge that vicious ignorance bears toward race and color. . . . The masked wretches who, in the darkness of night, drag the poor negro from his cabin, and lacerate with whip and thong his quivering flesh, will, with bloody hands, applaud the Supreme Court.
Well, no one who wrote like that, in Jim Crow America, is my enemy, even if he has mistaken ideas about metaphysics.
So I read on. I read his critique of eternal punishment—“It is simply unadulterated revenge”—and found myself nodding in agreement. I read his defenses of free speech law and of first-wave feminism and women’s suffrage. His tone is unremittingly earnest; he is confident in his principles but not triumphalist; he is sober. He is, God bless him, cringe. His answer, repeatedly, in essay after essay, to the question, What is our purpose on this planet? is happiness—not one’s own, but other people’s…
So it seemed to me when I first read him—and so it still seems. But now we’re in a very different era, and what I most notice is that Ingersoll sounds a lot more Christian than do many people who talk about the subject for a living. It has taken me an entire lifetime to appreciate that his answer to the question of human purpose—to make others happy—is not a shallow one. It is certainly incomplete; we are here to learn to bear and then to embody God’s love and God’s forgiveness, which, much of the time, will look like making other people happier. But it is a far better answer, far closer to the truth, than you’ll get from many of the people who would deplore it as disenchanted utilitarian talk.
In 2022, Assistant Chief Adam Glueck […] purchased electric shock gloves for his [Missouri police] officers […] on a podcast interview a couple of years later […] Glueck joked on a podcast interview a couple of years later. “They’ve grown really attached.” The shock gloves, he went on to explain, allow their wearer to inflict pain without leaving the sort of marks that could look bad to witnesses or leave an officer vulnerable to lawsuits. […] If an officer punches someone on camera, that can go viral in an instant; even a standard taser leaves puncture wounds. But “the glove is low optic, and it looks better on camera, and it looks better to those witnesses. With a glove, there are no burn marks or scars.”
The gloves, manufactured by a company called Compliant Technologies, have been used by police, sheriffs, jail wardens, and even school resource officers for years. […] The technology is unregulated “despite the clear human rights risks associated with its use,” Amnesty International researchers wrote in a 2025 report detailing instances in which electric-shock devices have been used for torture. […] the Center for Victims of Torture, called the gloves “inherently abusive equipment that facilitates torture.”
[…]
Compliant Technologies was founded in 2018 by Jeff Niklaus, a former Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot […] who believes that President Donald Trump has been “anointed” by God. He is also a sometime conspiracy theorist: In a podcast interview in 2025, he blamed the fatal crash of a passenger plane and a military helicopter on “the vaccines,” and on the Biden administration’s inclusion of women and LGBTQ people in the military.
[…]
local police across the country are still eagerly buying the gloves—in large part so that they can harm people and avoid being sued […] “It’s been a great tool as far as mitigating liability,” according to Nelson County Jailer Justin Hall. Bob Couey of the Floyd County Sheriff’s Department sung the GLOVE’s praises, too: “I highly recommend these gloves to anybody that’s looking for a utility they can use that is conducive to not leading to lawsuits.”
Kat Abughazaleh (Journalist):
every single time ICE has physically hurt me, they have grabbed me by my chest. Most of my femme friends have said the same. I will not be surprised if/when we find out about twisted sexual assaults conducted by ICE agents with these gloves.
No, it wasn’t just that one video of ICE throwing me. Literally every physical encounter I’ve had with ICE has resulted in someone touching or grabbing my breasts. And that was in public. Weirdly, they don’t do the same to my masc friends. Those folks tend to get dragged by the neck.
James Stout (Journalist): “I’ve heard this from so many people who are not citizens as well, but they are often afraid to speak up”
birgerjohanssonsays
Röyksopp – Monument (T.I.E Version)
.
The Norweigian artist Röyksopp is on a par with the late Vangelis, here with lyrics by Robyn. For such an upbeat melody the lyrics are dark as f*ck.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=w64PybOJ8RQ
X is significantly expanding its open source codebase, which includes the app’s “For You” algorithm and its core ranking engine, and adding a feature that will let users see if their account or posts have been impacted by any of its ranking systems, the social network said on Thursday.
Not everything of course but the core of the ranking system is being made public. With a bit of work you can run it locally and get a better idea how it works. It’s an AI and they are not making their model available, only the program and information needed to run it.
Separately they are also adding a tool to the application letting people download information on how their posts are ranked and tagged, helpful to let active posters see why a post did what it did.
It’s a lot of information that I wouldn’t expect Musk to make available. I suspect it indicates he doesn’t care about that part of his empire any more. He is playing with SpaceX now.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Follow-up to the Virginia woman with dashcam of ICE @271.
Marcy Wheeler: “This guy is like the Where’s Waldo for fascist ICE goons: check-in snatches, Broadview 6, Renee Good, all of it.”
Quite a lot that had to be left out for brevity’s sake, but of note: he has repeatedly called the agents working with him “my guys,” definitely indicating he’s some kind of team lead.
[*snip*: more encounters] While we think it’s important to document his pattern of threatening observers and lying while being filmed to try to create justification for deadly force, we can only imagine his behavior off camera. His team is responsible for hundreds of kidnappings in the last year alone.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Follow-up on the Forest Service boss wasting planes on his ranch fire @327.
What if—once we restore the rule of law: we prosecute this guy (civilly and/or criminally) for violating the financial conflict of interest statute & recoup from him all the $ the government spent at his behest? That’s why Congress enacted anti-corruption laws. Let’s use them. 18 USC 208
[…] It’s a misdemeanor/felony depending on intent: If done “willfully,” it’s a felony. 18 USC 216(a)(2) Just as important, [a restored] DOJ can enforce the financial conflict of interest statute *civilly* w/ a lower burden of proof (“preponderance of the evidence”) & civil penalties. 216(b)
A large store in Tennessee that exclusively sells President Donald Trump merchandise is closing, and it is due to a lack of shoppers.
The store is located along Interstate 40 near Knoxville, Tennessee and its exterior has massive Trump billboard, banners, and a brick outhouse labelled the “Democrat Superstore” make clear what kind of goods the shop is slinging.
But now the shop is selling off its remaining inventory at a 50 percent discount, Slate reports. It’s going out of business, and its owner, identified as William ‘Bill” Hays, admitted the closure is due to lack of customers…
A statue of the Virgin Mary believed to be Europe’s tallest has been formally unveiled in a small Polish village.
The 55.6-metre (182ft) concrete figure is roughly two double-decker buses longer than Rio de Janeiro’s smaller – if more prominently placed – Christ the Redeemer monument, though it still pales in comparison to a 98m Virgin Mary erected in the Philippines…
a new paper in PNAS […] attention-seeking algorithms aren’t the only driver of online negativity. Another culprit is what psychologists call differentiation, the innate drive to stand out from one’s peers. “Negative information is just much more diverse than positive information […] the top comment in a [movie review] thread might be ‘I liked it’—but then what else is there to say? If you want to stand out and say something new, you have to talk about something you disliked about the film.”
Jackson and his colleagues analyzed more than 2 billion comments from 2,150 Reddit communities and found that both threads and communities became more negative over time […] They then replicated [the findings.] social media users who were primed to be unique posted more negative comments than users who were primed to conform.
[…]
We started our paper with Godwin’s Law […] it’s not true. But […] I think it was meant to capture this intuition that dialogue on social media is more negative than it needs to be. Of course, feed-ranking algorithms […] pick up on divisive content that gets people’s attention […] We wanted to know if conversations would turn negative even in the absence of those algorithms.
[…]
if the thread starts really positive, the positive comments are all taken at the beginning and you have to go negative. And you’d also expect that the larger a community, the more negative it would get, because the information ecosystem is more crowded. And all that proved to be the case. […] when we incentivize people to stand out, people get more negative over time.
[…]
One thing we try to stress in the paper is that it’s not like these communities fall off a cliff of toxicity. In that way, I think the stereotype of social media is worse than the reality. In our paper, we limit our analysis to the first 50 comments in a thread. But we did run other analyses of these rare threads that go into the thousands of comments. You start to see this interesting oscillation where now you can stand out by being more positive again.
[…]
The shift toward negativity could theoretically creep into any conversation where you need to stay focused on a particular topic […] In contrast, everyday conversations allow us to change topics frequently and avoid this
A pipe band from Canada has been crowned World Pipe Band champions – the first time in 16 years that a band outside the UK has taken the honour.
The Simon Fraser University pipe band won the coveted title following the two-day event at Glasgow Green.
The Field Marshal Montgomery pipe band from Lisburn, Northern Ireland, was runner-up, with the Peoples Ford Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia band, coming third.
A total of 211 bands from 14 countries, including youth bands, took part in the “truly thrilling and fiercely contested competition”…
Iran has called for the release of three pilots it said were captured by Qatar after two of its fighter jets were hit by air defences during a military operation at the start of the US-Iran war.
In a letter to the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Iran’s Brig Gen Mohammad Bagherzadeh claimed the pilots – Javad Salehi, Abdul Majid Dashtian and Imran Behroshian – had been held captive for six months.
He said the body of a fourth pilot, Majid Kazemi, had been returned after he was killed in the same operation on 2 March 2026 – the third day of the war.
Qatar “categorically denied” Iran’s claims and said it was “surprised by these misleading statements”.
…
Bagerzadeh later told the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Sunday that Qatar should allow an Iranian fact-finding team into the country to investigate what had happened, claiming one had been denied entry for months.
Al Ansari said an invitation for an Iranian team to visit Qatar to review the findings of its search and rescue operation had been extended in April but Tehran had yet to respond.
Strange. One could speculate in several directions about what became of the pilots, so I won’t bother. Allowing a fact-finding team in while hostilities are still on would be equivalent to allowing a spy mission.
birgerjohanssonsays
Shadenfreude. “Mike Johnson is getting bullied by his OWN Republicans”
Tommy John, who won 288 games during a 26-year big league career and became the first pitcher to successfully return following groundbreaking elbow surgery that later was named after him, has died. He was 83…
Tommy John surgery is now routine for pitchers in Major league Baseball. I am even aware on position players who have had it.
A regrown forest can look tall, lush and green. Restored wetlands can buzz with insects and flutter with birds. But scientists looking more closely are finding that some of their smallest inhabitants — including certain mosses, lichens, algae and fungi — are often still missing.
Restoring habitats such as forests and wetlands can save declining species of animals and plants and help their populations bounce back. But recent research shows they don’t all return at the same rate. Some of the smallest, least noticeable inhabitants can remain rare or absent for decades — with potential consequences for other species…
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is stored at 60 salt caverns thousands of feet underground at four major sites along the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas. The SPR has tumbled below 300 million barrels for the first time since it was filled in the early 1980s
[…]
The Energy Department has said at least 70 million barrels must remain in the reserve to safely manage the caverns. Amos Hochstein, a senior energy advisor to President Joe Biden, disputed that […] [“]At that level, the reserve would be depleted to “the point of never resurrecting it,” he said.
[…]
Energy Department spokesman Ben Dietderich said […] “The caverns are always full. All that changes is the ratio of oil and water that is filling them,” […] The majority of the SPR’s caverns were found to be in “very good condition” after the 2022 drawdown, according to the GAO.
[…]
To release oil from the SPR, operators pump water into the bottom of the caverns to displace the crude to the surface and pump it […] Seventy million barrels is the strict physical minimum needed at the top of the caverns to keep the extraction pipes safely submerged in oil rather than water, said Siddharth Misra, a petroleum engineering professor […] When the inventory drops below 300 million barrels, the SPR loses its ability to pump oil at rapid speeds to address emergencies, Misra said. The system’s pipes and pumps could also get damaged as the oil layer thins at the top and sludge rises […]
Fresh water is often pumped into the caverns during rapid drawdowns, which dissolves the salt walls […] greatly increasing the geological risk of a structural cave-in […] The SPR was originally designed for five full drawdowns. Instead, it has executed dozens of large and small releases over the past 40 years […] Energy Department officials told the GAO that they are “holding the SPR infrastructure together with ‘Band-Aids,’ and that it is uncertain how long they will hold.”
An international team led by researchers at Colorado State University has found that human contact with wild armadillos — including eating the meat — has contributed to extremely high infection rates of a pathogen that can cause leprosy in Pará, Brazil…
The Equinox ad, ornamentalism, and Asian women”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/NJhFQtA0JVo
In defense of Blade Runner, it was set in a narrative universe with a merging of Japanese/east Asian and American cultures. It was not intended to show the culture as anything but shallow comsumerism. Also, shot in the early 1980s.
The BBC has sought to subpoena members of Donald Trump’s family for documents and testimony in the US president’s $10bn (£7.4bn) defamation lawsuit against the broadcaster.
Court filings show that representatives for the BBC’s legal team attempted in May to serve subpoenas to the president’s son Donald Trump Jr, his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The president is suing the BBC over an episode of Panorama that edited together two different sections of a speech he gave before the 2021 Capitol riots.
The BBC has previously apologised for the edit, but denied it was grounds for defamation…
“The purpose of this call is to prioritize Colorado for the purposes of ensuring grants and federal support are in line with administration priorities,” Underwood, a deputy assistant to the president, wrote to officials
[…]
Within days of that “brainstorm call,” […] the Department of Energy was cutting $615 million in funding intended for Colorado. The Department of Transportation said it would end $109 million in grant funding to the state. The Office of Management and Budget moved to shutter the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. Federal emergency officials rejected disaster relief funding for fire-scarred areas on the Western Slope. The Department of Agriculture ordered the state to swiftly re-certify 100,000 [SNAP] recipients. Before the month was out, Trump vetoed legislation that would have brought clean water to parts of the state.
Underwood’s email appeared to leave the federal judge overseeing the case aghast. […] He ordered the federal government to comply with most of the state’s requests for additional evidence [any comms proving CO was targeted].
Phil Weiser (CO AG): “this information is out there because we took the Trump administration to court. This fall, we can elect a Congress that will follow the Constitution’s call to be a check on a lawless President.”
Rando: “We all knew this was the case. What we’re learning now is the extent to which they were willing to commit it to writing despite its illegality.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Goddammit. I learned Trump wants to pull troops from South Korea because he has such a ‘good relationship’ with the other guy in the north.
Also, SK did not help out with the war Trump started with Iran, so Trump no longer regards SK as an ally. Because, as we all know, a military alliance means entire nations swear fealty to him as an individial.
in June 1950, the United States […] began an extensive bombing campaign […] until the end of the Korean War in July 1953 […] to destroy nearly all of North Korea’s villages, towns, and cities. 18 out of North Korea’s 22 major cities were at least 50% destroyed. […] The bombing campaign destroyed almost every substantial building in North Korea. […] By the end of the campaign, US bombers had difficulty in finding targets and were reduced to bombing footbridges or jettisoning their bombs into the sea. […] bombers destroyed hydroelectric and irrigation dams in the later stages of the war, flooding farmland and destroying crops. […] “only emergency assistance from China, the USSR, and other socialist countries prevented widespread famine.” […] 12%–15% of the North Korean population was killed in the war, or approximately 1.2 million to 1.5 million people.
[…]
[Historian Charles Armstrong wrote, “]The DPRK government never forgot the lesson of North Korea’s vulnerability to American air attack, and for half a century after the Armistice continued to strengthen anti-aircraft defenses, build underground installations, and eventually develop nuclear weapons to ensure that North Korea would not find itself in such a position again.[“]
birgerjohanssonsays
Before Backrooms, There Was This Soviet Film
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4cV6Bsqtot8
.
“Kane Parsons’s Backrooms became A24’s biggest opening ever by turning fluorescent corridors and drop ceilings into pure dread. But decades earlier, Estonian director Kaljo Kiisk had already built a sterile institutional non-place of his own; an asylum in a nameless country, occupied by the Nazis, hunted through by a Gestapo officer who slowly loses his mind. We explore how Madness (1969) used the horror of clinical whiteness, psychiatric authority, and cyclical return to smuggle a critique of totalitarianism past the Soviet censors, and why, half a century before the Backrooms, it was already asking the question both films share: whose reality is this?”
The allegation is probably the most credible thing she has ever said.
She told the New Yorker that she had been certain she could not “retain my status within the right-wing world” if she spoke about it. She recalled acknowledging to Tate immediately after the incident that her “whole brand” involved blaming women for “get[ting] themselves in situations like this”, and thus she did not see a way to report her own victimization “without destroying my career.”
The electrical pulse overstimulates nerve endings in the subject’s peripheral nervous system, resulting in pain that inhibits coordinated muscle movement, but without causing systemic muscle lockup. The pain induced is localized
[…]
Maximum stimulation time on Gen 3 and 4 models is a sobering two hours, though that drops to 90 minutes for Gen 5. […] lights on the gloves display the current charge level […] Gen 4 and 5 of GLOVE both include mechanisms that record “activation events,” tracking the date, hour, minute, and skin-contact time for audit trails and after-action reporting.
[…]
Michael Crowley […] tracks human rights abuses [and] is concerned that the GLOVE is seemingly designed not to restrain or incapacitate, but to hurt. […] “The company talks about it as a de-escalation solution, but the whole idea of it is to get control or influence somebody through pain. […] an inherently abusive technology[“]
President Donald Trump on Sunday said vandals are to blame for large swaths of dead grass on the National Mall near the World War II Memorial — in the same spot where Trump had a stage built and hosted crowds for his July 4 celebration.
Trump made the accusation in a social media post without saying why he believes it’s the work of vandals instead of trampled turf from the Independence Day festivities. He posted a photo showing a once-grassy area by the World War II Memorial, now patchy and brown across much of the sprawling turf…
Congressional lawyers are struggling to manage a flood of legislative proposals generated using artificial intelligence tools, many of them riddled with errors and shoddy language.
They said AI’s ability to quickly generate mountains of text is forcing the OLC’s lawyers to spend significantly more time reviewing and rewriting the proposals. And in many cases, the drafts are plagued by mistakes that could ripple well beyond Washington — tying up the passage of legislation and risking lawsuits over erroneously cited statutes or incorrect legal definitions.
If you have been paying attention to the issue it would be obvious that using AI to generate draft legislation is a terrible idea. Legal wording precision, incorrect references and outright errors litter the documents. The AIs tend to ramble, generating longer proposals. LLMs making it easier to put together something that looks like a reasonable proposal means more and more proposals are being put forth.
They also note that these have the problem that the people generating them don’t tend to understand the technical details of their own proposals as much as they would if they had written them. Creating problems when people and reporters ask about those proposals. It would also be a problem if such a proposal was passed around for review in Congress.
Cherokee Nation, the largest tribe in the U.S. with more than 475,000 citizens, has banned hyperscale data center development on its tribally owned and trust lands, after a task force convened by Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. found that 64% of 1,593 surveyed citizens opposed construction of the facilities inside the tribe’s 14-county reservation in northeastern Oklahoma. The 37-page report cited energy and water consumption, air quality, noise, and cultural resource protection among citizens’ concerns, and the tribe said it won’t support projects on non-tribal land within the reservation without early consultation…
…
Scientists at Harvard Medical School and others looked at five years worth of traffic fatality data. Deadly car crashes noticeably rose on days when a major album hit the streaming waves compared to days right before and after the release, they found. The findings suggest that people can and should be more mindful about how they’re playing their favorite artist’s new songs while on the road, the authors say.
“Nobody is asking you to drive in silence. Just move the fiddling to before you’re moving—pick the album, hit play, put the phone down,” lead author Vishal Patel, a physician and researcher in the department of health care policy at Harvard, told Gizmodo…
After adjusting for things like the day of the week or major holidays (known risk factors), the occurrence of a fatal traffic collision increased by about 15% on release days relative to before and after…
“If someone’s in the passenger seat, hand it to them. That was the closest thing we found to a protective factor: the increase showed up almost entirely among drivers who were alone,” Patel said…
The denial was expected because the court rarely grants such rehearing requests, and none of the justices had indicated interest in taking his case when they denied his initial petition in June.
No surprise but I’m sure Trump is angry about it. It should also resolve Trump’s secondary case about control of the payout. It has been released to Carroll but Trump was trying to get the money moved back into a court controlled account until all issues had been resolved. The attempt to get the Supreme Court to rehear is the last possible issue so there is no reason to continue the case about controlling the payout and it should be dismissed shortly. The money has already been released to Carroll but unless she could afford to replace the $5 million out of pocket she will have to be careful what she did with it until the second issue is resolved.
What, exactly, the special grand jury is tasked with investigating remains a mystery. […] Adding to the confusion is speculation that the D.C. special grand jury may not be the only one […] a top Trump ally has repeatedly claimed that another special grand jury is seated in Fort Pierce, Florida. That grand jury is supposedly tasked with investigating the so-called “Grand Conspiracy”—a purported deep-state plot […] stretching from the 2016 Russia investigation through the criminal cases brought against [Trump] after he left office.
[…]
An ordinary grand jury generally serves for no more than 18 months, though a district court may extend its term by up to six months […] A special grand jury, by contrast, can remain in operation for as long as 36 months. […] special grand juries are generally used to investigate multi-defendant conspiracy cases, discrete areas of organized criminal activity, or clusters of related cases.
[…]
the feature that makes special grand juries genuinely unique in the federal system is their power to issue a public report. […] a special grand jury may submit a report to the presiding judge at the conclusion of its term. The judge then reviews the report to determine whether it complies with the statutory requirements. If it does, the report must then be publicly filed […]
It’s not clear why Pirro’s office is using a special grand jury or whether it has anything to do with the grand jury’s statutory authority to submit a report. But some commentators and news outlets have suggested as much. […] the special grand jury is authorized to submit a report concerning two categories of information. Neither category provides an obvious mechanism for crafting a damning report against Trump’s […] most obvious targets.
[…]
A report can only be submitted with the concurrence of a majority of the grand jurors. And this is, after all, a D.C. grand jury. Pirro’s office has already had a remarkably difficult time persuading D.C. jurors to go along […] And the judge who will likely decide whether any report becomes public is hardly a pushover. That task would fall to Chief Judge James Boasberg, who has already had occasion to criticize Pirro’s use of grand jury powers.
[…]
All of which is to say: If Pirro’s objective is simply to conduct a long-running criminal investigation, a special grand jury may give her a useful tool. But if the objective is to manufacture a public document condemning Trump’s political enemies, the tool looks considerably less formidable.
For the past year or so, booksellers have suspected that AI firms are buying up huge lots of rare books, then destroying them after scanning them to train AI. But this was hard to prove until now, as 404 Media reports that an Airtag hidden in a rare book shows that at least one tech giant, in the race to advance its frontier models, is behind some of the bulk orders: Amazon.
On Monday, 404 Media revealed that it had connected with a bookseller who agreed to plant an Airtag in a rare book that was part of a bulk order. That Airtag was then tracked to an Amazon AI training facility in Las Vegas that housed a team focused on tearing books from their spines and scanning pages, 404 Media reported. Apparently tone-deaf to the escalating backlash over destructive book scanning, a logo on the door of that team’s warehouse, VGT3, showed a Tyrannosaurus rex preparing to devour a book, 404 Media documented…
Ottawa police have arrested a 25-year-old man after a busker playing bagpipes near the Fairmont Château Laurier was attacked with an edged weapon on Saturday afternoon.
Police say the victim was playing bagpipes on the sidewalk on Wellington Street near Sussex Drive when they were “approached by an unknown male and, without provocation, assaulted with an edged weapon” shortly after 4 p.m.
The suspect left the scene but was soon located and arrested nearby…
birgerjohanssonsays
“Two origins of life: Free-living cells may have emerged twice as bacteria and archaea diverged”
.https://phys.org/news/2026-08-life-free-cells-emerged-bacteria.html
.
The first life was in hydrothermal vents where some extant metals catalyzed parts of the needed reactions. When cells left the hydrothermal vents, two different lineages arose with different enzymes to fill the gap left by those metals.
“We found that the last universal ancestor of all cells, LUCA, possessed enzymes for only about half of the reactions of metabolism. The other half was catalyzed by metals in the environment where LUCA arose.”
[Snip]
“The bacterial and archaeal lineages made the transition to the free-living state independently. Only free-living cells are alive. Let’s call it by name: We are looking at one origin of the genetic code, but two origins of life.”
Brian Finucane (JustSecurity): “Your regular reminder that the mere threat of the use of force is illegal. [Video clip: the Fox correspondent Trump said that to]”
Dalia Kaye (Middle East analyst): “Reminder that the June MOU, which Trump signed, included this clause: ‘The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz…'”
whheydtsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #384…
What do you mean “without provocation”? The guy was playing bagpipes.
The share of U.S. counties where 95 percent or more of kindergartners were vaccinated against measles—the number doctors say is needed to achieve overall protection for the class, known as “herd immunity”—has dropped from 50 percent before the pandemic to 28 percent
[…]
While the vast majority of those who receive the measles vaccine are protected from severe illness and death, without herd immunity measles can still spread among those not immune, including those who cannot be vaccinated because of age or because they are immunocompromised.
[…]
children in California, which does not allow for nonmedical vaccine exemptions, are vaccinated against measles at 96 percent, there is not a single county in Idaho, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah or Wisconsin whose kindergarten rates meet herd immunity protection level.
/The archive link broke some interactive bits. There is a map image 1/3rd down.
Commentary
kindergarten classrooms in more than 70% of counties now lacking herd immunity against measles.
1) This is bad. 2) Gigantic blank spots [on the map] seem also very bad.
Truly unbelievable that COVID, chicken pox, and measles outbreaks in rapid succession made parents LESS likely to vaccinate.
Tennessee really speed running this thing, huh.
Never change, Tennessee. No, wait. Change. The sooner the better. It almost doesn’t matter what you change or how, because it can’t be much worse.
An 8-foot-long python reportedly started a fire at a Virginia middle school that left eight classrooms with water damage.
Firefighters were dispatched to Forest Middle School in Forest, Virginia, around 12:45 a.m. on Thursday.
“The snake contributed to starting the fire. However, I don’t think there was any maliciousness involved on the snake’s side,” the fire marshal told WDBJ-TV.
They believe the snake escaped from its enclosure, knocking over a heat lamp that caused the fire. Firefighters found the python on the second floor of the building as they responded to the call.
“Crews safely secured the python into a temporary holding area until the owner arrived and secured back in its original location and extinguished the fire,” the Forest Fire Department said in a Facebook post.
… Pete Hegseth, announced last week during a visit to Panama that Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had agreed to allow the U.S. to carry out joint military operations against criminal groups on their soil, following Ecuador, which launched similar missions with the U.S. in March. Guatemala, however, has denied reaching such an agreement.
It will be “like you saw with the strikes on the drug boats,” Hegseth said during a military drill in the jungle in Panama. …
… Others warn the strategy risks civilian casualties, particularly in Colombia, where armed groups operate among civilian populations and often function as de facto authorities in areas beyond the state’s reach. Rather than beating back those groups, military strikes are more likely to force them to adapt, said Jeremy McDermott, co-director of the Colombia-based investigative organization InSight Crime.
“The U.S. bombs an ELN camp in Colombia or in Venezuela, what is the first thing the ELN are going to do? They’re going to dismantle all their camps and move into the villages and towns,” he said.
The “Donroe Doctrine” in action: boots, and blood, on the ground.
Children and seniors who have difficulty chewing and swallowing conventional tablets may have an easier way to find pain relief. Cornell researchers have developed an ultrafast-dissolving nanofiber film that can deliver a cocktail of three drugs so quickly and effectively, 90% of the formulation is released in less than two seconds…
Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, has grown in size by crashing into its neighbours for billions of years. One of the biggest crashes we know of, a little more than 10 billion years ago, was with a galaxy with the enigmatic name of “Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus”.
Now, evidence is mounting that another, similarly large, galactic merger happened 2 billion years prior.
In a study published in Nature Astronomy, researchers have dubbed this merging galaxy “Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles” after a Nordic sea monster and a Greek god (we’ll get into how galaxies are named later). Lead author Davide Massari, a researcher at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, said the existence of the 12-billion-year-old merger had been hotly debated.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Oman if it blocks American efforts to take control of the Strait of Hormuz, as he continues to press Iran to surrender.
It comes as Iran signals it may shift to a more aggressive military stance if peace talks with the US fail to reach an outcome.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them,” Mr Trump told Fox News journalist Trey Yingst, referring to ongoing talks between Oman and Iran on control of the strait.
Iranian and Omani officials have been talking for weeks on future maritime navigation arrangements through the Strait of Hormuz, which Mr Trump has floated as a future US territory.
Iran’s coast flanks the north side of Hormuz and Oman lies on the south.
Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner has wrapped up two days of meetings with Israeli and Hamas leaders to break a stalemate over the US president’s Gaza plan, but there have been no signs of an imminent breakthrough as both sides dig in.
Mr Kushner met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel a day after meeting Hamas’s political leader in Egypt in a bid to revive the plan, which has stalled as Israel has carried out air strikes and seized more territory in Gaza despite an October ceasefire, while Hamas has refused to give up its weapons.
A French friend just posted this satellite photo of France on August 8, 2026, published by the European Copernicus agency.
Europe is being plagued with 40c heat day after day, as never before in recorded history, and vast swathes are being turned into desert.
It’s curious that Europe is heating up faster than other parts of the globe.
The consequences for food production and water are truly dire.
Sadly only about 30% of France is forested and these areas are much more resilient to the heat.
They absorb moisture and release it slowly.
Forests emit chemicals to condense moisture vapour and make it rain.
Some plants wholly dependent on rain emit stronger chemicals- like bromeliads who are masters at making rain.
Studies have shown how much more rainfall forests receive than cleared areas and yet governments, including the current NSW Minns government, are still allowing forests to be cleared.
We should actually be reforesting as rapidly as possible, as the Chinese are doing, to make the landscape more resilient to increasing heat and droughts.
The old outdated ways still rule and we all, including our precious wildlife, will pay for it.
Please make your voice heard on this.
Feel free to share this.
Will withhold fb friends name here. Unsur eif right toname them here or not.
At a time when the impact of climate change is undeniable, some researchers suggest we need to start work on far more ambitious approaches for tackling these problems. These proposals are often referred to as geoengineering. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien looks at one such concept to deal with the melting of glaciers and sea ice. It’s for our series, Tipping Point.
I once worked with a Philippino woman named Enola Gay – she went by just Enola.
KGsays
birgerjohansson@385,
Fascisnating work. I’ve thought for some time that bacteria and archaea might have emancipated themselves from hydrothermal vents independently of each other, but it’s absolute rubbish for william Martin to say their ancestors in the vents were not alive: they had metabolisms, they reproduced, they evolved – of course they were alive!.
KGsays
Reginald Selkirk@383,
In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 a fascist regime is bent on destroying books. No surprise that our current technofascists are doing the same. I’d back actual books on actual paper (at least, if it’s acid-free) to outlast all the 1s and 0s in all the datacentres of the world.
KGsays
All of which is to say: If Pirro’s objective is simply to conduct a long-running criminal investigation, a special grand jury may give her a useful tool. – SkyCaptain@382 quoting lawfaremedia.
I think that’s likely. Pirro has already shown she’s unwilling to risk her law licence by mounting an obviously spurious prosecution, but she also wants to placate Trump: this simply kicks the can down the road. But what about the unfortunate Grand Jurors, obliged to waste their lives for her interests?
KGsays
Reginald Selkirk@379,
Good for the Cherokee Nation!
KGsays
Congressional lawyers are struggling to manage a flood of legislative proposals generated using artificial intelligence tools, many of them riddled with errors and shoddy language.
They said AI’s ability to quickly generate mountains of text is forcing the OLC’s lawyers to spend significantly more time reviewing and rewriting the proposals. – JM@378 quoting Politico
This exemplifies one of the (many, many, many) ill-effects of LLMs which I’ve recently been thinking about (I’ve agreed to write a chapter on “AI and technofascism” for a political group I belong to). As these things are increasingly employed for generating routine written material by corporations, its volume will expand exponentially (and I do mean exponentially) as every piece of corporate AI slop sent out generates multiple responses from other corporations. However fast internet infrastructure is built, the whole system will likely freeze up – and given the nature of exponential growth, this could happen overnight!
KGsays
Trump threatens to bomb Oman over Iran deal – Reginald Selkirk quoting the Daily Heilograph
(but it could be any one of numerous news outlets.
A large space rocket belonging to Elon Musk’s SpaceX is being towed to the shores of Christmas Island after landing in the Indian Ocean, in an unusual spectacle for locals.
People on the remote Australian territory have lined up in droves along the rugged coastline to watch the rocket being towed by two large boats. Christmas Island Tourism Association chair David Watchorn said it was “incredible” to see the spaceship up close. “We’d heard some rumours that [SpaceX] might be coming to Christmas Island … and it was just there, huge,” he said.
…(Snip)…
.. US tech billionaire Musk’s Starship Ship 40 was launched on July 24 from Texas, and after a successful mission re-entered the atmosphere and landed in the Indian Ocean far off the coast of Western Australia. Mr Musk publicly confirmed last week an effort was underway to retrieve it.
A spokesperson for the Australian Space Agency said the Australian government was coordinating with SpaceX to recover the Starship.
“SpaceX has towed the vehicle to Christmas Island after it re-entered and landed in international waters,” the spokesperson said.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV/Gray News) – A warrant has been issued for Dr. Jill Stein after she failed to appear in court for a 2024 assault charge.
An order filed by St. Louis Judge Karma Johnson on Monday states that Stein and her attorney failed to appear in court on Monday morning, according to documents.
Karma is coming for you!
First Alert 4 reached out to a number associated with Stein’s campaign and Stein’s attorney for comment. As of publication time, they had not heard back.
The 2024 presidential candidate for the Green Party was charged with one count of first-degree trespassing and one count of fourth-degree assault.
The charges stem from a Washington University campus protest on April 27, 2024.
Documents state that on April 27, 2024, a protest began in Forest Park. At around 3:47 p.m., the protest moved onto the Washington University Danforth campus. Court documents state the protestors were chanting phrases associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
…
Documents state that Officer Conroy approached on a bicycle, which Stein grabbed, leading to Officer Moore attempting to help. The bicycle hit Moore in the forearm, and while the bicycle was raised, Stein allegedly kicked Moore multiple times in the right leg near the groin. Moore was later diagnosed with a strain in his left forearm, a contusion in the back of his right leg and a groin injury.
…
… There’s much more in this paper. It includes a detailed discussion of known metal-catalyzed reactions that account for 47% of the fundamental reactions of life. There’s a lot of discussion about phosphorus and how it might have been incorporated into organic molecules. There’s documented support for the existence of the acetyl-CoA pathway for the reduction of CO2 to pyruvate—this is widely thought to be the primary pathway of carbon fixation in early cells.
…
There are a few tricks one can use to judge the credibility of the authors and one of the most important is whether they address all of the criticisms and problems with their hypotheses. The absence of such self-criticism is a good indicator of incompetence …
I hope it is obvious that the two origins of life claim depends on the definition of “life,” which is a lot trickier than it sounds.
Some bottlenose dolphins have learned to use tools to help them catch fish, a clever technique that may be passed on from mother to calf.
Scientists in Australia observed dolphins chasing fish into empty seashells and carrying it to the surface before tipping the prey into their mouth. A young dolphin calf was also seen copying its mother by picking up a large shell in the same way.
The behavior, known as shelling, is documented in a paper recently published in the journal of Marine Mammal Science. The findings mark the first time evidence of tool use by dolphins was documented in video and suggest it may be more common behavior than previously thought…
OpenAI President Greg Brockman—whose firm’s AI recently broke out of its own sandbox and launched a cyber attack on AI platform HuggingFace—is warning everyone else to expect the same treatment soon enough.
Brockman published the warning on his personal blog on Sunday, writing that rapid advancement of AI coding capabilities means organizations looking to stay unhacked will have to “fundamentally uplevel their cybersecurity practices with unprecedented speed.” …
The saving grace is that AI is at least as effective at defense and possibly even better, according to Brockman. He wrote that frontier models may “shift its [security’s] economics in ways that fundamentally advantage defenders,” like “superhumanly secure code” or generating mathematical proofs that form the foundation of new cryptographic systems and other tools.
…
Brockman’s unsurprising 10-step advice to security teams includes, of course, buying more AI. He argues teams should adopt agents and equip them with skills like “static analysis, security-focused code review, vulnerability variant analysis, software supply-chain risk, and other security workflows,” before running security assessments on systems in order of importance.
resident Donald Trump accused a historic preservation group challenging his White House ballroom project of revealing “top military secrets,” labeling its members “treasonists” as his administration took the dispute to the Supreme Court.
“These are the TREASONISTS that brought the suit against the Military Complex,” Trump wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post, referring to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “They revealed Top Military Secrets!”
Trump did not provide evidence that the nonprofit had disclosed classified information. He claimed the group had been shown detailed plans for the project by senior military and Secret Service officials but pursued its lawsuit despite being warned about the facility’s “Top Secret nature.” …
ABC filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, alleging that the White House has been using the regulatory agency to prosecute President Donald Trump’s “campaign against free speech on network television.” The legal filing includes several Truth Social posts from Trump where he complained about ABC’s news coverage of him and called for the network’s licenses to be terminated.
“Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts,” reads the lawsuit, which was filed in a district court in Washington, D.C.
The suit explains that ABC has been targeted again and again by the FCC, including when the agency issued an order that ABC stations file early applications to renew their licenses, years before they were actually due. The suit names FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, Trump’s lead henchman for stifling free speech, along with the other FCC commissioners.
President Trump’s tweets are central to ABC’s case, documenting his personal vendetta against the network…
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
KG @404: “Oman’s possible response: ‘What with?'”
Reuters earlier on the depletion: “The U.S. Army has used up much of its global stockpile of highly accurate [surface-to-surface] long-range missiles […] Trump may have to rely more on riskier, piloted [aircraft] bombing missions if he relaunches large-scale attacks”
The Navy is one of the most modern in the region, and the Air Force is respected. In any future major regional conflict, Oman may be able to rely on support and aid from Britain and the United States. [sic]
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday is traveling to Iowa in his “personal capacity,” the Pentagon said in a statement, further fueling speculation that the former Fox News personality is mulling a run for president at some point.
Officials familiar with Hegseth’s thinking believe that he is considering a run for president or some other political office after his time in the Trump administration is over. The travel to Iowa, a presidential campaign proving ground, fits that pattern, one of those officials said Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid.
This is classic politics here. Going to Iowa now for no stated reason is often testing the water to see how much the locals might like you in a campaign run. For a 2028 run, when there are likely to be a lot of Republicans running, getting a good start will be important.
Hetseth has nothing going for him except good hair and lots of negatives. He lacks the 2016 Trump on the fly wit and can’t claim to be the sort of populist outsider that Trump did. He is best known for wasting money, poor management and poor leadership. By any sane standard Hegseth should be dead in the water but if the Iran conflict ends before 2028 in a way that lets Hegseth claim some sort of victory then he has a chance.
Reginald Selkirksays
@417
Officials familiar with Hegseth’s thinking
If you can call it that.
dead in the water
I see what you did there, and it’s in questionable taste. Keep up the good work.
[Agence France-Presse article]: David Harris, a British academic who published a 2024 critique of critical race theory, is said to have contacted Arday and Cambridge with claims.
[…] some random retired professor, who was charged with misconduct in 1998 in a bullying related affair & now runs a personal blog and autopublished a book, decides to go on a full campaign and nobody is asking WHY he did this? They could have easily added “auto” to “published a book”. But that would have made him look like a hack. […]
Harris’s self-published anti-CRT book has five Amazon reviews. The first is from Martyn Hammersley [5-stars “well worth reading”] whom Harris asked to examine Arday and who then escalated the demands for scrutiny.
[…]
There is a story here, one about white male grievance in academia, and about how “concerned academics”, masquerading as integrity sleuths, organise to target Black academics & escalate suspicion through complacent, if not complicit, media. Lol. In a [Times Higher Education] article on Arday [the journalist] doesn’t think that the white “concerned academic” who “apologetically” contacts him could have an agenda.
[…]
There’s a whole bunch of white male academics who were told that their era is up, and who are now organising. I mean C’mon, this is a MUCH bigger story than the Arday one.
[…]
I know people are going to miss the point of this thread and circle back to “yes but plagiarism”. The dossier was investigated and closed without blame way before the story became public. It’s only bc Harris wrote who knows how many “polite” emails that it got traction. […] So don’t get distracted by the neonazis eg Cofnas.
[…]
[Byline Times] has just come out with an investigation into the white male supremacist academic networks & financiers. […] The story starts in 2023 with Dave Harris & Martyn Hammersley.
[…]
that’s how an “affair” escapes institutional processes into public discourse: target, sow doubt, circulate allegations, let the academic grapevine do its work—until someone hands it to the right amplifier.
Arday defending himself by filing a police complaint against Dave Harris—a man who had already been formally found to have engaged in bullying misconduct as far back as 1998—is not something I find extraordinary. What is extraordinary is that Harris’s misconduct vanished from news coverage.
[…]
By omitting Dave Harris’s own history […] the press takes readers down a completely different narrative path: Harris is cast as a legitimate investigator; Arday defending himself becomes the scandal.
Another totally overlooked point: This wasn’t an academic process. Harris’ scrutiny of Arday was privately initiated by a retired individual. He investigated and contacted Arday on his own and, after Arday told him not to contact him again, escalated his concerns to Arday’s employers. […] this started as a pensioner’s personal project: conducted in his own time, published on his own website, eventually turned into “CRT and Social Science: A Critique, self-published, 2024”. Somehow, by the time it reached the press, it had acquired the gravitas of an academic inquiry.
[…]
After Arday shut down Harris (rightly so), Harris roped in another “concerned academic”, Martyn Hammersley, who escalated Harris’s private crusade directly to the Head of Arday’s Faculty
[…]
Which brings me to Retraction Watch, and how a specialist research-integrity watchdog can become an (unwitting?) instrument […] Arday referred to this vulnerability in an April address, and after RW contacted him three times.
Retraction Watch has an upstream selection-bias problem: some cases come from systematic monitoring, but others originate in tips from blog followers or social media. That means what enters the pipeline partly depends on who chooses to scrutinise whom […] And that upstream selection bias becomes unmeasurable if you don’t record the selection mechanism. […] you can’t test whether particular researchers or fields are disproportionately targeted by organised/ideological campaigns
[…]
When Arday raised the risk of instrumentalisation, RW scrutinised the target, not the scrutinisers—and even less itself—then published its “exclusive” anyway.
Only 140 academic staff at professorial level identified as black, equating to 0.7% out of a total of more than 21,000 professors. […] the vast majority of British universities employ between zero and two black professors. […] Male professors continue to outnumber females by three to one […] just 25 black women
What did you expect when Rosie O’Donnell was announced as making her talk show return by substituting for Jimmy Kimmel as a guest host on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live?
You probably expected O’Donnell, after leaving Donald Trump’s America for Ireland in 2025 in search of “a more peaceful life,” to come out swinging at the president. You probably expected O’Donnell to come across the way conservatives paint her — angry and strident, going full blast at Trump’s second-term corruption allegations and policy blunders.
What viewers got instead (video below) during the first night of O’Donnell’s weeklong stint was so much better and more interesting, a monologue that said a lot about her and even more about what’s lacking in typical late night discourse.
…
But the rest was almost entirely focused on O’Donnell’s fish-out-of-water experiences as an American settling into her new life in Ireland with her 13-year-old child. She told anecdotes about Ireland’s drinking culture, cab drivers, being a famous person abroad and, especially, her attempt to romance a kindly pharmacist.
…
On the other hand, O’Donnell’s monologue was refreshing fare because it was about living a normal-ish life and interacting with everyday people. She also, by and large, seemed rather happy — again, not a word that Trump supporters would typically associate with O’Donnell (or, for that matter, that Kimmel viewers would likely associate with Kimmel). The move abroad, it seems, has been good for O’Donnell, just as her friends have told reporters over the past couple of years.
At the end of the monologue, O’Donnell predicted Trump was going to be angry because she didn’t talk about him, and perhaps so…
At least three people have been lightly injured and a number of buildings damaged after an earthquake rocked southern Spain.
The epicentre of the magnitude 4.8 tremor on Tuesday morning was about 10km (six miles) south of the historic city of Granada, the country’s National Geographic Institute (IGN) said…
Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, is to play two shows in St Petersburg, Russia, this October – becoming the biggest Western star to play in the country since its invasion of Ukraine four years ago…
There is a distinction between being edgy and being an asshole.
Frank Beard, the drummer for the Texas boogie-rock trio ZZ Top who kept the tempo for the band’s biggest hits like Sharp Dressed Man, Legs and Gimme All Your Lovin’, has died. He was 77…
Russian tanks have entered battle for the first time with a new active protection system designed to shoot down incoming drones. But the technology’s recent combat debut in Ukraine met with only limited success—Ukrainian drones still destroyed the Russian armored vehicles by attacking in overwhelming numbers.
The first documented battlefield appearance of the Arena-M active protection system took place when Russian forces launched a company-size assault with tanks and other armored vehicles in the Donetsk Oblast of eastern Ukraine on July 22. The Ukrainian defenders repelled the attack and posted video footage of their kamikaze drone strikes destroying at least seven T-72B3A tanks, including some that carried the Arena-M system, according to Euromaidan Press.
However, Ukrainian soldiers also described the Russian Arena-M system successfully shooting down some incoming drones, according to the journalists Dmytro Putiata and Rob Lee. The Ukrainians reported requiring between 15 and 20 drones to finish off each tank…
Having just a dozen countermunitions for interceptions also proved inadequate in the face of large numbers of Ukrainian drones. Remotely piloted Ukrainian drones capable of disabling or destroying armored vehicles through kamikaze attacks can cost as little as $400 each—so it’s still a very cost-effective trade for Ukrainian drone operators even if they have to use more than 12 drones to take out an armored vehicle costing millions of dollars…
Florida’s primary voters went with the favorites in both parties Tuesday night, setting up a long-expected clash to determine who will serve as the state’s next governor after eight years of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
On the Republican side, Rep. Byron Donalds, who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump, outran a crowded GOP field to win his party’s nomination, NBC News projects, while Republican-turned-Democrat David Jolly, a former member of Congress, won his primary…
Progressive state Rep. Angie Nixon scored a major upset over former National Security Council aide Alex Vindman in the Florida Democratic Senate primary, NBC News projects, setting up a general election race against Republican Sen. Ashley Moody.
Vindman, a retired lieutenant colonel and Iraq War veteran and who rose to prominence as a witness during President Donald Trump’s 2019 impeachment hearings, was viewed as a heavy favorite against Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, heading into Tuesday’s contest. Vindman has raised $16 million for his campaign, a significant number for a Democrat in red-leaning Florida…
A judge who was recently nominated by Donald Trump to serve in Florida’s federal court has taken over as judge in the US president’s $10bn defamation case against the BBC.
Jeffrey Kuntz was nominated as a federal judge by Trump in April and confirmed by a 51-46 majority in the Republican-led Senate last month.
He was previously an appeals court judge in Florida and replaces Judge Roy Altman, who had also been nominated by Trump in 2019.
Altman was previously overseeing the case in which Trump is suing the BBC over the way its Panorama programme edited a speech he gave outside the Capitol in Washington DC on 6 January 2021…
Editor’s note: This story is being updated with additional details.
Former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov on Aug. 18 called for Ukraine to find a way to restore a full democratic process even as the war continues, arguing that Russia should not be allowed to determine when Ukrainians can elect their government.
In a video address, Fedorov said Ukraine needs a “legal, safe, and realistic mechanism” for holding elections during a prolonged war while ensuring voting rights for military personnel, Ukrainians abroad, and people living in front-line regions…
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Tuesday announced he is suing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over the extradition of an immigration agent accused of shooting a man in Minneapolis.
Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty previously sent letters to Abbott asking him to sign extradition paperwork for Christian Castro, the ICE agent accused of shooting a man in the leg in north Minneapolis in January. Castro is charged with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. According to Moriarty, Texas Rangers arrested him on May 29 and he has been held at the Cameron County Jail ever since.
Moriarty and Ellison repeatedly stressed that extradition requests are intended to be administrative, and an apparent refusal like Abbott’s is extremely rare, if not unprecedented.
“We have never heard of anything taking this long because it is an administrative process,” Moriarty said. “It is not supposed to be controversial.”
Ellison’s letter to Abbott set a deadline of 5 p.m. on Monday, and threatened legal action if he did not comply.
“Christian Castro’s not above the law,” Ellison said, “and Greg Abbott isn’t either.”
…
StevoRsays
I dont suppose anyone here happens to know anything about what’s happening with China’s Tianwen-2 mission do they?
We had the first, rather blurry photo of the quasi-moon NEO Kamo’oalewa back at the start of July and I’d hoped we’d be getting better images and info from that by now but haven’t seen or been able to find any. Hope its going okay & no issues. Anyone with better google-fu skills or access to knowledge there happen to know please?
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
StevoR @433: Nothing published this month from what I can tell.
Kamo’oalewa has an average diameter of only about 41 meters and rotates at high speed. This means the spacecraft must achieve stable contact and collect samples within a limited timeframe. If it manages to gather samples, it will then release them in a capsule during an Earth flyby in November 2027. […] Since the probe’s orientation must be finely adjusted when capturing images, seizing these limited windows of opportunity is an extremely difficult task.
Having arrived at Kamo’oalewa, Tianwen-2 will spend the next few weeks mapping the asteroid’s surface at altitudes between 1,000 feet and 12.5 miles (300 m to 20 km) above its surface, according to limited mission details revealed by Chinese scientists in a January study. The resulting map will allow researchers to estimate the asteroid’s density and work out the best landing spot. On July 4, the probe is expected to swoop down and scoop up around 3.5 ounces (100 grams) of surface material, or regolith, from the asteroid […] there are multiple ways this sampling process could play out. [*snip*] After collecting samples, the probe will remain alongside the asteroid and conduct further analysis of its size, shape and trajectory.
In late April 2027, Tianwen-2 will depart Kamo’oalewa and begin the six-month journey back to Earth, where it will dump its samples in a return capsule that will fall to our planet’s surface as the probe begins its long journey to rendezvous with 311P/PanSTARRS.
birgerjohanssonsays
“Lost ‘mega-escarpment’ across ancient USA may explain Grand Canyon’s missing billion years”
A smaller, less dramatic version of an escarpment can be found in Southern Africa.
birgerjohanssonsays
What They Don’t Tell You About the Hospital That Treated 45,000 Vietnam Casualties.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=cXOIySFcsSY
Memories of a nurse. Like …holding up a letter and reading it to a soldier that had lost both arms, a ‘dear John’ letter where the girlfriend wrote she was leaving him because she could not be married to a man without arms.
birgerjohanssonsays
Alien Space Show:
“Hunter Biden Beams Aboard To Finish Goal of Doing Every Podcast”
A study of more than 64,000 people born around the end of Britain’s postwar sugar rationing found that those exposed to less sugar during their first 1,000 days had lower rates of five cancers decades later, including roughly 69% lower liver cancer risk and 36% lower breast cancer risk. They also “showed signs of slower biological aging” and “continued to consume less sugar and had healthier diets overall,” according to the authors of a new study published in The Conversation. From the report: …
GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan and former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola are among those advancing to the general election in November in Alaska’s Senate race, CBS News projects, as Sullivan defends his seat in a race that could be key to determining control of the chamber next year.
Though Alaska hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 2008, Sullivan, a second-term senator and a Marine veteran who worked at the State Department under the George W. Bush administration, faces a formidable opponent in Peltola.
Peltola, 52, became the first Democrat to represent the state in the House in 50 years in 2022, though she ultimately lost her reelection bid for Alaska’s sole House seat the following cycle. But Peltola, the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress, fell short by less than 3 points in the 2024 race, despite President Trump winning the state by 13 points.
…
In Alaska, the top four vote-getters in the primary advance to the general election. The other two candidates have not yet been determined…
An experimental personalized cancer vaccine from Merck and Moderna showed positive initial results in its first-ever late-stage trial, the companies announced Wednesday, bringing them one step closer to filing for approval of the treatment option.
The mRNA-based shot in combination with Merck’s immunotherapy Keytruda met key goals in the Phase 3 trial in more than 1,100 patients with higher-risk or advanced melanoma whose detectable cancer had been completely removed through surgery…
President Trump is expected to nominate Heidi Overton, a top conservative policy aide, as the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, according to multiple media reports.
Overton is currently the deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and has played a key role in shaping a variety of health policies during Trump’s second term. At times, she has notably angered members of the Make America Healthy Again movement, which was created by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Overton has a medical degree from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and earned a doctoral degree in clinical investigation from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. While at Johns Hopkins, she worked with Marty Makary, the previous FDA commissioner who was ousted by Trump amid a cacophony of controversies.
…
Prior to Overton’s current White House role, she worked on health policy for the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank previously helmed by Brooke Rollins, who now serves as Trump’s agriculture secretary…
Once formally nominated, Overton needs Senate confirmation to assume the role.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media:
X’s algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper, titled Value misalignment of X’s feed algorithm is a reflection of value tensions in engagement, found that the site’s algorithm prioritized engagement above all else when it generated a user’s For You Page. It also showed that X serves more ragebait to people who say they are Democrats, although the exact reason for that is unclear.
…
johnson catmansays
re shermanj@443:
Fun fact: if you fling a bottle of salt water onto shock gloves they will likely short out and electrocute the ahole wearing them!
Salt-water balloons at 10 paces it is! Soak the ICE-holes!
whheydtsays
Re: shock gloves…
whheydtsays
Let me try that again.
Re: shock gloves…
Someone needs to find or develop an electrically conductive skin cream. Best if it is transparent so the glove user doesn’t know it’s there.
For non-exposed parts of the body… Mail armor strikes me a good thing the wear.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
whheydt @448: Making skin itself—where the nerves are—more conductive would be counterproductive, I think. According to Wired in 373, “the gloves won’t work through dry clothing or thick hair. The gloves will work, however, if the subject is wearing thin, wet clothing, such as soaked T-shirts or blouses.”
whheydtsays
Re: CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ #449….
The idea would to make the current flow though a conductive layer on top of the skin, rather going through the skin. As for the thin/wt clothing….soak the clothing in salt water? Or…wear the T-shirt over mail.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
whheydt @450: “a conductive layer on top of the skin, rather going through the skin.”
More than 99% of the body’s resistance to electric current flow is at the skin. […] A calloused, dry hand may have more than 100,000 Ω because of a thick outer layer of dead cells […] The internal body resistance is about 300 Ω, being related to the wet, relatively salty tissues beneath the skin. The skin resistance can be effectively bypassed if there is […] a cut, a deep abrasion, or immersion in water […] The skin acts like an electrical device such as a capacitor in that it allows more current to flow if a voltage is changing rapidly.
[…]
The skin contact resistance will usually be between 1000 and 100,000 Ω, depending on contact area, moisture, condition of the skin, and other factors. The skin thus provides most of the body’s protection from electric current.
[…]
with direct current, there is only a feeling of shock when the circuit is made or broken. While the contact is maintained, there is no sensation of shock.
[…]
A person receiving an electrical shock will have (at least) 2 contact points to a voltage source […] current flow can go through many somewhat parallel pathways, such as through the nerves, muscles, and bones of the forearm. […] The total body resistance is equal to the internal body resistance plus the 2 skin resistances.
[…]
Smoot measured a total body resistance of 400 Ω with immersion. Much of this is due to the internal body resistance. Thus, immersion eliminates most of the skin resistance.
Salt water is very conductive compared with the human body, making electric shock drowning in salt water relatively rare. This is because much of the electric current is shunted around the outside of the body.
Still strikes me as risky and uncomfortable compared to dry clothes. If the contact points are wet, but the surface between them is not contiguous with consistently lower resistance, you’ve forfeited your skin resistance for nothing.
That said… e-tattoos (conductive skin paint) have been developed.
… Now, Anaïs is one of nearly 250 women who believe Nègre drugged them in alleged incidents between 2009 and 2018, subjecting them to what is known as chemical submission, where drugs are used to gain control over someone.
…
Then in 2019, she received a letter from the police. When she met them, she learned they suspected she was one of almost 200 women Nègre was accused of drugging during job interviews, purportedly for roles at the ministry.
…
Police believed Nègre had used diuretics, which are used to manage a number of medical conditions, including high blood pressure, and cause the body to produce excess urine.
…
Anaïs says police told her they found a spreadsheet of the alleged victims on Nègre’s computer, entitled Experiments P, which was how they found her.
The document, she says, noted the time the women arrived for their interviews, when the diuretic was administered, how long it took before they urinated, and what underwear they were wearing.
Looking back, Anaïs is now convinced the strange taste in the coffee Nègre made her was the diuretic.
The investigation into Nègre began in June 2018, when he was caught by a colleague taking a photograph of a woman from beneath a table, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement released in February this year.
He was initially suspended from his job as regional director of cultural affairs before being sacked by the Ministry of Culture in 2019…
…
Nègre, who is in his 60s, is now under formal investigation on charges that include drugging, invasion of privacy and sexual assault. He is awaiting trial…
A proposed class-action lawsuit targeting a Quebec maple syrup producer who sold cans of fake syrup is now adding several major grocery store chains as defendants, alleging they should have done more to ensure the product they were selling was indeed pure maple syrup from Quebec.
“Grocery stores also demonstrated serious negligence, recklessness, carelessness, or indifference, disregarding the trust of their customers, by selling the maple syrup for several years,” law firm Slater Vecchio alleged in legal documents filed earlier this month.
The class-action lawsuit was initially launched against Quebec syrup producer Steve Bourdeau in April after Radio-Canada’s Enquête program revealed Bourdeau had sold cans of syrup to grocery stores that were cut with at least 50 per cent cane sugar, despite being labelled as pure maple syrup.
A request filed earlier this month to amend the lawsuit adds grocery store chains Metro, Sobeys, Loblaws and Epicia Group — which operates Val-Mont grocery stores in Quebec — as defendants…
A federal judge has sentenced a 27-year-old Tennessee man to 77 years in prison for his targeting of young girls online as part of the extremist network 764, which the FBI deems a form of “modern-day terrorism.”
The sentence handed down to Kyle Spitze on Wednesday marks the longest federal sentence so far for any associate of 764, whose mostly young followers around the world use popular social media platforms to methodically target, groom and push vulnerable teens into harming themselves and others…
Hackers are actively targeting Siemens equipment used in water plants and other critical infrastructure, several U.S. agencies are warning.
The National Security Agency (NSA) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with other agencies like the FBI, have issued a joint cybersecurity advisory this week detailing an active threat against Siemens S7 Series programmable logic controllers (PLCs).
These controllers are industrial computers used to operate physical equipment and processes, including pumps and valves at water treatment facilities…
New reporting from Bloomberg revealed how cybersecurity staff at U.S. phone provider T-Mobile identified and expelled Chinese hackers from its network in 2024 during a spate of industry-wide intrusions by Beijing aimed at stealing customer data.
The hacks were carried out by a Chinese government-backed hacking group called Salt Typhoon. The campaign compromised hundreds of phone companies, internet giants, and data center providers with the goal of collecting phone records and information about senior U.S. government officials, including then-presidential candidates. Hacked companies included AT&T, Verizon, satellite phone network Viasat, and network infrastructure giants Charter and Windstream.
By and large, T-Mobile escaped a widescale breach of its network by catching the activity early — and resorted to physically cutting the cable to a compromised system, per Bloomberg.
The publication said T-Mobile’s cyber staff spent months looking for suspected hackers in its network without success. Eventually, the company found unusual behavior on one of its systems coming from another router belonging to a different telecom company, which T-Mobile did not name.
After identifying the breach, T-Mobile’s cybersecurity chief, Jeff Simon, told Bloomberg that he and three others drove to the data center nearby to its Bellevue, Washington headquarters, found the compromised system, pulled out a set of scissors, and snipped the cable connecting the box to the outside world.
When reached by TechCrunch, T-Mobile did not provide comment.
The Federal Communications Commission last week eliminated the gigabit speed goal established during the Biden administration and declared that current levels of broadband deployment in the US are acceptable. Though fiber networks have routinely offered such speeds for years, the FCC said the gigabit speed goal is not “technologically neutral,” suggesting that it isn’t fair to other, slower technologies.
In 2024, the FCC raised its broadband benchmark to 100Mbps downstream and 20Mbps upstream, setting the new standard by which to judge whether deployment is reasonable and timely. The FCC at the time also set a long-term speed goal of 1Gbps download speeds paired with 500Mbps upload speeds, saying it would use the goal “as a guidepost for evaluating our efforts to encourage deployment.”
Republican Brendan Carr, who is now the FCC chairman, never liked that long-term goal. He proposed abolishing it last year, and the change was finalized on August 14 in the FCC’s latest broadband deployment report. The reports are mandated by Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act…
Sen. Darline Graham stumbled in a Tuesday night debate over an elementary question about foreign policy, a signature issue of her late brother. It was a high-profile misstep a week before she faces a runoff election in her bid to hold onto the South Carolina seat to which she was appointed last month.
Graham, a political novice, was asked whether the U.S. has a national security interest in Taiwan and the South China Sea — a longstanding contention of both Democratic and Republican administrations. She struggled to answer before admitting “national security is not my thing.” …
A series of blueberry and mixed berry products that were recalled due to possible E. coli contamination have been issued the highest risk warning by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The Class I risk classification, issued on Tuesday, applies to four GreenWise products sold at Publix:…
ederal prosecutors are being ordered to turn over to a judge all grand jury material for her review in the case of dozens of people charged with plotting and participating in an anti-ICE demonstration inside a St. Paul church in January.
The order from U.S. District Judge Laura Provinzino was issued Tuesday and sets an Aug. 25 deadline for the U.S. Attorney’s Office to comply.
Provinzino’s directive comes after Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko on June 10 denied defense motions seeking disclosure of grand jury materials. In late May, attorneys for defendant Don Lemon asked the court to unseal grand jury transcripts in his case, alleging recent examples of misconduct by the Justice Department warranted the move.
“Balancing the competing interests of maintaining secrecy of grand jury materials … against whether a ground may exist to dismiss the indictment because of a matter that occurred before the grand jury,” Provinzino wrote, “The court agrees with the defendants that an [in chambers] review of the grand jury materials is appropriate to rule on Magistrate Judge Micko’s order” blocking disclosure.
The order calls for prosecutors to hand over to Provinzino “a copy of the transcripts and a thumb drive of any multimedia evidence” from the grand jury proceedings that led to the indictments of 38 people, among them Minneapolis civil rights activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, former CNN news anchor Don Lemon and Twin Cities independent journalist Georgia Fort.
The judge said the grand jury material “should comprise any introduction, legal instruction for the two counts, witness testimony and closing [presentation], including answers to questions from the grand jurors.” …
The incident occurred on Sunday morning in Narragansett when the driver of a tractor-trailer transporting the squid failed to make a turn, and the vehicle fell on to its side, the town’s police department said … calamari is the official state appetizer.
Jeansays
Reginald Selkirk @457
You did not put the section of the article that says this gigabit bandwidth is a problem for satellite services. And while it is not even mentioned in the article, that certainly comes from Elon Musk either directly or indirectly. One more example of the enshittification of the US government by Musk and enabled by Trump.
StevoRsays
@445. Reginald Selkirk :
X’s Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds
… (Snip)… It also showed that X serves more ragebait to people who say they are Democrats, although the exact reason for that is unclear.
Felon Musk is the reason for that pretty clearly. Of course, driving one side of politics off X just makes it baised and hurts that comonay / network but he’s basically gone in to destroy it delierately so, yeah.
StevoRsays
@445. Reginald Selkirk :
X’s Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds
… (Snip)… It also showed that X serves more ragebait to people who say they are Democrats, although the exact reason for that is unclear.
Felon Musk is the reason for that pretty clearly. Of course, driving one side of politics off X just makes it baised and hurts that comonay / network but he’s basically gone in to destroy it delierately so, yeah.
StevoRsays
^ Company.
birgerjohanssonsays
A Chinese space probe has been approaching a small asteroid (60-100 m) near Earth. It is a “pseudo-moon” in an orbit parallel to Earth. It is possibly a fragment of the Moon that has been ejected by a giant impact, it has the same spectra as Moon rock.
There was some pretty odd emergency management news in Florida […] At this point, I am not exactly sure what this all means […]
The director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) Kevin Guthrie is a very well known figure in emergency management. Many consider him to be the “top” emergency manager in the country. The administration had been considering nominating him for FEMA administrator. I have recently written about him because DeSantis tasked Guthrie (and FDEM) with building the Everglades Concentration Camp (Alligator Alcatraz). […] In researching I have come to understand Guthrie as an extremely dangerous threat to emergency management.
Meanwhile… DeSantis is term limited, so the governor’s race in Florida has been somewhat interesting. One of the people running is the current Lt. Governor, Jay Collins. Interestingly, neither Trump nor DeSantis endorsed him. […]
On Monday Collins announced Kevin Guthrie would be joining his ticket as Lt. Governor. It’s not surprising Guthrie has bigger political ambitions (see his predecessor Jared Moskowitz). It is surprising he agreed to join a candidate his boss didn’t endorse and with seemingly little deliberation. The decision was so last minute that Guthrie didn’t even tell his deputy—or DeSantis—before this was announced. Wild choice?!
The Collins campaign had not been going well. He wasn’t getting the endorsements you’d expect him to get. And he was persistently not polling well. Which is what makes this so confusing. Guthrie joined the campaign the DAY BEFORE THE PRIMARY. He joined a losing campaign. By Tuesday morning (yesterday and the day of the Florida primary) Guthrie announced he had “resigned” from FDEM.
[…] So in the span of a day Guthrie went from being considered one of the most powerful people in all of emergency management to losing a campaign and having no job. […]
Meanwhile, DeSantis has made his secretary of transportation, Jared Perdue, the director of FDEM—not the deputy—which is interesting.
I have to imagine there was something else going on behind the scenes that led to Guthrie making this seemingly odd series of decisions but I don’t know what. This [article] really makes it seem like he just wildly misread the political situation…???
[Last year RFK Jr finalized a] rule, which made changes to […] requirements for ACA marketplace plans, entirely prohibited coverage of ‘sex-trait modification procedures’ […] that court fight dragged on, some insurance companies started caving to the federal pressure.
[…]
But on Saturday, things took a turn [with] Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, a George H.W. Bush appointee, declaring the rule ‘unlawful’ and vacating it entirely. In his decision, […] the Trump administration had implemented the rule without the required review […] best of all, it’ll be very difficult for an appeal to overturn, as it was a summary judgement—a decision made without trial after a court finds there to be no real factual dispute
[…]
Starting today, insurance companies […] will no longer be able to lean on [that vacated rule] to justify denying trans people proper healthcare coverage, exposing them to lawsuits if they don’t work quickly to reverse their denials.
[…]
the Trump administration could theoretically attempt to implement [the rule] again. That said, doing so would take some time due to the HHS having to conduct the review it tried to skip this time around, and this means the earliest a similar rule could be adopted is in 2028.
mRNA vaccines vs cancer success
—melanoma (Phase 3, RCT, definitive, announced today)
—triple negative breast cancer
—pancreatic cancer
—non-small cell lung cancer
—glioblastoma
Rando: “there’s one for colon cancer in the works too.”
Articles at the link.
Reginald Selkirksays
@462
You did not put the section of the article that says …
That’s because I understand how links work. If you want the full article, all you have to do is click the link and read it. I am surprised the no one else here seems to understand that.
The mission to save NASA’s sinking Swift Observatory was called off Wednesday, dooming the telescope to a fiery reentry later this year.
NASA and Katalyst Space Technologies announced the news more than a month after the startup’s Link spacecraft rocketed away to the telescope’s rescue.
Katalyst said Link will not attempt to capture Swift and boost it to a higher orbit because of problems with controlling the spacecraft. NASA said this means the telescope will plunge through the atmosphere after more than 20 years of tracking some of the biggest explosions in the universe like gamma ray bursts and exploding stars. Its demise is not expected before October.
NASA paid $30 million to Katalyst in an attempt to raise the telescope to a safer, longer-lasting orbit. Intense solar activity caused it to lose altitude faster than expected. The rescue spacecraft went into an uncontrollable spin a few weeks after its liftoff in early July. While flight controllers managed to slow Link’s tumble, issues continued to plague its pointing and positioning in orbit…
A Missouri judge handed President Donald Trump and Republicans a major redistricting victory Wednesday, ruling that the state’s referendum process cannot be used to challenge congressional maps drawn by the Legislature and allowing a new GOP-friendly map to remain in place for November’s midterm elections.
Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green ruled Wednesday that Missouri’s constitutional referendum provisions “do not apply to congressional redistricting enacted by the General Assembly,” siding with Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in a closely watched fight over a Trump-backed map that could help determine control of the U.S. House.
Green also ruled that Hoskins’ decision not to certify the referendum petition was “lawful” and ordered that the Republican-backed congressional map “remains in full force and effect for the 2026 general election.” …
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is announcing a new show focusing on the experiences of Gen-Z and millennial atheists, agnostics and other nonreligious folks.
The show features casual discussion of the specific nonreligious beliefs and experiences of invited guests. Season One covers topics such as: creating your own traditions to replace religious ones, the intersection of atheism and sex education, atheist views on the concepts of good and evil, finding nonreligious community, leaving “reddit atheism” — and more!
FFRF’s Digital Media Manager Rowan Hahn hosts the show that focuses on the lives and opinions of everyday people, and of course, some of FFRF’s staff…
North Korea launched a barrage of ballistic missiles toward the sea on Thursday, South Korea’s military said, a day after the North shrugged off a U.S. decision to scale back military drills with South Korea in an apparent bid to resume diplomacy.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launches of about 10 short-range ballistic missiles happened from North Korea’s capital region around 5 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Thursday. The military said the missiles flew about 300 kilometers (185 miles) each toward North Korea’s eastern waters…
The “nasty” stories about President Donald Trump’s executive assistant Natalie Harp are being leaked from inside the White House, Laura Loomer has claimed…
Maybe they are, but I am not prepared to accept Laura Loomer as a reliable source.
From this point onward, I will not refer to the new HoverAir Versa as a drone. Zero Zero Robotics, a company known for making all manner of UAS (unmanned aerial systems), is trying to sell you on a device it promises you can buy inside the U.S. despite the current ban on foreign-made drones. The company claims that, because the Versa is not a drone, it’s an “Intelligent Self-Flying Camera.” …
Belgium’s Prince Laurent has legally recognised 26-year-old former car salesman Clément Vandenkerckhove as his son and heir.
Vandenkerckhove, the result of a relationship between the royal and Belgian singer Wendy Van Wanten, was quietly brought into Prince Laurent’s family at a town hall ceremony six months ago, although details have only just emerged.
While he formally becomes a prince, he will not receive a royal allowance…
Elon Musk’s xAI just got some support from the U.S. Department of Justice in its lawsuit against Minnesota over the state’s ban on AI nudification technology.
The Justice Department filed a statement of interest Tuesday arguing that Minnesota’s law goes further than existing federal restrictions. More broadly, the department warned that a patchwork of state AI regulations could hamper industry development. However, the DOJ did not explicitly ask the judge to grant xAI’s request for an injunction.
Elon Musk’s xAI, the company behind Grok, first sued Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in late July, alleging that the new law is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment…
The FBI stopped former US Congressman Eric Swalwell in an airport and seized his electronic devices while also raiding his home in Washington DC this weekend, as part of a federal investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against him.
After the allegations surfaced earlier this year, Swalwell dropped out of the California governor’s race – where he was in the lead – and gave up his seat in the House of Representatives.
He is also under criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department for accusations of rape and sexual assault…
In today’s world, I cannot rule out the possibility that the raid was motivated by political considerations.
Pirates hijacked a Cameroon-flagged cargo ship off Somalia’s Puntland coast earlier this week and took the vessel, which was carrying Turkish weapons, toward the region’s Nugaal coast, a Somali official said Thursday.
The M/V LUTUF was seized on Monday about 3½ nautical miles off Marraya in Puntland’s Eyl district, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about sensitive information.
The ship, owned by Polar Movement Shipping, was carrying weapons bound for a Turkish military training facility in Mogadishu, as well as communications and satellite equipment, the official said.
The 10-member crew included six Indians, one Turkish national, one Georgian and two Serbian security guards, he said.
There was no immediate comment from Turkish authorities about the incident.
Eight pirates, believed to be members of a group previously involved in the hijacking of the M/V Sward on April 26, took the vessel toward the coast near Garmaal in Puntland’s Dangoroyo district.
Two Turkish-owned vessels later approached the hijacked ship, while Turkish helicopters and drones monitored the area, the official said. On Tuesday, a small boat carrying two men approached the vessel and delivered khat, a stimulant commonly chewed in Somalia, he said.
After the boat returned to shore, an airstrike followed, killing four men and wounding two others, the official said.
The circumstances of the strike, including who carried it out and whether those killed were involved in the hijacking, couldn’t immediately be independently verified. The status of the LUTUF, including its crew and cargo, wasn’t immediately clear. The AP couldn’t independently verify all details of the account.
Flock cameras are controversial to say the least. But the dystopian surveillance company has at least one fan: Darth Vader.
A man dressed as the Star Wars villain spoke Wednesday night at a San Diego City Council meeting regarding public safety. The unidentified man (he was only addressed as “Darth Vader” when members of the public were allowed to speak) walked up to the microphone with his trademark breathing audible.
“The Emperor is a fan of Flock, and we must continue utilizing Flock technologies so that we can follow and surveil the rebel scum as they move from playground to playground; from playground to pool; from pool to gymnasium,” Mr. Vader said.
“Because we all know that the Flock cameras are not only following the license plate readers, they are following children. They are following children in parks and gymnasiums. And we need this. I need this so I can stalk my ex-girlfriend,” the Dark Lord continued.
he told reporters that the state of Jammu and Kashmir is an “important part of India.”
Gor reignited diplomatic tensions over the area of Kashmir, which has been claimed by both India and Pakistan. The two nuclear-armed countries have fought three wars over the region with the most recent conflict taking place in May 2025. […] The comments drew a response from Pakistan, […] Gor “negated the long-standing and well-documented position of the United States” on the dispute, which is to allow Pakistan and India to handle the matter through bilateral relations. […] Trump intervened in the India-Pakistan conflict in 2025 and took credit for its resolution.
[…]
Pakistan has also played a leading role in the months-long negotiation efforts to end the U.S.-Iran conflict.
* See a comment last year for background on Kashmir and India’s Israel parallels/connections.
On August 11th, stormy conditions brought 99-mph winds to the area, knocking down trees, power lines, and stoplights. As a result, over 300,000 NIPSCO customers have been left without power.
Gary, IN has been abandoned just like so many other predominantly Black cities have been when disaster strikes. About 40% of the city’s 67,000+ residents have been without power for over a week. No refrigeration or AC
[*snip*]
To summarize—all of the cities in the power outage area that have large Black populations and minority white populations are the last few cities to have power restored. Could it be a coincidence? Sure. But if we consider the history of disaster recovery and race in the US, it certainly raises [questions].
I grew up in Florida, I know that power outages can take a long time, ie hurricanes really mess things up. But I also did field research in Detroit and have seen how Black communities get abandoned in ways white ones often do not. In the context of N. IN, Gary being an outlier on receiving services always raises red flags for me.
Someone driving through Gary remarked, “The destruction is like having a hurricane roar through the Midwest.”
Parts of Indiana got 11 inches of rain within 48 hours. There has been flash flooding in central and eastern Indiana, along the White River. Several cities had roads/bridges collapse and wash away. Cambridge City on the far east—which was already prone to floods due to a canal—had water up to houses’ second story. The governor declared a statewide disaster, and Trump approved funding (red state).
A frontal boundary stalled over the Midwest and was unable to move due to a heat dome in the southern United States. In the Gulf, a high pressure system brought moisture to the stalled front and fueling storms. […] The stationary front continued to produce rounds of showers and thunderstorms […] Beginning on August 16, precipitation came to an end as a cold front began to move over Midwest.
El Niño is the warm phase of a natural cycle (ENSO) occurring every 2-7 years in tropical Pacific Ocean. El Niño directly affects local climate in places closest to unusually warm ocean waters, but can also indirectly influence climate of distant regions thousands of miles away.
As of August, a strong El Niño event has already developed—and substantial further strengthening is expected. In fact, there’s now very high likelihood (>90%) that El Niño will become very strong, and high likelihood (~70%) that the 2026 event will become the strongest on record. […] will likely contribute to regional drought & flood events. Additionally, its temporary effects will amplify effects of long-term warming from climate change.
My personal and professional advice to those in, near, and even (in some cases) outside of known flood zones is to seriously consider obtaining flood insurance this year, since standard policies usually exclude flooding from storms or oceanic inundation.
Jeansays
Reginald Selkirk @470
First that was not a criticism but just an observation to make my point in the rest of my comment. Second, I obviously know how links work since I used it to go to the article where I saw the information about satellite services and that Elon was not mentioned.
Russian attacks on Ukrainian publishing infrastructure in July and August destroyed roughly 10 million books, which equates to about 30% of Ukraine’s annual book output. The Ukrainian Book Institute is warning of a potential “collapse of the entire book ecosystem” and is calling for international financial and industry support to help publishers, printers, and distributors recover. The Guardian reports:…
The FBI has arrested a New York woman who was allegedly planning to bomb the state capitol building in Albany to kill lawmakers.
Prosecutors allege that Jessica Bowie, 35, had previously pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group (IS). She is charged with providing material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organisation.
Bowie had “repeatedly surveilled the building” in advance, and was carrying a fake bomb and a defective gun, which had been supplied to her by undercover agents, prosecutors said…
A magnitude 6.7 earthquake shook Peru’s southern Andes Mountains on Thursday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. There were no immediate reports of damage.
The USGS said the quake occurred at 1 p.m. local time (18:00 GMT) and was centered 38 kilometers (24 miles) northwest of the city of Upahuacho, in the Parinacochas province of the Ayacucho region. It had a depth of 66.7 kilometers…
Republican U.S. Rep. Randy Fine will not face federal charges after he was caught Sunday on a security camera peeking inside the porch mailbox of an Ormond Beach home and flipping through each letter, according to the website TMZ.
The porch scene was first reported by the news website The Space Coast Rocket. Fine’s office later confirmed to TMZ that it was the congressman seen on the Ring camera video.
On the security video, Fine — wearing a red hat and blue shirt from his campaign — is seen walking into the front porch, ringing the doorbell, then looking around for a moment before opening the wall-mounted mailbox and rifling through individual letters.
He does not remove anything from the mailbox, nor does he place anything inside.
…
It is against federal law for anyone other than a Postal Service employee or the homeowner to tamper, remove or place anything inside a mailbox. Fine would also have not have been allowed under federal law to leave his campaign literature inside the mailbox.
…
The Iran war is giving fresh life to Somali pirates who prey on commercial ships laden with fuel and goods—a threat that had lain dormant for years. Earlier this week, a group of pirates seized a cargo ship off the coast of Somalia—at least the fifth such attack since April […] seized tankers are now being held off the coast of Somalia and dozens of crew members are hostages.
[…]
Somali pirates attacked hundreds of ships between 2005 and 2011, causing an estimated $18 billion in damages annually. However, the threat was largely neutralized after sustained efforts by NATO and the Combined Maritime Forces, a 47-nation naval partnership that includes the United States. Now, American ships are protecting tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz.
Somali communities report that the conflict originated from their need to defend themselves against foreign trawlers, which they allege steal fish and restrict access to traditional fishing grounds. They also claim that the dumping of toxic and nuclear waste from Europe into their waters has resulted in severe environmental damage […]
Somali waters have high fisheries production potential, but the sustainability of those fisheries is compromised by the presence of foreign fishing vessels, a number of them fishing illegally. The Somali domestic fishing sector is small and poorly developed, whereas foreign vessels have fished in Somali waters for at least seven decades. […] Foreign fishing has increased more than twenty-fold since 1981, and the most rapid increase occurred during the 1990s after the collapse of the Federal government under Siad Barre and the ensuing civil war. […] The Somali Navy dissolved by ~1991. This vacuum has been exploited by often large foreign fishing boats […] The fishing community responded by forming armed groups […]
These groups were then considered to be pirates, especially after they began hijacking non-fishing commercial vessels. With the region badly affected by poverty and government corruption, there was little political motivation at the local level to deal with the crisis.
[…]
resurfacing of piracy in the area is closely linked to the unaltered root causes
[…]
a veritable industry of profiteers has also risen around the piracy. Insurance companies, in particular, have profited from the pirate attacks, as insurance premiums have increased significantly. […] to keep premiums high, insurance firms have not demanded that ship owners take security precautions that would make hijackings more difficult. For their part, shipping companies often ignore naval guidelines on how best to prevent pirate attacks in order to cut down on costs. In addition, security contractors and the arms industry have profited from the phenomenon.
birgerjohanssonsays
“2026 Senate Prediction | 75 Days Till November:
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=HND6M7WXawA
.
Right now it is fifty-fifty, but with three promising states that can be flipped. Also, in Nebraska Osborne is a strong independent candidate. If Agent Orange keeps the war going and gas prices high, things will change for the worse for GOP.
StevoRsays
Owen Jones covers alot more incl the World Central Kitchen massacre adn the history of their lies and why and more here – Israel Finally ADMITS Killing Hind Rajab in just over twenty minutes.
A film with a female-driven narrative, versus just a film with a female lead: Comparing the Swedish and American versions of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18syRkouYs/
birgerjohanssonsays
‘Starve the beast’? The $40tn cost of Republicans’ false promises to cut spending | US economy |
The Guardian .https://share.google/cb4YX5VUFwwGL5tPm
When Ronald Reagan became president, the national debt was 1 trillion. This was used as an excuse to scrap social programs.
Somehow, the debt keeps rising under Republican presidents.
Republican strategist Wanniski first proposed his Two Santa Clauses strategy in The Wall Street Journal in 1974, after Richard Nixon resigned […] the public perception that the Democrats were the true party of Santa Claus, using taxes on the rich to fund programs for the poor and the working class. […] And every time Republicans railed against these programs, they lost elections.
Therefore, Wanniski concluded, the GOP had to become a Santa Claus party, too. But because Republicans hated the idea of helping out working people, they had to come up with a new way to convince average voters that the GOP, too, had the Santa spirit. But what? “Tax cuts!”
[…]
Wanniski invented a new phrase—”Supply-Side Economics”—and said the reason economies grew and became robust wasn’t because people had good union jobs and thus enough money to buy things but, instead, because business made things available for sale, thus tantalizing people to part with their money. […] And the more money we gave rich people and their corporations (via tax cuts) the more stuff (supply) they’d generously produce for us to think about buying.
[…]
Bill Clinton, the first Democrat they blindsided with Two Santas, had run on an FDR-like platform of a “New Covenant” with the American people that would strengthen the institutions of the New Deal, re-empower labor, and institute a national single-payer health care system.
A few weeks before his inauguration, however, Wanniski-insiders Alan Greenspan, Larry Sommers, and Goldman Sachs co-chairman Robert Rubin famously sat Clinton down and told him the facts of life: Reagan and Bush had run up such a huge deficit that he was going to have to both raise taxes and cut the size of government programs for the working class and poor.
Clinton took their advice to heart, raised taxes, balanced the budget, and cut numerous social programs. He declared an “end to welfare as we know it” and, in his second inaugural address, an “end to the era of big government.” Clinton shot Santa Claus, and the result was an explosion of Republican wins across the country
For the convenience of readers, here are some links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-3/#comment-2308386
Left-wing political outsider wins Democratic Senate primary in Michigan
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-3/#comment-2308388
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Rolled over’: Hayes rips Cornyn, Tillis for caving on Blanche
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-3/#comment-2308381
“Let’s call Trump’s approach to Iran what it is: kindergarten diplomacy”
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-3/#comment-2308373
World’s first seahorse hospital fights to protect them from extinction
Here is one more link back to the previous set of comments on The Infinite Thread.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-3/#comment-2307913
Sen. Cornyn is actually seeking to entrench — not eliminate — the immunity President Trump got in his “settlement” with the IRS.
Thanks Lynna, OM.
Suspicious Cheese Lords early music ensemble to perform at Annunciation Church
Stupid and gullible, cartoon by Clay Jones
Trump’s solution to abuse in ICE facilities is pricey—and evil
https://www.wonkette.com/p/republicans-livid-as-missouri-and
“Republicans Livid As Missouri And Kansas Vote For Democracy And Abortion AGAIN”
“Democracy for Missouri and abortion for Kansas, to be specific.”
White House declassifies info on secret FBI probe into whether Trump fired Comey at Russia’s behest, official says
Maryland Republicans predict legal challenge to constitutional amendment on redistricting
Washington Post link
DW News – also seen on telly version (c35) just now areally intresting interview on the Hormuz issue w a Gordon Robison too.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/can-iran-control-flow-of-data-along-with-flow-of-oil/video-77155316
Ten mins long.
Seems we have a new FTB blog here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/cubistvowels/author/cubistvowels/
A rather mysterious one so far…
A new flavor of disinformation:
Link
Link
Trump team plots to keep terrorizing people after they’re deported
StevoR @12: “Seems we have a new FTB blog […] A rather mysterious one”
FtB’s Bébé Mélange in 2022: “My man Joseph Kelly has published this compilation of dark fiction that I’ve previously mentioned. You have a few options on how to read it—and one is completely gratis.”
Joseph’s bio at The Midnight Collection site linked an old blog elsewhere called Cubist Vowels.
Followup to all of the good news about Abdul El-Sayed winning the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/abdul-el-sayed-teaches-mike-rogers
More details at the link.
New York Times link
“Cost of Trump’s Namesake Warships Likely to Rise by 50 Percent or More”
“Trump’s goal of building a “golden fleet” of 15 battleships could cost $275 billion, according to a government estimate.”
More at the link.
EXCLUSIVE: U.S. airstrikes killed or wounded hundreds of civilians in Yemen last year
“The Trump administration has yet to publicly acknowledge the number of casualties in the three strikes.”
@11
The idea is not absurd on its face. Here is another article about offshore cable fees:
“Visiting The Moon 3.5 Billion Years Ago”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=jeBvEYCJZSY
Drone carrying explosives found at German airport, police say
Raw Story: Trump declares ’emergency’ one day before deadline to reveal his finances in court
The emergency may be a little more valid then usual but Trump’s lawyers waited until the last minute as usual. A key part is that Trump’s lawyers have amended the complaint, which may negate the need for the tax records but the new complaint isn’t public. So it isn’t clear if there is a valid reason to appeal or not. I would guess that it is but Trump’s lawyers intentionally waited to stall things but who knows with Trump’s lawyers.
Move over, Moo Deng: Pygmy hippo calf born at Toronto Zoo
The Weirdest Theory Yet for Why Life on Earth Suddenly Exploded
Weeks into explosive diarrhea outbreak, sluggish CDC plans response team
WaPo – A new type of flu shot is coming after FDA approves mRNA-based vaccine
T-Rex World Championship Races roar into Washington
(video 1:48)
Gene-edited beagles may offer a future option for people with dog allergies
Malaria leaves a lasting scar on the spleen by wiping out immune cells formed before birth
Futurism: BMW Suddenly Blasts Its Cars’ Internal Screens With Aggressive Advertisements
This is probably a one off, BMW testing the water to see how many complaints they get. Customers should complain and get this killed. It’s highly annoying and will just get worse if it is accepted.
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Abdul El-Sayed fires back at anti-Muslim attacks in Michigan Senate race
Hosted by Jacob Soboroff
Video is 11:10 minutes
Futurism – Kalshi defends plan to bet on lives of cancer patients
Django Wexler (Fantasy author):
Django Wexler
Alex Wenzel (Cancer researcher): “This is worse than the headline. They’re allowing betting specifically on clinical trial outcomes. So much effort is put into ensuring the integrity of trials and eliminating as much bias as possible, this would create enormous vulnerability in that system. This cannot be allowed to happen.”
Rando 2: “Wasn’t ‘we won’t allow bets on death’ one of their extremely few rules? Literally the second rule.”
Django Wexler:
Republicans’ election year crusade against Fauci isn’t limited to Congress
“As the midterm elections approach, the GOP crusade against one of the nation’s most accomplished and celebrated scientists is rapidly descending into madness.”
Republicans running for office has a limited playbook from which they draw their tactics. One tactic is to create a nationwide bogeyman that they then connect to the Democratic Party or to the Democratic agenda. So, now they are wildly, irresponsibly, pumping up Fauci as an enormous bogeyman. Republicans don’t have evidence. They have a shameless attack.
Ditto, in a way, for the effort by Republicans to brand Democrats as “communists.”
They hope that sheer repetition (delivered of course to national TV audiences, and every other media source they can commandeer) will win them an angry, misinformed, and scared Republican vote in midterm elections.
As questions intensify over U.S. weapons shortfalls, Trump trips over his contradictions
“The debate over dwindling munitions stockpiles is discombobulating the administration, and the president’s reaction is far from reassuring.”
Related video at the link.
All along, Trump had no fucking clue when it came to stocks of munitions. He still doesn’t.
Followup to comment 34.
Link
Well that is certainly sneaky and unethical.
Senate Republicans launch network of fake news sites
“One Nation, the Senate GOP’s primary dark money group, is producing propaganda masquerading as journalism.”
Reuters – US has used ‘virtually all’ of its long-range precision missiles
Telegraph – Pentagon draws up new nuclear weapons strategy for war with Russia and China
Mark Chadbourn (Journalist) – The Dismantling of US Power (Paywalled)
Cartoon: Acting attorney puppet by Pedro Molina
A Salmonella Outbreak Linked to Jalapeño Peppers Has Reached 27 States
…
Federal health officials are investigating a multi-state outbreak linked to jalapeño peppers that have been distributed widely throughout the U.S. Hundreds of cases across more than half of the country have been reported so far, while dozens have ended up in the hospital. The major distributor implicated in the outbreak has recalled its pepper products, and two Mexican-style chain restaurants that purchased the products—Chipotle and QDOBA—have temporarily pulled peppers from their menu or have switched to a different distributor.
This outbreak is being caused by a strain of Salmonella Javiana bacteria. Salmonella is rarely life-threatening, but it can cause miserable episodes of diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps that typically last between four and seven days. Children under five, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems are more vulnerable to severe illness.
At least 345 people in 27 states have been infected with the same outbreak strain, and 36 people have been hospitalized as a result, though no deaths have been reported as of yet. According to federal health officials, the first known cases date back to June 19, while the latest reported cases were on July 20.
Officials have linked the outbreak to jalapeño peppers from Sinaloa, Mexico, that were distributed by Coast Citrus Distributors to other distributors, restaurants, and food service companies…
Aaron Rupar:
Don Moynihan – Scenes from a personalist regime (May 25)
US Senate committee votes to hold Fauci in contempt over Covid hearing
I don’t think much of anyone – Republicans included – likes Paul, so hopefully this won’t go anywhere.
Letter to the Editor: No shame in evangelical atheism
Link
Followup to comment 44, with a summary of a Bluesky post provided by Steve Benen:
Additional Republican campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen from a Bluesky post:
Bad news for pretty much everyone. No wants Mike Lindell to appear even more in national or Minnesota news, even Minnesota Republicans.
GOP senator pushes crypto bill that could benefit human traffickers
Reginald Selkirk @43 quoting Larry Benson: “BS about a supreme being that no one knows anything about […] anyone who claims to have actual evidence, please display it”
A noun with no referent—not even a counterfactual one—is gibberish. There’s no there there to believe. There’s no coherent model to form expectations for assessing detectable phenomena as evidence. People are conditioned to recite proprietary noises to affirm their social affiliations. Part of that conditioning is touting the holy book as if it weren’t a symbolic prop. And that conditioning makes them voice approval for other concretely monstrous things, either in the book or otherwise favored by the group. “God” is incidental to adherents.
I’ve been told that forcing people to eat their children is “love” and that such crimes against humanity are just a “hang up” to be ignored. Because gloating intimidation attached to that word, repeatedly, in the book make it unthinkably embarrassing. But affiliation mattered more to them than trying to sound like a decent person they imagined themself to be.
Link
Sen. Mitch McConnell discharged from rehab center following hospitalization in mid-June
“The Republican senator said he would continue to work from home and did not provide a timeline for his Senate return.”
Miss North Carolina USA stripped of title after ‘information’ surfaces
They said, as they stripped her of her dignity.
So we have no idea what she did or said, but she did or said it consistently.
Large white supremacist meeting shakes residents of Alberta town
Here’s the mark a SpaceX rocket crash left on the moon
Michigan health officials say people can resume regular lettuce-eating habits as new cases of cyclosporiasis slow
Trump signs executive orders that target birthright citizenship
Nothing about his previous attempts to ban birthright citizenship, and the Supreme Court decision opposing them? Yeah, they should definitely update that article.
Study Reveals How Avocados Reverse Sexes Throughout the Day
San Antonio-area congressional candidate calls children ‘cum trophies’ in latest controversy
Seems like a nice guy.
Jana Riess: Why are so many young women leaving the LDS Church?
X wants to keep suing advertisers, asks 5th Circuit to overrule district judge
Making fun of the allegedly Christian Trump-adjacent people.
“Scathing Atheist 699: Communion Edition”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=YofmWigEOlM
Oman, Iran reach agreement to reopen Strait of Hormuz
I think the headline is overstating the case. Diplomats say some issues are unresolved.
“It’s unclear whether the U.S. will support the deal.”
Related video at the link.
“Framework of a deal” … don’t hold your breath.
New York Times:
New York Times:
See Sky Captain’s comment 27.
“Son of Obituary – Lindsey Graham”
By Noah, Eli and Mike
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=xTZKQ0oc5fE
“When people looked for something nice to say about the deceased senator, they said he was good about compromising. And he did indeed compromise every principle he had. When he went to the senate he promised he would only sit for two six-year periods, a promise he kept for twelwe years. He kept breaking the promise but in the end, his heart wasn’t in it -to be precise, the left ventricular.”
Ars Technica: Trump FCC kills TV ownership cap, claiming authority over limit set by Congress
Both the rule being overridden and the authority being claimed by the FCC are significant issues. 39% isn’t some trivial number, a station owner would have to be covering a huge geographic range to violate that.
The first part of what he says here is true, the second part is laughable. The huge stations are the cause of much of the passthrough local stations, producing content in a few big sets and sending it to location stations to show.
Here is the most significant question really. Congress has directed the FCC to make the cap 395%. If the FCC is allowed to change that it transfers a huge amount of power from Congress to the FCC. The FCC and other government agencies will be able to rewrite large parts of the law as set by Congress.
Carr is a puppet of Trump and the Heritage Foundation chosen to push for nationwide monopolies by those with the most money.
The Register: Time Magazine has a separate version of its website with ads only AI can see
Interesting bit. You would think the AI agent is programmed to discard ads but I guess not. Apparently manipulative text and text formatted like common questions work best. Which makes sense to me given how LLM work.
Lovecraft game?
“Nazis and Happy Feet collide in Penguin Colony, a psychological horror game set at the world’s end” | Games | The Guardian
.https://share.google/HBPm8L4J4tKwLxq5g
Ahem. Sometimes, baddies in a fantasy story are genuine baddies. Creatures who mimic human behavior in order to kill and eat men, women and children are generally not oppressed minorities. Rather, predators are less numerous that the prey species because that is the way the food chain works.
“Why Frieren Fans Are Going Crazy Right Now…”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/W_fRYveX350
Re: birgerjohansson @ #65…
Chaosium made a Lovecraft game some 40-odd years ago. It’s called “Call of Chtulhu”.
birgerjohansson @66: I’m not familiar with the show beyond some review vids you’ve linked here, but you might find this article interesting. Some other series are mentioned for comparison.
Who is Granted Personhood? Frieren’s demons and the trouble with the “inherently evil race” trope
^ @68
The article’s author added this in the comments. Both were circa 2 years ago.
That arc hasn’t occurred on-screen yet, but the Solitar demon was namelessly alluded to as “an eccentric demon who studies humanity” in episode 2×07 “Divine Revolte” this year.
Reginald Selkirk @51
I wonder what the Second Sons plan to do with Canadian First Nations. After all, they are definitely non-white even if their ancestors were there long be before those of the Second Rate Sons. Are they calling for them to be deported? What about the Metis – are they sufficiently white?
HuffPo – Trump’s new CDC head said ‘abortion surveillance’ will be a critical focus
‘Asimov was right’ about rules for robots, says ex-US Cyber Director
Not impressed. The three laws of robotics were not programmed into the robots, they were a natural property of their positronic brains. Which is clearly a plot device with no basis in reality. Perhaps it was a convenient plot device in the mid 20th century, but it sure won’t fly today.
“How One Beach Reveals Two Completely Different Earths”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=jnJuhB7il4k
This beach in Southern Wales has an unconformity representing 25 million years. You have Devonian layers on one side and Carboniferous layers on the other.
‘Only One Conclusion’: Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice
Highly speculative, and built on controversial definitions of key terms.
Thai teenager kills at least seven and injures more than 30 as PM calls shooting ‘well prepared’
Developing story. More details sure to follow. One other source says the death toll is 8.
Trump claims the media just ‘devised’ this word. It’s been used for 116 years
Trump-backed Republican congressman loses primary in Tennessee
Northbound. A Brit in Sweden
“I Thought 45 Years Driving In Britain Had Prepared Me For Sweden. I Was Wrong”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=I0ZZSR0QRiM
Republican Lisa Murkowski opposes Todd Blanche nomination for US attorney general
Intresting interview here – Trump hints at imminent Hormuz agreement | DW News 10 mins mentioned last night.
@ ^ I think?
W Gordon Robison.
You’d think this was acartton villain’s plan but nooo.. real life 2026 (?! Really!? Already & WTF!?) Israel’s plans to deploy crocodiles to prison housing Palestinians blocked (9 mins long.)
@ ^Cartoon villians..
^ Trump suggested something similar but, well, I rest my case.
Would anyone believe Trump if he was fiction?
Old but I just love this – Star Size Comparison 1 by morn1415 running for 2 mins 33 secs.
Oh and its updated and expanded sequel here –
Star Size Comparison 2 which I also love and takes almost 7 mins to watch
Owen Jones latest here – Trump’s TERRIFYING Plot Exposed – 18 mins long.
Yeah, Nowhere near enough attention being given to this I reckon.
Dehumanising other people is the trunk of all evil.
Love of money = roots.
Too many other branches, twigs, bark and foliage and canopy items to list.
Via PBS Newshour What scientists are learning after SpaceX debris crashed into the moon – just over 5 mins long.
@88. So think and be kind to all others, yourself and the world we all live in and have to share with each other and all other lifeforms.
Ethics #101.
Too obvs? But far too little followed.
@88. So think and be kind to all others, yourself and the world we all live in and have to share with each other and all other lifeforms.
Ethics #101.
Too obvs? But far too little followed.
AP News: Appeals court rules Trump can’t build White House ballroom without congressional approval
Fairly obvious ruling. The president doesn’t own the White House and his thinking it needs better security isn’t an emergency that lets him go ahead without authorization. Trump has been tripped up on this several times now, Trump saying something is an emergency isn’t the same as it being an emergency. The court is generous with the executive branch in this regards but the declaration that something is an emergency needs to be plausible, not Trump obviously trying to go around the rest of the law.
Futerism: Better Hope You Don’t Need an Ambulance in New Orleans, Because the City’s 911 Operators Are Now AI
AI call centers for commerce is annoying but I know why companies do it. 911 is a different matter, time matters and the people making the calls are likely to not be thinking or speaking clearly. It’s way too early in this sort of technology for it to be used this way.
This is all very cutting edge technology, the sort of thing small start up companies experiment with and fail most of the time. This is a bad choice of vital government services, things that should be on the trailing edge.
‘Ramps’ Near Egypt’s Red Pyramid Might Actually Be Ancient Dams
Report: White House drafting executive order linking vaccines and autism
MS NOW report, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Good news.
More good news, summarized from an NBC News report:
Unity! Good for the Democrats.
More good news, summarized from Politico:
More good news, as summarized from the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Team Trump uses taxpayer money to scuttle yet another renewable energy project
As one key Democratic member of Congress summarized, “It is hard to imagine a more backwards use of taxpayer money.”
U.S. economy loses 23,000 jobs in July, as Trump-era economy continues to struggle
Trump said this week that Americans have “the greatest economy maybe in the history of the world.” Reality keeps pointing in the opposite direction.
Good Riddance
Protesters haul a guillotine to city council meeting about a potential AI data center, company rep cornered by protestors — ‘ it no longer felt safe to stay,’ developer escorted out by police
Trump loses 21 straight court battles for state voter rolls as midterms near
‘Build it in Mar-a-Lago!’ Trump’s aluminum smelter upends Oklahoma governor’s race
RFK Jr. Is Too Rich to Know the Price of Groceries, Not Rich Enough to Stop Grifting
WaPo probably assumed you would go to a supermarket and buy meat. You can save big time if you keep your eyes open on your drive home from work…
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Who killed Charlie Kirk?’: Inside the conspiracies fueling MAGA’s civil war
Video is 7:23 minutes
Followup to JM @92.
Following appeals court loss, Trump tries to rebrand his ballroom as a ‘military center’
“The president seems to think rebranding his controversial vanity project could help make it happen.”
Followup to comments 92 and 105.
Link
Tom Stanton Engineering:
“Supersonic Trebuchet”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Co57SfcT-h0
An impressive amount of science and engineering goes into making this device work!
.
“Electromagnetic Aircraft Launcher”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=v4zTAkLKgm4
@50 Follow-up
This is the most detailed article I can find. Most mainstream articles make vague statements about “racism” or “old social media tweets.”
Miss North Carolina USA Brittany Boltinhouse Caught Using the N-Word in Old Tweets
Flesh-eating screwworms feast on humans in Mexico; human cases top 500
https://www.wonkette.com/p/rudy-giuliani-universal-pre-k-just
“Rudy Giuliani: Universal Pre-K Just A Ruse To Turn Babies Into Parent-Hating ‘Transvestites'”
California was mostly solar-powered in May — a global first
“No major economy had previously received over half its electricity from solar across an entire month.” [graph]
Mano Singham: The Lincoln pool fiasco
“But what we must never forget is that these people do not care how many innocent people are harmed because of their determination to pursue a false narrative.”
.https://share.google/5HpUujHlNXimmgECv
Every fiasco requires a scapegoat to protect the brittle ego of the Supreme Leader
New York Times:
The bill now moves on to the House.
The Great Wall of…Alabama???
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=o84mrCxETNY
Tommy Tuberville is an idiot. Also, maybe the rest of the country should build a wall arond Alabama to keep people like Tuberville in?
MS NOW:
New York Times:
As Steve Benen noted: “Imagine a world in which Trump talked about Russia with the kind of seething contempt he has for Canada.”
Washington Post:
MS NOW:
Justice Samuel Alito confirms he’s staying on the Supreme Court for another term
Boo Hiss Boo.
ICE’s new body cam policy is predictably devious
Re: birgerjohansson @ #114…
Too late. Tuberville actually lives in Florida.
“11 British Sci-Fi Movies Most Americans Have Never Seen
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=XzeQcR3eVEc
whheydt @ 121
Yes, but Tuberville hatched in the radioactive swamps of Alabama. We don’t want any MAGA kaiju to follow him out.
@123
Tommy Tuberville, born in Arkanasas
No presence in Alabama until he took the Auburn coaching job, 1999 – 2008.
Judge orders Virginia county to replace Confederate names it restored to schools in 2024
Marsha Blackburn becomes Republican nominee for Tennessee governor
She couldn’t even win a majority in a primary?
* That should be “will face.”
quoted by Lynna @96
As I suspected based on the name, Jeff Flake is a Mormon
The Guardian – Video game maker Electronic Arts bought by Saudi-led group
@79
Trump’s ex-lawyer Todd Blanche narrowly confirmed as US attorney general
Opposition by senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins didn’t keep Trump from having his way. I have to view their opposition as performative, not substantial.
Link
Jury finds Wayzata man guilty of threatening Minnesota federal judges in a violent manifesto
Followup of sorts to Reginald @429.
Senate embarks on recess after funding government and confirming Blanche, punting other priorities
Taylor Swift Song ‘August’ Removed From Trump TikTok Video
@119 Reginald Selkirk: Strategically this is a good thing in the long run because it keeps Trump from getting a chance to appoint one. Hopefully he lasts for a week or two into a Democratic president and congress.
The Independent: Trump’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs seeking ‘off-ramp’ from Iran war, report says
The figures under Hegseth and Trump are in a bad situation. Trump wants a way out of this war that doesn’t involve anything that looks or sounds like the US giving in. Trump has no problem giving up but he needs a good line for the press so it doesn’t sound like the US gave up or gave in. There are not really any good options for doing that and the officials are going around in circles trying to find something that sounds good to Trump.
The Guardian: Greenland issues ‘strong warning’ as Trump-linked oil firm prepares to drill
Great, Trump is going to maneuver his way out of the war with Iran by starting another war. He figures that this is one he can win, it will push Iran out of the new and then it can be quietly dropped.
Is ‘The Great Filter’ ahead of us, or behind us?
.https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Bw4LvsPkW/
https://www.wonkette.com/p/amazon-making-new-docuseries-about
“Amazon Making New Docuseries About Melania Trump Because Sure, Why Not”
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-tells-supreme-court-to-goooooooo
Trump promotes commercial fishing in protected pacific marine national monuments
In the American prairie, a stealth plan to end the GOP Senate majority
Hunter Biden says Joe Biden’s cancer has spread further and is ‘very painful’
@50, 108
Former Miss NC USA says title was ‘ripped’ from her over beliefs
Uh, sure. She believed it was appropriate to shit-post on social media while frequently dropping the ‘N’ word.
I don’t see any contrition here. She is playing the victim card.
Scripps news: Iran says Strait of Hormuz won’t reopen until US meets sweeping demands
This is Iran’s government playing for the population in Iran. It’s still interesting to look at.
Never threaten Iran is probably impossible for Trump, he doesn’t have enough self control. As an absolute it’s a silly term anyways.
End the war is obvious. Armed allies is more complex and Iran will need to spell out a list of who that is and what they mean. That Iran says armed allies without say countries is telling. They mean Houthis rebels in Yemen and likely some other armed groups.
Lift navel blockade is obvious. Withdraw US military from the area depends on definition of area and recognizing that the US will have military vessels going back and forth through the Strait.
Completely compensate Iran for war damages is a matter for negotiations. Lift sanctions and release frozen assets is obvious but the exact details are a matter for negotiations.
The terms of the deal with Oman matter a lot and is a matter of importance for a lot of countries.
Publicly this is the same list they have been working from the entire war. Iran’s position is stronger but there isn’t much more they can ask for.
Brittany Boltinhouse (no longer Miss NC USA) quoted by Reginald Selkirk @143
She is saying she has no internal morality because her morality only comes from fear of what Yahweh will do to her. No wonder she is a racist asshole.
emptywheel.net (aka Dr. Marcy Wheeler) has one of the most worthwhile comment sections on the web. The following comes from same, in response to “Donald Trump Told Us He Was Warned about the Missile Shortage Before He Started the Iran War (comments mostly from long-time and pretty reliable EW denizens, often including links):
… elite private sector businessmen …! $200B (for starters), free from pesky Congressional rules & oversight! Everything will be so good now!
Scott Manley makes some good points in his 17 mins long talk here – Smashing Stuff Into The Moon…. For Science????
7 Days of Science latest clip here – Oldest Cephalopod Ever & 40,000-Year-Old Bird Carvings Made From MAMMOTH Ivory. 11 mins long and is that really how you pronounce the word Cephalopod?
@ ^ Also contains quite a few other science news stories including Pluto’s atmosphere shrinking, new Troodontid Dino fossil found, Hawk moths smelling with their wings and how the stopped ships in the Starit of Hormuz aare getting biofouled and how that could present a problem.
Oh and here’s another 7DOS clip on the oldest (reptile) Fossil From Before the Dinosaurs Found With Internal Organs Preserved specifically a Tanystrophian species calledAustronaga minuta. Clip runs a bit under 15 mins.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-09/aipac-us-pro-israel-lobby-spends-big-before-midterms/107002678
What if The Brain Doesn’t Create Consciousness? Scientist Proposes It Might Be The Fabric of Reality Itself
Mystical mumbo jumbo
Typhoon Dolphin batters Japan’s Okinawa before bearing down on China
Reginald @143
Former Miss North Carolina USA 2026 Brittany Boltinhouse is also clueless. She has a very narrow perspective.
““So, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” she said. “I am proud of my faith. I’m proud of my standards. I’m a proud conservative woman, but a Christian woman. I’m a God-fearing woman.”
She belongs to a cult within a cult. I’m sure she will forgive herself for her crude, racist comments.
Zeteo has this very short and very much NOT sweet YT SHORT summary of where we are even if mid-terms don’t go Trump’s way.
The first Black woman to lead the CDC will face an uphill battle in restoring trust
More at the link.
Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-08-asteroid-worlds.html
Nysa’s wuiikipage here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/44_Nysa#/media/File:Nysa_concavities_labeled_2x5_gallery.png
Also has some good animations and annnotated images of its shape.
I’m wodnering if it was onc e a bit like Dinkinesh & its contact binary moon Salem :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/152830_Dinkinesh
Before all three components (?) spiralled in together and gradually (?) fused maybe?
Also reminds me of asteroid Braillle :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9969_Braille
Which rather cruely aptly wasn’t well seen when encountered by the Deep Space 1 mission in 1999 and which looks like it could well be a stringy three part spaec rock to me too.
Then there’s the length of Oumuamua too..
Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-08-qa-mushroom-tiny-people-hallucinations.html
Seems Dodo’s weren’t that lacking in intelligence and were quite likely nocturnal :
Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-08-dodo-birds-clever-thought.html
Netanyahu has rejected Trump’s plan for Gaza :
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/iran-war-houthis-claim-attack-on-saudi-oil-facility/live-78289364
Last week more than last month, I’d say,well, maybe a couple of weeks ago now?
Senator Adam Schiff:
Link
Also available on YouTube: Link
Commentary:
Link
More at the link.
Reginald Selkirk @151: “Koch turns to a philosophical framework known as analytic idealism”
Scientist launders AI CEO’s ramblings.
Wikipedia – Bernardo Kastrup
Both Koch and Kastrup cite psilocybin experiences of course. And never mind how individual minds and universal mental reality they navigate are supposed to be a single kind of thing and not dualism rebranded. Or that telepathy (among minds) and remote viewing (across reality) have not been demonstrated. Kastrup invokes Jung’s collective unconscious.
Trump posts examples of alleged Reflecting Pool vandalism amid push for Pirro to revisit decision
More at the link.
Followup to comments 151 and 162.
“Both Koch and Kastrup cite psilocybin experiences of course […]”
I believe Koch and Kastrup when they claim that they felt or experienced “collective unconscious.” Their feelings are definitely not enough to establish that “individual minds represent dissociated segments of a universal consciousness,” nor even enough evidence on which to base a philosophy. It’s all eyebrow-raising and kind of ridiculous. Reminds me of how some people describe religious experiences.
EXCLUSIVE, Washington Post link
“Inside school investigations frozen under Trump: Racial slurs, sexual harassment and more”
“The Education Department was in talks with dozens of districts at the end of the Biden administration. The cases have stalled since Trump took office.”
Count Binface Travels… to Naze Tower!
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=9lRA0r2G4BI
Lynna @163 quoting The Hill: “the president posted two photos of what appeared to be graffiti and some peeling of the coating of the pool.”
The photos have white text (“-> RIP SL” and “X” respectively) painted to fit the height of a narrow tan horizontal band of material resembling clay. A shallow roughly straight slit runs through the center of the text along the full length of the visible band in each photo. The band lies between gray stone above and a black perpendicular floor below. There’s little else to reference for scale, a few feet across I think. Looks to me like reference marks left by a construction crew?
Zuckerberg’s yacht was closer, but someone else saved a stranded boat
Historian Jill Lepore says Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy
Lynna @164: “Reminds me of how some people describe religious experiences.”
Kastrup’s says some ancient Hindu stuff is similar. Western philosophy has Bishop George Berkeley to thank: the “father of idealism”. Podcasts, summaries, and such omit important flavor: he was making the universe bonkers in order to rescue miracles.
Berkeley – The principles of human knowledge (written 1710):
Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, IX (p844-45)
* Christians had a sort of transporter debate going on. If a cannibal eats some of you to incorporate that into themself, and then later you’re both resurrected by reassembling ALL the pieces, someone’s gonna be missing a piece.
* The doctrine of ‘the resurrection of the same body’ in early modern thought (p5)
^ @170 Botched edit: Kastrup
‘s Wikipedia articlesaysRe. Naze Tower @ 166.
‘Printed’ houses have not been a success, but if you just want to have a navigation marker (or a bell tower, or a minaret) a matter printer would be perfect for creating elaborate ornaments not feasible with normal construction.
Print Orthanch or Amon Sul as a marker for your estate. Or re-create pagodas from China and Japan. No more copying Roman triumph arches (like Trump wants).
If you want an arch, make a copy of the ‘3rd kingdom’ Egyptian temple entrances, but at larger scale.
We don’t want Stonehenge to be disturbed by traffic, so print an exact copy, re-creating what it looked like when new and place it in an accessible place where people can watch the Summer solstice.
Sky Captain @167, thanks for the analysis, and for the additional information.
We know that Trump’s brain cannot properly process photos or text that is presented to him.
His error is going to be called out by multiple news sources.
Dementia Don. Sad in its way. Also dangerous for the entire nation.
Professor Paul Fellows:
“Once Around The Ashdon Meteorite”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=GiHNHWLRwmI
Swan family befriends human.
“Wild Swan Brings His Babies To Meet His Best Friend ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=3jP6HXdqSM8
Swans are fickle, and BIG! Don’t mess with them.
Israel rejects Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza, stoking tensions with US
Ooh, the master deal-maker fails again. And the midterms grow ever closer with no record for Republicans to run on.
Meanwhile, this is what FauxNews is reporting on:
Author Dinesh D’Souza challenges Bible skeptics with ‘startling’ archaeological discoveries
Pthththt. No ark. No exodus. Pi does not equal three. Don’t click through unless you need a laugh.
Harry Potter fans force diversion of UK-Ireland power link to avoid ‘Dobby’s grave’
Iran executes protesters in public as regime expands postwar repression, human rights groups say
They may be making Trump look like an idiot, but they are not nice people.
Brain activity reveals the melodies that people imagine
Liechtenstein, a haven of secrecy for the ultra-rich, is beginning to crumble
When you walk into the main shop and factory, on Santo Tomé Street, you’re faced with a Guinness-record-breaking marzipan sculpture of Don Quixote (another popular export of the area) rising more than eleven feet and brandishing a lance and sword.
Re @151:
It seems to me that too many people involved in understanding consciousness have a hard time (consciously or not) of letting go of duality in some form or another. So when they cannot pinpoint its origin and/or location and/or mechanism, then it becomes something external. Even from some claiming to be purely materialistic, they will resort to things like some imagined quantum property or mechanism (the same happens with free will); no mention of why quantum events would be affected by the mind rather than the other way around not to mention why quantum effects would be significant at the macro level.
The brain (with the rest of the body) is a rather impressive pattern recognition and predictive engine bathed in a soup of hormones and other neuro-active compounds (natively occurring or not) that receives a multitude of inputs from a multitude of sources both internally and externally. That engine has had millions of years of evolutionary pressure to become better at what it does for survival and reproduction. That something like consciousness would emerge from that is not surprising to me and explaining it would have a better chance of succeeding if any form of duality was firmly and explicitly eliminated from the start. And any perceived inspiration from drug or religion or other woo-induced state also needs to be discarded as useless at least from a neuroscience point of view.
Lynx’s Kayla McBride sets single-game 3-point record with 10
Via The New Arab :
Source : https://www.newarab.com/news/green-rafah-reconstruction-or-new-model-israeli-control
Source : https://www.newarab.com/news/ex-muslim-republican-loses-primary-because-arabic-name
Somehow not surprised at all.
Re: StevoR @ #186…
It’s in the material you quoted, so the odd construction is certainly not your fault… I’m just wondering how someone becomes a “former Army veteran”.
WaPo – Here’s how cyclospora could be getting into our food
Binface Mania In Clacton As Voters Reject Farage!
.https://youtube.com/shorts/j5UiawlA37c
Good political news. And it is nice to see happy-looking young people during this year that has been hard on English-speaking places suffering asshole politicians.
California City Declares State of Emergency After Cyberattack
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/experts-say-pentagon-has-used-up
It is obvious to me: Iran is using Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope tactic on tRUMP. tRUMP is SO STUPID and ARROGANT he doesn’t even realize it!
Digby reinforces my conclusion:
It turns out the Iranians aren’t as stupid as the Republican Party. Imagine that:
https://digbysblog.net/2026/08/09/oops-3/
This rapid chain of events suggests Trump’s options for walking away from the conflict have again narrowed. Trump has repeatedly threatened—and then backed away from—a massive escalation of its bombing campaign. But the recent chaos in negotiations signaled Tehran is prepared for a long and grinding conflict.
“Iran’s recent hardline demands for reopening the strait make it increasingly difficult for the president to manufacture a face-saving off-ramp from the conflict,”
Toxic Underground Fires Are Spreading at California Landfills
In truth, the wolds biggest most powerful aircraft carrier is a floating slum!
Moldy Showers, No Soap and Fatigue: Military Families Are Outraged by Conditions on Navy Carrier Supporting Iran War
https://www.rsn.org/001/moldy-showers-no-soap-and-fatigue-military-families-are-outraged-by-conditions-on-navy-carrier-supporting-iran-war.html
And, I wonder if all the toilets have been fixed. I read it was a design flaw that can’t be fixed without full re-plumbing that barge!
A researcher bought noreply.net. Companies started sending him secrets.
Russia sanctions bill includes highly controversial provision on Trump’s tariff power
“The point isn’t about whether imposing additional sanctions on Russia is a good idea; it’s about a tangentially related element about trade authority.”
@193 Reginald Selkirk posted about the landfill underground fires.
I add: Interesting, but, this is not new. There are underground fires in coal mine seams. Even the titanic set sail with one of its coal bunkers on fire!
And, decades ago, in an Oregon landfill, they siphoned off the methane gas and used it to power a small gas engine and generator to power the landfill.
20 dead and buildings collapsed after 7.4-magnitude earthquake shakes western Colombia
As Burgum’s troubles intensify at the Interior Department, Trump’s new move won’t help
“Given its overlapping messes, the Cabinet agency could use a real inspector general. The president apparently has a different idea in mind.”
The White House tries (and fails) to put a positive spin on ugly economic results
Trump acknowledges lack of ‘proof’ as his Reflecting Pool claims unravel [That’s a misleading headline. See details below.]
“Unfortunately, there is no video or proof, other than the damage, itself,” the president wrote online, referring to his metastasizing fiasco.
Anti-Muslim bigotry from Republicans, an update by Steve Benen:
Link
What Exactly Is a Seaglider? REGENT’s 180 mph Electric Boat-Plane Explained
.https://youtube.com/shorts/nTBtlKLxmNs
Europe’s scorching summer is erasing its economic growth, says report
“Dutch growth is set to be almost entirely wiped out, and France could be pushed into a contraction.”
Amazon Texas gas plant could be biggest U.S. climate polluter
State regulatory filings indicate the plant could emit up to 33 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.
The Pecos County project is part of a broader push by Amazon and other tech companies to secure dedicated power for AI infrastructure. Across Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta, capital expenditure commitments for the year total roughly $700 billion, with AI infrastructure absorbing most of that spending.
https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/amazon-texas-gas-plant-could-122100591.html
Fossil fuel power for amazon only and the public be damned
@40
Taylor Farms recalls jalapeño products for Salmonella amid Cyclospora outbreak
I didn’t realize Taylor Foods was involved again.
Trump signs order to limit childhood vaccines and split MMR shots
It’s not only that you’re talking out your ass, as they say, it’s that you’re completely wrong.
People carrying a rare gene variant have naturally low body fat, healthier livers and better blood sugar levels
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-people-rare-gene-variant-naturally.html
.
If you carry this rare FNIP1 gene variant, you are lucky. Maybe you could sell your genetic material at a premium to fertility clinics?
New train service connects Finland and Sweden for first time in decades
OK, so Sweden is “southern Europe.”
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has now spent $100 million to fight the billionaire tax
Italy police say businessman with ties to Berlusconi is mastermind behind journalist bomb attack
Russia bars only party opposing war in Ukraine from parliamentary vote
Ukraine destroys air defences guarding Putin’s holiday home
Son of Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert arrested, accused of sexual exploitation of a child
Florida attorney general demands 6 years’ worth of New York Times records
The Skepticrat 276 — “Casting Fauch Edition”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=FVXDEt89MSo
Recommended!
Trump hid in catering truck in secret plane swap over Iran threat, reports say
Trump warns replacing FIFA chief Infantino would be ‘terrible mistake’
All the more reason to dump him.
^ ^ ^
The blessing of Trump is not as helpful as he thinks.
Count Binface’s Message to Space About Earth
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mf1K2QPavcE
Also, bring a towel with the text “Don’t Panic”
Giving a wide berth to the bull to inspect the new calf. Compare the tiny baby to the 1-ton dad. “We have a new baby!! Let’s go see it!! ❤️❤️❤️”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=aUSvA_x6wVg
‘Trump Conservative’ Lynn Fitch Promises Affordability and Healthcare Gains if Elected Mississippi Governor
So she calls herself a ‘Trump Conservative’ but promises to do exactly the opposite of what Trump is doing?
Italy’s $4.7 billion cheese economy is feeling the heat as climate change threatens its cheese banks that hold Parmigiano wheels as loan collateral
England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C
Russia frees ailing ex-US Marine Robert Gilman from detention
Walmart got 46% of tainted lettuce in Cyclospora outbreak, far more than Taco Bell
This is the sort of detail that should have been released weeks ago.
What to know about Trump’s Patriot Games for high school athletes
Kyiv Independent: Ukraine war latest: Russian plans for mobilization ‘confirmed by internal documents,’ Zelensky says
Zelensky says they have confirmed the plans with internal Russian documents. That is a really big mobilization if those documents are true and it’s going to turn the front line into a bloody mess. Russia doesn’t have the air defense to protect those troops, as soon as they approach the front Ukraine will start killing them in bulk. At the same time that is enough for Russia to advance on multiple fronts, I don’t know if Ukraine has the manpower left to really block it.
Something for anyone who want to stear a tiny robot through passages and cracks in a buklding?
“Three holographic layers steer red, green and blue light for brighter AR displays”
.https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-holographic-layers-red-green-blue.html
^ ^ ^
I just realised, this is cool if you want to sneak a tiny explosive surprise past Putin’s bodyguards. Gives me vibes to one of the Dirty Harry films.
@ 230
NB Lynna, I am NOT telling Americans to get any ideas. The orange entity is likely to reach room temperature soon without intervention.
But if any Chinese party members get weary of their own autocrat, knock yourselves out!
Delta investigating after someone set up fake Wi-Fi network mid-flight
No, they haven’t named a suspect yet.
Comedy (Facebook). What happens when recovering conspiracy theorists meet someone who believed in trickle-down economics?
.https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17zWNCmKee/
For vegetarians: “Powerhouses for fake meat: Muscle protein can now be grown in chloroplasts of lettuce and tobacco plants”
-Wasn’t Perfect Cell in Dragon Ball Z a hybrid? Gives a different meaning to the brand mark ‘The Green Giant’ . .https://phys.org/news/2026-08-powerhouses-fake-meat-muscle-protein.html
APNews – ICE plans to give officers gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks
Re: CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ #235…
Years ago, I kept bees (two hives). Sorry guys, but pain the equivalent of a bee sting woudn’t even slow me down.
On the subject of resistance.
“Canada’s Response Could Be Key If Trump Invades Greenland” At the 8.15 mark the video gets to the Canadian response.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ONNxPwa5dME
whheydt @236: Yeah, I figured he was downplaying it, given the warnings and certification.
David Caltabiano (AZ local TV news):
Leaving no marks is another worrying ‘feature’ when abuse is expected.
Surely this will happen tomorrow. Someone on Insta told me so!
They’re so confident about a near-future claim. Of course, people looking foolish in the past for their failed predictions doesn’t faze them.
^ ^ ^
Ask Jehowah’s Witnesses about all the times they predicted the world would end….
.
Your Own Personal Drone! 😍 Get one for PZ before next time there is ice all the way to the University.
.https://youtube.com/shorts/Q_jh0dkylD8
Lebanon parliament votes to abolish death penalty
Former judge removed by Orbán elected Hungarian president
@240 birger
I was raised as a Witness, I am very familiar with their apocalyptic claims.
Nothing quite as untethered as black holes causing weightlessness on Earth, though.
I’m saving up for one of those Chinese-manufactured humanoid robots the U.S. is presently trying to ban.
Re: birgerjohansson @ #240 and beholder @ #243…
As I understand it, the JWs gave up on predicting a specific date some time ago. If I’m not mistaken, their last such prediction was that “the end of the world will come before this generation passes away” was applied to what one would define as the cohort of 1914. Since the oldest, well documented age at death is 122 and 100 and some days, this would put that abandoned prediction at some time prior to 2037.
beholder @239: “They’re so confident about a near-future claim.”
It’s lazy slop that stumbled into virality.
Snopes
That whole TikTok account is just a clickbait sentence over a silent guy walking or driving for 7 seconds with long description text. Same on YouTube. Frequently in the style of “one weird trick” or “scary/important/shocking trivia: [end of sentence]” or “random assertion and here’s why”.
U.S. Man Wakes From Coma Speaking Swedish, Thinking He’s Another Person
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=idZ6sKLPXLc
APNews – Former Syrian President Assad sentenced to death in absentia
Show trials are an inauspicious start to the new government.
21 one year old flight instructor lands on Interstate highway after an engine failure. She dodges a Semi and flies under a sign before touching down. It was her student’s first flight (and probably worst fright). She is cool as a cucumber on the radio as the incident develops.
Dashcam Video from the truck, ATC Audio and Analysis
Birger @233 – I am still laughing at that takedown of Trickle Down Economics
Futurism – AI companies are trying to hide a staggering amount of debt
An op-ed from a CDC staffer.
I thought the CDC shooting was rock bottom. We’re still sinking.
shermanj @194: “the worlds biggest most powerful aircraft carrier is a floating slum!”
Nicholas Slayton (Journalist): “The reports out of the Lincoln this past week from the families were bleak already. This is particularly dark.”
Military Times – Multiple USS Abraham Lincoln sailors have tried to go overboard amid extended deployment
The article contains anecdotes about two or three attempted jumpers, all rescued.
Stars and Stripes – USS Abraham Lincoln families press Navy leaders over sailors’ mental health
Nicholas Slayton: “Keep in mind, the Lincoln is the SECOND carrier deployed to the Middle East this year to fight Iran that’s seen broken infrastructure and poor morale due to long deployments. The Ford had the same thing. The HW Bush, also in the region, has a much shorter deployment in comparison.”
SMBC (recent)
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – “Quantum”
.https://share.google/ZdCU7zNlxTCuhpK0S
.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – “Paracosm” .https://share.google/O0Ydz9cbTK66fndml
.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – “Furries” .https://share.google/Mmsecl70S2wGG6Xiy
.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – “Wants” .https://share.google/f94z2X580x3rD3fPA
XKCD (recent)
xkcd: Arthurian Connector .https://share.google/666ByBonmrzWBKURg
xkcd: Antiques Roadshow ( for astronomers) .https://share.google/H3uR5IhOyfxR6UzdE
xkcd: Vera Rubin Observatory .https://share.google/R3AGMIGzDH63f6uJb
xkcd: Types of Tornado Alert .https://share.google/PfZIPrQvpodmwXoAz
Dang. I borked the links to Antiques Roadshow and Vera Rubin Observatory.
Vera Rubin Observatory
.https://xkcd.com/3278/
Antiques Roadshow
.https://xkcd.com/3281/
Lindell alleges voting irregularities, refuses to concede
O holy night! White Sox give Pope Hats to sellout crowd, celebrate HRs with their own
Adding to 235, 238.
CNN
Jadehawk: “I guess we’re all about to switch to full body coverage, summer heat or no. […] loose/flowing linen for everyone”
Rando 1: “These are going to be used on the most accessible and exposed skin surfaces: faces.”
Rando 2: “‘Don’t worry it only murders people if a bunch of idiots use it wrong.’ *Hands it out freely to the dumbest idiots to ever not read an instruction manual.*”
USA primaries: Progressives Win TWO Landslides Despite Francesca Hong’s Narrow defeat.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=T2WP4wPSj1Y
.
Count Binface MUSIC video (2026) (HD) – super catchy tune! 😀
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=QgFUyUkbNbw
WATCH LIVE: Total solar eclipse darkens skies over Spain, Iceland
Thousands of Canadians call for US ambassador’s expulsion
Kennedy Center ordered to pay over $250K US to jazz musician who cancelled over Trump rebrand
‘It’s a piranha!’: Boy’s unexpected catch sparks reminder about exotic pet releases
Trump announces White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt leaving role
DOJ charges former Southern Poverty Law Center CFO with fraud
Putin warns of tit-for-tat seizures of European vessels
Panama canal fees soar due to Iran war and El Niño as ship ‘pays $4m to jump queue’
Latvia finds tunnel under Belarus border, vows to combat people smugglers
Jellyfish-hit French nuclear plant shuts down three reactors
Two Minnesota solar farms seeded native wildflowers under their panels, and 5 years of counting revealed native bees had multiplied twentyfold, then crossed the fence to pollinate the neighbour’s soybeans
…
Aaron Fritschner (staffer for Rep Don Beyer (D-VA)):
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick:
Rando: “I need you guys to understand [that her supra is] a small car, like, miata small.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “DHS issued an official statement in response to this video, and it boils down to ‘you should believe us, and not your lying eyes.’ [Screenshot]”
Shomari Stone (Local TV anchor): [Video clip of news]: “Carolina Molina [the driver is a] counsellor […] doing psychological evaluations in immigration cases”
Professa Murray (Law prof): “And note once again: the ICE agent takes a photo of her… to go into ICE’s Mobile Fortify adjacent database?”
Brian Lacour (Public defender): “What is the statute of limitations on all this crap? Please tell me it will survive this administration.”
Professa Murray: “I am still kind of working that one out.”
Lane Stellmaker (Lawyer):
Mar Hicks (Historian): “I don’t understand why ‘wife and mother’ or ‘us citizen’ need to be part of explaining why she shouldn’t be treated this way. I mean, I completely understand, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to play by the rules of those who’ve shown that these categories only matter when they already deem the person worthy of rights and in alignment with their political project.”
Emily Hauser (Former reporter): “The ease with which we throw men & boys under the bus because they’re men or boys is disturbing”
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2026-08-09/rare-rosella-spider-orchid-planting-day/106961778
Hey gang,
Lynna is temporaritly out of commission with a broken hip. Would anyone else volunteer to take over her role for a week or two?
DC police lieutenant pleads guilty in child sex abuse sting
Terabytes of credentials leaked in massive supply-chain attack
Clacton-upon-sea votes today.
“Count Binface – Make Your Vote Count” | UK Political Satire Song .https://youtube.com/watch?v=W2vgwEQrDWw
Report: Pirro convenes a special grand jury in DC amid clash with Trump
Government officials, conspiracy cases, organized criminal activity: Please tell us she’s going after Trump.
‘If you’re not conservative, don’t come here’: The town making missiles for Trump
H ha ha. There are very few things the Republican-led House and Senate have kept Trump from doing. Everything that is going wrong – tariffs, Strait of Hormuz, cuts to food poisoning tems – is his doing.
Mmm, yeah; I’m going to stay away from that place.
The Brits again. “Garbage Can Who Can Talk” – Marsh Family parody of “Englishman in New York”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=9NH5JpqrIzY
I can’t believe it’s 39 years since Sting released the original.
@ 278
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Mike Walker (Former DoD+VA+FEMA): “A former Southern Poverty Law Center CFO has been arrested on charges she oversaw secret payments to informants inside White supremacist groups.”
Rando 1: “While AG Todd Blanche oversees payments simply to White supremacist groups—who helped stage a seditious attack on our Capitol.”
Rando 2: “And on the anniversary of the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville.”
Corey Yung (Law prof):
Corey Yung:
Rando 3: “These payments to informants are literally what crippled the Klan for generations.”
Rando 4: “The podcast Weird Little Guys covers some of the groups and people that got sued by the SPLC. […] they sued Louis Beam to make him and his Klan group stop terrorizing Vietnamese immigrants in Texas, and they sued the Aryan Nation so bad they lost their compound. […] They also regularly send information to the FBI if their informants tell them about a crime”
Perseid meteor shower 2026!
Adding to Reginald Selkirk @277.
Marcy Wheeler (EmptyWheel): “Jeanine Pirro has now set up a Special Grand Jury, presumably so she can write a Special Counsel-type report implicating people she can’t charge.”
Brad Moss (Security clearance attorney): “This is not what the Special Counsel regulations were meant for, but what does anything matter anymore.”
Anna Bower (Lawfare): “Thing is, grand juries have a mind of their own. The last time a federal special grand jury tried to issue a report, it accused DOJ of botching the case. The judge only released a heavily redacted version—so the foreperson wrote a book accusing DOJ of a cover up [The Ambushed Grand Jury]. Good luck, Jeanine!”
That’s an easy one: they are defending Donald Trump’s ego.
Good to see and a sign that the (Aussie) kids are (mostly) alright :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-13/one-nation-students-protest-pauline-hanson/107033644
Trump Administration Enlists Private Companies To Hack Foreign Cybercrime Groups
This sounds to me like something that should be handled by a government agency, and that agency should have diligent watchdogs.
Oprah Finally Addresses the Trumpy Doctors She Made Into Stars
Jimmy Kimmel show; Hairy Houdini.
“Trump Comments on Escaping Iranian Threat, Karoline Leavitt Steps Down & My Pillow Mike Loses Race”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z49hi3e6bqo
Heart Aerospace takes its X1 Battery-Electric Aircraft into the sky
Scientists invent ‘world’s greenest party balloon’
What if Texas was upside-down?
Canadian drilling firm says it did not move unpermitted rig to Greenland
Stampede Drilling says they are modifying the rig for Arctic operations. They have received up-front capital for this and were expecting to move the rig to Greenland in the third quarter pending authorization (which I expect is not going to be coming any time soon).
Judge dismisses Trump administration lawsuit alleging Harvard failed to protect Jewish students
Tropical Storm Lala forms; 20 inches of rain possible in Hawaii
Lynna; best wishes for a speedy recovery. Maybe ease up on the WWE stuff ;-)
Police called on trans men using women’s restroom as required by Kansas law
WSJ
Rando: “This is the kind of thing admirals should be completely fucking ignoring and do a study for 2 years.”
Kennedy Center board votes to put Trump’s name back on building
Prince George movie theatre employee goes viral after hand drawing Spider-Man poster
7th graders tackle knife-wielding student who attacked teacher, sheriff says
Farm linked to cyclosporiasis outbreak hadn’t been inspected in 7 years as FDA lags on foreign inspection targets
Man accused of touching women’s hair on Metro convicted of assault
NBC News: Judge shows signs of frustration with DOJ attorneys over handling of Epstein files
Block was just assigned to this case by the DOJ and was really a fall guy for failures by higher officials, mostly Blanche.
The judge appears to be reasonable here, he isn’t jumping to contempt of court yet, he is making sure he has his bases covered. The judge seems to realize that is where this is going though. That the DOJ has simply not produced files or explanations of why not.
Climatologist Dr (Ella Gilbert) Gilbz here on – 2026, the summer that keeps on giving Heatwaves, drought, fires, 11 mins length.
Novara Media yt UK Heatwave Has Already Cost BILLIONS ten mins long.
PBS Newshour Trump administration ends funding for Arctic climate report 7 mins long.
Task&Purpose – Navy denies reports of deteriorating mental health aboard USS Abraham Lincoln
MSNow – Wife of USS Abraham Lincoln sailor who jumped overboard shares texts
Nicholas Slayton (Task&Purpose):
WSJ – U.S. sending fresh aircraft carrier to Middle East amid iran war strain
Scott Whitmore (Former navy): “Heh ‘fresh’. Y’all never been in deck berthing especially after the HVAC goes down for maintenance.”
Rando 1: “I’ve heard it described as ‘ass and Doritos.’ Also ‘armpits and Doritos.'”
Scott Whitmore: “Hehehehe yeahhhhhh.”
Rando 2: “Aircraft carriers will continue to be sent until morale improves.”
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-14/israeli-settlers-besiege-west-bank-village/107035462
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2026-08-13/astronomers-discover-new-cosmic-oject-black-hole-star/107029732
👋🏻🌷🌺🌼️🐶🌻🙏🏼🍕🦋🌹🍊🍀🌅🍻🪷🍷💐🌮✊🏼🕷 & all other positive vibes and sentiments to Lynna!
StevoR @87: “Nowhere near enough attention being given to this I reckon. [Directing the War on Terror at the left as alleged foreign agents]”
NYT – U.S. investigated left-leaning groups during Minnesota immigration crackdown
Zack Whittaker (TechCrunch): “Administrative subpoenas are nothing more than DHS authorities stamping their little feet and demanding companies turn over data with official-looking papers—but it’s a frustratingly effective tactic.”
Marcy Wheeler (EmptyWheel): “Remember that in the Cities Church case, HSI was using the same customs subpoenas, including to get stuff for which judges had already refused warrants, based on 1A.”
Dell Cameron (Wired):
Sanho Tree: “They illegally spied on my [Cato Institute] office for years under Nixon because we were on his “enemies list.” It took years of litigation, but we successfully sued them and there is supposedly a red letter at the front of our FBI file where they promised never to investigate us again without a court order.”
Wikipedia – Lavender Scare
* McCarthy threatened rumors to silence his opponents.
* Poland’s 1985 Operation Hyacinth did, in fact, create a national database of 11,000 domestic homosexuals and associates, ostensibly for tracking HIV/gangs but really for gathering info to blackmail compliance with security forces and for monitoring opposition movements.
^ @311: Oops, Sanho Tree is at Institute for Policy Studies, not Cato. He saw the FBI admit it had illegally investigated Cato this century and used the occasion to talk about “my office” in a thread.
Count Binface got more than a quarter of the votes in Clacton when running against far-right populist Nigel Farage.
A brief video. Ronny Chieng explains climate change for all the visual learners
.https://youtube.com/shorts/6BcsD_shMQM
Ukrainian drones wipe out entire US tank brigade in live war game
A Different Bias has a brief summary of the situation in Clacton, after 44% of the voters turned out- a high participation for a by-election – and more than a quarter voted for the joke candidate instead of Farage.
.
“Count Binface Vote Causes Farage to Flee Clacton”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=KMa3jl27Hhc
Person Hides Prompt Injection In Legal Filing Telling AI To Side With Them
DailyBeast – MAGA goon in hot water for tricking Trump like ICE Barbie
State judge orders Kalshi to stop offering sports bets and other wagers
The Verge – Flock CEO: ‘We got this one wrong’
Rando: “Words can’t express how much I hate this kind of folksy, aw shucks bull**** from a tech CEO building a literal panopticon.”
ACLU – Despite updates Flock’s creepy cameras remain major civil liberties threat
Evan Greer (Fight for the Future):
National week of action against ALPRs is coming Aug 16-22.
BL:UF News:
Matthew McConaughey reveals which movie makes him the most residuals ‘by far’
Mangione admits killing healthcare CEO and pleads guilty to federal charges
The Guardian – [UK] National Rail says heat poses ‘exceptional challenges’ after two trains derail in 24 hours
Best wishes to Lynna, OM for a speedy and complete recovery!
Rando 1: “Here’s what Trump thinks about the ‘suckers’ and ‘losers'”
Acyn (MeidasTouch):
Asawin Suebsaeng (Zeteo): “‘No they’re not’ is a perfect encapsulation of the quality of this administration’s coverups.”
MeidasTouch – Not just the Lincoln: families describe human waste, no food, no end in sight across multiple ships
Rando 2: “It will never cease to amaze me that Trump’s political career didn’t end with ‘McCain wasn’t a war hero’. […] you’d think insulting the military would have more of an impact among supposed ‘patriots’.”
Video clips from a Trump rally in Nassau County, NY.
Aaron Rupar: “Trump says he’ll ‘never apologize’ for jacking up costs on Americans because in Iran he ‘did the right thing’.”
GottaLaff: “Today must be ‘Trump Offends Everyone More Than Usual with His Stupid Statements’ day.”
Aaron Rupar: “Trump calls [NY AG] Letitia James ‘a real slob’ and says ‘she got off on a technicality’.”
Brad Moss: “He is saying this in front of uniformed law enforcement officials who are smiling and laughing.”
Aaron Rupar: “Trump says that after Iran is defeated he’s going to declare the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States.”
Brian Finucane: “Guess we’re going to see an experiment as to whether lying about the outcome of the Iran War works like lying about the outcome of the 2020 election. The price at the pump may provide a reality check.”
Aaron Rupar: “Newly confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche is speaking at a Trump rally to endorse Bruce Blakeman [for NY Gov].”
Radley Balko (Journalist): “A bunch of cops cheering at a political rally—in uniform—as the president and AG endorse a candidate and attack their political opponents is not normal. And it is not okay.”
Dan Froomkin (Journalist): “There could not be a more blatant violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits any executive branch employee from ‘Using his or her official title while participating in political activity.’ Unlikely to be prosecuted, however.”
GottaLaff: “The Attorney f’ing General.”
Julie Roginsky (Dem strategist): “Remember [2016] when the right had an insane freakout when [Obama AG] Loretta Lynch’s plane was on the tarmac next to Bill Clinton’s and she went over to say hello for a few minutes, which led to her recusal from the Hillary email server investigation because she didn’t want to appear even remotely political?”
WaPo – Trump official asked for more aircraft to fight a small fire near his Idaho ranch
BBC – Farage’s by-election victory won’t stop questions about finances
Latest & reckon its a very good ep of If You’re Listening – Why MAGA is turning on Russia 23 misn 35 secs length.
Cargo thieves ram security escorts to hijack AI hardware shipments in California — brazen thieves employ PIT maneuver, rear-ending tactics to secure goods for the black market
Magnitude-7.7 quake hits off coast of Indonesia, killing at least 38
Construction workers uncover $10 million in gold while building sewer under former brewery
Nothing about who the “rightful owner” might be.
Multiple shooters and 5 people shot at Virginia State University
Clark bests Bueckers in clash of No. 1 picks as Fever top Wings
The buck stops somewhere else: A look at Trump’s tendency to avoid blame when things go awry
Our newly elevated Glorious Leader, Andy Burnham, has finally mentioned climate change in relation to the extreme heat, prolonged drought leading to poor harvests, and multiple wildfires, across the UK. But has also launched a consultation on cutting the target for the shift to electric vehicles, and is still expected to give the go-ahead for more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. I’m starting to feel nostalgic for Starmer.
NBC, linked by Reginald Selkirk @331: “earthquakes and volcanic activity because of its location on the ‘Ring of Fire,'”
Brandon Bishop (Seismologist):
Missing link @337: https://www.discovermagazine.com/no-the-ring-of-fire-is-not-a-real-thing-780
Biden Family Grift vs. Trump Family Grift: Let’s Do the Numbers: Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research tallies up the comparative numbers. He comes up with a figure of over $21 billion for the Trumps and 8.6 million for the Bidens (none of it going to Joe B).
One might quibble about some of the figures – $13 billion from Venezuela’s oil, f’rinstance (on one hand, more recent reports say it’s $19 billion now, on the other it’s all stashed in a Qatari bank and no one but the bankers and Trumpistas know what’s happening with it) – but it’s clear that when we talk about “crime families”, one is major Mafiosi and the other is dollar store shoplifters.
Nadine Batchelor-Hunt (Journalist): “I don’t think there’s ever been a clearer example of the British media bullying someone, who was so clearly vulnerable, to death so shamelessly in my lifetime for engagement and clicks. And now we’ll have to watch the people that did it claim they’re shocked, and horrified.”
Alex Cruikshanks (Historian): “A university lecturer being fired for plagiarism would not be national news >99% of the time. It was inflated into one this time purely because it fit into racist ‘culture war’ narratives about ‘DEI’.”
NewsCord – Jason Arday told the press he was at the limits of what anyone should endure. It answered with 188 more articles. He is dead at 41.
Rando 1: “Danish media jumped on from the beginning […] Prominent Danish publications were putting it in civilizational terms. [Berlingske headline: “The fall of the Cambridge professor is a symptom of the fall of the West”] This racism has long been latent, but it is now being expressed in deeply repulsive ways calling for the stripping rights from specific peoples.”
Rando 2: “You know who wasn’t hounded to suicide for dodgy academic research? ANDREW FUCKING WAKEFIELD.”
Charlotte Riley (History prof): “FFS, You don’t even have to look *outside Cambridge* for examples of white professors who have behaved far, far worse and not only kept their jobs, but have been protected and celebrated by both their institution and the media.”
Gabriel Jacobs (Paleontologist)
Ukraine strikes major Russian rocket factory with cruise missiles
@294
Lala becomes a hurricane; forecasters warn Hawaii of torrential rains
Hilo, Kona airports shutting down; ports also closing on several islands
Liechtenstein changes succession rule to allow women to ascend the throne
Washington Post: Navy weighs major warship redesign to match Trump’s preferences
This has wandered into madness. The previously noted bit above about the plane launching system, post 297 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain, is stupid and not something Trump should be ordering around but at least there has been question about how effective the electromagnetic system is. In this new revelation Trump wants the Navy to redesign the Ford class aircraft carrier because he thinks they look better with the tower more towards the middle.
Apparently he ordered them to look at this in his first term but they reported the redesign would take billions and slow the project for years. Now he has ordered them to look at it again, with an obvious leaning towards ordering them to make the change.
Joshua Baez launches into MLB history with 3 homers in first 3 at-bats of Cardinals debut
Dante Atkins (Campaign strategist):
Rando 1: “Abolishing ICE is now the official position of the Democratic Party.”
Rando 2: “In true Dem fashion they also approved reforming it.”
ABC – Democrats disagree over abolishing or reforming ICE at DNC meeting
DNC – August Resolutions
The reform resolution was short retrospective praise. Politico was technically misleading in saying it “calls for ‘concrete reforms’ of ICE”. The Abolish text was much more detailed.
Dante Atkins
An agnostic who out-Christianed the Christians
MotherJones – The Orwellian company behind ICE’s new electric shock gloves
Kat Abughazaleh (Journalist):
James Stout (Journalist): “I’ve heard this from so many people who are not citizens as well, but they are often afraid to speak up”
Röyksopp – Monument (T.I.E Version)
.
The Norweigian artist Röyksopp is on a par with the late Vangelis, here with lyrics by Robyn. For such an upbeat melody the lyrics are dark as f*ck.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=w64PybOJ8RQ
A band with a very wide register, here is Laibach with Vor Sonnen-Aufgang (live)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=9CG0KPy4aek
Techcrunch: X open sources its ranking algorithm, letting users see if they’ve been ‘shadowbanned’
Not everything of course but the core of the ranking system is being made public. With a bit of work you can run it locally and get a better idea how it works. It’s an AI and they are not making their model available, only the program and information needed to run it.
Separately they are also adding a tool to the application letting people download information on how their posts are ranked and tagged, helpful to let active posters see why a post did what it did.
It’s a lot of information that I wouldn’t expect Musk to make available. I suspect it indicates he doesn’t care about that part of his empire any more. He is playing with SpaceX now.
Follow-up to the Virginia woman with dashcam of ICE @271.
Marcy Wheeler: “This guy is like the Where’s Waldo for fascist ICE goons: check-in snatches, Broadview 6, Renee Good, all of it.”
Unraveled – Chicago ICE team seen threatening drivers has roamed from Illinois to Minnesota to Virginia
Unraveled:
Follow-up on the Forest Service boss wasting planes on his ranch fire @327.
Kathleen Clark (Attorney):
Massive Trump merchandise store goes out of business – because nobody is buying anything
Europe’s tallest Virgin Mary statue unveiled in rural Poland
Harvard – Does vitriol make you feel special?
Canadian pipe band crowned world champions after ‘thrilling’ contest
Qatar denies capturing three Iranian pilots after downing fighter jets
Strange. One could speculate in several directions about what became of the pilots, so I won’t bother. Allowing a fact-finding team in while hostilities are still on would be equivalent to allowing a spy mission.
Shadenfreude. “Mike Johnson is getting bullied by his OWN Republicans”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/Xwh4Ncfh00E
“If I link two impopular bills together, they will cancel out and be popular”.
Tommy John, namesake for a pioneering elbow surgery that saved his career, dead at 83
Tommy John surgery is now routine for pitchers in Major league Baseball. I am even aware on position players who have had it.
Tiny, beautiful species are going missing from restored forests and wetlands
GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy on Trump’s vaccine executive order: ‘This is just a stupid thing to do’
It sure was.
That was stupid too.
CNBC – Depleted strategic oil reserve nears level that raises concerns about damage to caverns
New evidence that wild armadillos spread leprosy to humans
Tech Exec Voted for Trump Three Times — Then ICE Arrested His Russian Wife During Her Birthday Trip
Leopards.
The Equinox ad, ornamentalism, and Asian women”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/NJhFQtA0JVo
In defense of Blade Runner, it was set in a narrative universe with a merging of Japanese/east Asian and American cultures. It was not intended to show the culture as anything but shallow comsumerism. Also, shot in the early 1980s.
BBC seeks to subpoena family members in Panorama lawsuit
‘Smoking gun’ email shows White House summoned agencies to Colorado-focused meeting amid Tina Peters furor
Phil Weiser (CO AG): “this information is out there because we took the Trump administration to court. This fall, we can elect a Congress that will follow the Constitution’s call to be a check on a lawless President.”
Rando: “We all knew this was the case. What we’re learning now is the extent to which they were willing to commit it to writing despite its illegality.”
Goddammit. I learned Trump wants to pull troops from South Korea because he has such a ‘good relationship’ with the other guy in the north.
Also, SK did not help out with the war Trump started with Iran, so Trump no longer regards SK as an ally. Because, as we all know, a military alliance means entire nations swear fealty to him as an individial.
BBC – Trump says US to scale back South Korea military drills after it stayed out of Iran war, citing his “very good relationship” with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.
Something I learned about recently…
Wikipedia – Bombing of North Korea
Before Backrooms, There Was This Soviet Film
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4cV6Bsqtot8
.
“Kane Parsons’s Backrooms became A24’s biggest opening ever by turning fluorescent corridors and drop ceilings into pure dread. But decades earlier, Estonian director Kaljo Kiisk had already built a sterile institutional non-place of his own; an asylum in a nameless country, occupied by the Nazis, hunted through by a Gestapo officer who slowly loses his mind. We explore how Madness (1969) used the horror of clinical whiteness, psychiatric authority, and cyclical return to smuggle a critique of totalitarianism past the Soviet censors, and why, half a century before the Backrooms, it was already asking the question both films share: whose reality is this?”
Canadian right wing influencer Lauren Southern
alleges she was sexually assaulted by Andrew Tate
The allegation is probably the most credible thing she has ever said.
Wired – The painful truth of exactly how ICE’s new shock gloves work
Heroes star Hayden Panettiere dies aged 36, with fellow actors paying tribute to ‘amazing talent’
Trump blames vandals for damaged grass in the same spot where he held his big July 4 celebration
Trump threatens to bomb Oman over Iran deal
“American Exposes Europe’s Anti-American Architecture”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/5dmlkJ3cMSE
Politico: AI slop is swamping a House office that drafts US laws
If you have been paying attention to the issue it would be obvious that using AI to generate draft legislation is a terrible idea. Legal wording precision, incorrect references and outright errors litter the documents. The AIs tend to ramble, generating longer proposals. LLMs making it easier to put together something that looks like a reasonable proposal means more and more proposals are being put forth.
They also note that these have the problem that the people generating them don’t tend to understand the technical details of their own proposals as much as they would if they had written them. Creating problems when people and reporters ask about those proposals. It would also be a problem if such a proposal was passed around for review in Congress.
Cherokee Nation bans hyperscale data centers on its lands, won’t support projects without consultation — energy and water consumption, air quality, noise, and cultural resource protection among concerns
Traffic Deaths Rise 15% on Days Major Albums Are Released, Study Finds
MS Now: Supreme Court denies Trump’s rehearing petition, cementing Carroll’s $5 million win
No surprise but I’m sure Trump is angry about it. It should also resolve Trump’s secondary case about control of the payout. It has been released to Carroll but Trump was trying to get the money moved back into a court controlled account until all issues had been resolved. The attempt to get the Supreme Court to rehear is the last possible issue so there is no reason to continue the case about controlling the payout and it should be dismissed shortly. The money has already been released to Carroll but unless she could afford to replace the $5 million out of pocket she will have to be careful what she did with it until the second issue is resolved.
Context for 277, 283.
Lawfare – What’s So Special about a Special Grand Jury? A primer on how special grand juries work, what federal law actually permits them to do, and why this one might backfire.
Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI
Bagpiper assaulted, injured in downtown Ottawa
“Two origins of life: Free-living cells may have emerged twice as bacteria and archaea diverged”
.https://phys.org/news/2026-08-life-free-cells-emerged-bacteria.html
.
The first life was in hydrothermal vents where some extant metals catalyzed parts of the needed reactions. When cells left the hydrothermal vents, two different lineages arose with different enzymes to fill the gap left by those metals.
“We found that the last universal ancestor of all cells, LUCA, possessed enzymes for only about half of the reactions of metabolism. The other half was catalyzed by metals in the environment where LUCA arose.”
[Snip]
“The bacterial and archaeal lineages made the transition to the free-living state independently. Only free-living cells are alive. Let’s call it by name: We are looking at one origin of the genetic code, but two origins of life.”
Adding to 60, 144, 376.
[Unpaywalled] Trump threatens to bomb Oman over Iran deal
Brian Finucane (JustSecurity): “Your regular reminder that the mere threat of the use of force is illegal. [Video clip: the Fox correspondent Trump said that to]”
Dalia Kaye (Middle East analyst): “Reminder that the June MOU, which Trump signed, included this clause: ‘The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz…'”
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #384…
What do you mean “without provocation”? The guy was playing bagpipes.
WaPo – U.S. vaccination rates are plunging
/The archive link broke some interactive bits. There is a map image 1/3rd down.
Commentary
An 8-foot-long snake reportedly started a fire at a Virginia middle school. Here’s how it happened
Reptile Wars
After killing hundreds in boat strikes, US military expands campaign on land in Latin America:
The “Donroe Doctrine” in action: boots, and blood, on the ground.
A better pill to swallow: Nanofiber film delivers ultrafast pain relief
Warfronts yt channel Is an Iranian Ground Invasion of Kuwait Possible? 20 mins long. Probably not but still.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2026-08-18/ancient-kraken-galactic-collision-helped-form-the-milky-way/107039962
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-18/iran-us-memorandum-hormuz-strait/107048074
Predictable but still :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-18/gaza-board-of-peace-latest/107048348
Via an fb friend :
Via PBS Newshour :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/scientists-explore-large-scale-geoengineering-to-slow-glacier-melt
One of the most famous or infamous aircraft, the Enola Gay was removed from scrubbed from government websites for anti-DEI reasons, not because it dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
I once worked with a Philippino woman named Enola Gay – she went by just Enola.
birgerjohansson@385,
Fascisnating work. I’ve thought for some time that bacteria and archaea might have emancipated themselves from hydrothermal vents independently of each other, but it’s absolute rubbish for william Martin to say their ancestors in the vents were not alive: they had metabolisms, they reproduced, they evolved – of course they were alive!.
Reginald Selkirk@383,
In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 a fascist regime is bent on destroying books. No surprise that our current technofascists are doing the same. I’d back actual books on actual paper (at least, if it’s acid-free) to outlast all the 1s and 0s in all the datacentres of the world.
I think that’s likely. Pirro has already shown she’s unwilling to risk her law licence by mounting an obviously spurious prosecution, but she also wants to placate Trump: this simply kicks the can down the road. But what about the unfortunate Grand Jurors, obliged to waste their lives for her interests?
Reginald Selkirk@379,
Good for the Cherokee Nation!
This exemplifies one of the (many, many, many) ill-effects of LLMs which I’ve recently been thinking about (I’ve agreed to write a chapter on “AI and technofascism” for a political group I belong to). As these things are increasingly employed for generating routine written material by corporations, its volume will expand exponentially (and I do mean exponentially) as every piece of corporate AI slop sent out generates multiple responses from other corporations. However fast internet infrastructure is built, the whole system will likely freeze up – and given the nature of exponential growth, this could happen overnight!
(but it could be any one of numerous news outlets.
Oman’s possible response: “What with?”
“Why Liberals Don’t Worship Politicians:
.https://youtube.com/shorts/zenZRPh6MXI
MAGA supporters merge their identity with their idol/cause/religion.
Latest ep of Planet America here 33 mins 50 secs long.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-18/space-x-rocket-operation-christmas-island/107051288
A great yt version of Shakespeare’s the Strangers case speech here. 2 mins & 20 secs long.
Arrest warrant issued for 2024 presidential candidate Jill Stein
Karma is coming for you!
@74, 385
Here is Larry Moran’s report on that paper:
The evolution of metabolic enzymes in LUCA, Bacteria, and Archaea
I hope it is obvious that the two origins of life claim depends on the definition of “life,” which is a lot trickier than it sounds.
Dolphins Use Seashells to Scoop Up Fish and Eat Them in Rare Hunting Behavior
Facebook: this software engineer -now 90 years old- saved the Apollo 11 landing.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CAFzQSkED/
OpenAI Exec: The Solution to AI Doing Bad Cybercrimes Is Even More AI
Trump Claims White House Ballroom Foes Revealed ‘Top Military Secrets’
Trump’s Unhinged Truth Social Posts Are at the Heart of ABC’s Lawsuit Against the FCC
KG @404: “Oman’s possible response: ‘What with?'”
Reuters earlier on the depletion: “The U.S. Army has used up much of its global stockpile of highly accurate [surface-to-surface] long-range missiles […] Trump may have to rely more on riskier, piloted [aircraft] bombing missions if he relaunches large-scale attacks”
Wikipedia – Sultan’s Armed Forces (Oman)
Washington Post: Hegseth travels to Iowa in his ‘personal capacity’ amid 2028 speculation
This is classic politics here. Going to Iowa now for no stated reason is often testing the water to see how much the locals might like you in a campaign run. For a 2028 run, when there are likely to be a lot of Republicans running, getting a good start will be important.
Hetseth has nothing going for him except good hair and lots of negatives. He lacks the 2016 Trump on the fly wit and can’t claim to be the sort of populist outsider that Trump did. He is best known for wasting money, poor management and poor leadership. By any sane standard Hegseth should be dead in the water but if the Iran conflict ends before 2028 in a way that lets Hegseth claim some sort of victory then he has a chance.
@417
If you can call it that.
I see what you did there, and it’s in questionable taste. Keep up the good work.
Follow-up to 340 on the Jason Arday media pile-on.
Stephanie Lamy (Disinfo researcher):
Stephanie Lamy:
The Guardian – Fewer than 1% of UK university professors are black. (2020)
Rosie O’Donnell Crushed Her ‘Kimmel’ Monologue by Doing What Jimmy Kimmel Doesn’t
Undoubtedly so. He is the ultimate narcissist.
Earthquake rocks Spain’s historic Granada, injuring three
4.8? Pthththt.
Kanye West announces tour dates in Russia
There is a distinction between being edgy and being an asshole.
Actress Phyllida Law, mother of Emma and Sophie Thompson, dies at 94
ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard dead at 77
Trump casts mail ballot again in Florida despite efforts to restrict mail voting
Ukrainian drones overwhelm Russian tanks’ new active protection system—for now
Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly set to square off for Florida’s governorship
Democratic socialist Angie Nixon upsets Alex Vindman in Florida’s Democratic Senate primary
@23, 367
Judge swapped in Trump’s defamation case against BBC
Breaking: Fedorov calls for wartime elections, says Putin shouldn’t decide when Ukrainians vote
Ukraine-Russia war latest: Russians ‘withdraw billions’ from banks amid fears Putin could seize money
Minnesota AG Ellison announces lawsuit against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over extradition of ICE agent
I dont suppose anyone here happens to know anything about what’s happening with China’s Tianwen-2 mission do they?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianwen-2
We had the first, rather blurry photo of the quasi-moon NEO Kamo’oalewa back at the start of July and I’d hoped we’d be getting better images and info from that by now but haven’t seen or been able to find any. Hope its going okay & no issues. Anyone with better google-fu skills or access to knowledge there happen to know please?
StevoR @433: Nothing published this month from what I can tell.
Wired – China’s Tianwen-2 space probe has rendezvoused with Earth’s quasi-moon (Jul 11)
LiveScience – A secretive Chinese probe has just arrived at one of Earth’s ‘quasi-moons’ (Jun 17)
“Lost ‘mega-escarpment’ across ancient USA may explain Grand Canyon’s missing billion years”
.https://phys.org/news/2026-08-lost-mega-escarpment-ancient-usa.html
A smaller, less dramatic version of an escarpment can be found in Southern Africa.
What They Don’t Tell You About the Hospital That Treated 45,000 Vietnam Casualties.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=cXOIySFcsSY
Memories of a nurse. Like …holding up a letter and reading it to a soldier that had lost both arms, a ‘dear John’ letter where the girlfriend wrote she was leaving him because she could not be married to a man without arms.
Alien Space Show:
“Hunter Biden Beams Aboard To Finish Goal of Doing Every Podcast”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=zn1esuoAomQ
Hunter Biden is unexpectedly fun!
“New Chinese Falcon 9-size Rocket LANDS Booster | LandSpace Zhuque-3 Flight 2”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=cpA2nDH6GSY
Babies Born Under Sugar Rationing Grew Into Adults With Lower Cancer Risk
Sen. Dan Sullivan, Mary Peltola advance in Alaska Senate primary
Moderna, Merck cancer vaccine shows promise in late-stage trial; Moderna stock more than doubles
Trump expected to pick conservative policy wonk Heidi Overton to lead FDA
The reality of our great magat economy:
https://featureassets.gocomics.com/assets/adf35d506c2e013fc3e9005056a9545d?optimizer=image&width=992&quality=85
Fun fact: if you fling a bottle of salt water onto shock gloves they will likely short out and electrocute the ahole wearing them!
The heroic heretic ™ posits that under the magat plutocracy:
the united states can see no future, because it has its head so far up its ass!
shermanj @443: According to Wired in 373, “The GLOVE also does not like being dunked in water and will likely be rendered inoperable if this happens.”
X’s Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds
re shermanj@443:
Salt-water balloons at 10 paces it is! Soak the ICE-holes!
Re: shock gloves…
Let me try that again.
Re: shock gloves…
Someone needs to find or develop an electrically conductive skin cream. Best if it is transparent so the glove user doesn’t know it’s there.
For non-exposed parts of the body… Mail armor strikes me a good thing the wear.
whheydt @448: Making skin itself—where the nerves are—more conductive would be counterproductive, I think. According to Wired in 373, “the gloves won’t work through dry clothing or thick hair. The gloves will work, however, if the subject is wearing thin, wet clothing, such as soaked T-shirts or blouses.”
Re: CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ #449….
The idea would to make the current flow though a conductive layer on top of the skin, rather going through the skin. As for the thin/wt clothing….soak the clothing in salt water? Or…wear the T-shirt over mail.
whheydt @450: “a conductive layer on top of the skin, rather going through the skin.”
Conduction of electrical current to and through the human body: A review
Still strikes me as risky and uncomfortable compared to dry clothes. If the contact points are wet, but the surface between them is not contiguous with consistently lower resistance, you’ve forfeited your skin resistance for nothing.
That said… e-tattoos (conductive skin paint) have been developed.
French civil servant drugged us to make us urinate on ourselves, say accusers
Fake maple syrup class action now targeting major grocery store chains
‘Most prolific’ member of online extremist network 764 sentenced to 77 years in prison
FBI Warns That Hackers Are Targeting Siemens Equipment Amid Recent Water Plant Breaches
T-Mobile ‘chopped a cable’ to expel Chinese hackers from its network
FCC abolishes gigabit speed goal, suggesting it is unfair to slower technologies
Sen. Darline Graham avoids giving direct answer to national security question in S.C. debate: ‘Not my thing’
Thousands of blueberries recalled as FDA issues highest risk warning
Judge orders DOJ to turn over grand jury material in anti-ICE church protest case
More than 20 tons of squid spilled on to Rhode Island highway during traffic accident:
Reginald Selkirk @457
You did not put the section of the article that says this gigabit bandwidth is a problem for satellite services. And while it is not even mentioned in the article, that certainly comes from Elon Musk either directly or indirectly. One more example of the enshittification of the US government by Musk and enabled by Trump.
@445. Reginald Selkirk :
Felon Musk is the reason for that pretty clearly. Of course, driving one side of politics off X just makes it baised and hurts that comonay / network but he’s basically gone in to destroy it delierately so, yeah.
@445. Reginald Selkirk :
Felon Musk is the reason for that pretty clearly. Of course, driving one side of politics off X just makes it baised and hurts that comonay / network but he’s basically gone in to destroy it delierately so, yeah.
^ Company.
A Chinese space probe has been approaching a small asteroid (60-100 m) near Earth. It is a “pseudo-moon” in an orbit parallel to Earth. It is possibly a fragment of the Moon that has been ejected by a giant impact, it has the same spectra as Moon rock.
Samantha Montano (Emergency management professor):
Federal court restores access to gender-affirming care for many trans adults in massive win
Eric Topol (Physician):
Rando: “there’s one for colon cancer in the works too.”
Articles at the link.
@462
That’s because I understand how links work. If you want the full article, all you have to do is click the link and read it. I am surprised the no one else here seems to understand that.
Rescue mission is called off for NASA’s aging Swift space telescope
Missouri judge hands Trump, GOP major redistricting win ahead of midterm elections
New ‘Underzealous’ show highlights younger nonreligious belief
North Korea fires barrage of missiles toward the sea after dismissing overture from Trump
‘Jealous’ White House staff are leaking to press about Trump aide Natalie Harp, Laura Loomer claims
Maybe they are, but I am not prepared to accept Laura Loomer as a reliable source.
Don’t Call This Flying Camera a Drone Unless You Want It to Get Banned
Belgian car salesman becomes prince after royal parentage confirmed
Scathing Atheist 701: DC-eased Edition
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Rfa3DzpECL
DOJ Throws Support Behind xAI’s Fight Against Minnesota AI Nudification Ban
FBI seizes former Congressman Eric Swalwell’s devices and searches his home as part of investigation
In today’s world, I cannot rule out the possibility that the raid was motivated by political considerations.
Pirates hijack cargo ship carrying Turkish weapons off Somalia’s coast, official says
‘The Emperor Is a Fan of Flock’: Darth Vader Speaks at City Council Meeting
The Hill – US ambassador to India causes diplomatic firestorm
* See a comment last year for background on Kashmir and India’s Israel parallels/connections.
Thousands of Gary residents go over a week without power after deadly storms
Jocelyn Leitzinger (Social scientist):
Jocelyn Leitzinger
Someone driving through Gary remarked, “The destruction is like having a hurricane roar through the Midwest.”
Parts of Indiana got 11 inches of rain within 48 hours. There has been flash flooding in central and eastern Indiana, along the White River. Several cities had roads/bridges collapse and wash away. Cambridge City on the far east—which was already prone to floods due to a canal—had water up to houses’ second story. The governor declared a statewide disaster, and Trump approved funding (red state).
Wikipedia – 2026 Indiana floods
Daniel Swain (Climate scientist):
Daniel Swain:
Reginald Selkirk @470
First that was not a criticism but just an observation to make my point in the rest of my comment. Second, I obviously know how links work since I used it to go to the article where I saw the information about satellite services and that Elon was not mentioned.
I’m sorry if I offended you.
Lignin & starch
100-million-year-old molecular ‘bypasses’ may have helped grasses dominate landscapes and agriculture
(also, very interesting for future GM plants)
.https://phys.org/news/2026-08-million-year-molecular-bypasses-grasses.html
Ukrainian Publishers Call For Support After Russian Attacks Destroy 10 Million Books
FBI arrests woman over alleged plot to bomb New York capitol building
Magnitude 6.7 earthquake shakes Peru’s southern Andes, USGS says
U.S. Rep. Randy Fine caught snooping inside home’s mailbox
Politico – One beneficiary of the Iran war? Pirates.
Wikipedia – Piracy off the coast of Somalia
“2026 Senate Prediction | 75 Days Till November:
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=HND6M7WXawA
.
Right now it is fifty-fifty, but with three promising states that can be flipped. Also, in Nebraska Osborne is a strong independent candidate. If Agent Orange keeps the war going and gas prices high, things will change for the worse for GOP.
Owen Jones covers alot more incl the World Central Kitchen massacre adn the history of their lies and why and more here – Israel Finally ADMITS Killing Hind Rajab in just over twenty minutes.
Sohare Jacobi tells the story of how she started to question the official history of Israel.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1FNr8TyZmD/
A film with a female-driven narrative, versus just a film with a female lead: Comparing the Swedish and American versions of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18syRkouYs/
‘Starve the beast’? The $40tn cost of Republicans’ false promises to cut spending | US economy |
The Guardian .https://share.google/cb4YX5VUFwwGL5tPm
When Ronald Reagan became president, the national debt was 1 trillion. This was used as an excuse to scrap social programs.
Somehow, the debt keeps rising under Republican presidents.
birgerjohansson @497.
Two Santas strategy: Why Republicans use Saint Nicholas then Scrooge to shift economic messages
Latest (8 hrs ago) Seven Days of Science yt video –
Have Astronomers Seen Something They Didn’t Want To? on the Littel Red Dots which may well be gargantuan Black Hole Stars. Ten mins & 30 secs long.
Farron Cousins:
“New Emails Reveal Trump Involved In Massive Extortion Scheme”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cvh030O_j0M