The incredible self-annihilating creationist argument » « Almost October!

Infinite Thread XXXXI

Behold, the Ugly Palace (il Palazzaccio, aka The Palace of Justice in Rome).

It’s nice to know we aren’t the only country that throws away money on hideous, grandiose buildings with terrible cost overruns and rumors of corruption. Of course, if it were built here, it would be excessively gilded, and would be a deathtrap.

Talk among yourselves about construction projects. Or whatever.

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  2. says

    Also, thanks for the ‘deathrap’ link. The article tells us the architect ran away from that disaster that was the ‘tRUMP ballsroom’ design because it won’t allow people to safely exit when it catches fire. The kitchen could easily conduct fire into the main hall. There were only seven stalls in the women’s bathroom for hundreds of people in that atrocity. WTF!

  3. birgerjohansson says

    The palace/ballroom needs to be built in neoclassical style with a marble facade, accompanied by a giant gilded statue of the Great Leader mounted on a turning support that constantly keeps the face towards the sun.
    .
    A great monumental avenue needs to be built on the approach to the site, with Ceaucescu’s palace in Bucuresti as template. This may require tearing down many culturally important buildings, but hey, it worked for Romania.
    These changes will make Trumpgrad (formerly Washington) a proper world city, on a par with Moscow and Pyonyang.

  4. Reginald Selkirk says

    A Buried Oklahoma Crater Was Dated to the Wrong Era—and It Actually Lines Up With a Mass Extinction

    In 1991, an oil company discovered a giant crater buried under Ames, Oklahoma. Subsequent investigations led researchers to propose the meteor responsible for the structure belonged to the many meteors that struck North America some 470 million years ago. New dating, however, challenges this account—while proposing an entirely different context for this enigmatic crater.

    According to a recently published study in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, researchers dated zircon crystals from the site and found that the Ames crater likely formed about 370 million years ago, during the Late Devonian. That represents a whopping 100-million-year gap with the Ordovician meteor event, when Earth saw a large increase in meteor events roughly 467 million years ago. Importantly, this now temporally places the Ames crater within another significant period in geological history: the Frasnian–Famennian mass extinction, which drastically reshaped Earth’s marine ecosystems…

  6. Reginald Selkirk says

    Gene-edited bananas that don’t go brown could hit UK supermarkets

    … Gilad Gershon, the chief executive of Tropic, said the flesh of the new banana resisted browning for an extra day or two – and longer if chilled. ..

    Tropic developed the bananas by using a gene-editing technology called Crispr-Cas9 to alter all three copies of a single gene within the fruit. As a result, they were able to reduce the production of polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that causes browning. A similar approach has been effective in reducing browning in other produce, including mushrooms…

    A day or two? Sounds pretty hype-licious.

    See also: Arctic apples

  8. outis says

    Ah cam ahn, you find that ugly? Half of Italy is like that and those are actually the nicer-looking buildings! If you want another ugly/oppressive justice shack look at this
    (it’s in Belgium tho, but the style is there):
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Justice,_Brussels
    A more modern equivalent:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Courthouse
    the idea was to have something impossibly huge and intimidating, with lots of crenellations (19th century) or blocky and Mordor-like (20th).
    And frankly their build quality and yes even aesthetics are head and shoulders above much of the rubbish being built today, yes sir.

  9. Alverant says

    Good news. Lost 15lbs since last weighed yesterday
    Bad news. Had to get weighed as SOP at the doctor because it looks like I have a UTI.

  11. says

    Italy’s done much nicer stuff than that, but there’s also worse things you could see all over Europe. My biggest complaint about this building is that statue thing on top — a bit too much Brandenburg Gate vibe for my taste; and it’s too small to be appreciated from ground level at such a height. It needs to be either on a shorter building (1-2 stories?), or on a plinth standing in a courtyard or major traffic intersection.

  12. Reginald Selkirk says

    When they say election fraud is real, believe them. And investigate them.

    MAGA candidate in small Calif. town convicted on 9 counts of election fraud

    Gaea Powell echoed a core idea from the Make America Great Again movement when she ran for San Luis Obispo County clerk-recorder earlier this year, arguing for new voter ID rules to improve “election integrity” in the Central California county.

    But it turns out this conservative candidate wasn’t following election laws herself.

    A county jury found Powell guilty on nine counts of election fraud last week, including lying about her residence, unlawfully registering to vote and fraudulently voting. The charges stem from 2022 and 2024 elections, when Powell ran for mayor of Arroyo Grande, a small town near Pismo Beach…

  13. says

    Republicans are slow to learn a simple lesson: They can’t get the better of Jack Smith

    “Three times, Republicans have summoned the former special counsel to Capitol Hill. Each time, they have left humiliated.”

    Related video at the link.

    Almost immediately after Election Day 2024, special counsel Jack Smith and his team grudgingly wrapped up their work — not because they wanted to or because they lacked compelling evidence, but because of Justice Department guidelines against prosecuting a sitting president, and Donald Trump had just won.

    Left without options, Smith resigned, and his criminal indictments against the president effectively evaporated.

    For congressional Republicans, however, that was merely the start of a second phase. Indeed, for GOP lawmakers who saw the former special counsel as part of some conspiratorial plot, his transition to private life offered an opportunity to start demanding answers from Smith.

    It’s amazing how badly this has turned out for the party.

    Late last year, for example, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan scheduled a closed-door hearing with the prosecutor, and Smith offered several hours’ worth of answers. (Smith wanted the Q&A to be public, but the Ohio Republican refused.) After the hearing wrapped up, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, joked that Jordan “made an excellent decision in not allowing Jack Smith to testify publicly, because had he done so, it would have been absolutely devastating to the president and all the president’s men involved in the insurrectionary activities of Jan. 6.”

    A month later, Jordan and House Republicans thought they should give this a second try, this time for all the world to see. This, too, was a disaster for the GOP.

    In fact, Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California told MS NOW after the televised hearing, “I’m thrilled and frankly stunned House Republicans called Jack Smith to testify.”

    The lesson for the GOP seemed rather obvious: Trying to get the better of the former special counsel during a congressional hearing is a very bad idea.

    Nevertheless, eight weeks ago, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee decided they also wanted to give this a try, though they, like their brethren in the lower chamber, really should’ve known better.

    Over the course of more than four hours, Smith reminded the public about Trump’s many alleged felonies, once again explained why the GOP’s “Arctic Frost” whining doesn’t make any sense, and in one highly memorable instance, watched Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri try to play a foolish gotcha game with the former special counsel, only to seemingly confuse a women’s college basketball team with an NBA team in one of the most embarrassing displays I’ve ever seen on Capitol Hill. [social media post and video]

    In case this isn’t obvious, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican members had months to prepare for this hearing. This was not a rushed process: They had plenty of time to organize their thoughts, prepare sensible questions, review the relevant facts and plan for a meaningful and illuminating hearing.

    But they failed. Schmitt flubbing the difference between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Atlanta Hawks stood out as uniquely humiliating, but he was just one of several GOP members who clearly failed to do their homework ahead of the high-profile hearing they demanded.

    What we’re left with is a pattern of failure: Three times, Republicans have summoned Smith to Capitol Hill. Three times, they had time to prepare for their showdowns with their perceived bête noire. And three times, the hearings ended with GOP members looking worse and the former special counsel looking better.

    If Democrats are lucky, Republicans will bring Smith back for a fourth hearing […]

  14. birgerjohansson says

    THIS is how you do it!
    .
    UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham 
    is basically doing a U-turn, away from the cautious approach of earlier Labour leaders.
    .
    “Burnham’s Conference Speech Was a Belter – Had Almost Everything”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=-1eFZMrAb18
    .
    “Andy Burnham expected to say he will push ahead with electoral reform plans” .https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/29/andy-burnham-push-ahead-electoral-reform-plans

    If Britain can do it after deposing a hated and corrupt administration, so can USA. Note they also had to get rid of their conservative-lite previous labour leader to get here. The most important part is the electoral reform, away from the awful and antiquated ‘first past the post’ system (which also is practised in most US states).

  15. says

    For the convenience of readers, here are some links back to the previous set of comments on The Infinite Thread.

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-7/#comment-2312917
    MS Now: FBI agents probing threats against Stephen Miller’s wife demoted

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-7/#comment-2312915
    “[Utah Repulican Senator] Mike Lee Writing Fantasy Fiction About Trump Taking Xi To Panda Express”

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-7/#comment-2312914
    “September 27, 1922, in labor history! [Child Labor laws … still a current issue.]”

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-7/#comment-2312912
    The Trump administration announced that it had kicked about 750,000 people off Affordable Care Act plans. [Using AI to speed up the process of stripping eligibility from people.]

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-7/#comment-2312884
    Konstantin Ryabitsev (Linux Foundation sysadmin) – Creepy crawlies [AI crawlers]

  16. Snarki, child of Loki says

    Every case of “voter fraud” that I’ve seen reported has been GOPers. Why? Because it takes a combination of (a) massive stupidity, (b) “getting even” with the other side [see (a)], and (c) a deep, abiding feeling of privilege.

    SO, GOPers want to crack down on “voter fraud”? OKAY!

    On conviction of a first offense: TEN YEAR removal of voting privilege (which is really mild: no jail, no fine, less work). On conviction for a second offense: PUBLIC CRUCIFIXION.

  17. says

    Judge blocks FEMA from connecting counterterrorism funds and election restrictions

    “It’s amazing just how many levers of government the White House has tried to pull in pursuit of a problem that does not exist in any meaningful way.”

    A few months ago, the Federal Emergency Management Agency approached state and local officials with a proposed deal of sorts: If they agreed to use a federal citizenship database, to abandon certain types of voting equipment and to impose other election restrictions in line with Donald Trump’s wishes, they would receive the counterterrorism grants to which they were entitled.

    But, FEMA added, if state and local officials balked at the proposed election changes, the administration would withhold 20% of the anti-terrorism funding.

    If you’re thinking that the pitch doesn’t seem legal, you have something in common with U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali. The Washington Post reported:

    A federal judge on Monday blocked the Federal Emergency Management Agency from withholding anti-terrorism funds from local governments that don’t change how they run elections.

    It marked the latest blow to the Trump administration’s attempts to rewrite election rules.

    The lawsuit was brought by a group of local governments in Tennessee, Texas and Ohio.

    Abbie Kamin, the county attorney for Harris County, Texas, one of the local governments that filed the lawsuit, said in a statement, “Today’s win is the result of cities and counties standing together against blatant federal overreach that jeopardized public safety.”

    Time will tell whether the Trump administration bothers to appeal. But in the meantime, it’s hard not to notice just how many levers of government the White House has tried to pull in pursuit of a problem that does not exist in any meaningful way. [! True.]

    At last count, Trump and his team have tried to combat imaginary election fraud by using FEMA, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Postal Service and even the Social Security Administration.

    These efforts haven’t worked — none of these departments or agencies has advanced the president’s conspiracy theories or successfully imposed new voting restrictions — but the crusade is ongoing.

    In the meantime, the administration could be strengthening agencies such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — an agency the Trump White House helped create in his first term to help strengthen election systems — but the president and his operation have instead taken steps to gut CISA over the past year.

  18. says

    Iran news, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    * As the war with Iran prepares to begin its seventh month: “President Trump said on Saturday that he turned down Iran’s latest cease-fire proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart talks on the country’s nuclear program in exchange for U.S. concessions.” [Summarized from a New York Times report.]

    * On a related note, I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve heard comments like these: “The U.S. is expected to start another round of peace talks with Iran this week, President Donald Trump said Sunday, just one day after nixing an Iranian proposal aimed at ending the months-long conflict.” [Summarized from an MS NOW report.]

  19. says

    New York Times:

    The Trump administration will move on Monday to sharply scale back fuel-efficiency rules for new cars and light trucks, gutting one of the government’s most significant efforts to reduce gasoline consumption and speed the country’s shift to electric vehicles.

  20. says

    Roll Call:

    A pair of Democratic lawmakers is calling for hearings after the Navy disclosed that there were eight suicide attempts during the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group’s record-long time at sea.

    “That this administration can find endless taxpayer dollars for bombs, ballrooms, and billionaires, but cannot take care of our service members, is completely unacceptable,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Friday. “The American people need hearings, accountability and a clear plan to protect our service members and prioritize American families.”

    Gillibrand was joined in her call for hearings by Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., who represents the area that includes Naval Station Great Lakes where Navy recruits receive basic training.

    […] The aircraft carrier Lincoln spent a record-breaking 286 days at sea without a port visit after being deployed to waters off Venezuela to support operations there before it was redirected to the Middle East to support the war against Iran.

    In August, military news outlets Military Times and Stars and Stripes reported on concerns from family members of those on the carrier that the grueling deployment was causing mental health crises for the sailors, including at least two who tried to jump overboard. The ship reportedly faced food and water shortages and disrupted communications with family, among other hardships. […]

    Link

    More details at the link.

  21. says

    The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for the Trump administration to continue deporting people to countries where they have no ties and where they may face violence without even guaranteeing them a chance to contest the removal.

    Over the dissent of the three liberal justices, the Court stayed a lower court decision […]

    The order was unsigned, and also added the case to the Court’s docket, fasttracking it to be argued in December. [!] It came at the administration’s behest, and very quickly — just four days after Solicitor General John Sauer asked the court to pause the lower court order.

    […] The Justice Department claims that it’s already sent over 25,000 people to countries including Honduras, Equatorial Guinea and Liberia.

    […] Earlier this month, the First Circuit Court of Appeals mostly upheld Murphy’s [District Judge Brian Murphy’s] final order, that immigrants must be given a chance to challenge their deportations on the grounds of fear of persecution or torture. The Supreme Court has now stayed that order, letting the Trump administration continue the practice at least until the case is decided on the merits.

    “The record shows that class members removed without meaningful notice or an opportunity to present country-specific protection claims have faced prolonged and arbitrary detention, beatings and sexual assault, disappearance, and chain refoulement to countries from which the United States had already granted them protection,” wrote the lawyers for four immigrants under removal orders in their request for the Supreme Court to deny the stay. “These harms cannot be undone.” [Serious]

    If the Supreme Court had denied the stay, it wouldn’t even have ended the third-country deportations; it just would have afforded these immigrants the slightest measure of due process. Even that, it seems, was too much.

    Link

  22. says

    ‘A Massive Power Grab’: White House Proposal Threatens Funding That Helps Disabled Americans Vote

    This story was originally published by ProPublica.

    Without Amy Miller, some elderly and disabled people wouldn’t be able to vote.

    […] Last month, she helped a veteran with a traumatic brain injury fill out change-of-address paperwork so he could vote in the upcoming midterm elections. “He 100% knew who he wanted to vote for,” Miller said, but he struggled to write with a pen.

    Congress funds her organization’s efforts to ensure that even people who might not have access to the internet or transportation have the opportunity to participate in elections.

    Now a White House proposal threatens that work.

    The White House Office of Management and Budget wants to change spending rules to prohibit anyone from using federal grant money for voter registration drives or what it vaguely calls “related activities.” The office is headed by Russell Vought, who has long criticized the use of taxpayer money for voter registration efforts and who more recently used his position to cancel, freeze or redirect vast amounts of federal funding in defiance of Congress’ orders. [Russell Vought is a villain.]

    […] The proposal is part of the Trump administration’s broader assault on federal efforts to expand access to voting, especially among groups that have historically faced discrimination and disenfranchisement.

    President Donald Trump has championed the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require people to provide documents proving their citizenship when registering to vote, and that may require everyone to deliver that proof in person, which would effectively end voter registration drives.

    [I snipped other examples.]

    […] Neither Vought nor his office responded to ProPublica’s questions about the proposed change. But in a letter sent to state officials in 2022, he condemned Biden’s executive order as a “power grab” that would “increase voter registration and turnout, especially among Democratic Party supporters.”

    Vought’s proposed change, which wouldn’t go into effect until after the 2026 midterms, could have ramifications for the next presidential election well beyond voting accessibility.

    Nonprofits that receive government funds to help people sign up for Medicaid benefits, food stamps or other programs subject to the National Voter Registration Act are required to provide registration forms and help people fill them out. Like Disability Rights Nebraska, these groups would be caught between contradictory federal directives if the proposed ban is finalized.

    […] The Help America Vote Act, signed by Bush [in 2002], created grants to assist people with disabilities in registering to vote, casting their ballots and accessing polling places. That funding continues to this day. In recent years, Congress has budgeted $10 million a year, which is spread among 57 nonprofit groups that together cover every state as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Native American communities and U.S. territories.

    […] During the 2024 election, 3.6% of registered voters with disabilities reported difficulties with registering, compared to 1.4% of registered voters without disabilities […]

  24. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/ready-to-vote-tabs-tues-sept-29-2026

    Oh hey, just checking. Y’all like to vote? OK, well this is a good time to double-check and make sure everything is cool with your registration and your voting plans, and then if there’s anybody you know who needs a nudge, this is the time. Check your state’s regulations, find out when deadlines are, help anybody who might be confused because of redistricting, whatever. It’s getting close to The Time!

    OK, some stories, but not many, because we gotta go to a thing where we are helping voters. […]

    Ummmm, speaking of voting, would you look at these Florida polls? [Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire]

    Sounds like shit has gone hilariously bad with the DOJ’s “investigate the investigators” conspiracy theory against Dear Leader probe down in Florida, the one that’s being overseen by braindead Trump judge Aileen Cannon. You know, where they’re going to figure out who did the Russia Hoax and the Documents Hoax to Donald Trump! It’s Daily Mail but apparently seven or more people just suddenly got up and quit that office yesterday. Imagine we’ll be hearing more on this one very soon. [Daily Mail] [social media post]

    Senator Roger Marshall (R-Asshole Kansas Doctor) is VERY MAD GRR about an ad his opponent Adam Hamilton is running about the way he reportedly would treat his patients who dared to go into debt. VERY MAD GRR! Cease and desist! Cease and desist! That’s a great way to make sure nobody else watches it. [Kansas Reflector / watch the ad here]

    Cannot stop laughing. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders made a campaign ad about “welfare to work” or some shit like that, and MAGA is looosing it, because the star of the ad was a white guy, as opposed to the usual Black woman they’d like to see when they talk about welfare, because of how they’re racists who hate women. This is the ultimate betrayal, for lazy white MAGA loser racist men. [JoeMyGod]

    Sure, that story about the Massachusetts lesbian bar mask debacle is very very Portlandia, but if you want something even more ridiculous to make fun of, here is Megan McArdle explaining why the Massachusetts lesbian bar mask debacle means that the “Great Awokening” is over. She begins: “For years, the first thing I did upon awakening was check Twitter to see if I had been canceled. After a quick name search to ensure that there was only the usual amount of frothing denunciation, I could get on with my day.” OK, lunatic. [Washington Post gift link]

    Speaking of lunatics:

    Trump said “Income.” [social media post and video]

    He also denies that he offered to sell weapons to Xi Jinping, which leads us to believe in our original theory, namely that he was just babbling and trying to look cool in front of the big dictator man and has no goddamned idea what’s coming out of his mouth at any given time. [The Hill]

    Still speaking of Trump, y’all hear the one about how he wanted to executive decree that all ballots must be sent by certified mail? [ProPublica]

    We may have posted this video in tabs before, but that’s fine, you’re getting it again. We personally did not like Chappell Roan all that much when she first hit the scene, but then this song came out where she somehow flawlessly channeled The Sundays and the Cocteau Twins both simultaneously during the latter half, and we were like OK fine. [Chappell Roan video]

  25. Reginald Selkirk says

    @19 “sharply scale back fuel-efficiency rules”

    At a time when gasoline and diesel prices are very high.

  26. Reginald Selkirk says

    @13

    But they failed. Schmitt flubbing the difference between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Atlanta Hawks stood out as uniquely humiliating, but he was just one of several GOP members who clearly failed to do their homework ahead of the high-profile hearing they demanded.

    Hawks? Hawkeyes? Schmitt in probing Smith mistakes basketball mascots

    Schmitt accused Smith of perjuring himself during a Senate hearing after repeatedly prodding him about whether he’d attended an NBA game in Atlanta on the evening of Feb. 3, 2024. The hometown Hawks were playing the Golden State Warriors.

    Schmitt appeared to be trying to set Smith in Atlanta at the time Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was facing scrutiny for her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the special state prosecutor she hired for the county’s election-interference case against Trump.

    “So your testimony today is that you did not go to a Hawks game on Feb. 3, 2024. Is that correct?” Schmitt asks sharply. “What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warriors-Hawks game on Feb. 2, 2024?”

    Smith said he didn’t think he had visited Atlanta as special prosecutor, and was even more certain he hadn’t attended an Atlanta Hawks game.

    He did, however, recall attending a University of Iowa women’s game at the University of Maryland on Feb. 3, 2024, recalling the game as one where then-Iowa star Caitlin Clark was playing.

    “Could it then be that the University of Iowa was the Hawkeyes?” Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota interjected. “Perhaps you should have looked at it more carefully.”

    Rube

  29. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump’s New America.gov Chatbot Seems to Drop Acid When You Tell It to Play Minecraft

    …
    That might be your instinctive reaction to what happens when you tell the official chatbot of the United States of America to “play minecraft.” To say it “glitches out” would be an understatement. It seems to fully enter “bad trip” mode.

    While seemingly incoherent and hallucinatory, the text is a riff on the end poem for Minecraft, originally written by the Irish poet Julian Gough and triggered when you reach the closest thing to an “ending” in Minecraft, which isn’t really a linear game. Where the America.gov output says “I see the constituent you mean,” the original poem said “I see the player you mean.” And the riffing just continues like that, with the references and imagery changed so that instead of the poem seeming to narrate the game’s inner voice reacting to a player, it narrates something sort of like the federal government’s inner voice reacting to a “constituent.” …

  30. Reginald Selkirk says

    Projection

    Trump trade adviser says Canada will ‘pay even more dearly’ if ‘you interfere’ in U.S. midterms

    One of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade advisers is threatening repercussions for Canada if it “interferes” in the upcoming midterm elections — though it’s not clear what he anticipates the country would do to impact the vote.

    Peter Navarro, who has lashed out at Canada in the past, made these latest remarks during a talk at an economic conference in Washington on Tuesday.

    Navarro was speaking generally about the Trump administration’s trade policy when the conversation turned to the ongoing dispute with Canada. He blasted Canadians on “K Street” — an area in Washington known as a hub for lobbyists — telling them to “get the hell out of our country.”

    “The problem you have is you lobby this country and you’ve been successful in the past and you think you can keep doing that,” Navarro said of Canada’s approach.

    “Memo to Canada: You cannot do that. That game is up and if you interfere in our elections in Maine or Michigan you will pay even more dearly.” …

  32. StevoR says

    New Greens party leaders in Australia -where we can vote for the best ideal candidates and NOT end up with the very worst winning instead because of preferential voting here :

    David Shoebridge has been announced as the new leader of the Greens, with Steph Hodgins-May as deputy.

    Senator Shoebridge, from NSW, emerged as the victor in a three-way contest with former deputy Mehreen Faruqi and Sarah Hanson-Young, the manager of Greens business in the Senate.

    The decision was made by the 11-member party room in Sydney today after the shock resignation of Larissa Waters, who on Monday revealed she was stepping aside from the role to deal with chronic kidney disease.

    After a rare leadership ballot for the party, which has in the past decided leaders by consensus, Senator Shoebridge won with seven votes, while Senator Hodgins-May had six votes.

    Senator Shoebridge is the sixth leader in the environment-focused party’s history.

    He said he wanted the Greens to “fill the vacuum that has been left by the Labor Party rushing to the right”.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-30/federal-politics-greens-announce-new-leader-david-shoebridge/107211108

  34. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Justin Hendrix (Tech Policy Press):

    Trump issues executive order instructing federal government agencies to “use the terms ‘Super Intelligence’ and ‘SI’ in place of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘AI’ and to not acknowledge the usage of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘AI’ in any applicable setting.”

    Plus, the “White House Accord on Super Intelligence: Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities” signed by Trump, Google’s Pichai, Anthropic’s Amodei, Meta’s Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Brockman, XAI’s Musk, Nvida’s Huang.

    Interesting picture of today’s festivities. [Photo: Trump, elevated at a mic stand in a street, backed by a mostly White group of men behind him and a very White Mike Johnson]

    Commentary

    Jesus this is bleak. Just boilerplate “we, the undersigned CEOs, promise to try really really hard to only make good artificial super intelligences. We’ve got this. We promise.”

    they spelled United States wrong [below Trump’s signature: President of the Unites States].

    We’re approaching Saparmurat Niyazov territory (a dictator who renamed days of the week).

    So SI units are finally coming to the US. But not like that.

    “SI” means “suicidal ideation” in medical speak, including at VA (where suicide prevention is a major priority.) I’m sure that everyone at VA can’t wait to get emails about how we promote SI and are focused on the benefits of SI.

    Jensen Huang appears to be the only tech CEO who is capable of writing his own name.

    He’s forcing every Executive Branch official to look like a complete moron. Imagine a US official discussing AI with counterparts from another nation—or even with OpenAI or Anthropic—and being required “not to acknowledge the usage of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘AI.'”

    In Star Trek TNG, there’s an episode [Parallels] where loads of Enterprise Ds appear from parallel universes. There’s one ship that’s all fucked up […] and that version’s Riker is screaming “We won’t go back!!” And I feel like that’s our universe.

    Matt Ford (The New Republic):

    Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?”

    Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” [Screenshots]

    Rando: “My first response to Jensen […] was that he’s lying, just trying to push his point. But he’s a billionaire. He genuinely might not know it. He doesn’t have to. Other people handle it for him.”

  35. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    MotherJones – Germany is building a digital Noah’s ark for US climate data

    these new racks will […] store backup versions of climate simulations from the other side of the Atlantic. The operation aims to ensure that essential work performed by US scientists for the next major U.N. climate assessment, due in 2029, cannot be meddled with or compromised by the administration of President Trump, which has slashed funding for climate research, buried scientific reports, removed references to human-caused warming from dozens of government websites, and sought to prevent satellites from collecting key climate data.
    […]
    it is not standard procedure […] until recently, the world seemed safe enough that scientists saw no need for offsite backups. […] other initiatives have emerged across various fields. For example, the Senckenberg Natural History Museum, in Frankfurt, saves data from wildlife trail cameras in Ukraine and biodiversity data from war-ridden Yemen.

  37. StevoR says

    Scientists have discovered a new planet that defies all expectations. It’s a lava world, but it’s also cold. In fact, it’s the coldest lava world we’ve ever seen with an atmosphere.

    Researchers spotted HD 3167 b, a rocky super-Earth covered in lava, orbiting a star 154 light-years away. This planet orbits so closely to its star that a “year” on the world (one revolution around its star) takes only one Earth day. But it’s not just a lava-covered rock  — it’s the smallest lava world researchers have ever found. And yet, it has managed to hang onto its atmosphere.

    Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/exoplanets/astronomers-discover-a-cold-lava-planet-that-may-resemble-early-earth

  38. StevoR says

    Meanwhile in space news the SpaceX Starship successfully flew intoorbit and delivered satellites there too t’other day :

    The SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy v3 Booster lift off on its 14th test flight from the SpaceX launch complex in Starbase, Texas, US, September 28, 2026. The mission is expected to send the vehicle into orbit for the first time and deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites. (Reuters: Steve Nesius)

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-29/spacex-s-starship-rocket-reaches-orbit-for-first-time/107205898

    Includes 3 mins 15 secs long video.

    Will the people who said it could never succeed and work now apologise and admit they were wrong I wonder?

    Yes, Ihate Musk too but SpaceX do superb rocket science

  39. Reginald Selkirk says

    Israeli officials say diverted flydubai incident may be attempted ‘terror attack’

    The co-pilot of a flight ​from Dubai to Tel Aviv is believed to have stabbed the captain in a possible attempted “terror attack” on Wednesday, forcing the plane to divert to Saudi Arabia where it landed safely, ‌three Israeli officials said.
    They said the cabin crew entered the cockpit and took control of flydubai flight FZ1073 from the United Arab Emirates to Israel, which diverted to Saudi Arabia as it flew over Jordanian airspace. One of the officials identified the attacker as an Omani national…

  41. StevoR says

    Wait they were still there? Hmm.. actuially, yeah, I do recall reading about USA bases in Iraq being attacked by Iran earlier so, okay.

    Also why do the Kurds always end up copping it in the neck?

    The US military has completed the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq, ending a 12-year mission to fight the Islamic State group.

    The last troops have left the last air base where they had been maintaining a presence in northern Iraq under an agreement between Baghdad and Washington, the military announced on Wednesday.

    Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that US troops and equipment had completed an “orderly departure” from the air base in Irbil, in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

    … (Snip)..

    Officials in Iraq’s Kurdish region have expressed anxiety about the departure and particularly about the removal of US air defence systems.

    The Kurdish regional government’s Peshmerga Ministry said the Kurdish region had faced more than 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile attacks during the recent US-Iran conflict.

    “The departure of the United States from the Kurdistan Region under these complex regional circumstances, without the provision of a defense system, is a matter of concern,” the statement said.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-30/us-military-completes-iraq-withdrawal/107214128

  42. StevoR says

    A Utah man will be released on bail after spending decades on death row, following newly analysed DNA evidence from a murder he was convicted of in 1985.

    Douglas Stewart Carter was sentenced to death that same year after a jury found him guilty of murdering Eva Olesen, the aunt of the police chief at the time in Provo, where she was killed.

    No physical evidence linked him to the crime scene, but Carter was convicted partly based on a signed confession he says was coerced.Two witnesses at his original trial also later said they had been bribed by police and threatened with deportation if they did not implicate him.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-29/utah-man-released-on-bail-after-40-years-on-death-row/107206618

  43. StevoR says

    Newly formig twin exoplanets found :

    The image shows clear evidence of how forming planets interact with their prenatal cocoon. Visible is a channel created in the protoplanetary disk by WISPIT 2b, a gas giant that already has a mass five times that of Jupiter, as it orbits its parent star, collecting material to facilitate its further growth.

    WISPIT 2c is a little behind its sibling in terms of development, but it is still making its mark in its protoplanetary disk home.

    “We clearly see both planets shaping their environment. WISPIT 2c has carved a cavity, and WISPIT 2b a gap,” team member Myriam Benisty of the Planet Formation and Exoplanets (PFE) department at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, said in a statement. “Around WISPIT 2b, we find swirls of gas that had been predicted by simulations of disk-planet interactions, but never actually seen before. Now there is an image of them!”

    With this new ALMA data, WISPIT 2b has become the only protoplanet for which astronomers can see three important elements of planet formation: the protoplanetary disk, the planet itself, and evidence that the planet is still gathering, or accreting, matter, and, as the final piece of the puzzle, the gas interacting directly with the planet. That adds up to observing planet formation in action.

    Many of these elements have been seen around infant stars before, notably in the system PDS 70, but not in unison.

    .. (Snip)..

    The results are also remarkable because of how far WISPIT 2b is located from its parent star. The planet is accreting matter at a distance of 57 times the distance between Earth and the sun, or almost twice the distance between Neptune and our star. That is an orbit wider than that of almost any other currently known exoplanet.

    Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/exoplanets/astronomers-have-produced-the-clearest-exoplanet-ultrasound-to-date-and-its-twins

  44. KG says

    Will the people who said it could never succeed and work now apologise and admit they were wrong I wonder? – StevoR@38

    I’ll wait to see how much it is able to deliver to orbit (or further) on a reliable basis. I note that one engine failed on this launch.

  48. says

    Patel boasts about success rate on FBI’s Most Wanted list, but there’s a catch

    “The more the FBI director talks about the bureau’s recent track record, the more allegations arise that he’s padding the statistics.”

    Related video at the link.

    On Tuesday morning, FBI Director Kash Patel used social media to push a familiar boast.

    “This FBI has had historic success manhunting Ten Most Wanted fugitives,” the former podcast personality wrote. “Since the start of the Trump administration, we’ve captured TEN of the Top Ten Most Wanted, 2.5 times the number of TMW [the Ten Most Wanted] fugitives captured during the previous four years combined.”

    Hours later, Patel appeared on Fox News, where Sean Hannity repeated the claim, and the FBI director accepted the host’s congratulatory message. [video]

    To be sure, it’s obviously good news when federal law enforcement personnel take the nation’s most wanted suspects into custody. But as Patel echoes a boast he has made before, there’s a relevant detail that shouldn’t go overlooked.

    MS NOW’s Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian reported in May:

    Patel’s FBI has imposed new policies that inflate these numbers and overstate the bureau’s progress in stemming crime, according to a half dozen law enforcement sources with knowledge of the changes. […]

    An MS NOW review of changes in the FBI’s Most Wanted list during Patel’s tenure also found that the FBI manipulated that iconic bureau program to falsely suggest rapid progress; in that time, the bureau quickly added the names of some fugitives just hours or days before agents capture them.

    In other words, the process, at least in some instances, has unfolded like this:

    1. The FBI knows it’s about to apprehend a criminal suspect.

    2. The FBI quickly adds that suspect to the Most Wanted List.

    In one especially striking example, agents apprehended one suspect just one hour and 13 minutes after FBI leadership placed him on the list. [!]

    The bureau denied the accuracy of the reporting at the time, though MS NOW quoted one FBI official who conceded, “They are literally just nominating people they’re about to arrest or that they have solid information on and can arrest. Gone are the days of nominating the worst of the worst and fugitives that we haven’t been able to find.”

    Another former official with the bureau added, “There has always been a bit of gaming of the ‘Top 10,’ but it’s a whole new level under this leadership.”

    None of this came up during Patel’s latest Fox News appearance. But if the director is going to keep using this talking point, it’s a detail worth remembering.

  49. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Rando: “NASA’s big experiment in private space flight is coming back to burn them. Turns out private companies are more interested in their own profits than providing services to NASA.”

    ArsTechnica – NASA has a Dragon dilemma

    For two decades, largely in service to the International Space Station, NASA has sought to foster an “economy” in low-Earth orbit. […] SpaceX has made it clear to NASA that it no longer wishes to fly its Crew Dragon spacecraft, or the Falcon 9 rocket, on missions to low-Earth orbit. The company has agreed to support the International Space Station until 2030. But after that, SpaceX intends to retire the spacecraft.
    […]
    NASA invested $3.1 billion in the development and certification of Crew Dragon as part of the Commercial Crew Program. But SpaceX was only compelled to fly half a dozen missions. It has flown 13 missions for NASA to the space station, and will launch another one in a few days. The company had recently agreed to keep flying through the Crew-17 mission. […] But SpaceX now derives a majority of its revenue from Starlink […] The category of “space enabled solutions,” of which NASA is a fraction, represented approximately 1 percent of what SpaceX views as its “total addressable market.” […] SpaceX wants to focus on launching its own payloads—on the Starship rocket. […] SpaceX has told NASA it is not interested in developing Starship for human launches into Earth orbit
    […]
    Boeing was NASA’s other partner in the Commercial Crew program. The agency has invested $5.1 billion to date in Boeing to develop the Starliner spacecraft. Despite this, Boeing has yet to fly a single operational mission to the space station. […] NASA will invest $359 million more […] Isaacman believes Boeing can meet NASA’s needs, which are something like two seats every six to nine months, to orbit. The real unknown is whether a market beyond NASA—institutional customers from Europe, the Middle East, and beyond, in addition to privately funded astronauts—could exist at Starliner’s prices.
    […]
    SpaceX’s original price per seat for early Dragon flights was approximately $55 million. For more recent missions, the price has increased to $78.8 million. (And if SpaceX were to magically decide to keep flying Dragon longer, the price would only go up). By contrast, the Starliner price to NASA is $90 million per seat […] no one expects prices to go down. […] NASA does have its Orion spacecraft, but the per-seat cost for its missions is likely astronomical ($500 million per seat?), and Orion is needed for lunar missions.

  50. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    StevoR @38: “Will the people who said it could never succeed and work now apologise[?]”

    I’ve been forgetting to check on Lockett. He’s had some posts on Medium recently. Here’s him on the previous Flight 13 and then anticipating Sep 28th’s Flight 14.

    Will Lockett – Was Starship launch 13 a success? (Aug 1)

    I want to separate the authoritarian oligarch from the work, because the actual engineers at SpaceX, the ones tasked with making Musk’s idiotic ideas a reality, pulled off a miracle here, and they deserve praise.
    […]
    Well, this flight successfully deployed 20 functional Starlink V3 satellites […] So, even though they only deployed a third of Starship’s supposed capacity, this is a major step forward for SpaceX actually having a use case for this rocket. […] This was also the first time Starship’s upper stage performed a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean without exploding. […] it needs to prove it can consistently land safely over the ocean (as part of a soft splashdown) before they attempt a terrestrial landing. This marks a reasonable step towards reaching that critical reusability goal […] Also, because Starship didn’t explode and simply floated in the water, SpaceX was able to source data about its heat shield.
    […]
    But that is where the positives end. […] The Bad […] There is a lot [*snip*]

    * Those satellites burned up 20 mins later because that was a suborbital flight. And the theoretically-reusable booster landed hard and exploded due to engine failures.

    Will Lockett – Starship’s next test flight could be its make-or-break moment (Aug 16)

    Even after three years and 13 test launches, it has yet to demonstrate it can reach orbit, let alone carry a small payload there, be fully reusable, or reach the preposterously low launch costs required to make this entire system viable. All it has done is carry a fraction of its promised payload on suborbital flights and be partially reusable, and even then the success rate hasn’t exactly been great.
    […]
    if Flight 14 does actually reach orbit, deploy satellites, and land the upper stage, then Starship’s actual capacity and potential shortcomings will become dramatically more transparent. There will be nowhere to hide or to sweep uncomfortable issues under the rug. […] It is incredibly hard to increase the payload capacity of a rocket, particularly one using multistage rocket engines that are already pushed to the absolute limit […] But let’s say that somehow, Musk pulls it out of the bag and Starship actually delivers something like 70 tons to LEO, or double the payload of its previous suborbital flight. […] Starship costs some half a billion dollars to build, meaning that 70 tons would be the equivalent of over $7,000 per kg to LEO, making it more than double the cost per kg of Falcon 9. Starship only makes financial sense when both stages are reusable, so we really need to see both stages land for that payload to mean anything.
    [*sniiip*]
    they plan to phase out the wildly successful Falcon 9 for the currently unusable Starship. […] SpaceX only has a few years to turn Starship into a functional and economically viable rocket and then scale its launch capacity […] they can’t afford any more f**k-ups

     
    About how Flight 14 turned out…

    Rando:

    Starship limps up to orbit with an engine failure. Ends flight early with hard landing and explodes. The booster suffers multiple engine failures trying to return. […] They lost the booster and the spaceship. The cost of lifting those satellites is not anywhere close to commercial viability. […] [The satellite payload] was a gimmick, not a success. Until it can be shown to operate reuseably reliably, any commercial demonstrations are just PR.

    ABC news

    SpaceX has ended its mission, calling it a success. […] The company said the spacecraft lost one engine during the ascent to space and was working to determine if it could go into orbit due to the loss of the engine. In an update, however, they said the Starship was in orbit. SpaceX later shared it had decided to end the mission early, taking advantage of its first checkpoint. They said the vehicle would splashdown north of Hawaii about 3 hours into the mission.
    […]
    The mission was expected to last 10 hours, with an estimated six orbits around the Earth […] At the end of the mission, a de-orbit burn using another Raptor engine would help Starship splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, west of Chile. The company said that if the flight ends early because of a technical or mechanical issue, the splashdown location would change.

    Because Starship is not designed to land in cold ocean water, SpaceX said an explosion during splashdown took place, which is not an indication of a problem or an unsuccessful mission.

    BBC live post

    SpaceX usually try to collect the booster and capsules that return to Earth to analyse what happened to them during flight—that may not be possible with the Ship today after it landed so explosively.
    [*scrolling to the next post up*]
    the craft only managed two laps of the Earth—rather than the six that had been planned

  51. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Flight 13: 20 Starlink v3 satellites
    Flight 14: 26 Starlink v3 satellites

    From Locket’s Flight 13 article above:

    The closest estimate we have had for a long time is an announcement a year ago that said V3 Starlink satellites would have a mass of up to two metric tons. But SpaceX’s IPO filing stated that Starship will be able to take 60 satellites to LEO, which, based on a 100-ton payload capacity, puts each satellite at less than 1.6 tons.

  53. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Al Jazeera – Satellite images show Gaza in ruins

    Newly updated Google Maps satellite imagery shows […] neighbourhood after neighbourhood reduced to rubble and little left but the faint outlines of main roads […] Farmland has been charred, and centuries-old places of worship have been damaged or wiped from the landscape. […] the number of destroyed structures across Gaza has increased by 9 percent since a “ceasefire” took effect nearly a year ago. Overall, about 82 percent of structures in Gaza, roughly 200,000 buildings, have been damaged, and about two-thirds of those have been destroyed

  54. JM says

    The Hill: Appeals court backs finding Trump colluded with IRS, Treasury

    An appeals court Tuesday sided with a lower court judge who determined President Trump colluded with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in bringing and later dismissing a case seeking $10 billion in damages from the IRS.
    Florida-based U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in July found that the lawsuit that served as the hook for the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund amounted to collusion as the two parties were never truly averse. She also sanctioned two Trump attorneys in the process.

    “The appellants did not submit or offer any evidence to explain their litigation conduct or demonstrate that the lawsuit and the settlement were not collusive. Given the record before us, the appellants have not made a strong showing that the district court committed clear error in its collusion and bad faith findings,” a three-judge panel for the 11th Circuit wrote in its opinion Tuesday.

    Expect further appeals of course but this is a big step. The appeal court notes that Trump, who is doing the appealing with his private lawyers, is barely trying to make a case. He doesn’t provide any evidence, just repeat the claim that Williams ruled against. Trump surely plans to appeal up the Supreme Court and hope they invent a new type of legal protection for the president.

    The judge, who was appointed by former President Obama, has prohibited the Trump administration from referring to the litigation around the case as reaching a settlement. Such matters must often be approved before a judge, and the DOJ created the now-defunct compensation fund outside of the court process.
    “The appellants have not persuaded us to construe the sanction more broadly and have not made a strong showing that they will prevail on their First Amendment challenges,” the appeals court wrote. “They do not cite any authorities suggesting that a speech-related prohibition imposed as a penalty for conduct determined to be sanctionable violates the First Amendment.”

    The appeals court also sided with the judge on the 1st Amendment issue. Trump doesn’t have a good case here either because judge William’s prohibition is very narrow. It only blocks Trump from saying something that would be a blatant lie, Williams finding against Trump/DOJ and the appeals are not settlement negotiations.

  56. Reginald Selkirk says

    Fifth unvaccinated person dies of measles; CDC still not counting all deaths

    A fifth, unvaccinated person has died of measles in Pennsylvania, the state’s health department announced Wednesday.

    The department identified the deceased as a resident of Lancaster County, which is the epicenter of a raging outbreak that began in late April. The updated case count as of Wednesday is 943 across 39 counties, including 119 cases reported in just the last seven days. At least 176 people have been hospitalized.

    Lancaster County has reported 381 cases and three of the five deaths in the outbreak. The previous two deaths were both in infants too young to be vaccinated. That includes a newborn boy and a 6-week-old baby girl. So far, no other information has been released about the county’s third death announced today.
    …
    Prior to these five deaths in Pennsylvania, the state had not reported a measles death in 35 years…

  57. Reginald Selkirk says

    RFK Jr. thinks AI will free us from the “tyranny” of medical facts, expertise

    At a Make America Healthy Again event Tuesday, anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy opened a “fireside chat” with Vice President JD Vance on the topic of artificial intelligence. While MAHA generally coalesces around things like healthy lifestyles and mistrust of drugmakers, Kennedy quickly turned to extolling the potential of artificial intelligence, surprising Vance, who said he was expecting to discuss “weight loss and acid, not AI.”

    Kennedy boasted that the Trump administration is “making it easy for every American to use AI,” which he claimed would free us from the “medical tyranny” of doctors and health experts. He suggested Americans should start using AI to get second opinions about medical recommendations, saying AI is “better informed than any doctor in the country.” He also suggested that the technology would confirm his misinformation about vaccines and contrarian views on public health guidance.

    “We’re never, ever again going to be able to be dominated by public officials who tell us trust the experts, because every American will be able to check their own medical advice,” Kennedy said…

  58. StevoR says

    Rare Aussie fossil bird find from the Cretaceous :

    An “extremely rare” fossil discovery in outback Queensland has revealed a new species of prehistoric bird that roamed Australia more than 100 million years ago.

    … (Snip)…

    Researchers used the fossilised tarsometatarsus, a fused foot bone found in birds, and tibiotarsus, the longest leg bone, to formally describe a new bird species, Tenuicruris piscanexum, which experts believe lived during the Cretaceous period about 100 million years ago.

    Dr White said the bird likely had teeth and was roughly the size of a scrub turkey, with completed fossils found in China and Germany from the same period used to fill critical gaps in the animal’s appearance.

  61. StevoR says

    @50 -51 . CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : “I’ve been forgetting to check on Lockett. He’s had some posts on Medium recently. Here’s him on the previous Flight 13 and then anticipating Sep 28th’s Flight 14.”

    Thanks for that and the links.

  62. Reginald Selkirk says

    The Future of War Is These Four Jerks, Apparently

    … During a Wednesday speech to assembled troops at Quantico, Virginia, CNN reported, Secretary of War (née Defense) Pete Hegseth announced plans for a new combatant command titled the Autonomous Warfare Command. That’s the same tier of military organization as STRATCOM or Cyber Command, and comes with its own four-star commander. The Pentagon simultaneously issued an announcement that it would be forming Project Meridian, which has 120 days to study the future of warfare “from subterranean depths to the cislunar frontier.”

    We’ll skip the fact that the military currently does not fight in either of those places, and probably won’t any time soon unless something with the Earth’s surface goes horribly wrong. The Project Meridian co-directors recruited by Hegseth are Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Anduril Industries co-founder Palmer Luckey, and former GOP Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich…

    With the exception of Hegseth, none of these people have ever served in the military or commanded troops—Hegseth’s highest command was an infantry platoon, and he left the National Guard as a major…

  63. JM says

    Politico: Alito bows out of blockbuster Supreme Court climate case

    Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is stepping back from a major climate argument just a week before the court is scheduled to take up the case.
    Alito had faced calls to recuse himself from Suncor v. Boulder over his financial interests in energy companies. A Monday letter from Scott Harris, clerk of the court, informed the parties that Alito “has determined that he will not continue to participate in this case.” The notice did not further explain his decision to sit out arguments Oct. 5, the first day of the court’s new term.

    Slipped through while we changed threads. Alito had been hearing calls to step back from this case for some time because he is invested in oil companies. He is not invested in the two in this case but the ruling will effect many cases around the country and some of those will effect his investments. He had been rejecting those calls so his recusing himself just before hearing the case is odd. It may be a bit of ethics, it could be that he plans to buy more and that would turn it into a big conflict.
    This sort of case is a good example of why Supreme Court justices should only be invested in blind trusts. Many of the rulings of the Supreme Court have too many ripple effects.

  64. Reginald Selkirk says

    California bans child marriage, a practice still legal in 32 US states

    California has officially banned child marriage, with Governor Gavin Newsom signing legislation to end the practice that is still legal in 32 US states.

    The new law, which will come into effect on 1 January, states people must be 18 to get married in the Golden State.

    Newsom called it a “long overdue measure to protect young Californians and minors”. He signed the bill into law with Courtney Stodden whose parents allowed her to marry a 50-year-old Hollywood actor when she was just 16…

  65. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Reginald Selkirk @62 beat me to it.
    Aaron Rupar:

    Hegseth: “[…] We are no longer the woke department or the weak department. Simple translation of that—no fatties no tr*nnies no beardos no weirdos no wimps no radicals. Just warriors.” [Video clip]

    Commentary

    Giving a speech in front of a giant American flag like he’s Patton, but all he knows about Patton is that single monologue in the 1970 film “Patton.”

    The defense secretary yet again uses a slur about troops forced out of the military (and who are suing over discrimination).

    He comes *so* close to throwing in the n-word and the f-word.

    This guy had a makeup room installed at the pentagon.

    Gillian Brockell (The American Prospect, married into Sikh family):

    Servicemember beard exemptions are all on religious or medical grounds. They’re either Sikhs (mostly South Asian) or have a skin condition related to shaving curly hair (mostly African American). “No beardos” is racist as hell.

    “No beardos, just warriors” says chucklefuck trying to expel bearded dudes called by God to be warriors. What do you think these are, my guy? [Khanda Sikh symbol] They aren’t butter knives! My son’s name literally means warrior.

     
    Rando: “This is good coffee. Now let me take a big sip…”

    Aaron Rupar:

    Hegseth: “Project Meridian will be co-led by three of our nation’s best minds: Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich.” [Video clip]

    Commentary

    Worst game of fuck marry kill ever.

    Bruh, you literally JUST SAID “no fatties” and “no weirdos”.

    just named a guy who looks like he has a goat tail glued to his chin.

    [Palmer Luckey is] Head of [Silicon Valley] weapons manufacturing firm Anduril, another descendant of Thiel.

    [Video clip: Palmer Lucky saying, “you’re supposed to be having kids when you’re 16, 17, 18”]

    Luckey’s sister, Ginger Luckey, is married to former U.S. representative Matt Gaetz.

    Newt Gingrich is 83!

    Ah yes, you may remember Newt Gingrich, bastion of “Christian values”. Had affairs on all of his wives. Left the first one while she battled cancer, the second with MS. And they had to sue him for child support. And had the gall to call out Clinton. Nevermind, he fits right in.

    Last November, Tesla shareholders approved a $1 trillion pay package “designed to keep Elon’s time, energy and considerable talents focused on Tesla for years to come.” So he’s… busy?

    Can we just all grasp that the richest person ever to live, a serial fraudster, a pathological liar, an admitted drug addict, who is hated by his children, and he says empathy is bad, is now getting his hands on part of the military?

    One month until midterms one month until midterms one month until midterms one month until midterms.

  66. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TechCrunch – Hackers stole 3.1 million US military personnel records during months-long data breach

    several unauthorized users exploited a security vulnerability in an unspecified file-sharing system […] including Social Security numbers, alongside a person’s name, date of birth, sex, race, and other information about their military service. The notice says that the personnel records were unencrypted. […] The DMDC maintains over 60 million records for U.S. military and civilian staff and their family members to help determine benefits [and] links active service members, employees, and contractors to credentials […] to access Pentagon computer systems, buildings, and bases.
    […]
    following a recent breach at the FBI earlier in September attributed to the ShinyHunters hacking group. […] billed as a “counterintelligence disaster” amid the risks that a foreign government could obtain and use the information to profile, target, or coerce federal workers into handing over sensitive information. The ShinyHunters hackers have said that they will not publicly release the stolen FBI data.

    [Both were reminiscent of China’s 2015 theft of 22m records from the Office of Personnel Management.]

    * Reginald Selkirk previously shared coverage of the ShinyHunters FBI hack.

  68. StevoR says

    PBS Newshour interviews Hakeem Jeffries :

    The latest polling shows Democrats with a solid shot of regaining control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections. If they do, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries could become Speaker of the House, with debates over the economy, government spending, and President Trump’s agenda all unfolding. Jeffries joined Geoff Bennett to discuss those issues.

    Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/affordability-and-accountability-top-priorities-if-democrats-take-house-jeffries-says

  69. Militant Agnostic says

    This airline pilot explains why this was probably not a suicide attempt, but was an attempt to take control of the aircraft. The speed reached during the dive was so high that most of the rudder was torn off. This is not a major catastrophe because differential thrust from the engines can be used for yaw control. The door was probably opened by the wounded Captain. Two pilots who were riding in the plane (it is very common for company pilots to be “dead heading” in the passenger compartment) and two flight attendants entered the cockpit and got the situation under control.

    The linked video does not contain any graphic images from inside the plane.

  71. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tennessee death-row prisoner Christa Pike survives lethal injections

    Christa Pike, convicted of murdering a classmate three decades ago, has survived Tennessee’s effort to execute her ⁠by means of lethal injection, prison officials said.

    Her lawyers said late on Wednesday that she had been taken away from the prison in an ambulance and was being treated at a hospital, but they said they had not been told about her condition.

    Officials gave Pike two doses of pentobarbital, her lawyers said in court filings.

    Journalists who witnessed the attempted execution described snoring, ⁠loud exhales, gasps and complaints from Pike about pain, as well as her kicking her feet so often that she knocked off the sheets laid over her, according to NBC News…

  72. Reginald Selkirk says

    @69

    This airline pilot explains why this was probably not a suicide attempt…

    Because he stabbed someone else, and not himself‽ Doesn’t seem like a hard question.

  74. JM says

    Mediate: Trump Threatens to Sue Federal Reserve Board Member Jerome Powell ‘at the Highest Level’ in Response to Fed Renovation Report

    President Donald Trump insisted Jerome Powell, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, “should be sued at the highest level” by the U.S. government following the release of a report by the Inspector General Wednesday.
    Trump launched into a lengthy screed against Powell that he shared via Truth Social.
    The president wrote:

    The Inspector General’s Report just came out on Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell’s ‘renovation’ of the Federal Reserve Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The IG’s Report states that there were ‘deficiencies in the management of the renovation project.’ The Building is over budget, at a Record Setting rate and, at a minimum, ‘Too Late’ Powell should be forced to resign from the Board. He can’t manage a Building, and he certainly shouldn’t be allowed to manage his High Interest Rate Policy (only on ‘TRUMP!’).

    Powell is no longer head of Fed but he managed the renovation project for years. Trump may be trying to make a point to the current head of the Fed, Trump may want Powell out entirely so he can stack the committee further or Powell may just still be on Trump’s dump list.
    There is something funny about Trump complaining that an over budget project is grounds to remove somebody.

    The inspector general cited failures in oversight that “contributed to major cost overruns in the central bank’s headquarters renovation,” but crucially “found no grounds for a criminal referral,” CNBC reported Wednesday.

    That isn’t stopping Trump, who has referred this to Blance for possible criminal prosecution.

  75. Alverant says

    @10 You know what I mean. I was weighed Monday and I was 15lbs lighter than the previous time I was weighed.
    Also, they now think my prostrate is infected and there was a round of layoffs at work. Those of us still employed have to face a 3% pay cut starting next year. (Better a 3% cut than 100% cut.)

  76. JM says

    AP News: DC judge permanently dismisses case charging ex-Olympian with vandalizing Reflecting Pool

    A judge in the nation’s capital agreed on Thursday to permanently dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a move that could prevent federal prosecutors from reviving the case under political pressure from President Donald Trump.
    D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman ordered the dismissal of David Hearn’s case with “prejudice,” which would block U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office from refiling the felony charge against him. The judge ruled nearly a month after hearing attorneys’ arguments.

    Trump and the DOJ have continued to talk about this case despite the DOJ having to admit they had no evidence at all against Hearn and the issues with the Reflecting Pool came from botched contracting work. The judge agreed with Hearn to spike the case so it can not be brought again.

  77. JM says

    The Hill: 7 takeaways from Hegseth’s address to officers: Warfare’s future, faith and a new base

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a flurry of announcements during a wide-ranging speech to active-duty officers Wednesday.
    At the beginning of the address, the Pentagon chief stuck to his bread and butter: culture-war grievances, stripping the “woke” out of the Department of Defense (DOD), bashing the news media for its coverage of the Iran war, and proclaiming the “warrior ethos” has been revived and the U.S. military has been “rebuilt.”

    Hegseth announced the formation of a new four-star combatant command focused on developing autonomous warfare like drones and defense robotics.

    Potentially sensible depending on how it is run. The risk here is that it will be run like an independent command with it’s own forces when a lot of what it should be doing is working with existing forces.

    Hegseth revealed that SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) will lead a new Pentagon effort to study the future of warfare, dubbed Project Meridian.

    The idea of getting outside information is good but the people involved here suggest it’s to insure that money gets directed to the right big contractors.

    States invited to bid for ‘next great American’ base

    That Hegseth is asking all states means he is looking for money to flow to him and Trump. If there was actually a coherent plan there would be a more limited range of states, such as ones with coast, low density flat states, large land area near a major city or something depending on what the goal of the base is.

    ‘Fortress America’ takes bases off civilian grid

    Pretentious name but Hegseth may not be responsible for that, it’s typical of major Pentagon proposals. Parts of the plan is to insure that military bases don’t depend on civilian infrastructure. In the modern age of drone and infiltration attacks this makes sense. Other parts about building up key US industries may make sense but shouldn’t be under Pentagon control.

    New non-Ivy League partnerships for cadets

    There is some sense in the plan but the list is rigged for Christian religious bias. Liberty University made the list and that shows they are not interested in quality of school at all. There is also the problem that the US doesn’t by any means have a shortage of cadets.

    Creates Office of Religious Affairs

    This is really Hegseth creating a private channel of communication between him and chaplains. Part of the goal is to make more money available for religious services. Hegseth dumps on secular humanism but is careful not be explicitly Christian here.

    Hegseth defends officer cuts

    Hegseth says nothing except he plans to shake up the command. He is careful to not say what or why. In reality this is a purge, biased towards remove of non-White and women officers and filling the ranks with yes men.

  78. Reginald Selkirk says

    Renee Good’s family sues US government and immigration officials over her killing in Minneapolis

    Renee Good’s family sued the U.S. government and several immigration officials Thursday, alleging wrongful death, conspiracy and other violations in the 37-year-old woman’s killing by an immigration officer during a federal crackdown in Minneapolis.

    The two lawsuits were filed by Good’s partner, Becca Good, and Renee’s brother Brent Ganger.
    …
    The lawsuit against the United States of America seeks damages for Good’s wrongful death and “the immense suffering Renee endured in the final moments of her life and for the profound and permanent losses that her death has inflicted upon her family,” according to a news release by lawyers for Ganger and Good.

    The lawsuit, which seeks a bench trial, also alleges “intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress” on Becca Good.
    …
    The other lawsuit alleges a conspiracy to interfere with civil rights and seeks a jury trial. It says the federal government moved to hide the evidence of what actually happened on Jan. 7.

    The lawsuit says the shots fired by Jonathan Ross, the immigration officer who killed Good, “were the predictable and intended product of the operation.”
    …

  79. says

    The White House’s taxpayer-financed election ads were shaped by Trump personally

    Related video at the link.

    It’s tempting to think Donald Trump would have plenty on his plate right now, but The Wall Street Journal reported (and MS NOW confirmed) that the president recently took time out of his schedule to personally oversee the creation of three propagandistic campaign ads, which are being financed entirely by American taxpayers and which appear to ignore federal law prohibiting the use of public funds for “propaganda purposes.”

    In light of the fact that ethics lawyers have used phrases such as “impeachable offense” when discussing the burgeoning scandal, it’s notable that Trump won’t be able to simply blame overzealous aides for this obvious and legally dubious misuse of public money.

    With this in mind, a reporter asked Trump at an unrelated White House event on Wednesday why American taxpayers should foot the bill for his campaign ads ahead of the midterm elections. [social media post, with video]

    “Well, I’m not running for office, first of all, and so, the ads are, you know, given by me, but I’m not running for office,” the president replied, adding, “I’m not promoting myself because I’m not running for office.”

    The idea that the commercials, which have run on MS NOW, aren’t promoting Trump is obviously bonkers. All three of the ads are clearly intended to glorify the president, and one of them was literally a Trump campaign ad two years ago.

    The underlying shell game isn’t exactly sophisticated: An incumbent president, fearing voter backlash and desperate to boost enthusiasm among his MAGA base, is using taxpayer money for propagandistic campaign ads as the early voting window opens — all while telling the electorate to “pretend” that his name isn’t on 2026 ballots.

    Trump may not literally be “running for office” this year, but that doesn’t magically make the abuse any less outrageous. (Even several congressional Republicans have conceded the White House went too far on this one.)

    Congressional Democrats appear unlikely to let this go. Politico reported:

    Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who is poised to lead the panel if Democrats win the majority in November, joined California Democratic Rep. George Whitesides in sending a letter to the Government Accountability Office and the Office of Special Counsel. It asks the GAO to investigate the “source, accounts, and total amount of taxpayer funds used by the Executive Office of the President to produce and distribute this advertisement across major television markets and official White House social media channels.”

    The lawmakers also asked the Office of Special Counsel to investigate whether the ads “paid for by millions of dollars of taxpayer funds, constitute a violation of the Hatch Act, and determine who should be held accountable.”

    “These ads constitute an illegal use of taxpayer funds, perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that they are virtually identical to the ones Donald Trump used during his 2024 presidential campaign, and in fact use the same footage and the same inept ideological messaging,” Raskin and Whitesides contended.

    On the other end of Capitol Hill, Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Chris Murphy of Connecticut — the top Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Homeland Security Committee’s appropriations subcommittee, respectively — wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin regarding reports that the agency has redirected $20 million in funding originally intended for Customs and Border Protection to “bankroll the obscene political ads.”

    To date, the price tag for these campaign ads is nearing at least $2.5 million, which is coming from money the Republicans’ domestic policy megabill had directed to Customs and Border Protection. The problem might very well get worse before it gets better: The Associated Press reported that the Department of Homeland Security has “tapped $20 million” to pay for the campaign ads, and the administration has given every indication that the abuse of taxpayer money will intensify as Election Day draws closer. [FFS, that’s even worse!]

  80. says

    Trump says he regrets appointing Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett

    Asked specifically if he wants from his Supreme Court nominees, the president replied, “I do like loyalty, yeah.”

    Donald Trump’s tantrum in February after the Supreme Court rejected his tariffs policy was extreme, even by his standards. The president not only condemned the six-member majority as “a disgrace to our nation,” but he also insisted that the justices who dared to rule in a way he didn’t like were “very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.”

    Asked then whether he regretted nominating Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, Trump didn’t answer the question directly, though he said he considers their role in the ruling “an embarrassment to their families.”

    In his latest Time magazine interview, the president was even more direct on the subject. From the article:

    Yet with so much at stake — for the country and the world, for his party and his own power — Trump can seem curiously preoccupied. During a 75-minute Oval Office interview with TIME, he was discursive and grievance-fueled, veering from the crises of his presidency to resentments old and emerging. He said he regretted appointing Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, after they ruled against him on tariffs, mail ballots, and birthright citizenship. “I gave them the position of a lifetime,” he said, “and they voted against me often.”

    The transcript of the interview added remarkable details. Asked specifically if he regretted nominating Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, Trump said he did — and then he kept going.

    “The Democrats stick like glue — those three, they virtually never vary,” the president said, referring to Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “You can come up with the worst thing in the world and they’ll vote as a group. And while I don’t like it, there’s something I admire about it: There’s loyalty. So they have loyalty to Barack Hussein Obama. They have loyalty to Biden, even though Biden doesn’t even know who the hell they are. He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t even know what the Supreme Court is.”

    The petty and unhinged whining didn’t stop there. After an additional harangue about the birthright citizenship and tariff rulings — which really weren’t close calls, and which legal experts of every ideological stripe expected him to lose — Time asked, “You mentioned the word loyalty a moment ago. Is that what you want from your Supreme Court picks?”

    The president replied, “I do like loyalty, yeah.”

    To be sure, the rhetoric was not altogether surprising. As recently as April, Trump declared by way of his social media platform that “certain” conservative justices on the court have “gone weak, stupid, and bad.” A month later, on Mother’s Day, Trump broke new ground, publishing a 544-word screed in which he said Gorsuch and Barrett “have hurt our Country so badly!” He added, “[I]t’s really OK for them to be loyal to the person that appointed them.”

    The problem with these rants isn’t just the impropriety or errors of fact and judgment. Collectively, what they also offer is a reminder that Trump still doesn’t understand how the government works in the United States.

    […] Trump seems utterly baffled by the idea that he could appoint Supreme Court justices who, in turn, sometimes evaluates cases on the merits, which is, the last time I checked, their literal job. In other words, the president keeps publicly complaining not about justices being corrupt, but about justices not being corrupt enough to make him happy. [Yes, that is unfortunately true.]

    It’s tempting to think Trump would keep these attitudes private, perhaps limiting his complaints to close allies behind closed doors, but he instead keeps sharing them publicly, as if it were normal for a president to make these ridiculous complaints.

    It’s not.

  81. says

    Thursday’s Campaign Round-Up, 10.1.26: Paxton’s jet-setting lifestyle draws new scrutiny

    In Texas’ closely watched U.S. Senate race, Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton has already faced difficult questions about the wealth he has accumulated while in office, including his ownership of at least 15 homes. A new report from The Associated Press makes matters considerably worse.

    The report noted that when Paxton launched his Senate bid last year, he skipped the usual launch event in his home state, instead announcing his intentions during a Fox News appearance. At that point, the AP reported, he “cleared his calendar and booked a hotel in Augusta, Georgia, during the storied Masters golf tournament, a trip that cost Texas taxpayers at least $25,000.”

    This was not especially unusual for him. From the article:

    Since assuming office in 2015, Paxton left about 730 workdays blank on his official calendars and took over 275 out-of-state trips to places such as the California wine country, Caribbean resorts and European tourism hot spots. The travel cost Texas taxpayers a minimum of $1.9 million to cover expenses charged by his security detail, records show. […]

    “There is clearly a pattern of behavior here that may make some voters question how seriously Ken Paxton has taken the job,” said Joshua Blank, the director of research for the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

  82. says

    Followup to comments 62, 65 and 77

    A year ago this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned the military’s top commanders — roughly 800 generals and admirals — who were spread around the world to come to Virginia to listen to him give a bizarre, self-indulgent and wildly unnecessary pep rally speech. By all accounts, the audience was unimpressed.

    On Wednesday afternoon, the former Fox News host whom Senate Republicans confirmed to lead the Pentagon gave it another try, though at times Hegseth appeared to be doing an imitation of Colin Jost imitating him on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”

    “The ideological clowns are out,” the defense secretary said, sounding very much like an ideological clown. “The patriotic cowboys are in — with testosterone testing on top.” [OMFG]

    He proceeded to condemn the free press, American higher education, overweight people and transgender people, as well as “beardos,” “weirdos,” “wimps” and “radicals.” For good measure, the prescreened [!] attendees at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia were also rewarded with a bound collection of Hegseth’s speeches, packaged as a “field manual.”

    But there was one unexpected element of Hegseth’s presentation that stood out for me. From MS NOW’s live coverage:

    Hegseth announced that tech billionaire and former Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk, alongside former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Oculus headsets founder Palmer Luckey, will co-lead an effort called Project Meridian to “study the future of warfare.”

    “Those three great Americans are going to be joined by a team of senior leaders, handpicked private sector leaders [Uh-oh] and subject matter experts from across our nation’s unmatched innovation, academic and policy ecosystems,” Hegseth said.

    The specific purpose of Project Meridian is a little unclear, and the Pentagon’s announcement about the initiative was filled with tiresome corporate phrasing — these guys are apparently going to be “facilitating” a “proactive vision” by “leveraging” experts— but this apparently has something to do with identifying “the domains” that the U.S. armed forces “must conquer.” [gobbledygook]

    Hegseth picked a curious trio for the endeavor.

    Luckey, who arguably has the lowest profile of the bunch, is a tech entrepreneur, generous Republican donor and Donald Trump enthusiast. Gingrich, meanwhile, is a former House speaker whose own GOP members drove him from Capitol Hill more than a quarter of a century ago.

    Collectively, they have zero days of military experience, and Gingrich famously received a great many deferments while avoiding military service during the war in Vietnam.

    And then, of course, there’s Musk, a billionaire who also never served in the military, whose overt racism and antisemitism should make him politically radioactive. The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie posited in a July column:

    Why does Musk get a pass? Why do politicians, journalists and commentators treat his far-right racist radicalism as a sideshow rather than the core of his political, ideological and industrial project, seen in everything from his deep support for Donald Trump in the United States and Restore Britain in Britain to his decision to construct a massive pollution-generating data center in predominantly Black Memphis?

    Musk spends a large part of his free time fomenting violence and spreading the same hateful ideology that motivated some of the deadliest shootings and attacks ever to happen on American soil. It is that fact, and not the cars he builds or the rockets he launches, that ought to define his place in public life.

    […] Musk began trying to buy the midterms for Republicans, and then Hegseth invited him to help lead “Project Meridian.”

    It is difficult to be optimistic about the initiative’s future.

    Link

  83. says

    Trump hedges when asked about using the Insurrection Act ahead of midterms

    “In light of his track record, it’s tough to shrug when he dodges a question about possibly declaring a state of emergency ahead of the elections.”

    Donald Trump has never taken advantage of the Insurrection Act, though he has talked about it quite a bit throughout his political career. A year ago this month, during a Fox News interview, Trump went so far as to say, “Don’t forget I can use the Insurrection Act … and that’s unquestioned power.”

    Earlier this year, he also said of the Insurrection Act, “It does make life a lot easier. You don’t go through the court system.”

    So when Time magazine spoke with the president for a lengthy, newly published interview, it included a question about that unsettling possibility: “Would you rule out declaring a state of emergency in the lead up to the midterms unless there’s widespread violence in the streets?”

    “I don’t rule anything out or in,” Trump replied. “We’ll see. You mean the Insurrection Act?”

    When Time clarified that it was, in fact, referring to the Insurrection Act, the president added, “No, I’ve never used it. I could use it. A lot of people think I should use it sometimes.”

    At that point, Trump changed the subject, talked about crime rates and lied about how many undocumented immigrants entered the United States during Joe Biden’s presidency.

    The exchange came roughly a month after Trump spoke to a far-right conspiracy theorist who pitched the president on the idea of unilaterally declaring a national security emergency for the midterm elections — even in the absence of an actual national security emergency — at which point Trump could theoretically impose wildly unnecessary voting restrictions on Americans by fiat and without congressional approval.

    “Let me just say, stranger things have happened, OK?” Trump said in response to the suggestion at the time. “I’ll leave it at that.” [eyebrow-raising statement from Trump]

    To be sure, Trump didn’t explicitly say he would invoke the Insurrection Act — a federal law that grants the president emergency powers to deploy military troops on U.S. soil, who would act at his command — but when asked whether he would rule out declaring a state of emergency in the run-up to the midterms, the correct answer should have been, “Of course I’d rule that out.”

    […] Earlier this year, the president mused publicly about canceling the midterm elections. A few months earlier, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — whose country cannot hold elections during Russia’s deadly war — Trump said, “Say, three and a half years from now, so you mean, if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections.”

    There’s also the unavoidable fact that, after he lost his re-election bid six years ago, Trump launched a radical and ultimately violent effort to overturn the results he didn’t like, as part of a bid to remain in office despite the will of American voters.

    So when Trump hedges after being asked about possibly declaring a state of emergency in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms, I find it difficult to shrug and laugh it off as meaningless nonsense.

  84. coffeepott says

    always disappointed to be reminded newt gingrich is still alive. more disappointed to see his name brought up without mentioning that he divorced two of his three wives when they got sick, both times moving on to marry a mistress.
    piece of shit asshole good christian

  85. says

    […] just five days before the fiscal year was set to end and federal funds allocated for that year set to expire — the Trump White House sent Congress a special message laying out its intention to once again impound congressionally approved funds through their “pocket rescissions” scheme, which a legislative watchdog agency has described as illegal.

    The term “pocket rescissions” describes a loophole Vought and his allies claim they found in the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA). It, they maintain, allows the administration to declare congressionally approved funding rescinded if a rescissions package is sent to Congress close to the end of the fiscal year when funds are set to expire. In other words, it allows the administration to simply not spend funds Congress directed the executive branch to spend […] The administration’s impoundments have largely targeted programs it sees as helping disfavored groups such as immigrants, people of color and blue states.

    […] David Super, law professor at the Georgetown University Law School, told TPM: “There’s nothing in law that authorizes pocket rescissions.”

    […] Other experts agreed, reiterating that the ICA [Impoundment Control Act] requires the White House to immediately notify Congress if the executive branch decides they will not be using or [will be] pausing the use of certain funds through a rescission or a deferral request.

    […] “And by the way,” Bobby Kogan, who served in the Biden White House as adviser to the director of the OMB, added, “‘I hate this program’ or ‘I hate the activities in these programs’ is not one of the legally allowed reasons for a deferral.”

    The Trump administration has been open about their dislike of certain programs. They have called programs “woke,” they have framed them as “waste, fraud and abuse.” The list goes on. But the reality is, neither the president nor the OMB has unilateral power to refuse to use funds congressionally appropriated for a program simply because they do not like its contents. [!]

    “They have just been sitting on this money illegally [!],” Kogan said.

    […] It’s been calculated all along.

    […] as Kogan puts it “all the illegal pauses they did along the way that leaves them with huge chunks of unobligated money just five days before the fiscal year is about to end — when the funds are supposed to be used up — is already a written admission that they broke budget law [!!] on their way to their illegal pocket rescission.”

    The Friday special message is “them flagrantly, openly saying that they did illegal activities to get here,” Kogan said.

    […] they are pocket rescinding 99% of a Department of Education program aimed at providing “grants and fellowships to support institutions in bridging foreign students and faculty to the United States to study or teach language, conduct research, and provide professional and curriculum development.”

    The administration is also impounding 96.6% of a Department of Housing and Urban Development program “that provides grants to nongovernmental organizations (NGOS) and public entities for counseling and education to individuals on a spectrum of housing matters.”

    […] the administration is trying to expand its reach so that they can choose what gets spent regardless of appropriations law.

    Link

  86. says

    It is a published record. It was drawn up by ai. The criminal tech plutocrats signed it. The magat-in-chief called it super intelligence and signed it. It is a completely useless declaration. And, right below his signature it illiterately proclaims him: ‘President of the Unites States’
    We are SO SCREWED
    As I created a week ago, to be accurate to dozing don, it must be called Stupor Intelligence.

    and –

    This is true. It’s not funny.
    https://www.gocomics.com/mikeluckovich
    WE ARE SO SCREWED.

  87. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/pete-hegseth-announces-beardo-weirdo

    “Pete Hegseth Announces Beardo-Weirdo-Free Testosterone Cowboy CRUSADES Office!”

    When Pete Hegseth started begging for hot Army guys to join him for his latest State of the Force speech about who’s invited to his He-Man Woman Haters Club, No Girls, Gays, Or Black Guys Allowed Christian Nazi treehouse, he tried to sweeten the deal by saying that troops who came to the event would have the “opportunity” to work out with Pete.

    “Opportunity.” Like people are sitting around dreaming of watching him dance and/or maybe get kicked in the face while he tries to heave his sad body through a pull-up. [video]

    […] Well, we regret to inform you that the Pentagon is still not in on the joke — or maybe they are — and they have again breathlessly released footage of Whiskeydick just bein’ one of the guys, working out with the troops, and it is just as sad and needy and pick-me and cringe-inducing as every other time the man shows his face and bad skin in public.

    Here are your latest dorkass videos […] [videos] OK, that’s enough videos. They’re all like that. […]

    What if we told you attendees also got their own special copy of a book of Pete’s speeches? […] when you’re stuck in a foxhole or trying to go to sleep at night, what more could you want for comfort than the print version of “No Fatties, No Tr*nnies, No Beardos, No Weirdos, No Wimps, No Radicals”? Does it include last year’s speech about hairdos that he made the generals fly to Quantico for? Does it include pictures of Pete personally administering the testosterone tests to the patriotic cowboys? […] [photo of 144-page book, plus excerpts]

    Any excuse to propagandize the troops with the teachings of a Christian extremist culture warrior!

    […] Secretary Crusades Tattoos announced that he would be starting a new Office of Religious Affairs, set up to provide “first class religious support.” This new position, which we bet will be held by a white supremacist Christian conservative man, will report directly to Shitfaced, because you can’t do the Crusades if you’re busy with woke bureaucracy […] establishing Christian nationalism at the top of what is still the world’s most powerful military […]

    Right now, we’re supposed to be scared of Iran — which Pete is losing a war against — because it’s run by “religious fanatic lunatics,” per Marco Rubio. Hegseth thinks he’s fighting a holy war against Iran, which makes it even more pathetic that he’s losing it. […] It’s supposed to be OK when the religious fanatic lunatics are Christians. These people aren’t against religious extremism, they’re just Christian nationalist bigots.

    […] He proclaimed in his speech that “blessed is the nation in which God is the Lord.” (Psalm 33:12 […])

    […] he’s a culture warrior, not a real warrior. And every person who temporarily answers to him — highly temporarily — knows it.

  88. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    shermanj @86.
    Semafor: “The idea […] came from a conversation between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and House Speaker Mike Johnson at last week’s state dinner […] Zuckerberg then circulated a draft”
    Doesn’t mention he used an LLM to generate the draft, but it’s a safe bet.

  89. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Reuters

    The US State Department has waived human rights conditions for ​more than $300 million of military aid to Egypt in light of Cairo’s “helpful role” since the launch of the US ‌war with Iran, according to a letter to US lawmakers
    […]
    Egypt has played a central role in ceasefire negotiations over conflicts in Gaza, including a truce deal agreed in October 2025, but has been less prominent in mediation over the Iran war.

    Rights groups have long accused Egypt of widespread human rights abuses under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, including torture and enforced disappearances. This week Egyptian police arrested six journalists from a fact-checking and investigative media outlet

    Mai El-Sadany (Human rights lawyer):

    It’s ironic […] recognizing Egypt for its ‘helpful role’ throughout the Iran war, given that Egypt is carrying out one of the most significant crackdowns on press freedom in years, a step which makes the country less stable (less stable Egypt = less stable region).

     
    Meanwhile.
    Zeteo – Israel has kidnapped another American teenager

    Israeli security forces snatched an American teenager with Texas roots from his family’s West Bank home in the middle of the night. […] the third young American languishing in Israeli prison. […] Administrative detention is a mechanism under which Israel imprisons people without charge or trial, typically based on secret evidence. […] His detention order expires on Oct. 28—which would be a more than four-month stint […] His family fears Israel could renew the detention indefinitely, as it does for many prisoners.

    Brad Simpson (US intl pol historian):

    Israeli IDF personnel routinely arrest and even murder US citizens with absolutely zero consequences under both Republican and Democratic administrations. When I was in grad school an IDF sniper shot a Jewish-American friend of mine in the face and Clinton era Embassy folks refused to do anything.

    Under every US administration for the last 30+ years, US citizens have been arrested and/or murdered by the IDF and not once has the US government ever sanctioned Israel, withdrawn an arms sale or transfer, or called for the perpetrators to be held accountable in any way.

  90. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    Late yesterday, the court granted former US Institute of Peace employees’ motion, which prohibits the Trump administration from carving his name into the side of the building while litigation over control of the space is ongoing.

  91. birgerjohansson says

    Militant agnostic @ 69
    “This is not a major catastrophe because differential thrust from the engines can be used for yaw control.”
    .
    During the Dubya and Obama precidencies transport aircraft would come under fire from missiles fired by insurgents. Software was developed to help the pilots control the aircraft if control surfaces were damaged. The system sort of feels out what it can do with the remaining control options and then helps the pilots fly the aircraft.

  92. birgerjohansson says

    Today southwestern Sweden had heart records for October, with one site reaching 22.3°C. We are outside the reach if El Nino, this is global warming.

  94. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, OM @ 80
    Every Trump voter should be confronted with this.
    I picked some excerpts that are particularly damning.
    .
    “Trump says he regrets appointing Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett” .https://share.google/NABmnnjkfHYIZ6A68

    “…on Mother’s Day, Trump broke new ground, publishing a 544-word screed in which he said Gorsuch and Barrett “have hurt our Country so badly!” He added, “[I]t’s really OK for them to be loyal to the person that appointed them.”
    […]
    “…He said he regretted appointing Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, after they ruled against him on tariffs, mail ballots, and birthright citizenship. “I gave them the position of a lifetime,” he said, “and they voted against me often.”
    […]
    ‘Asked specifically if he wants from his Supreme Court nominees, the president replied, “I do like loyalty, yeah.”

    […] Trump seems utterly baffled by the idea that he could appoint Supreme Court justices who, in turn, sometimes evaluates cases on the merits, which is, the last time I checked, their literal job. In other words, the president keeps publicly complaining not about justices being corrupt, but about justices not being corrupt enough to make him happy.’

  95. birgerjohansson says

    Is there a way for generals and admirals to get back their jobs if the firings are judged to have been corrupt?

  97. Pierce R. Butler says

    birgerjohansson @ # 96: The evidence that the land we walk on is ancient seafloor should be hammered home during every confrontation with creationists.

    They (at least the bible-bangers) already believe that.

  98. says

    MS NOW report, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    It’s worth emphasizing that this incident was the second in recent years in which Tennessee tried to execute someone and botched it: “Christa Pike remained alive Thursday, a day after she survived a failed attempt to execute her for the 1995 murder of a woman, one of her lawyers said. Lawyer Randy Pivey said Pike is being treated at a hospital, but that he and the rest of her legal team didn’t know her condition.”

  99. says

    Wall Street Journal:

    The Pentagon is sending a third aircraft-carrier strike group and additional Marine Corps ships to the Middle East, according to U.S. officials, adding 9,000 to 10,000 more troops to the region as President Trump considers renewing strikes on Iran after the midterm elections.

  100. says

    Trump reportedly sought input from Musk’s AI chatbot on military strikes

    “This was almost certainly the first time in American history that a sitting president consulted an AI chatbot about a provocative foreign policy gambit.”

    Donald Trump has never demonstrated any meaningful understanding of technological developments. But the president has apparently become quite enamored with artificial intelligence of late, repeatedly insisting that public officials reject any industry guardrails or public safeguards.

    “Whoever wins AI, wins,” he has repeatedly said, while failing to finish the sentence and explain what, specifically, he believes the victor of the AI arms race will win.

    As for why he’s so impressed with the technology, there’s apparently an interesting backstory to keep in mind. Time magazine reported:

    Since returning to office, Trump has marveled at AI’s capabilities. He is increasingly in thrall to the tech executives courting him. In December 2025, Elon Musk returned to the Oval Office for a clandestine meeting. Trump spent hours asking Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot, questions about his presidency and legacy, according to an official present.

    At the time, Trump was ordering missile strikes against Venezuelan boats he alleged were smuggling drugs into the U.S. He asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the U.S. captured [then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro]. According to the official present, the chatbot responded that Maduro was a repressive and deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall. After Trump ordered the mission to seize Maduro, the following month, celebrations broke out in the streets. Trump, according to officials, came away thinking Grok was ingenious.

    […] The other thing that stood out for me about this is how easily impressed Trump is. At a moment’s notice, the president could have summoned members of his foreign policy team and State Department officials with vast expertise in South American affairs to offer him detailed guidance on the best way forward for U.S. policy in Venezuela. […]

    This was, in other words, less evidence of an “ingenious” chatbot, and more evidence of a program telling the president something that wasn’t exactly tough to figure out. Trump didn’t need AI; he needed the patience to sit through a meeting on foreign policy without falling asleep.

    As for the broader circumstances, let’s not brush past the fact that Trump continues to have “clandestine” interactions with a Republican megadonor [Musk] whose overt racism and antisemitism should make him politically radioactive, even if the White House apparently disagrees.

  101. says

    South Korea pushes back against Trump’s claims about Alaska investments

    “The White House announced a Korean investment in an Alaskan pipeline project. The boast unraveled less than a day later.”

    Donald Trump has spent much of his second term peddling outlandish boasts about foreign investments in the United States. Indeed, the president has struggled to keep his story straight about just how much money he believes is headed to American soil — depending on the day, he has said the total is $17 trillion, “$18 trillion,” “$19 trillion,” “$20 trillion” or “$21 trillion” — even as the White House’s own tally has shown a vastly smaller number.

    There have long been a variety of problems with Trump’s deceptive boasts, but at the heart of the matter is his willingness to pretend there’s no real difference between possible investments and money in the bank.

    This week offered a timely, and electorally significant, example of the phenomenon.

    It’s no secret that Republicans are deeply concerned about Alaska’s Senate race, and for good reason: Not only did former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola outpace her Republican opponent, Sen. Dan Sullivan, in the first round of balloting, but recent polls suggest the incumbent has a real problem on his hands.

    With this in mind, the president announced this week that South Korea had agreed to invest $54 billion in a liquid natural gas pipeline project in Alaska, and Trump welcomed Sullivan to the Oval Office on Wednesday to tout the developments. The political motivations were unsubtle: This appeared to be a good-news story intended to boost the senator’s fortunes with time running out before Election Day.

    You can probably guess what happened next. Reuters reported:

    South Korea’s government, however, said the pipeline project would only ​go forward if certain commercial and legal conditions are met. […]

    South Korea will begin reviewing the Alaska LNG project to assess its commercial viability and compliance with legal procedures, Seoul’s industry ministry said in a statement.

    “No decision has been made on whether to invest or on the size of the investment,” the statement added.

    A report in The Washington Sun noted that Korean Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan told reporters on Thursday that he had “lodged a strong protest” with the Trump administration over the White House’s announcement, which “went far beyond what was agreed.” Around the same time, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said via social media that the commercial viability of the LNG project still needed to be confirmed.

    Maybe Trump knew all of this and hoped voters in Alaska wouldn’t know the difference; maybe he was simply confused about the relevant details. Either way, if this was intended to help Sullivan a few weeks before early voting begins, the White House’s gambit fell apart rather quickly.

  102. says

    Washington Post EXCLUSIVE

    “Trump […] diverts aid for Europe to Latin America instead”

    The diverted funds include tens of millions of dollars Congress approved for countries impacted by the war in Ukraine.

    The Trump administration, acting in defiance of top Democrats on the House and Senate foreign affairs committees, has stripped tens of millions of dollars in U.S. military assistance from European and Middle Eastern countries and will give those funds instead to conservative-leaning governments in Latin America, three U.S. officials told The Washington Post.

    The State Department notified Congress of its intentions in September, prompting Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York) to place a hold on the diversion of funds.

    Late Wednesday, the administration quietly notified Congress it was defying the hold and moving ahead, diverting to Panama, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia $52 million that had been approved for Slovakia, North Macedonia, Tunisia and Iraq, the officials said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters.

    It is the latest move by the Trump administration to reduce U.S. spending or troop deployments in Europe and coincides with a Pentagon review that could result in a reduction and realignment of U.S. basing on the continent.

    It is also a continuation of President Donald Trump’s undercutting of the legislative branch’s spending powers, a core constitutional authority that Trump has challenged in ways big and small.

    […] Shaheen and Meeks called the move a breach of the hold they had put in place and a violation of statutory requirements about where the money could go. The diversion of funding for Slovakia and North Macedonia drew particularly strong opposition because that money was included in a Ukraine supplemental bill specifically for countries impacted by the war in Ukraine.

    “Both chambers of Congress provided these funds for a very specific purpose: supporting Ukraine and our European allies in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion,” they wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Post. “The Executive Branch does not have unlimited discretion to redirect these funds toward unrelated Administration policy priorities or countries.” […]

    Congress approved the funds in 2022 at the outset of the Ukraine war, as the Biden administration was pressuring European countries to provide weapons to Ukraine so Kyiv could defend itself. Washington at that time also was leaning on non-European countries to end their arms sales relationships with Russia in a bid to isolate the Kremlin.

    The goal of the bill, in addition to assisting Ukraine and its closest European neighbors, was to help foreign countries start buying U.S. military equipment instead of Russia’s, particularly those countries that provided their old weapons to Ukraine.

    Last month, Democratic staffers met with State Department officials to question how providing the funding to the Latin American countries could be interpreted as responding to the “situation in Ukraine” or going to countries “impacted by the situation in Ukraine,” as the language in the original bill states. […]

    Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said European countries will assume this is a “harbinger” of how the Trump administration will prioritize world affairs.

    “It will heighten the sense that the Europeans could be abandoned if they don’t pass a loyalty test or do what the administration wants on Iran,” he said.

  103. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    birgerjohansson @95: “Is there a way for generals and admirals to get back their jobs”

    Not the ideal article, but adjacent.
    JustSecurity – Can the Secretary of Defense remove admirals from a promotion list?

    while the Secretary of Defense has enormous leeway in firing officers from existing positions—an authority Hegseth has exercised with extraordinary frequency—that authority does not necessarily extend without limit to removing officers from a promotion list. Indeed, removal from a promotion list is a different matter governed by different rules entirely.
    […]
    The Department of Defense is an agency within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act, […] within the meaning of administrative law. […] where plaintiffs allege that executive officials acted beyond statutory or delegated authority, courts have been willing to examine the legality of the process employed.
    […]
    Congress has already established a parallel administrative remedy that is independent of the Secretary of Defense. The Board for Correction of Naval Records (BCNR) has statutory authority […] to change any military record when necessary to correct an error or injustice. […] the BCNR could recommend corrective action to the Secretary of the Navy.

    There are ongoing lawsuits for banned trans officers.

  104. JM says

    @100 Lynna, OM: The LLM AIs also suit Trump’s personality. They are biased towards producing answers the person asking wants to hear, not accurate answers. The summarize data into plausible sounding reasons that lack depth or accuracy. They don’t have any concern with consistency or previous answers, if Trump wants to be pro-Putin on Monday and anti-Putin on Tuesday the LLM will agree with both positions being good ideas.
    To a good extent they are digital yes-men that don’t care how long or incoherent your question is.

  106. StevoR says

    YES! Phew! Tried a couple of times before with more words & don’t think any of them would be problematic -but it didn’t go through for some reason.

  109. JM says

    Politico: Judge rules Trump can’t fire court-appointed prosecutors

    A federal judge on Thursday ruled that President Donald Trump doesn’t have the power to fire court-appointed U.S. attorneys, rejecting a core tenet of the Trump administration’s approach to top prosecutorial jobs.

    Pretty straightforward ruling but I believe this is the first to say it so directly. If the judges in a district have selected their own prosecutor to fill in until one is approved by the Senate then the president can’t just fire them. He has to get somebody approved, then the interim prosecutor’s job goes away.
    The DOJ plans to appeal naturally and this case will make it’s way to the Supreme Court.

    In his ruling, Bastian not only restored Rogoff to the job, but also took steps designed to thwart any attempts by the Trump administration to undermine his authority or transfer it to someone else. Bastian ordered that the executive office of the president, Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Justice Department are barred from “any purported firing” or removal of Rogoff from his post, interference with his service in the role and from treating anyone other than Rogoff as the U.S. attorney.

    This is something that is only needed under the Trump administration. Other US administrations would not be happy about this sort of ruling but would abide by it. The judge has realized that the entire situation is an attempt to go around Senate confirmation and the administration has done it multiple times. So he needs to safeguard Rogoff’s job and the authority that goes with it. What Blanche will do now is an open question because Trump will be annoyed if Blanche works with Rogoff.

  110. Militant Agnostic says

    Reginald Selkirk @72

    Apparently you have forgotten about the German Wings crash where the First Officer deliberately crashed a plane full of people,

    The point being mad was that his intent was not to simply crash the plan by diving into the ground. In fact it now appears the the dive was initiated as we was being removed from the cockpit.

  111. says

    @69 Militant agnostic wrote: “This is not a major catastrophe because differential thrust from the engines can be used for yaw control.”

    As retired aerospace engineers and technicians, with over 50 calendar years of experience, we in our organization need to clarify that statement, based on wind tunnel experiments and real world experience we evidenced over many decades, differential thrust can only make Extremely Slight and very slow changes in direction of any multi-engine aircraft or rocket.

  113. birgerjohansson says

    ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
    We should cherish villains like Thanos, who merely want to do mass murder. I recall the story ‘I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream’.

  115. Reginald Selkirk says

    An El Niño-Driven ‘Kelvin Wave’ Could Raise Bay Area Sea Levels and Flooding Risk

    Scientists warn that a deep ocean wave driven by El Niño conditions could raise Bay Area sea levels by up to a foot by the end of next month. That’s on top of sea levels already about 6 inches above predicted levels because of warm water along the West Coast.

    Researchers call it a “Kelvin wave” and said it will deliver even more warm water associated with El Niño.

    “Kelvin waves are a symptom of El Niño,” said Dillon Amaya, a professor at North Carolina State University who studies how climate change affects waters off the U.S. coast.
    …
    A Kelvin wave isn’t a surface wave like a tsunami or a “wall of water that’s moving up the coast or a wave that you can surf or that you’re going to see from the beach or from a boat,” Amaya said.
    …
    During an El Niño year, as many as six Kelvin waves can occur, and the temporarily high seas can last from three to six months. Amaya said a first Kelvin wave moved up the coastline in May and June. A second wave is traveling about 6 miles per hour northward from the Gulf of California. It could reach the Bay Area as soon as mid-October. Amaya said signs suggest a third wave is propagating around the equator. ..

  118. says

    Yet More …”, by Josh Marshall

    We’re seeing article after article now restating in slightly different ways the same basic point about the AI infrastructure boom: how will this level of investment ever be recouped?

    This new article in the Journal is entitled: Will America Spend 9% of Its GDP on AI? The Industry Is Counting on It. (It references the same Brookings study we discussed a week ago) This is more or less the same story as I flagged in that Bain report in last night’s post. A market of $6 trillion for AI by 2031; 9% of GDP in 2032. The numbers may be based on slightly different global modelings — just how much investment, rates of return, etc. But they’re mostly different ways of stating the staggering growth that will be required to cover current levels of capital expenditure. The Journal notes that 9% of GDP in 2032 (one year later than the Bain & Co report focuses on) will mean Americans are spending as much on AI as food, half as much as they will spend on health care. The Journal article reminds us that this isn’t simply about adoption and new products. You have to factor in what will likely be rapidly falling prices as well as competition from new entrants with possibly far lower sunk costs and debt.

    Getting into the particulars involves so many variables it’s hard make sense of it without an economic degree. But the overall story is the same as the one in the Bain study. Silicon Valley has committed the economy to unimaginable levels of investment in a very promising but still largely unproven technology. And now we have to go on a national crash course of maniacal innovation just to get out from under that spending overhang or the whole economy craters. Of course, if AI just does a million amazing things and makes all our lives happier and more fun … well, we’ll have to really thank them. But this seems uncertain.

    See also: Bain & Company Brainstorms Where The AI Revenue’s Gonna Come From

    A friend sent me this new Bain & Company study on the growth required to match the current levels of capital expenditure on AI, essentially breaking down the cost of the data center and other associated build outs. It’s an interesting document, not simply for the number-crunching and the predictions, but as a document in the more literary and analytic sense. Needless to say, Bain isn’t coming at this from any “boo capitalism!”/”this is insane lol” viewpoint. But the conclusions aren’t that far from the “this is insane lol” position. It’s very much, “hey! we can do this” but also, “um … wow, there’s quite a lot to do.”

    The broad stroke numbers are these. The study says that to keep up with the current levels of capital expenditures AI will need to become a $6 trillion dollar market by 2031. (To give some perspective on that number, a recent Gartner study predicted that global IT spending will be just under $6.4 trillion this year. So devices, hardware, software, services, kind of everything.) It then posits that we can see the beginnings of, with some level of out-year predictability, something on the order of a $1.5 trillion market — which would be made up of a greatly expanded consumer market (Claude apps, ChatGPT, etc.) of between $200 and $400 billion and then an enterprise market (software, sales, marketing, business optimization) of between $1 and $1.4 trillion. So we’re left with about $4.5 trillion to go. That’s where the crash course in innovation comes in. […]

    we’re not talking here about Star Trek time. Things that will transform society over decades or a century. This all has to happen by 2031, so five years from now. […]

  119. says

    In a move that smacks of retaliation, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte is moving to slash next year’s budget for the agency’s inspector general’s office by more than 60% — after it was involved in an earlier investigation of him.

    The surprise draconian cuts to the IG’s office would eviscerate its ability to conduct investigations, IG staff told Congress in a letter this week: “We will be forced to reduce staffing by approximately 70-80% in FY 2027, which will result in the discontinuance of essentially all criminal investigations conducted by our Office of Investigations.”

    (Senate Democrats sent a letter to Pulte yesterday demanding that he restore funding for the IG’s office and also demanded his resignation.)

    […] Pulte, who also serves as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has had an unusually high profile in Trump II for someone in his position, largely because he led the charge to use bogus claims of mortgage fraud to retaliate against Trump foes, like Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Fed Gov. Lisa Cook. With ready access to the president and poster boards often in hand, Pulte offered Trump what he already wanted: a tool of retribution.

    Pulte’s mortgage fraud jihad resulted in an internal investigation of Pulte himself over whether he improperly obtained mortgage records of high-profile Democrats officials, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, the Wall Street Journal reported in November:

    Fannie’s ethics and investigations group had received internal complaints alleging senior officials had improperly directed staff to access the mortgage documents of James and others […] The Fannie investigators were probing to find out who had made the orders, whether Pulte had the authority to seek the documents and whether or not they had followed proper procedure […]

    That group elevated the probe about the James documents to the more senior Office of Inspector General for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and that Pulte heads […] The acting inspector general then passed the report to the U.S. attorney’s office in eastern Virginia […]

    To summarize, Fannie Mae investigators found enough of concern to bring in higher-ups at the FHFA IG’s office, which took them seriously enough to forward the concerns to federal prosecutors pursuing James.

    […] You already know what happened next: James was indicted for mortgage fraud last October in the Eastern District of Virginia by then-acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan. The indictment was ultimately dismissed by a federal judge because Halligan was unlawfully appointed as U.S. attorney. Subsequent efforts by Halligan to indict James were rejected by two different grand juries.

    The fallout from that episode was swift and severe.

    Joe Allen, the FHFA acting inspector general who sent the internal investigation to prosecutors, was asked to step down, the WSJ reported. Around the same time, the administration fired about a dozen officials within Fannie Mae’s ethics and internal investigations unit.

    The pattern of retaliation is clear. But there’s a more recent wrinkle.

    Last week, the WSJ — which you can see has been all over the Pulte story for many months — reported that Pulte hadn’t just targeted Democrats’ mortgages.He’d also examined the mortgages of Todd Blanche!

    Blanche and Pulte have been nemeses, for reasons that seem pretty obvious even from the outside looking in. Pulte — a nonlawyer — was stoking Trump’s sense of vengeance with spurious promises of prosecutions that Blanche was stuck with having to try to make happen. […]

    As if that wasn’t enough, DOJ began its own inquiry into whether Pulte and other officials had “inappropriately shared information about the Justice Department’s investigation into Schiff with those who weren’t authorized to be part of it,” the WSJ reported.

    […] it’s quite a coincidence that Pulte is taking another retaliatory swing at the FHFA IG and basically trying to put it out of business.

    Link

  120. says

    Just hours after President Donald Trump praised himself for supposedly doing a near-perfect job with the economy, the monthly jobs report was released—showing an increase in unemployment and fewer jobs than analysts had expected.

    The Labor Department revealed Friday that the unemployment rate has risen to 4.2% and that only 29,000 jobs were added in September—a far cry from the 90,000 jobs that experts anticipated.

    Jobs numbers were also revised downward for previous months.

    During a rally in Texas Thursday night for failing Senate candidate Ken Paxton, Trump declared success on the economy.

    “The only thing we’re doing badly at is public relations,” he said. “In other words, we’re doing a phenomenal job.” [video]

    Public opinion polling has consistently shown that voters blame Trump and the GOP for the bad economy. Since retaking office, Trump has put in place terrible policies like tariffs—which have increased prices—and launched a war in Iran—which has restricted the fuel supply, causing gas prices to surge.

    But Trump argued at his rally, as he has in the past, that these concerns are fake and that the concept of affordability is simply made up by the left.

    “Remember they came up with the word ‘affordability,’” Trump said. “They always come up with these words: ‘Affordability.’ So the fake news starts using it, because they’re partners with the Democrats.”

    […] despite his rhetoric, the location of Trump’s reality-defying speech probably says more about the precarious state of his political future than anything else.

    Texas, one of the GOP’s most loyal states, is where his handpicked candidate Paxton has been flailing for months. Despite Trump’s comfortable wins in Texas in 2024, 2020, and 2016—as well as GOP dominance of the state for decades—Paxton is trailing Democratic candidate James Talarico.

    That Texas is in play is a testament to how Trump’s poor economic performance is resonating with voters.

    During his first term, Trump became the only president since the statistic has been recorded to see a net job loss. And in his second term, he has fulfilled the long-standing GOP tradition of underperforming on the economy.

    Trump can pat himself on the back and pretend that affordability is made up all he wants. But the data paints a far more accurate picture—and that is what Americans are paying attention to.

    Link

  121. says

    ProPublica link

    “Four Kids in One Faith-Healing Family Died. Authorities Could Do Nothing.”

    An exemption in Idaho law shields faith-healing parents from criminal prosecution for conduct that otherwise would be charged as neglect. It also keeps police and social workers from stepping in to protect a dead child’s surviving siblings.

    Emma Joyce was sick and vomiting for days until she stopped breathing in her parents’ arms, in a small gray farmhouse in rural Idaho. It was August 2009, and she was 3 years old.

    The following summer, Emma Joyce’s little sister got sick. Ava Joan wouldn’t eat or drink anything but a few grapes and some Sprite in a sippy cup. She was breathing hard and fast. And when she vomited, it came out black, the hallmark of internal bleeding. She died in her mother’s arms in July 2010 from a complication of untreated diabetes.

    Less than two years later, the girls’ toddler brother died from the same complication of untreated diabetes that killed Ava Joan.

    And nine years after that, another sibling died: a 4-year-old boy who’d suffered for weeks with similar symptoms.

    The parents told officers that they hadn’t taken the four children who died to the doctor because of their religion, the Followers of Christ, which considers the use of modern medicine a sinful lapse of faith in God. And Idaho exempts parents from faith-healing sects like the Followers from the legal duty to give their children lifesaving medical care.

    The sect had at least 15 avoidable deaths among children from 2015 through 2025, according to healthcare professionals who reviewed their records for ProPublica.

    Among them were children in five families […]

    Most of the siblings died of similar ailments, following similar patterns, that experts said could have been resolved with interventions as simple as insulin, antibiotics or a supply of oxygen. Experts were uncertain on only two of the sibling deaths, saying the death records lacked enough information to determine if the children’s lives could have been saved.

    Idaho’s child abuse laws contain such broad religious exemptions that authorities did not intervene — either before or after the deaths.

    The exemptions don’t just shield faith-healing parents from criminal prosecution for conduct that otherwise would be charged as neglect. They also keep police and social workers from stepping in to protect a dead child’s surviving siblings from suffering a similar fate, no matter how many of them die. […]

  122. says

    Washington Post link

    “The volunteer internet sleuths hunting down rogue AI agents”

    “Their findings revealed the tech industry has a bigger problem than it previously acknowledged.”

    Selena Zhang had a hunch.

    OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, had recently disclosed astonishing details about how its artificial intelligence agents had broken out of their systems, hacked into another company and tried to cover their tracks. Other researchers were hunting the agents online and finding traces of them on obscure message boards.

    Zhang, a 23-year-old researcher at nonprofit AI lab Transluce, thought there had to be more evidence to find. She imagined how the agents might act, and she set out one weekend in September to find where else they had left an online trail.

    Within days, she and a team of colleagues had found a network of online breadcrumbs with profound implications: Rogue AI agents were traversing the web much more widely than previously known. As Zhang and her Transluce colleague Conrad Stosz scanned a list of sites the agents had hacked or probed, one entry jumped out: In June, agents that appeared to be from OpenAI had broken into a website run by Australia’s public health service.

    “‘Conrad, the public needs to know about this,’” Zhang recalls saying.

    The nonprofit notified the Australian government of its findings and said it planned to make them public. Two days later, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed the hack to the world in a news conference in New York, where he criticized OpenAI for waiting months before making its own disclosure to Australia, early in September. Transluce released its findings the same day, helping propel news of the hack around the world.

    Soon after that, the nonprofit revealed that it had also found evidence that OpenAI’s agents had probed U.S. government websites, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and Census Bureau.

    Zhang and her colleagues at Transluce are part of an informal network of hackers and researchers hunting rogue AI agents online, exposing new and surprising details about the misbehavior of technology that in some cases initially went undetected by the multibillion-dollar companies that created it.

    The people doing that work are mostly young AI-natives who work at small start-ups or nonprofits or who hunt for rogue AI agents in their spare time. Over the past several weeks, the community of researchers has found and exposed dozens of instances of AI agents leapfrogging around the web to probe and hack into a growing list of websites.

    […] “I should never be the one reporting any of this to anybody,” said Kenneth Russell DeGraff, a 42-year-old software engineer based in Los Angeles who uncovered instances of agents abusing link-shortening services run by universities. “It is wild that I am finding new and novel things, not as an employee of some, you know, federal agency run by experts.”

    […] Zhang belongs to the generation of young tech workers who have flocked to San Francisco in recent years to participate in the AI revolution. Transluce was founded to conduct independent research into the technology to help the public and policymakers understand how it impacts society.

    “We can study questions that … aren’t really commercially incentivized,” Zhang said. Before its researchers started hunting for rogue AI agents, Transluce’s most recent major report was a study of how AI models behave when engaging with users who are discussing suicide. […]

    Much more at the link. I snipped a lot of text.

  124. whheydt says

    Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #115…
    Something to remember is how “sea level” is defined. On the US East and Gulf Coasts, it is defined as “mean low water”. That is, the average of all daily low tides. However, on the US West Coast, it is defined as “mean lower low water”, the average of the lower of each daily low tide.
    This is a major reason why tides in SF Bay generally range from -2 ft to +7 feet. Even ignoring waves, this would mean that a Kelvin Wave raising the Bay by one foot would mean that anything with an official elevation of less than 8 feet is going to get wet at some point. If you add in a (potential) storm surge and/or a rapid spring snow melt in the spring, there could be another foot or two to worry about. All of this may put a severe strain on the–mostly poorly maintained–Sacramento/San Joaquin River delta levees.
    (Where I live–NE corner of the Bay–I’m around 40 to 50 feet above (nominal) sea level, so no expectation of a flooding problem.)

  125. Reginald Selkirk says

    Three reasons Middle East oil supply is nearly back to pre-Iran war levels

    The volume of oil flowing from the Middle East region has almost returned to pre-war levels, data shows, despite the continued restrictions Iran is placing on vessels attempting to travel through the Strait of Hormuz.

    Seven months after the US-Israel war with Iran led to the effective closure of the critical waterway, the maritime intelligence firm Kpler said that in the final week of September, daily oil flow from the Middle East reached 92% of its pre-war baseline.

    Analysts attribute the rebounding flow of oil to three key factors:

    Ships being escorted with US military assistance
    Using shuttle tankers through the strait for transfer to different vessels
    Bypassing the strait using pipelines

    But some experts have questioned the sustainability of these measures, given the risk of escalating Iranian attacks or a change in US policy…

  126. Reginald Selkirk says

    FDA finds potential source of cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to lettuce

    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Friday it has found a potential source of the cyclosporiasis outbreak that was tied to lettuce over the summer.

    The agency collected samples during its onsite inspections of Taylor Farms de Mexico facilities, it said.

    Two samples tested positive for the parasite, Cyclospora, according to the FDA. One positive sample was from a tank that held outgoing wastewater from a processing facility, the agency said. The second positive sample was from a drainage ditch of an iceberg lettuce grower, it noted…

    This seems a couple months too late.

  127. Reginald Selkirk says

    Man charged with harassment in Philadelphia cheesesteak assault, police say

    PHILADELPHIA — A content creator was charged Friday after an employee at the famous Pat’s King of Steaks was assaulted, according to Philadelphia police.

    The suspect, whose name has not been released, turned himself in to police on Thursday after police said they were reviewing video of what appears to show the confrontation at the cheesesteak shop.

    Now, officials say he has been charged with harassment.

    In the video, a person can be seen throwing a cheesesteak at an employee.

    The creator said he reviews restaurants and throws the food at employees if he doesn’t like it…

    The modern trend of collecting evidence of your own guilt continues.

  128. says

    Chris Rufo often gets treated as a “respectable” conservative. His latest podcast episode — framing Indian-Americans as a problem in need of solving — is more evidence that he shouldn’t be.

    To the degree that a “respectable” or “moderate” right exists today in America, Christopher Rufo is considered part of it. He is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, the tony midtown think tank that holds black-tie galas; he recently enjoyed a polite sit-down interview with Ezra Klein on Klein’s massively popular New York Times podcast; and he has over 120,000 subscribers on Substack, a publishing platform whose owners have celebrated Rufo as one of their “best” political writers who readers can “trust.”

    This veneer of legitimacy has helped Rufo mainstream an arguably fascist agenda. The 42 year old, after all, largely masterminded the destructive, racist moral panics targeting “Critical Race Theory” and “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) programs. He helped spearhead the spurious attack on “gender ideology” in public schools, smearing queer-supportive educators as “groomers.” He helped foment conspiracy theories about fraud at Somali daycare centers in Minneapolis, providing the pretext for ICE’s deadly incursion into the city. And he played a central role in spreading the ugly lie that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were stealing and eating people’s pets.

    […] This past weekend Rufo introduced an alarming new term that feels like an escalation, even for him: the “Indian Question” — that is, what to do about the very existence of Indian people, citizens and noncitizens alike, in America? Rufo’s new phrase formed the title of the latest episode of “Rufo & Lomez,” the BlazeTV podcast he co-hosts with Jonathan Keeperman, a lesser known and less “respectable” proprietor of white nationalist talking points, who previously plied his trade anonymously, from behind the pseudonym “Lomez,” until he was unmasked in a 2024 Guardian exposé.

    The prompt for this discussion of the “Indian Question” was a viral, racist post by Bo French, the GOP candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner. “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it,” French wrote on X earlier this month, posting a photo of largely south Asian college students cheering on the University of Texas football team. “The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” In a follow up post, French made the barely concealed subtext of his message more explicit: “Like body-cams exposed criminals, social media is exposing how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners,” he wrote. [social media post, with photo]

    As TPM’s Josh Kovensky noted, French’s tweet — an articulation of the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory — roiled the right, eliciting some rare, if tepid, denunciations from prominent Republican officials in Texas, and exposing faultlines in the GOP’s coalition over the exact boundaries of MAGA’s ethnonationalism. Are some non-white ethnicities more allowed than others? Are some immigrant groups more prone to being “assimilated” into white, Christian culture?

    Keeperman and Rufo’s “Indian Question” episode amounts to an hour-long defense of French’s post. Keeperman offered a tortured tautology about why the south Asian college kids cheering a comeback victory for the Longhorns — some of whom were wearing cowboy hats and throwing up the “Hook ‘em Horns” hand sign — were not properly “assimilated” into American culture: because he said so.

    “Successful assimilation is precisely that you wouldn’t notice it, we wouldn’t have anything to talk about,” he said. “The mere fact of us being able to notice that, no, this is not an assimilated group, this is just a bunch of Indians at the game, is itself sort of definitionally the case that they’re not yet assimilated.”

    Keeperman then explained that many white Americans, like French, simply have “this fundamental intuition” and a “preference” for “homogeneity” and “they wanna fight to preserve that” as the U.S. inches towards becoming a “majority-minority country.”

    […] Keeperman said French’s tweet might have been crude, but expressed something he and other white Americans have long been too scared to express: that they want to live around other white people. “[…] And they no longer care about these sorts of moral and social pieties that for so long have prevented them from expressing these preferences.”

    […] Rufo nods along with all of Keeperman’s arguments. When Keeperman expresses disgust for the phrase “diversity is our strength,” often used by liberals, Rufo excitedly agrees, saying it “sounds like a slogan from [George Orwell’s novel] ‘1984.’”

    It is notable that Rufo has decided to partner so closely with Keeperman, who the Guardian’s Jason Wilson has described as a “key player and influential tastemaker in a burgeoning proto-fascist movement.” He is indeed an extreme figure, heading up Passage Press, a publisher that Wilson noted reprints “out-of-print or public-domain books by historical fascist and reactionary writers,” including works “by radical German nationalist and militarist Ernst Jünger” and “Peter Kemp, who fought as a volunteer in Francisco Franco’s army during the Spanish civil war.”

    Hiding behind his “Lomez” account on X, Keeperman expressed violent rage at anti-racist protesters in 2020, and his support for Kyle Rittenhouse, the white teen who shot and killed two such protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. “May a million Kyle Rittenhouses bloom,” Keeperman wrote at the time.

    He also once seemed to call for journalists to be murdered en masse. “The press are in fact the enemy,” he tweeted. “They are mewling midwit scum. Sniveling liars and desperate status junkies. My abiding contempt for them is only ever confirmed.” Among a list of “policy proposals” he posted online, Keeperman wrote, “lamppost the journos” — an apparent call for reporters to be hanged.

    […] Over 80 years ago, on January 20, 1942, SS General Reinhard Heydrich convened a gathering of 15 high-ranking Nazi officials at a villa in Wannsee, Germany to discuss “Endlösung der Judenfrage,” or “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”

    “The Jewish Question” — or “The JQ,” as modern white nationalists frequently call it — is the antisemitic worldview framing the very existence of Jewish people as a problem in need of solving. It’s one of history’s most infamous rhetorical devices; three words that instantly dehumanized an entire subgroup of people, helping provide the permission structure for genocide. Heydrich’s 1942 conference, after all, was where Nazi leadership discussed the nuts-and-bolts of implementing their answer to the “question”: extermination.

    That Keeperman and Rufo chose the phrase “the Indian Question” for this discussion reads as a deliberate, trollish nod to the “JQ” — a kind of shitpost meant to “trigger” the left, including reporters at places like Talking Points Memo, into hysterically comparing them to Nazis. The duo does not go as far to call for the extermination or genocide of people with Indian heritage in America, even if they do advocate policies of exclusion and expulsion that scholars have long noted can be precursors to even greater atrocities. [social media pos, with two videos]

    The pair’s “solution” to the “Indian question” is the forced deportation of Indian immigrants who aren’t assimilated, and a complete ban on all immigration. “That means cutting off the spigot right now, getting rid of anybody who’s only here temporarily, and encouraging — through remigration efforts — to compel people who don’t wanna go through that process of assimilation to go back to where they come from […],” Keeperman says.

    […] When it comes to the “process of assimilation,” neither Keeperman or Rufo articulate what precisely an immigrant in America will have to do to become fully assimilated, although Keeperman acknowledges that being a “coastal shit lib” would not meet muster.

    For Indian-American citizens or other Desi people otherwise allowed to stay in America, Keeperman advocates them being “subjected” to an “assimilation hazing process” that will include instances of “vulgar, defamatory racism” until they have sufficiently left parts of their Indian “identity behind.” […]

    “Indian Americans are not an ‘Indian Question’ to be solved,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) posted on X. “Treating any American community as a problem because of their ethnicity is racist, xenophobic, and fundamentally un-American. We are a nation born of ideals, not bloodlines. No race, religion, or ancestry has a greater claim to America than another. Indian Americans are as American as anyone. This country belongs to all of us.”

    Rufo didn’t seem to acknowledge the online rancor his “Indian Question” episode with Keeperman had inspired, instead moving onto other propaganda campaigns, posting an article he wrote for the City Journal about how public housing in California is allegedly teeming with registered sex offenders. […]

  129. says

    New York Times link

    “Agency Diverted $1.4 Billion in Science Funds Mandated by Congress”

    “The move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants.”

    The National Science Foundation, one of the biggest sources of federal research funding, withheld $1.4 billion that Congress had intended for research over the course of the past year, according to internal data reviewed by The New York Times.

    The extraordinary move — holding back about one-fifth of the N.S.F.’s primary research budget — is the latest sign of how the Trump administration is finding ways to work around Congress. […]

    Since the N.S.F. was founded over 75 years ago, the agency has spent nearly all of its budget on so-called basic research from a wide range of scientific fields, which has led to major advances in technology such as M.R.I.s, semiconductors and the internet.

    The White House wants to redirect the money to a limited set of administration priorities, including artificial intelligence and quantum computing, according to two people with knowledge of the administration’s plans.

    Congress appropriates money to the N.S.F. on two-year cycles, so the agency could still spend the held-over money in the new fiscal year, which began on Thursday.

    But Democratic lawmakers see the strategy as more of a political power grab by the White House.

    “The money should be granted as Congress intended, and essentially, they’re ignoring what Congress did,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the Science, Space and Technology Committee. “It’s a dramatic attack on the science enterprise that has served us very well since World War II, when this whole system was set up,” Ms. Lofgren added.

    The White House and the N.S.F. said that diverting the money was allowed under Congress’s two-year appropriation.

    […] The Trump administration’s efforts to gain more power over grants have played out across the government, where funding decisions have historically been led by experts.

    Last month, the N.I.H. signed an agreement to collaborate with the Defense Department, drawing criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill who warned that the plan could allow the Pentagon to go around Congress and gain access to billions of dollars meant for infectious disease research. The administration previously fired the N.S.F.’s independent oversight board. And it has canceled or delayed thousands of grants across both agencies as part of its quest to punish elite universities and eliminate spending President Trump and his aides view as “woke.”

    […] The plan to divert N.S.F. funding was reported earlier by Nature, a science journal.

    Several people with knowledge of the situation described confusion inside the agency as the staff complied with White House guidance to carry over money as funding deadlines neared. Some divisions had to pull back research proposals that were recommended for funding after peer review, these officials said.

    Altogether, the $1.4 billion carried over after the last fiscal year ended on Wednesday amounted to 19 percent of the N.S.F.’s primary research budget allocated by Congress. That is a far higher percentage than in either of the two prior fiscal years, when less than $175 million went unspent, according to internal data from the agency. […]

  130. says

    Followup to comments Followup to comments 62, 65, 77, and 82.

    Musk-led war commission triggers alarms in Pentagon

    “Two of the Defense Department’s biggest contractors will help lead a project that could directly benefit them.”

    Pentagon officials warn that Pete Hegseth’s plan for a pair of billionaire defense contractors to help steer the military’s future will produce conflicts of interest that threaten the long-term integrity of the department.

    The Defense secretary’s effort, dubbed Project Meridian, asks SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey — along with former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich — to “map the trajectory of future warfare.” They are supposed to report back in four months.

    The Pentagon revealed few details about the commission or the scope of its jurisdiction beyond the four-paragraph memo that authorizes it, and an insistence the U.S. needs to “dominate” the next generation of warfare. It’s unclear whether the initiative would give the executives the vast sway Musk enjoyed last year as leader of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. But both Musk and Luckey head companies that have contracts with the Pentagon worth billions of dollars — and nine current and former officials said any preferential access could allow them to funnel even more business their way.

    “This is entirely indicative of the decay and oligarchy that has taken over our government and, in many cases, directly through purchasing influence and power and authority, blatantly right in front of us,” said Wes Bryant, a retired Air Force master sergeant who until last year led the Pentagon’s civilian harm assessments. “They’re not even trying to hide it anymore.”

    The Pentagon said in a statement that the project will be led by MITRE — a nonprofit that manages federally funded research centers — with the added assistance of Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer. The nonprofit, the statement said, will be responsible for the analysis and recommendations and apply “appropriate conflict-of-interest and information safeguards.”

    The group has already held two meetings at the Pentagon, at least one of which included Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Phil Hegseth, Pete Hegseth’s younger brother, who is serving as an adviser in the department.

    […] The role represents yet another potential seat of influence for Musk, whose aggressive bureaucracy-shredding operation last year axed spending, purged staff and spread chaos across the executive branch.

    “Of course it is a conflict of interest, and if anything comes of it it will be to the benefit of Elon Musk not the country,” said a former defense official, who, like others, was granted anonymity to talk about internal deliberations.

    […] “Forgive me if I’m skeptical of entrusting the future of American warfare to people with zero military experience who stand to financially benefit from the decisions they’re making,” said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a member of the Senate Armed Services panel, who has publicly feuded with Hegseth.

    […] Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, called the commission an example of Hegseth “putting his political alliances ahead of our national security.”

    […] The department relies on SpaceX rockets to deliver key systems to orbit and has handed the company two multibillion-dollar contracts to start building out secret satellites constellations. Anduril holds several key Pentagon contracts for counter-drone systems, interceptors, electronic warfare systems and uncrewed fighter jet drones.

    […] “Musk and Luckey should be treated as vendors,” said Bill Hartung, a principal adviser at the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight. “Not grand strategists.”

  131. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ladies, Lock Up Your DMs: Elon Musk Is Back on the Market

    Earlier this year, while under oath, Elon Musk referred to Shivon Zilis—a venture capitalist who, at the time, was his live-in girlfriend and mother to four of his children—as his “chief of staff” and “close advisor” rather than, you know, something like a loving partner. Consider it foreshadowing, as Zilis announced via X (the platform that Musk owns, as you might know) that she and the CEO of SpaceX were no longer romantically involved.
    …
    You can start with the fact that Zilis announced that breakup by quote-tweeting a post from BigTechAlert, an automated service that shows when major accounts in the tech space have followed or unfollowed one another, which showed Musk had unfollowed Zilis on X.

    Then take a look at how Zilis describes the breakup, stating that she had been “let go” like she was laid off from a job—which is fitting since, by her own description, it happened without warning, as corporations are wont to do when they furlough staff. (Though, again, it seems she’ll keep the job where she does actual labor under Musk rather than the role that required a lot of emotional labor.)…

  132. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The Hill – Trump’s motorcade neared 100 mph

    from rallies in Texas to Oklahoma […] Typically, the president would’ve taken Marine One […] but stormy weather spurred the last-minute decision to drive. […] Trump showed up about two hours late in Durant, telling the crowd that he refused to cancel it entirely.

    Reckless driving between rallies that he shouldn’t be doing. Making the cultists wait for hours was a bonus.

  133. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    shermanj @111 to Militant agnostic @69:

    differential thrust can only make Extremely Slight and very slow changes in direction of any multi-engine aircraft

    NASA – Controlling crippled aircraft—with throttles (pdf, 1991)

    a preliminary study of the capability and techniques for emergency flight control. Included in the study were light twin-engine piston-powered airplanes, an executive jet transport, commercial jet transports, and a high-performance fighter. Piloted simulations of the B-720, B-747, B-727, MD-11, C-402, and F-15 airplanes were studied, and the Lear 24, PA-30, and F-15 airplanes were flight tested. All aircraft […] could be kept under control in up-and-away flight for an extended period of time. Using piloted simulators, landings with manual throttles-only control were extremely difficult. However, there are techniques that improve the chances of making a survivable landing. […] In all data shown, the flight control surfaces were not moved.
    […]
    the stabilizing effects of vertical and horizontal stabilizers are a function of dynamic pressure, which is proportional to the square of airspeed. As a result, the propulsion system control power increases as airspeed decreases. For example, at high airspeed, differential thrust develops a yawing moment that is small compared to the restoring moment produced by the vertical tail. Therefore, the sideslip is small and the roll rate resulting from differential thrust is low. At low speed, the differential thrust moment may be the same as at high speed. The aerodynamic restoring moment will be much smaller and larger sideslip will develop, producing higher roll rates. A similar effect occurs in the pitch axis

    Handling among planes varied considerably.

    The basic Lear 24 throttles-only roll control power is large. Roll rates in excess of 25 deg/sec can be obtained with full differential thrust, even with the yaw damper engaged. Time to bank from level flight to 30 deg was 4 sec.
    […]
    The roll control on the PA-30 [twin-piston] airplane is highly nonlinear. […] The linear response to differential thrust seen on other jet-powered airplanes was not present. Maximum roll rates were approximately 10 deg/sec
    […]
    The B-727 […] roll rates of 4 to 5 deg/sec were obtained. There was a 1-see lag before the roll rate was appreciable. […] This roll capability, while much less than the F-15 or B-720 airplanes, was surprisingly large considering the fuselage mounting of the engines.
    […]
    The B-747 […] Because of the large inertias, roll response is sluggish. With practice, however, it is possible to turn to and hold a heading and to fly an approach to a runway. Pitch control power is available, but again, large lags are present.

    [Video] Mentour Pilot – United Flight 232, a 1989 total hydrolic failure
    DC-10 maneuverability mentioned at 9:05 and 16:15.

  134. Militant Agnostic says

    CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain at 133

    What your quote is describing is using differential thrust in situations where the pilot has no control of yaw are roll. This using yaw to induce roll by making one wing fly faster than the other. The difference in lift then rolls the plane. It is like using only the rudder to turn the plane. A lot of Radio Control planes work this way because it requires on less servo. Also it is difficult to make coordinated* turns when the pilot is standing on the ground instead of sitting in the plane so there is little benefit to have roll control beyond the further effect of the rudder. Since the plane in the recent incident had working ailerons after the dive removed most of the rudder, the delay in roll response would not be an issue.

    in a coordinated turn the plane will feel level even though it is banked and the plane will be pointed in the direction is going.

  135. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Allison Gill (Mueller, she wrote):

    A while back, I sued DOGE (FOIA) to get Musk’s communications. DOJ argued that Musk wasn’t a govt employee anymore, BUT Hegseth just hired him again to work on a Pentagon warfare initiative called Project Meridian. So we noticed Judge Boasberg. My brilliant lawyer [Kel McClanahan] is doing this

     
    Militant Agnostic @134: I see. Thanks.

  136. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TheVerge – Reddit says it has to cut back access

    Reddit recently started forcing users to log in to be able to use Old Reddit, but in the “next few months,” the company says that you’ll have to be logged in and have used Old Reddit within the last six months from when the change rolls out to be able to continue browsing the platform […] Reddit will stop supporting RSS feeds on November 13th
    […]
    The company has been waging war […] for some time, including blocking the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to prevent AI scraping, suing Anthropic over alleged unauthorized bot access, and striking deals with Google and OpenAI to use Reddit data for training.

    Threadiverse alternatives (Reddit-style ActivityPub platforms)
    – BeeHaw instance of Lemmy despite the software’s problematic Lemmy devs
    – PieFed
    – Mbin (Sucessor to Kbin)

  137. StevoR says

    Mysterious vapours emerging from the ground near an ancient volcanic formation in northeast Syria have prompted scientists to investigate whether recent seismic activity disturbed the geology beneath the area. Videos from Jabal Kawkab, around 15 kilometres east of Hasakah, showed white vapour rising from cracks in the ground, alongside reports of subsidence in the surrounding area.

    The phenomenon sparked speculation on Syrian social media that the ancient volcano could be reawakening, particularly after an earthquake was felt across parts of northern Syria last week.But geologists have cautioned that there is currently no evidence of renewed volcanic activity, with several other possible explanations being investigated.

    .. (Snip)..

    ..One preliminary explanation being examined by Syrian geologists is that groundwater could be travelling through newly opened fractures and reaching warmer layers underground, producing vapour at the surface.

    Scientists are also investigating whether recent seismic activity contributed to the appearance of the cracks or altered existing underground pathways.

    …(snip)..

    He (Dr Abdul-Moneim Issa Hassan, geology lecturer, Homs University – ed) also pointed to possible non-volcanic explanations linked to the history of the site.The area around Jabal Kawkab includes an old rubbish dump and has previously been used for military purposes, meaning buried waste or other material could also potentially be responsible for the emissions.

    Determining the composition and temperature of the gases will therefore be crucial in establishing whether their origin is geological, environmental or linked to human activity.

    Source : https://www.newarab.com/news/syrias-ancient-jabal-kawkab-volcano-waking

  144. says

    Inside the ICE detention center trapping people with no hearing and no bond

    MS NOW’s David Noriega reports from a Mississippi ICE lockup, where a man with no criminal record is trapped behind razor wire after a minor accident—while his wife prepares to give birth to their first child.

    Video is 8:38 minutes.

    Trump campaigns in ruby-red states as Republicans scramble to ‘stop the bleeding’

    “Republicans are in real trouble, all over the country, but Donald Trump is on it, guys!” says Jacob Soboroff. “He clearly believes that he alone can stop the bleeding, when all the polls suggest he is the cause of it.”

    Video is 9:46 minutes

  145. birgerjohansson says

    One possible way to slow the ballroom and triumph arc projects: Tell Trump they need to conform to ‘Das Ruinprinzip’; being estethically appealing even thousands of years into the future when they have become delapidated ruins.

  146. says

    New York Times link

    “Late Night Is Stunned by Trump’s New Stereotype”

    Trump told attendees celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month at the White House to watch their step while touring the unfinished ballroom: “Only a Hispanic could survive that fall.”

    President Trump hosted a reception for Hispanic Heritage Month at the White House on Wednesday — “which he definitely did because he loves them so much, and not because he’s losing their support right before the midterms,” Jordan Klepper said on Thursday’s “The Daily Show.”

    “And if you didn’t know, it actually goes from Sept. 15th to October 15th. It’s nice to see at least our calendar still allows Hispanics to cross a border.” — JORDAN KLEPPER

    “During the Hispanic Heritage Month event, President Trump said he was going to talk about the incredible Hispanics and added, ‘You know there’s lots of different names: Latinos. They call them so many different names.’ Luckily his aides cut him off before he could say what they were.” — SETH MEYERS

    “President Trump held a Hispanic Heritage Month event yesterday at the White House, and then later he asked Duolingo what ‘el diablo’ means.” — SETH MEYERS

    The president invited attendees to tour the construction site of his ballroom, warning them to be careful not to fall over the edge. “Only a Hispanic could survive that fall,” he said.

    “I’m sorry, what? Is that a racial stereotype I’m not aware of, that Hispanics are good at surviving long falls? Although for a man who started out labeling Hispanics as murderers and rapists, to end up at ‘bouncy’ — that’s progress, OK?” — JORDAN KLEPPER

    “You’ve gotta be a platinum level racist to come out with stereotypes no one has ever heard before.” — SETH MEYERS

    “‘Only a Hispanic could survive that fall’? Are you thinking of cats?” — SETH MEYERS

    “Don’t fall for it, guys. He’s obviously trying to trick you into finishing the construction.” — JORDAN KLEPPER

    […] The Punchiest Punchlines (Palmer Luckey Edition)

    […] “Pete Hegseth put Tommy Bahama in charge of our military.” — JIMMY KIMMEL

    “I love when they introduce a new character. I don’t know if there’s a Mrs. Luckey, but I will assure you, she’s not.” — JIMMY KIMMEL
    […]

  147. says

    DA did not review witness statements and other evidence Cornell police collected in alleged gang rape of student

    Cornell University police spoke to witnesses and received anonymous tips about an alleged gang rape at a fraternity house in the first weeks of its investigation two years ago, but the local prosecutor did not review the additional information before deciding not to bring charges.

    Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said he based his decision not to pursue charges on the accuser’s initial six-page statement given to police.

    Investigators from the campus police department documented those witness interviews and other steps taken to determine whether Jane Doe, a 20-year-old woman who reported the incident, was the victim of sexual assault during a party at the Chi Phi house from Oct. 19 to 20, 2024, according police records obtained by NBC News.

    Documents reviewed by NBC News offer the most thorough look to date at how police handled the allegations from Jane Doe, who last month filed a lawsuit against Cornell University and seven Chi Phi brothers who she alleges sexually assaulted her over the course of hours while she was under the influence of ketamine, alcohol and marijuana.

    Van Houten, along with police and university officials, has come under intense fire for their handling of the matter. Jane Doe’s attorney has argued that she was failed by authorities who did not conduct a thorough investigation and who prejudged the events based on her earlier statement that she consented to parts of the night.

    Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday announced the appointment of Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to consider whether charges are appropriate.

    “In what world does the district attorney not even interview her or anyone else involved, or even request the full transcript” of the victim’s interview, Hochul asked Friday at a news conference announcing James’s appointment.

    On Nov. 25, 2024, a police investigator approached Van Houten’s office to tell them about interviews they’d done.

    An investigator in Van Houten’s office, according to the documents, replied that “he and several [attorneys] at the District Attorney’s Office had read [Jane Doe’s] statement … [and] stated that they all agreed that, based on [Jane Doe’s] statement, criminal charges would not be pursued in this case.”

    […] Jane Doe was only notified by Cornell police about the district attorney’s Nov. 25 determination not to pursue charges nearly two months later on, Jan. 21, 2025.

    […] Thomas Giuffra, the attorney representing Jane Doe, learned about that delay from NBC News’ request for comment Friday. He said that his client — during that two-month window — believed “they were still investigating.”

    “I was unaware that they had made the decision to not prosecute in November,” Giuffra said. “If so, that is worse than I thought.”

    On Nov. 7, 2024, two weeks after the incident at Chi Phi, Jane Doe submitted to a sexual assault examination and evidence collection process, according to the police records. She had gone to the university health center shortly after the alleged assault to get treatment for a urinary tract infection, but was not offered a rape kit at the time, Giuffra said. He called it “the first failure post assault when she was trying to get help.” Cornell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The attorney called it “a code or cry for help to say something bad happened” when Jane Doe told them that she “has a UTI of a traumatic origin.” Giuffra said the medical staff should have asked her: “What kind of trauma do you think caused this UTI?”

    He noted that had the health center referred Jane Doe to an outside facility for an examination, there might have been recoverable DNA because she was there within 48 hours.

  150. JM says

    Mediaite: Trump Posts Republican Senator’s Number in Daylight Savings Feud: ‘Call Tom on His Cellphone’

    President Donald Trump shared what he described as Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) personal phone number on social media, urging his followers to “call Tom on his cellphone.”

    The extraordinary call to action came amid a clash over the Sunshine Protection Act, legislation Trump has championed for years as he pushes Congress to make daylight saving time permanent and end the twice-yearly changing of the clocks. The House passed the measure in July — voting 308-117. The Senate, though, adjourned on Wednesday, with lawmakers not scheduled to return until after the midterms.

    Not only did Trump post what appears to be Cotton’s personal phone number (not confirmed yet) but he did it over something remarkable trivial, daylight savings time. With most of Trump’s moves you can see how they are important and he is potentially getting political or financial advantage or covering for one of his mistakes. This is just unimportant now matter which side you are on.

  151. JM says

    Huffpost; Whoops: New Report Finds Trump Broke His MAHA Promises

    President Donald Trump has repeatedly angered members of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement who helped elect him, according to a new report that accuses Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of failing to deliver on promises to clean up the U.S. food and pharmaceutical industries.

    According to the analysis by the left-leaning nonprofit Protect Our Care shared exclusively with HuffPost, Trump and Kennedy have “delivered a steady diet of broken promises, corporate quid pro quos and foodborne illnesses” over the last two years instead of fulfilling promises to take on the industry giants Kennedy has long claimed poisoned Americans’ food supply. The report also points out that many Trump administration policies have infuriated and alienated those in the MAHA movement.

    I wouldn’t take Huffpost too seriously as a news source but they seem correct here. This administration has been utterly erratic on what positions they take on health issues. It seems they can be bought off to reduce regulation on anything cheaply, and then when there are problems they try to cover it up rather then reverse course. And what they care about personally is random and stupid, with RFK Jr in particular buying into some of the silliest conspiracies on the internet.

    “Donald Trump and RFK Jr. keep treating MAHA activists like disposable political pawns, and now wonder why many resent it,” Protect Our Care President Brad Woodhouse told HuffPost in a statement. “There’s not one MAHA promise Trump hasn’t been willing to break once the checks clear from his big chemical, food and tobacco donors.”

    According to recent polling data, just 37% of Americans approve of Kennedy’s record as HHS secretary. An Associated Press/KFF poll conducted last month found that while half of voters in rural areas identified with the MAHA movement, nearly 80% said the Trump administration’s policies had had either no effect or a negative effect on Americans’ health.

    I expect the public approval matters more in the long run, as it drives people away from Republicans in general. The MAHA activists themselves are the sort who will will complain but the next time a Republican comes around promising things they will line up because not liking Democrats is a principle itself for them.

  153. Reginald Selkirk says

    Wind turbine taller than the Eiffel Tower aims to boost German electricity production

    SCHIPKAU, Germany — A wind turbine described by its developer as the world’s tallest now rises 365 meters (1,197 feet) above the sparsely populated landscape of eastern Germany, surpassing the height of the Eiffel Tower.

    The colossal turbine has been built at an existing wind farm in Lusatia, southeast of Berlin. Once a major center of lignite mining, the region has increasingly turned to renewable energy in recent years. The prototype reached its full height this week and is due to be inaugurated in mid-November.

    Jochen Grossmann, chief executive of Gicon, the Dresden-based engineering company that built the tower, said the structure would harness the stronger, more reliable winds found at greater heights. Conventional wind turbines typically have a hub height — the distance from the ground to the center of the rotor — of well below 200 meters (656 feet).

    “At 300 meters, we have such constant and strong wind that we can produce more than twice as much electrical energy as with the same facility at today’s heights,” Grossmann said on Thursday. He added that it would also be possible to produce electricity for much more of the year than with existing turbines.

    The turbine has a hub height of 300 meters (984 feet), and its rotor blades bring its total height to 365 meters. That makes it taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, at 330 meters (1,083 feet), and leaves it just short of Berlin’s television tower, Germany ‘s tallest building at 368 meters (1,207 feet)…

  154. birgerjohansson says

    Podsaveamerica @ Youtube

    ‘South Park Destroys Trump, MAGA, Billionaires and Data Centers in BRUTAL New Episode’
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=6YN1pYEietI
    .
    From the comments; brianwoods9552:

    “Speaking of billionaires, everyone should check out Peter Thiels recent podcast where he postulated:
    “If you’re evil, you’re at least competent. And if you are competent, you’re good. So if you’re evil, you’re not bad”. Yes, he literally said that…look it up”

  155. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    birgerjohansson @154.
    HuffPo – Tech overlord Peter Thiel is going viral for word salad

    an eye-rolling explanation about why evil can actually be “kind of good”
    […]
    Thiel shared his thoughts while talking about whether artificial intelligence will be a net positive or negative for society […] [“]I think we moralize way too much,” he said, agreeing with Döpfner’s earlier point about technology being neutral, and the way people use it is what yields either good or bad results.
    […]
    “There’s always a question I like to ask: What is the antonym of good?” the tech billionaire began. “The moral antonym is evil. The functional antonym is bad.” “A Ferrari is an evil car because it doesn’t get many miles per gallon,” he went on, acting as if people are constantly conflating the concepts of bad and evil.

    Performing some truly tired linguistic gymnastics, Thiel then said, “So, you know, if you’re evil, you’re at least competent. And if you’re evil, you’re not bad, and therefore you’re actually maybe kind of good because you’re at least getting something done.” “I think it’s better to be good than evil,” he did later clarify.
    […]
    Thiel’s little thought experiment seemed more pointless than nefarious in context

  156. Reginald Selkirk says

    FauxNews:

    Noah’s Ark researchers ‘inching towards’ confirmation after drilling challenges natural-rock theory

    A team investigating a boat-shaped formation in eastern Turkey says new evidence is strengthening its case that the site could hold the remains of Noah’s Ark.

    “In archaeology, you deal with probabilities, and we’re inching towards where we believe we will have confirmation this winter after our soil analysis is done with Sivas University, who’s our partner in this,” Noah’s Ark Scans founder Andrew Jones told “Saturday in America.”

    The focus of the investigation is the Durupınar formation, an approximately 538-foot-long geological structure near Mount Ararat. Its shape and proximity to the region identified in the biblical account have fascinated Ark hunters for decades…

    Jones said the drilling uncovered rich black soil, which researchers plan to test for organic content this winter at Ankara University…

    So the relevant analyses haven’t even been done yet.

  157. Reginald Selkirk says

    How to spot a psychopath at work – from a man who worried he could be one

    A psychopath is someone with an antisocial personality disorder, rather than a clinical diagnosis itself.

    People with these disorders think and act differently to others and, among other things:

    Exploit or manipulate others
    Lack regret or remorse
    Behave irresponsibly
    Have difficulty sustaining long-term relationships
    Are unable to control their anger
    Lack guilt and blame others for problems in their lives
    …
    Anderson said a lot of traits psychopaths possess are ones “that the corporate environment rewards” and are “incredibly useful in high-powered jobs in the city”.

    He added the most important thing when it comes to psychopaths is “you don’t promote them, you don’t marry them and you don’t vote for them.”

    Robert Snowden, a Cardiff University psychologist, has studied psychopathy for about 25 years and has worked with Robert Hare, the creator of the psychopathy checklist (PCL-R).

    It consists of 20 questions, each scoring between zero and two, with a maximum score of 40.

    Snowden said most people scored below five, while 25 or over was typically the threshold for psychopathy…

    “The fundamental trait of psychopathy is that lack of empathy for other people…

  158. birgerjohansson says

    Mikaela Laurén has become the oldest welterweight boxing world champion ever, at 50.

  159. birgerjohansson says

    Boris Johnson has these traits:

    “Exploit or manipulate others
    Lack regret or remorse
    Behave irresponsibly
    Have difficulty sustaining long-term relationships
    Are unable to control their anger
    Lack guilt and blame others for problems in their lives”

    And, he is a high-functioning alcoholic who forgets important briefings in about three days.
    He was in charge during the British COVID response.

  160. JM says

    Mediate: ‘We’re Gonna Shove It Up Their A**!’ Defiant Trump Predicts Republicans Will Shock the Dems and ‘Unhappy’ Kaitlan Collins

    President Donald Trump said he doesn’t care what the polls and the “fake news” are showing: he is confident the Republicans are going to shock the world — and the Democrats, in particular — and perform much better than expected in the 2026 midterm elections.

    The president struck an optimistic tone while rallying for the GOP in Vandalia, Ohio on Saturday evening. He said Republicans will be just fine, as long as conservatives don’t stay at home on Election Day.

    “And we’re gonna shove it up their a**, okay?” Trump declared.

    In Trump’s position some of that is expected. The polls are so bad that denial of the polls is the only way to put a good spin on things. Even for Trump this speech goes over the top in conspiracy theories and insults. He has nothing else to work with at this point, no positive message at all.

    The president added the Dems are pushing anti-American ideas, like the “mutilization” of children and by opposing voter ID laws. He said it is critical Ohioans get out and vote for Sen. John Husted (R-OH) and gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (R) “even if you hate” them, because it would be a travesty if Democrats won.

    The bulk of the speech is Trump insulting Democrats. The appeal to vote Republican even if you hate the candidates is new though and really a last resort plea.

    To make sure the Democrats don’t flip Congress, Trump made a simple plea to the crowd: “If you don’t mind, please pretend that I’m on the ballot.”

    The Republicans problem is that people are and it isn’t helping the way Trump thinks. Trump’s ego is too big to accept that his personal popularity is way down.

  161. JM says

    Washington Post: Trump’s opponents are planning efforts to reverse his changes to presidency

    Democratic House members are writing bills to rein in a president’s emergency powers. Lawyers are strategizing about how to insulate the Justice Department from presidential influence. A House measure would block a president from unilaterally remodeling the White House. Ethicists are writing rules to prevent a future first family from self-dealing.

    Throughout Washington and beyond, President Donald Trump’s opponents are scrambling to ensure that after he leaves office, the changes he has imposed on the presidency, and the country, will fade with him.

    Lots of proposals, some symbolic and some serious. Some fixing gaps in the law or turning tradition into law, other adding new restrictions or taking power back for Congress.
    What I don’t see is one of the most important, reform of the filibuster. As long as congress is permanently deadlocked the president will have more power and have to take more action without congress. The balance of power can only really be fixed if congress actually passes laws.

    Several lawmakers are crafting bills to curtail a president’s ability to declare emergencies, which Trump has used in novel ways, declaring about a dozen emergencies to justify policies as varied as imposing tariffs, accelerating deportations and deploying the National Guard. Reps. Suzan DelBene (D-Washington) and Don Beyer (D-Virginia) have introduced a bill forbidding a president from levying tariffs under the guise of a national emergency unless Congress agrees.

    There are a bunch of little patchwork fixes like this. The real solution here is that congress should have to approve emergency declarations by the president within some short time frame.

    Raskin has drafted bills to ban a president from accepting payments from foreign governments without Congress’s consent and require a public review for renovations of the White House. Another measure would block a president from entering monetary settlements with his own government, which a federal judge scolded Trump and the Justice Department for this summer, saying they had attempted to “use” and “manipulate” the court to legitimize a deal that would have shielded Trump from IRS scrutiny and set up a nearly $1.8 billion fund for alleged victims of politicized prosecutions.

    The bill about accepting foreign payments is already illegal, it’s enforcement that is a problem. Depending on the wording of the bill it may be a good idea. Public review of renovations is another little patch and even more pointless, the problem here is congress not doing it’s job. Banning the president from entering a monetary settlement with the US government is a patch to block an abuse of power but it’s a reasonable one, the only other thing preventing it is the judge refusing.

    Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and potential Democratic presidential candidate, recently released an ethics proposal for all three branches of government that would ban trading stocks and betting in prediction markets, require a blind trust for anyone worth more than $1 million, and forbid individuals from accepting foreign gifts. Trump has traded millions of dollars worth of individual stocks since taking office and famously accepted the gift of an aircraft from the Qatari government.

    This is mostly a good idea. There is no real need to block the president from accepting gifts but it’s another spot that may need tighter enforcement.

    The midterm campaigns have spawned numerous Democratic candidates with sharply combative anti-Trump messages. If they win majorities in Congress, some Democrats could well be tempted to turn the president’s hardball tactics against him and his followers once he leaves the scene.

    “It will be very tempting for Democrats to say, ‘Oh, you think we are going to limit our abuse of the Justice Department? We don’t want to be suckers,’” Waldman said. “But I think that would be a big mistake. Everybody benefits when the rule of law is in play across the government.”
    More immediately, the next administration will have to decide whether to prosecute Trump officials who may have broken the law by misusing their authority. Some Democrats, for example, say the way Justice Department officials have targeted Trump’s enemies is illegal and could expose those officials to charges.

    Part of congress’s job is oversight and them just investigating administration officials is hard to be an abuse of office. It can be an issue but congress not investigating things they should is more common.

    “I have a sinking suspicion if our party wins the White House in the next election, there will be a hallelujah moment and the Supreme Court will rediscover the Constitution,” Clinton said on ABC’s “The View” last year.

    This is fairly likely and a good reason for some court reform.

  162. says

    RFK Jr.’s dangerous disparagement of doctors’ expertise

    “Human expertise matters in medicine — and it will matter into the forseeable future.”

    A patient recently showed up to my emergency department after he’d been doing home repairs for several days, including lifting heavy equipment and moving boxes. When he started feeling a recurring tightness in his chest, he entered his symptoms into a large language model, which told him he likely strained a muscle. He rested and waited for the pain to go away, but it never did.

    When he finally came to my emergency room a few days later, his EKG and lab tests showed that he had suffered a serious heart attack. Because of the long delay, part of his heart muscle was permanently damaged, and he now has chronic heart failure.

    At a Make America Healthy Again summit Tuesday that was co-sponsored by OpenAI and Anthropic, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. boasted that artificial intelligence would soon give Americans a second opinion “much better informed than any doctor in the country.”

    He’s wrong to say that, and my position doesn’t arise from any philosophical opposition to AI technology. To the contrary, not only am I an emergency room physician, but I am also U.S. chief medical officer at Keikku, a clinical AI company. I use AI in some capacity every shift. However, the patient who consulted a chatbot and suffered irreversible heart muscle damage that a cardiologist could have prevented is an example of why human expertise matters now — and will continue to matter for the foreseeable future.

    The AI chatbot a person uses at home cannot conduct a physical examination, perform life-saving tests and, in my patient’s case, it didn’t know what an emergency medicine physician learns on the first day of training: New chest tightness after exertion is a heart attack until proven otherwise. [!]

    At the MAHA summit, Kennedy promised every American would soon have full access to their medical records. I fully support that goal. But then he claimed AI could “correct” public health advice about issues including Covid masks and vaccines and free the public from what he called “medical tyranny.” Vice President JD Vance warned against “doomers” and added that experts no longer have a “monopoly on knowledge.”

    The implication is that human expertise is an obstacle and that AI is the solution. As a physician and an AI builder, I can say that idea is completely wrong.

    I am not a “doomer,” to use Vance’s word. My role at my AI company is creating tools that remove administrative burdens in healthcare, help reduce physician burnout and augment them in their medical decision-making. AI also plays a key role in my emergency room today. Ambient scribes write up clinical notes so I can concentrate on the patient rather than on a computer screen. Summarization tools scan years of records in seconds, and algorithms highlight potential lung collapses on chest X-rays.

    […] Software can highlight a suspicious shadow on an X-ray, but it still takes a clinician at the bedside to interpret that scan within the context of the human in front of them. While some politicians preach AI liberation from physicians, some of the actual use cases are far less noble. Insurers, for example, using algorithms to rapidly deny coverage for certain medical procedures.

    The irony in arguing that AI will free us from medical experts is that the consumer AI tools available to patients seeking a second opinion synthesize the research, guidelines and papers produced by the very experts Kennedy tells the public to ignore. AI cannot be an escape from human expertise because today’s tools are built entirely upon it.

    To practice medicine means making difficult calls in the face of uncertainty. The profession demands that a clinician assess subtle physical signs, understand what a patient is not saying […]

    Kennedy and Vance promoting AI as superior to doctors is dangerous. When public figures lead patients to believe that a chatbot knows better than a physician, people decide to avoid necessary medical care and stay at home while time-sensitive conditions worsen. AI is making steady and meaningful progress in medicine, yet my emergency room still faces the same overcrowding and long waiting times it did five years ago. AI can sometimes be a very useful assistant, but it is not a doctor. By selling it as superior to human expertise, Kennedy and Vance will only end up harming the people they claim they want to see healthy again.

    Dr. Owais Durrani is a board-certified emergency medicine physician in Houston and the U.S. chief medical officer of Keikku, a clinical AI company.

  163. birgerjohansson says

    It is exactly 56 years since Janis Joplin died.
    .
    Happy 80th birthday, Susan Sarandon, who always stands up for human rights.
    .
    Gladys West, the black matematician whos work made GPS possible. 1930-2026.

  164. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Reginald Selkirk @157.
    Wikipedia – Psychopathy Checklist

    Several recent studies and very large-scale meta-analysis have cast serious doubt on whether the PCL-R performs as well as other instruments, or better than chance. To the extent that it does perform better, it is unclear whether it is due to the PCL-R’s inclusion of past offending history, rather than the personality trait scores that make it unique.
    […]
    Hare’s concept has also been criticised as being only weakly applicable to real-world settings and tending towards tautology. […] It has been pointed out that half the criteria can also be signs of mania, hypomania, or frontal lobe dysfunction (e.g., glibness/superficial charm, grandiosity, poor behavioral controls, promiscuous sexual behavior, and irresponsibility). Some research suggests that ratings made using the PCL system depend on the personality of the person doing the rating, including how empathic they themselves are.

     
    Reginald Selkirk @156.
    Unproven Noah’s Ark site in Türkiye draws $3,600 tours

    Tour companies are exploiting premature hype […] The Durupınar formation, discovered in 1959 […] creationist groups continuously fund expeditions hoping to find biblical artifacts on the mountain.

    Largest-ever study begins at Türkiye’s Noah’s Ark-shaped formation (Aug 4)

    The work is not based on the assumption that a ship lies underground. Instead, the team aims to determine whether the unusual shape is entirely geological or whether any evidence of human activity survives within or around it.
    […]
    Geological surveys, drilling attempts and radar work have been carried out there since the second half of the 20th century. A detailed study published in 1996 […] concluded that the formation was natural. Their analysis attributed its ship-like appearance to folded sedimentary layers, erosion and landslide activity.

  165. Pierce R. Butler says

    Reginald Selkirk @ # 157: … the psychopathy checklist (PCL-R)… consists of 20 questions, each scoring between zero and two, with a maximum score of 40.

    ??? If even one question has less than two points, the maximum score will be <40.

  166. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Pierce R. Butler @165: They weren’t no/yes questions with all-or-nothing fixed values. They were no/kinda/yes with partial points. So every question can yield 2 to reach 40.

    A journal article: “The PCL-R is a 20-item scale completed by a trained administrator on the basis of interviews and case-history data. All items are rated on a 3-point scale (0 = does not apply, 1 = applies to a certain extent, 2 = definitely applies), with scores varying from 0 to 40.”

  167. says

    New Yorker link

    “ICE Is Everywhere and Acting with Impunity.” By Jonathan Blitzer

    “Arrests have reached a record high—nearly fifty-one thousand in August alone—with agents conducting operations nationwide at hospitals, at airports, and outside schools.”

    It has taken the Trump Administration less than two years to make violent encounters with federal immigration agents a regular fact of American life. On a single day late last month, a citizen and a noncitizen—one in Illinois, the other in Texas—became the most recent examples of this new reality. That morning, in Evanston, a Black man walking to a pharmacy was left injured and bleeding by the side of a road after a group of ice officers, mistaking him for an immigrant “fugitive,” threw him to the ground and tried to handcuff him. Once the agents realized that he was a U.S. citizen, they said that they offered him “assistance,” then drove off. A few hours later, in Austin, an ice officer shot a Venezuelan delivery driver in the back as he tried to flee in his car. He was detained, and partial paralysis had set in before doctors removed the bullet, several days later. Last Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced that it was charging the man with assaulting the officer who shot him.

    Almost as alarming as the incidents themselves has been the government’s refusal to acknowledge a pattern of abuse that is clearly metastasizing at the Department of Homeland Security. Since Donald Trump took office last year, agents from D.H.S. have shot at some two dozen people in the United States, killing six of them. [!]

    The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during Operation Metro Surge, in Minnesota last January, were a turning point in the public’s awareness of the problem, but their deaths were not the first. Ten months earlier, in South Padre Island, Texas, Ruben Ray Martinez, a twenty-three-year-old U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by an ice officer—something that the government didn’t disclose for nearly a year, until American Oversight, a nonprofit group, obtained the incident report. In one week this past July, ice agents killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who had lived in this country for thirty-five years, raising a family and running a building company, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a twenty-five-year-old Colombian with a wife and toddler. These incidents were documented as officer shootings. But how, for instance, should news outlets categorize the death, on July 14th, of a Mexican man visiting family in Florida, on a tourist visa, who was hit by a tractor-trailer as he ran from immigration agents?

    Not only has no ice officer been federally charged in these deaths, but the agency has made a habit of casting blame on the people it has appeared to victimize, turning impunity into another form of aggression. The most common claim is that immigrants attempting to escape arrest are “assaulting” officers and, in particular, that motorists are “weaponizing” their vehicles. In many cases, video evidence seems to contradict such accounts; in others, officers weren’t wearing their body cameras. The Times found that the Administration had filed assault charges against more than five hundred and fifty people and that, in about half of the roughly four hundred cases that have been resolved, “juries acquitted defendants, judges threw out charges, or prosecutors withdrew them.” [!]

    Because the federal government has largely forsworn—and, indeed, actively blocked—independent investigations of its agents, states have tried to bring their own cases. In August, prosecutors in Minnesota were seeking the extradition of Christian Castro, an ice agent being held in Texas, who was wanted for shooting a Venezuelan national in the leg during Operation Metro Surge. When Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, refused Minnesota’s request, Castro was released. The Justice Department then charged Castro with making “false statements”—he claimed that he’d been attacked with a broom and a snow shovel before firing—a considerably lesser charge than the ones he could have faced. An Assistant U.S. Attorney in Minnesota, Matthew Evans, told the victim’s lawyers that he’d “objected in the strongest possible terms,” but that the decision had been made in Washington. Evans was fired and is now being investigated for allegedly leaking information about the case.

    This all comes at a time when ice arrests have reached a record high—nearly fifty-one thousand in August alone—with agents conducting operations nationwide at hospitals, at airports, and outside schools. Past calls by Democratic lawmakers for D.H.S. agents to end the practice of wearing masks in public were ignored, and this summer the department announced that it would be purchasing for its personnel twenty million dollars’ worth of gloves that deliver powerful electric shocks.

    Flush with cash from Congress, D.H.S. is planning to hire five thousand more ice officers by the end of the year. Recently, it signed seven billion dollars in construction contracts to build more detention centers. Meanwhile, in all but one of the existing two hundred and thirty-nine immigration jails across the country, the A.P. reported, ice has stopped listing in its online database, known as the detainee locator, the whereabouts of people in custody who have final deportation orders. If people’s names don’t show up in the locator, their family members and lawyers won’t immediately be able to find them. In July, sixteen thousand people arrested by ice, or about a third of those entering detention that month, had final deportation orders.

    Given the lack of accountability at D.H.S., it should come as little surprise that Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of ice, has taken the lead in prosecuting one of Trump’s principal obsessions: searching for evidence that noncitizens might vote in the midterms next month. Noncitizen voting is virtually nonexistent, as D.H.S.’s own figures show. Since last year, on the President’s orders, the department has pursued some sixteen hundred voter-fraud cases, only a hundred and sixty of which even led to arrests. (There are about a hundred and seventy-four million registered voters in the country.) This hasn’t stopped the Administration from trying to coerce states to hand over their voter rolls.

    […] Deploying government agencies without regard for facts or consequences is, of course, a hallmark of authoritarianism. Last week, it emerged that the White House used part of the D.H.S. budget appropriated by Congress to make ads that celebrate the President. They carry a disclosure that doubles as a warning: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” ♦

  168. says

    More than 451,000 people are projected to die across the globe in the next six months from the additional heat brought by a super El Niño, according to estimates from climate scientists released Wednesday.

    The El Niño—the warm phase of the Pacific Ocean’s recurring cycle, when heat from the ocean is released into the atmosphere—began in June. It can intensify and affect storms, fisheries and rainfall patterns far from the Pacific, raising global land temperatures.

    In the new estimates, scientists at the University of Chicago Climate Impact Lab project the hotter land conditions brought by El Niño will resemble the higher temperatures climate change is predicted to deliver in 20 years.

    The estimated heat death toll, the scientists warned, are on top of the impacts from droughts, wildfires and flooding, expected from hotter temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns in a world already superheated by greenhouse gases.

    […] The countries most affected by land temperatures increased by 1.2 degrees Celsius over the next six months are Nigeria, Indonesia, Sudan, India and Brazil. Collectively, the five countries account for more than 97,000 of the projected heat deaths. The U.S. is in the top 20 most affected nations, with 3,500 projected additional heat deaths, according to the study.

    […] This El Niño, which could be the strongest on record, could permanently push the planet’s average annual temperature past the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold enshrined in scientific documents and political agreements as a turning point for potentially irreversible climate impacts.

    The warm conditions from June 2026 to February 2027 will resemble the higher temperatures that climate change is projected to deliver in 20 years, leading to 44 percent more extremely hot days than expected in a normal year. Forecasts suggest El Niño will remain beyond February 2027 through spring 2027, potentially pushing death counts higher.

    The study authors wrote that El Niño is effectively leapfrogging the world into the future, causing temperatures which won’t be the norm for another two decades and before countries have time to adapt and protect themselves.

    The report combined peer-reviewed methods on the relationship between temperature in more than 24,000 regions across the world and mortality and seasonal temperature forecasts. The death projections were compared to the same months of an average year between 1996 and 2025.

    […] Tamma Carleton, faculty head of research for the Climate Impact Lab and an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said increasing emergency response and better targeting efforts can save many lives this year.

    “But 20 years from now, once today’s extreme temperatures become the new normal, we don’t want to be in a constant state of emergency,” Carleton said.

    Link

  170. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Accessible article from Reginald Selkirk @169.
    WaPo – An election chief lost. Then he padlocked the ballots and called the FBI.

    Curtis was both election administrator and candidate this summer. After he lost, he certified the results as “full, true and correct.” He nonetheless harbored doubts. Some ballots smelled too inky, he said. Some seemed too heavy. Some felt too rough. He stashed the ballots in a storage room, slapped a padlock on the door, ordered subordinates to destroy the keys and reported his suspicions […] to spur FBI agents to show up with bolt cutters so they could take a look.
    […]
    Curtis has spent a quarter century warning about rigged elections. […] voters […] rejected him. Since then, he has called the election into doubt in any way he can. He has questioned whether some ballots contained bamboo fibers, echoing a baseless claim from the 2020 election that counterfeit ballots in Arizona were shipped in from Asia.
    […]
    Independent reviews have found no widespread fraud in voting, by machine or otherwise. But those studies didn’t satisfy Curtis, who suspects the 2016 election was rigged in Trump’s favor and that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

  171. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NYT – 2 Dead and 35 wounded in shooting at Georgia Block Party

    A motive […] was not immediately known. No arrests had been made as of Sunday afternoon. […] the shooting happened as Dooly County High School celebrated its homecoming week […] about 1,000 people had attended the block party [in] Vienna, a city of about 4,000 residents

  172. Reginald Selkirk says

    Yemen’s government announces all-out war to reclaim land from Houthis

    The head of Yemen’s internationally recognised government has announced it will wage an all out war in an effort to take all territory held by the Houthis.

    It follows an exchange of strikes between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition in recent days.

    The Iran-backed group said it had struck sites belonging to Saudi national oil company Aramco, in response to what it described as 50 Saudi-led coalition strikes in 12 hours. Saudi Arabia has yet to comment…

  173. Reginald Selkirk says

    Florida weighs ditching property taxes and sticking Canadians with the bill

    Florida voters are weighing whether to scrap residential property taxes and the state’s governor has a solution to that potentially huge revenue loss: tax Canadians more.

    Canadians who own property in Florida describe the threats to shake them down for more money as just the latest insult in a series of them since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to power last year with a decidedly anti-Canada agenda.

    Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has railed against property taxes, which fund local governments and the services they provide — law enforcement, fire, EMS, disaster preparation and mosquito control, among many others — equating them to a form of modern-day feudalism where homeowners must “pony up money to the government just for the courtesy of using your own property.”

    To end this, DeSantis is pushing Amendment 3, a ballot measure crafted by his Republican statehouse allies that will be put to voters in the midterm election next month.

    If passed, Florida “homesteaders,” as permanent residents are called, will see a dramatic increase in an existing property tax exemption.

    Any Floridian with a primary residence valued at $250,000 US or less — about 60 per cent of all homesteaders, according to the governor’s office, although that figure has been questioned — would pay nothing and those with a home worth more than that would pay much less than they do now. The measure also calls on the state to eliminate homesteader property taxes entirely over time.

    This constitutional amendment requires a 60 per cent supermajority, and at least one recent poll suggests it will easily clear that hurdle.

    State economists project such a move will cost about $12 billion US annually, forcing local and county governments that depend on these taxes to make deep cuts, find new revenue elsewhere or both.

    That’s where things could get more expensive for the Canadians who own an estimated $60 billion US worth of property in the Sunshine State. DeSantis has explicitly described them as a resource to tap to close expected budget gaps….

    This plan has serious flaws, but I feel the most appropriate response is to point and laugh.

  175. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nobel medicine prize goes to 3 scientists for research into brain activity

    The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded Monday to three scientists working on the mechanisms the brain uses to switch on, or off, the activity of individual nerve cells.

    Karl Deisseroth, 54, Peter Hegemann, 71, and Georg Nagel, 73, have carried out research into light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.

    The Nobel Assembly lauded their work, writing on X that the method “is now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain’s mysteries.”

    The assembly said Deisseroth is based at Stanford University in California, while Hegemann is at Humboldt University in Berlin and Nagel at the University of Würzburg, also in Germany.

    Optogenetics opened what the Nobel assembly called a new era in neuroscience, the discovery of a light-controlled switch to turn on and off nerve cells and circuits in the brain to better learn how it works — to start unraveling the pathways that lead to behavior and disease.

    It started when Hegemann explored how a single-celled type of green algae can swim toward light. He and Nagel discovered a particular protein that, when illuminated by blue light, opens a channel to create an electrical impulse. Putting that protein into other cells makes them light-sensitive.

    Deisseroth then worked with the gene that controls that protein to create a light-controlled switch for nerve cells in the brains of living mice…

  176. birgerjohansson says

    Recommended TV series: “The Completely Made-up Adventures Of Dick Turpin”

  177. Reginald Selkirk says

    Russia hospitalizes almost 200 people after researcher’s death from plague: Reports

    Nearly 200 people have been placed under medical observation in Russia’s Irkutsk region in eastern Siberia over suspected exposure to plague, according to local media reports.

    The report said 189 people were being monitored following the illness of an employee at an anti-plague research institute in Irkutsk. Alexei Tsydenov, head of the nearby Republic of Buryatia, said the woman had died from an unspecified form of plague.

    Russia’s public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said Sunday that the employee had been diagnosed with “pneumonia of unknown etiology” and that the sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Irkutsk region and the cities of Irkutsk and Shelekhov remained stable.

    The agency said expanded testing had not detected microorganisms linked to the employee’s work.

    The update follows local media reports on Friday that a 27-year-old employee at an anti-plague institute had fallen ill with suspected pneumonic plague after returning from a work trip to Buryatia, where an outbreak had been reported near the border with Mongolia, citing Russian Telegram channel Mash…

  179. Reginald Selkirk says

    Divers Discover 10,500-Year-Old Wood That May Rewrite the Story of Hunter-Gatherers

    Underwater archaeologists in Germany have discovered prehistoric wooden remains that could seriously change our understanding of hunter-gatherers.

    This past summer, researchers from the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt found well-preserved pieces of wood dating back as far as 10,500 years ago in the state’s Lake Arendsee. If the wood had been modified by hunter-gatherers and the remains turn out to be parts of permanent structures, the findings would have significant implications for scientists’ understanding of the origins of cultural landscapes…

    That’s about 6000 years older than Noah’s Ark (@156).

  180. says

    Team Trump keeps trying (and failing) to find evidence to bolster election conspiracy theories

    “Multiple federal agencies have spent months trying to substantiate the president’s ridiculous election ideas. It’s really not going well.”

    t’s easy to forget that during his confirmation hearing early last year, Kash Patel assured senators that the FBI under his leadership “will not go backwards.” He added that there would be “no politicization” at the bureau.

    Nearly two years later, the FBI isn’t merely looking backward; The Atlantic reported that it’s become “preoccupied” with Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat and with the president’s election conspiracy theories in general, at the insistence of the conspiratorial former podcast personality who leads the bureau. From the article:

    In recent months, Patel has been briefed on the FBI’s “election integrity” investigations in Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, and beyond. Officials told me their understanding is that many of the election-related investigation requests came directly from the White House, many times with the instruction that “this is a big deal for the president” or “this is a push from 47.”

    But all of that attention hasn’t yielded results. In meetings, Patel has expressed frustration that there have been no new findings, and instructed staff to “look harder” or “look again,” according to three people familiar with the conversations.

    Of course, the agents’ failure to uncover evidence to bolster Trump’s misguided ideas has nothing to do with the intensity of their efforts and everything to do with the inconvenient fact that such evidence doesn’t exist.>

    But the problem isn’t limited to Patel and the FBI. Reuters reported late last week on Kurt Olsen, who recently stepped down from the Justice Department’s “grand conspiracy” investigation, who spent months trying to uncover evidence to support the president’s conspiracy theories, specifically related to the 2020 race, only to produce nothing.

    Meanwhile, at the DOJ, where long-standing rules require prosecutors to independently assess whether the evidence presented to them justifies further action, MS NOW recently reported that federal prosecutors have been warned that they risk termination if they decline to pursue the kind of voter fraud cases the president wants to see.

    The Associated Press reported soon after, “The Trump administration’s campaign to root out noncitizen voting is demonstrating what critics of President Donald Trump’s election conspiracy theories have long argued — that it’s incredibly rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of elections.”

    The pattern isn’t exactly subtle. The DOJ has tried to help advance Trump’s election conspiracy theories. So has the Department of Homeland Security. And the FBI. And the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. [!]

    Collectively, they’ve produced nothing — “look harder” and “look again” directives notwithstanding.

    For his part, the president has dealt with these failures by pretending they’re successes.

    As recently as June, he sat down with The New York Post’s Miranda Devine for a podcast interview, in which he said, in reference to the 2020 race, “It’s been proven to be rigged.” Proved by whom? He didn’t say.

    […] Trump declared at an Oval Office event in April, “They’re finding out the 2020 election was totally rigged.” Who are “they”? And what did they “find out”? No one knows. Two weeks earlier, Trump similarly told Fox News, “Look, the election was rigged. You know that; I know that; everybody knows that now. It’s all come out.”

    For Trump, it’s simply a foregone conclusion that his election delusions aren’t just real; they’ve been proven — by “them,” and the unidentified information that’s “come out,” thanks to what “they” have “found out.”

    Amid all of this nonsense, at literally no point has the president made even the slightest effort to substantiate his claims with evidence despite the extensive efforts of much of his administration.

  181. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/in-which-mamdani-charms-the-faces

    “In Which Mamdani Charms The Faces Off … Theo Von And The Manosphere?”

    “Honestly, watch his whole interview with Theo Von because it’s amazing.”

    [Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City] keeps racking up wins, working on the big projects while finding ways to improve the lives of New Yorkers in small but meaningful ways — community events, tickets to the opera, tickets to other events that regular people have been priced out of, childcare and dinner for a Parents’ Night Out, etc.

    And last week, he took on the manosphere.

    On Friday, Mamdani appeared on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend for an hourlong interview that was, I have to tell you, fucking brilliant. The parts that have been clipped and put on social media are good, but if you have the time and the inclination, definitely watch the whole thing. [video]

    […] The best part of the interview, […] was when they discussed nurses, and the many problems caused by nurses not being paid enough, being overworked, not having the health benefits they provide to others, etc. […]

    “I remember meeting a nurse. I asked her — you know she let out a big sigh, We were in the elevator together she let out a big sigh — I was like how’s your day going? She’s like, ‘Ah, it’s going okay. Um, I got to go home after this.’ I was like, ‘Oh, where’s that?’ She said, ‘I have to drive for two hours.’ Because she couldn’t afford to live in this city that she’s working in. Yeah,” Mamdani said. “And, like, beyond what that does for her quality of life, beyond what that means about this city, but also in terms of safety. You have nurses pouring everything they have into their shift and then you want that person to get on the road for two hours at night? It’s unreal.”

    It was especially poignant because Von’s sister is a nurse, which allowed Mamdani to just meet him where he was at, with something he already understood to be a deeply fucked-up situation.

    […] Mamdani made a pretty damned good impression on the viewing audience, including a lot of people in the comments who said they didn’t agree with him on everything but appreciated that he was an actual public servant who actually wanted to improve people’s lives. Also many who noted that he wasn’t nearly as terrifying as the “news” had led them to believe.

    I know he has a lot of work to do as mayor, but I’m telling you, he is, without question, the person we want going out and doing these interviews and helping people understand why it’s not a bad and terrifying thing for the government to do things to improve people’s lives. It’s good that he’s going out there into these spaces filled with people we may find pretty objectionable in many ways, who disagree with him, or, in many cases, don’t realize that they actually do agree with him, and that he’s doing such a damned fine job in New York that people will see that and want some of it for themselves.

  182. says

    The article below points out why failing 19th Century crapitallist ideas don’t work any more. For years, I’ve been advocating local generation, storage and distribution of electricity using wind, photovoltaic and battery backup as the more reliable solution. Also, it is less subject to crapitallist abuse of the populace.

    America Is Hurtling Toward a Power Grid Crisis
    Electricity demand is skyrocketing, utility bills are spiking – but it could take years to build the new transmission lines that would address the problem.
    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/10/america-is-hurtling-toward-a-power-grid-crisis.html

    Wake up, sheople! Break the crapitallist plutocrats’ destructive stranglehold on your lives!

  183. says

    White House takes radical new steps to wrest the power of the purse from Congress

    As one observer put it, Team Trump’s efforts to control federal spending “subvert the basic structure of the American system.”

    Throughout American history, officials have recognized that Congress has what’s known as “the power of the purse.” In our constitutional system, it’s lawmakers who have the sole authority to dictate government spending. It’s designed this way for a reason: As the editorial board of The New York Times explained last fall, “Money is power, and the founders of this country feared that a president would turn into a monarch if he alone could dictate how the government uses the federal Treasury.”

    It’s a model that Donald Trump has never been altogether comfortable with. Indeed, Russell Vought, who leads the president’s White House budget office, made clear during his Senate confirmation hearings early last year that he believes in an executive branch that has vast powers when it comes to federal spending.

    He clearly meant what he said. Consider three examples that emerged over the course of a week.

    On Friday, Sept. 25, the White House decided unilaterally to cut nearly $1 billion in domestic spending appropriated by Congress, executing a tactic known as a “pocket rescission.” Days later, the Government Accountability Office reaffirmed its stance that this is illegal, and Team Trump said it didn’t care.

    On Wednesday, Sept. 30, the Trump administration redirected tens of millions of dollars in U.S. military assistance from European and Middle Eastern countries to reward conservative governments in Latin America.

    As The Washington Post reported, the State Department notified Congress of its intention to do so last month, at which point the top Democrats on the House and Senate foreign affairs committees placed a hold on the diversion of funds. Last week, the administration decided it would proceed with its plan anyway.

    In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday, the two Democratic lawmakers, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, describing the move as a violation of statutory requirements about where the money could go. Team Trump apparently didn’t care about this, either.

    On Friday, Oct. 2, the Times reported that the National Science Foundation, one of the biggest sources of federal research funding, withheld $1.4 billion that Congress had intended for research over the course of the past year as part of a brazen effort to circumvent Congress.

    Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the Science, Space and Technology Committee, said, “The money should be granted as Congress intended, and essentially, they’re ignoring what Congress did.”

    Or more to the point, they’re ignoring what Congress did again.

    Even the White House’s taxpayer-financed propagandistic campaign ads are an example of the broader phenomenon: Congress allocated this money specifically for the Department of Homeland Security, and Team Trump decided to spend the funds on a very different kind of priority.

    What we’re dealing with here is an obvious power-grab, with the White House repeatedly trying to wrest greater control over the nation’s purse strings from Capitol Hill.

    But it’s also emblematic of a broader authoritarian push that intends to concentrate a foundational governmental power in the hands of one individual.

    As the Times’ Jamelle Bouie summarized in a column last week, “It is difficult to overstate the way this subverts the basic structure of the American system. The power of the purse is paramount — it gives Congress ultimate authority over the entire operation of government. A president who wields this power is a president who can effectively cancel any law or nullify any agency he dislikes by refusing to spend the money appropriated for it.”

    To date, the president and his operation have faced some important pushback in the courts, but by and large, the Republican-led Congress has been content to sit on its hands. There have been some complaints from GOP partisans — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, is in a perpetual state of “concern” — but Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have done very little to reassert their institutional control over this basic governmental function.

    If congressional power were to shift, however, to the White House’s political opponents in next month’s midterm elections, it is likely Congress would be far less docile and obedient than it’s been over the last 22 months.

  184. says

    RFK Jr’s Relentless Anti-Vax Push Will Disproportionately Hurt Children on Medicaid

    […] HHS’s [Department of Health and Human Services] latest move signals a renewed attempt to decrease the number of vaccines recommended for children. [The latest move] will have a disparate impact on children from lower-income households, regardless of race.

    Physicians and public health experts told TPM the move will disproportionately impact around half of all children in the U.S. who are either uninsured or covered by Medicaid, which is typically reserved for low-income households and individuals with disabilities. That’s because government funded healthcare must follow different rules than private insurance for vaccine coverage.

    “It can’t be true that it can change the schedule and yet the vaccines will still be available to anybody who wants them,” Kelly Whitener, an associate professor of practice at the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families told TPM.

    RFK Jr. has said vaccines will still be available despite changes to federal recommendations. “But that’s not how it works,” Whitener said.

    […] RFK Jr. initially attempted to cut the number of federally recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11, but a federal judge in Boston blocked that attempt in March, saying the health secretary illegally fired and replaced the members of the policy-setting body the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP.

    U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy also ruled in March that the government attempted to override the established, scientific process for setting vaccine policy. In doing so, “the government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions,” he wrote. [!]

    In August, however, Trump signed an executive order which required HHS to revive a defunct childhood vaccine task force and to reevaluate long established childhood vaccine schedules. Following the order, HHS issued a request to hear from the public about whether existing types of federal vaccine recommendations should remain in place. The comment period for an HHS request for information concluded at the end of September, and raised flags for health care practitioners and advocates that the department was pursuing its anti-vaccine agenda under the guise of what, at least appeared to be, a more principled public review.

    “I think in having the executive order, and then following the executive order with [a request for information],” said Whitener, “they’re acknowledging that they’ve made some process fouls, but I think that overarching goal is still the same and it’s a desire to change the schedule.”

    Even before Murphy, the federal judge in Boston, issued his decision, private insurers pledged to continue covering all vaccines recommended by ACIP before the changes made by RFK Jr. in September 2025.

    The more than 35 million children enrolled in Medicaid generally or who have coverage through Children’s Health Insurance Programs, or CHIP, don’t have that luxury.

    The federal government through Medicaid and CHIP is required to cover vaccines that are recommended by ACIP and on the federal vaccine schedule. The schedule set by ACIP is linked then to the federal Vaccine for Children Program’s distribution system.

    “And a vaccine that hasn’t been distributed isn’t available to a family that wants it,” Whitener said.

    Children without healthcare coverage are also covered for vaccines under the VFC program. Overall, nearly half of all children in the U.S. are covered by the VFC program, said Whitener. Changes to the federal vaccine schedule removes guaranteed coverage for those children.[!]

    […] The Trump administration’s adversarial stance toward vaccines and traditional healthcare practitioners hurts everyone […]

    “It’s not only low-income, it’s not only minority,” said Takagishi. “It’s anybody who’s listening to this mis- and disinformation and are choosing not to vaccinate.”

    Jennifer Takagishi is the president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

  185. Reginald Selkirk says

    Twelve arrested for allegedly running cat trafficking ring in Vietnam

    Twelve men have been arrested in Vietnam after allegedly confessing to stealing and selling around 2,700 cats, Ho Chi Minh City police have said.

    Cat traps, fur removal machines and measuring scales were among the items seized during the investigation. The men are suspected of taking the pets to be slaughtered for food.

    Police allege the suspects roamed through residential areas in small groups on motorbikes at night to steal the cats.

    The men reportedly used pieces of fish as bait, placing traps outside houses where they knew cats were kept, state media reported. Thirteen of the rescued felines have since been returned to their owners…

  187. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump says ‘I feel badly’ for Cornell 7 accused in gang rape case

    President Donald Trump is voicing sympathy for seven men accused in a gang rape case at Cornell University.

    A woman identified as “Jane Doe” filed a civil lawsuit last month alleging she was given ketamine and gang raped at a Cornell frat house in Ithaca, N.Y., in 2024. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul named New York State Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor to oversee the investigation on Thursday.

    “Letitia James is a corrupt person,” Trump told media Friday. “She’s totally corrupt, and I can’t imagine it.” …

    I would think he had a pretty good feel for corruption by now.

  188. Reginald Selkirk says

    A gut punch in Ohio: Nearly 1,400 laid off at truck factory just days before Trump rally

    SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — Sipping tea from beer mugs with his co-workers, Kyle Bos listed the ways his life is changing.

    Bos has two daughters, with a third due in January. At the grocery store, five items cost as much as a full cart once did. And on Wednesday, Bos and nearly 1,400 other people were laid off from their jobs at what had been the Navistar truck factory in southwestern Ohio.

    The layoffs — occurring just three days before President Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday at a nearby high school — were large enough to basically erase an entire year of job growth in the greater Dayton, Ohio, area. And they are one reason why Bos, 30, plans to spend the final weeks before the November election canvassing votes for Democrats.

    Asked how many times he had voted for Trump, Bos held up three tattooed fingers. Voting records show he voted twice, though Bos insists he voted for Trump in 2024, 2020 and 2016…

  189. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Commentary for Reginald Selkirk @177.

    Kyiv Independent – Plague death triggers quarantine

    The Irkutsk plague scare is not the first time Russian officials have tried to suppress details about a potential health risk. In April, Russian authorities tried to downplay another outbreak—a cattle epidemic that had swept parts of Siberia since February, saying it was under control and caused by pasteurellosis, a relatively minor bacterial infection.

    Veterinarians and independent journalists questioned that account, pointing to mass slaughter, village lockdowns, and secrecy more typical of a foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak.

    Monica Green (Medieval medical historian):

    1) if this is plague (Yersinia pestis), there is nothing unusual about it (a) being in Russia or (b) being the subject of lab research. Plague is worldwide.

    [PNAS article]: Despite expending tremendous resources in its attempt to eradicate plague, the Soviet antiplague response gradually abandoned the goal of eradication in favor of plague control linked with developing basic knowledge of plague ecology. […] living with emergent and reemergent zoonotic diseases—switching to control—opens wider possibilities for interrupting spillover while preserving natural ecosystems

    2) If this is plague, then it’s important to point out that plague (unlike smallpox) was never eradicated. We still live w/ it in many natural environments (including in the U.S.), & that’s why we *want* on-going research. The circumstances of this Russian lab accident remain to be clarified.

    Rando 1: “It’s strange that a disease with a historical body count in 9 figures could still be around and yet inspire little or no fear. It’s almost as if Public Health actually works.”

    Dan Kaszeta: “Haffkine’s plague vaccines developed in the 1890s.”

    Katelyn Jetelina (Epidemiologist):

    What we know: Russian officials have confirmed that a scientist died of plague and that people who may have been exposed are being monitored. This was confirmed by the Moscow Times, an independent Russian news outlet. The scientist may have been infected while working with plague bacteria in a lab.

    Beyond that, the details get pretty fuzzy. It’s suspected that the scientist died from pneumonic plague, but that hasn’t been confirmed. Russia is now saying she died from pneumonia, which may be an attempt to tamp down the story. […] We still don’t know exactly how she was exposed, what protective equipment she was wearing
    […]
    Working with plague is not, by itself, cause for concern. That said, Russia has been known to genetically modify infectious diseases and engage in chemical weapon development. […] keep in mind that this isn’t a new disease. Bubonic plague, which is caused by the same bacterium as pneumonic plague, occurs naturally in parts of the United States, particularly in the Southwest. We have antibiotics that successfully stop plague in its tracks when it’s diagnosed and treated promptly. If this is confirmed to be pneumonic plague, while it can spread between people, it’s not highly contagious. On average, one to three people are infected per case and antibiotics still work. […] the odds of this turning into a pandemic are really, really low.

    Cheryl Rofer: “There are 1000 to 2000 cases a year across the world, maybe 10 in the US. The Russian authorities seem to be acting responsibly, isolating people who may have been exposed and notifying the rest of the world.”

    Rando 2: “This was my favorite recent US plague story. [ESPN – Colorado Rapids soccer match to go ahead despite plague in area (2019)]”

  191. JM says

    CNBC: Trump says MAGA Inc. PAC will pay for controversial TV ads that government funded

    President Donald Trump said he and his political action committee will pay for controversial television ads that praised him and had been funded by the U.S. government.
    The White House later clarified that the super PAC — MAGA Inc. — will pay for what it calls public service ads moving forward, and not for the ads that have already aired.
    Trump’s announcement came after continued backlash to the ads, which had run in the weeks leading up to November’s midterm elections.

    A little too much public and congressional backlash. I like how they word it in two steps so it sounds like Trump was paying back for the ads already run but really Trump is just promising that a super PAC will pay for any future ads.

  192. Militant Agnostic says

    Not be out-corrupted by their American pals, the leaders of the Alberta Separatist Movement thave stolen millions from First Nations trust accounts and from relatives with dementia.

    Jeffrey Rath paid himself 8 million $ in excess fees from the Tall Cree First Nation Trust Account and when he was ordered to pay it back, he stole that amount from the Sturgeon Lake Trust Fund. Alberta Prosperity Project co-founder Dennis Modry has been ordered by the courts to repay 1.2 million $ that he stole from an his Aunt and Uncle who had dementia.

  193. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Aaron Rupar:

    Trump: “With the war, it’s just artificial. It’s a little bit high. It’s a small price to pay … let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay.” [Video clip]

    Bayliss Wagner (NYT):

    In Nebraska rally, Trump just suggested he would be unbothered to see Iran “take out” LA or San Diego […]
    he may […] be saying that Iran would nuke CA without his war

    And again, remember, with the war, it’s just artificial. It’s a little bit high. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They could take out a city. Let them take, let it, let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That’s. This is a very small price to pay and it’s going to be over [with very soon]. So it’s essentially almost over with. And they might keep going a little long. You know, they always say they have a big threshold for pain. They need it. Let me tell you they need it. But it’s going to end very soon. And it’ll end one way or the other. And your gas and your gasoline and all of the things.”

    Commentary

    The fact that Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons also prevents them from nuking cities. North Korea on the hand…

    Everything he says has to be sanewashed.

    I have to be very circumspect with my words all the time and the president can openly suggest annihilating specific cities in my state.

    Eh. I think the dummy is saying that if he didn’t attack Iran, they’d nuke our cities, so paying more for gas is a small price to pay.

    San Diego’s vaporization would eliminate ~ half the SEALs, 70-ish Naval ships including 3 carriers, nearly half the Marine Corps, and the largest Coast Guard installation in the world. You know, in addition to SD being the nation’s 5th largest city.

    After 11 months at sea, as it heads home (finally), the USS Abraham Lincoln’s home port (San Diego) is offered up for destruction by Iran.

    Between this, his new term of “artificial news” and changing AI to SI, you can tell that Trump just recently learned the definition of “artificial.”

    He *has* been saying lately that folks shouldn’t complain about gas prices cuz the war’s preventing nukes.

  195. StevoR says

    Ugly anti-immigration rhetoric leads to ugly anti-immigration policies again this time in Oz by our sad excuse for an opposition party :

    The Coalition would slash Australia’s temporary migration intake by about 650,000 over four years through deep cuts to graduate, refugee and bridging visas that go further than Labor’s plan.

    Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has unveiled what he described as the “biggest cut to immigration in this country’s history”, declaring he was “confident” the changes would be budget “neutral” but without offering modelling on the broader economic impact of the policy.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-06/federal-politics-coalition-migration-policy/107232776

    Humanitarian intake cut by half.

  197. StevoR says

    Gum trees are synonymous with Australia, but only a handful of people have ever seen the Eucalyptus recurva.

    Known as the Mongarlowe mallee or ice age gum, only six plants have been discovered in the wild, just south of Canberra.

    “When it was first found, it was a real botanical curiosity,” said Genevieve Wright, a senior threatened species officer with the NSW Saving Our Species program.

    Their age, based on the growth of the woody lignotuber of the largest specimen, is estimated to be between 3,000 and 6,000 years old.

    ..(snip)..

    ..”The remaining six plants are too far apart to naturally reproduce in the wild, so it really has no future and is facing extinction without intervention.”
    Over decades, the teams have worked together and have successfully cloned the trees by grafting wild cuttings onto hybrid Eucalyptus recurva rootstock in the nursery at the ANBG.

    “The result is that we now have multiple copies of four of the six wild plants safely here as an insurance population,” Mr Bredell said.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-05/canberra-conservationists-cloning-rare-gum-trees/107217244

  200. beholder says

    Bakker buckets is dead?!? I’ll eat a bowl of radioactive orange macaroni and cheese in his honor.

    Another preacher convinced he was living in the end times who died before the end times!

  201. birgerjohansson says

    NB
    More good news.
    .
    Sexual predator and former Republican speaker of the House Dennis Hastert died this Saturday at 84. He never served time for SA but was imprisoned for economic crimes.

    Dennis Hastert – Wikipedia .https://share.google/pyWN9Tqe19fVVRRXD

    “Scum floats to the top”
    Samuel Vimes, commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch

  203. birgerjohansson says

    More people with a questionable past die.
    .
    Jeffrey Archer, former Conservative politician and novelist, dies aged 86 |

    He went to prison for perjury (no, really?, Sarcasm) and went back to the House of Lords after release.
    His most famous novel may have been ‘Kane And Abel’ (I recall the TV series) .https://share.google/YCbVaSI7saoEp5bb5

  205. StevoR says

    A Tasmanian cafe owner and Pauline Hanson’s daughter have become embroiled in a row over an AI-generated video depicting people ditching their social and political allegiances and revealing themselves as One Nation supporters.

    Richmond Reading Room, a cafe business north of Hobart, posted to its social media pages expressing offence at the video, and making an unnamed reference to regular cafe-goer, One Nation candidate and Pauline Hanson’s daughter, Lee Hanson.

    “Seen the latest One Nation ad and felt absolutely disgusted like I do? Then you’ll likely feel the same way when you see the orange ute outside our coffee shop,” the post said.

    “Unfortunately, our coffee is so good that even One Nation members spend their money here — owned and run by a gay, indigenous-descended, trans-inclusive, pro-multicultural, anti-flag, pro-choice, anti-generative AI, Greens voter.

    “Any money spent by a member of one nation will be donated directly to Tasmanian Greens.”

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-06/one-nation-ai-generated-video-sparks-hanson-row/107236300

  206. Reginald Selkirk says

    @193

    let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego. …

    If Iran were to ‘take out’ an American city, I doubt that they would choose Los Angeles. LA has a large, energetic community of Iranians/Persians, see Tehrangeles.

  207. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘Ghost particles’ from space telescope wins physics Nobel

    Belgian physicist Prof Francis Halzen has won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering work on an observatory that detects particles from space, shedding light on the distant universe.

    Halzen led the development of IceCube at the South Pole, which uses a cubic kilometre of Antarctic ice fitted with light sensors to detect particles called neutrinos. These carry information about violent, high-energy processes in the cosmos.
    ….

  208. Reginald Selkirk says

    Latter-day Saints women turn away from scandal-plagued Republican candidate in Arizona

    Kimberly Tait had been a registered Republican all her life, until she switched her affiliation to independent in 2016.

    The Gilbert, Ariz., resident always considered herself to be conservative but experienced a political identity crisis because she couldn’t bring herself to align with the Republican Party under President Trump.

    “I’m not super progressive politically and I’m really pretty moderate.” Tait said. “But the MAGA movement in and of itself is — it’s just really gross to me.”

    Now Tait — also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — has another politician on her ballot that turns her off: Mark Lamb, the former Pinal County sheriff and Republican nominee for Arizona’s 5th Congressional District, a conservative stronghold.

    Lamb is favored to win the general election, but a lack of appeal to Mormon voters could make it a closer-than-expected race.

    While Lamb says he is a member of the LDS church, Tait is one of the Mormons in the district that question Lamb’s adherence to the faith as well as his political motivations. Lamb’s campaign slogan is “God, Family, Freedom,” and, to her, the sentiment rings hollow because “the candidate and all that they represent is the antithesis of that.”
    …
    With Rep. Andy Biggs not seeking reelection to run for Arizona governor, voters in the district will decide between Democrat Elizabeth Lee, a nurse and political newcomer, or Lamb, who is endorsed by Trump and has a scandal-plagued past.

    Lamb has been accused of racist remarks and sexual misconduct while he was Pinal County sheriff. The Arizona Republic released a multipart investigation into Mark Lamb where it alleges he had multiple affairs and sent sexually explicit messages to a woman outside his marriage then threatened to send law enforcement after her if she spoke publicly about it…

  209. Reginald Selkirk says

    Former German spy chief arrested for espionage and treason

    Former German spy chief August Hanning has been arrested on suspicion of espionage, treason and obtaining classified information for a foreign power, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office says.

    Hanning headed the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) from 1998 to 2005 and has since been working as a private consultant.

    Prosecutors allege that he used classified intelligence to “draft an analysis” for one foreign intelligence service and maintained contact with another foreign spying service. Investigators have not disclosed which foreign powers were involved.

    Police also arrested former BND employee Mandred D, accusing him of passing Hanning about 2,000 classified documents for money…

  210. Reginald Selkirk says

    Hurricane Nolo crosses International Date Line, becomes Typhoon Nolo

    A hurricane that tracked close to Hawaii in September has just turned into a typhoon.

    Hurricane Nolo crossed the International Date Line on Sunday, at which point it was renamed Typhoon Nolo. This is not unusual, and the change is only in name, indicating that the storm is now in the western Pacific basin.

    The classification of storms is determined by geography. Storms swirling in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean are called hurricanes, while those in the western Pacific Ocean are named typhoons…

  211. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Monday that she was joining Fox News Channel as a stepping-stone to becoming Secretary of Defense. [The first part of that sentence is true. :-) ]

    Leavitt said that only by becoming an on-air personality at Fox could she acquire the “warrior ethos” necessary to lead the world’s largest military.

    “I’ve watched YouTube mascara tutorials and spent hours sampling blush at Sephora,” she said. “But if I’m going to launch unprovoked attacks on other countries, I need to put in the hard yards of getting my hair and makeup done at Fox.”

    As for her stated reason for leaving the White House—a desire to be with her newborn—Leavitt said, “I spent enough time with my baby. Quite frankly, I’d had my fill of that working for President Trump.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/leavitt-joins-fox-in-hopes-of-becoming

  212. says

    https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/full-episode/rachel-maddow-10-5-26

    Maddow plugs her new book: “Department of Fate” —The promise, the power and the collapse of America’s most consequential institution.

    Maddow covers a lot of other issues during the October 5th episode.

    Mary Manning’s story from 1984. Citrus exported from apartheid South Africa … Dublin protests, etc.

    […] In the early days of their strike, Sejake, an elderly exiled anti-apartheid activist who had spent time in jail with Mandela, was their comrade-in-arms on the picket lines outside Dunnes Stores’ Henry Street branch in Dublin.

    Priests in the Catholic Church encouraged everyone to cross the picket lines. But then … Desmond Tutu stopped by (on his way to pick up the Nobel Peace Prize) to support the young Dublin women … a young Bono stopped by … Edward Kennedy stopped by … working class people in Dublin pubs paid the protester’s way to South Africa (Tutu had invited them) … They were not allowed out of the airport. South Africa’s government treated the Dublin workers very badly. Ireland became the first western country to ban the import of goods from South Africa. “Does protest matter?”

    See also https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w3ct5ypm
    “At the time the 11 strikers knew little about apartheid – South Africa’s system of racial segregation – but they soon learnt. Their protest would lead to them addressing the United Nations, winning praise from Bishop Desmond Tutu, and meeting with Nelson Mandela.”

    Maddow goes on to describe protests against the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants, protests against Trump’s attempts to curtail voting rights, etc.

  213. beholder says

    @202 birger

    It whitewashes her role a lot.

    Thankfully Noah is there to get several well-deserved roasts in at her expense.

  214. says

    Republicans invest in South Carolina race as the definition of ‘longshot’ quickly changes

    “It’s reached the point at which Donald Trump sees Dr. Annie Andrews as worth attacking, which speaks volumes […]”

    Ahead of a Monday night campaign rally, Donald Trump published an ugly missive to his social media platform, using an anti-transgender slur to go after Dr. Annie Andrews, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in South Carolina.

    In his online item, the president repeatedly referred to the pediatrician as “trannie” for reasons he did not explain. (It would appear Trump concluded that the rhyme with Andrews’ first name was sufficient justification for him to run with the slur.)

    And while that was offensive and ridiculous, there is a silver lining for Andrews and her campaign: With a month to go before Election Day, her candidacy has reached the point at which she’s worth attacking. In fact, as of the latest round of campaign filings, Andrews has actually raised more campaign funds than Sen. Darline Graham, the appointed Republican incumbent.

    The morning after the president’s obnoxious statement, Axios reported:

    The main super PAC supporting Republican Senate candidates plans to inject $5 million into the South Carolina campaign as an “insurance policy” to help GOP nominee Darline Graham, a source familiar with the move tells Axios.

    The GOP’s concern that a Senate seat in blood-red South Carolina could be in play shows just how bad the political environment is for Republicans, who face a rash of troubles in states long considered conservative strongholds.

    In early April, the Senate Leadership Fund announced that it would spend nearly $350 million in what it considered the most competitive Senate races. The list featured seven predictable contests: Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, Maine, Iowa, New Hampshire and Alaska.

    Six months later, the same Republican super PAC is starting to give up on North Carolina, deeming it a lost cause; investing in Texas, fearing a possible defeat; and starting to invest millions of dollars in South Carolina — a state Trump won by 18 points two years ago and which hasn’t had a competitive Senate general election in the 21st century.

    This is remarkable in its own right, but it’s also emblematic of a larger trend: With four weeks remaining in the midterm cycle and the wind apparently at Democrats’ backs, the definition of the word “longshot” is changing rather quickly.

    In Kansas, not only is there recent polling that shows Republican Sen. Roger Marshall trailing his Democratic rival, the Rev. Adam Hamilton, but Republican entities are starting to invest heavily in support of the struggling incumbent.

    In Nebraska, Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts is facing a challenge from independent Dan Osborn, and the race was deemed competitive enough to warrant a presidential rally. What’s more, the Senate Leadership Fund has also found it necessary to start investing in the contest.

    [I snipped more examples.]

    My point is not that Democrats are likely to win all of these races. Rather, what matters is that these races are even a subject of conversation, which necessarily reflects just how challenging the electoral landscape has become for the GOP.

    A few weeks ago, Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana told reporters he’d scheduled trips to Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa to support his party’s Senate candidates.

    “If you told me six months ago I was going to be having to spend my time in those three states, I wouldn’t have believed you,” he said. “Those oughta be fat guy layups for us.”

    That they’re not speaks volumes

  215. JM says

    The Independent: Black Sea drone attack that sunk ship off Bulgaria condemned as crew still missing

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that attacks on civilian shipping are unacceptable, after vessels were targeted in Bulgaria’s economic zone in the Black Sea.
    The crew of a merchant ship was reported missing after their vessel sank near Nato member Bulgaria following a drone strike.
    It remains unclear who launched the air and sea drones 70 miles off Byala, though concerns are growing over Russian hybrid attacks as it wages war in Ukraine.

    Second ship in two days to get hit. There have been other drone fly overs and various sabotoge in various places also. Russia seems to be testing to see just how much they can get away with. The bit about it being unclear who launched the attack is probably a lie, the EU isn’t willing yet to invoke NATO protection over single drone strikes of unimportant targets.
    There are two obvious big fears. First is that invoking NATO is largely a one way street, a multinational declaration of war on Russia. The second is that the US under Trump may back out. On the plus side here, NATO may be able to convince Trump that since Iran and Russia are close allies that backing out of conflict with one is stupid.
    The NATO countries will just threaten Russia and impose sanctions until they really feel they have no choice because of this.

  216. JM says

    Newsweek: Every Active Federal Judge in Nashville Recuses From Jack Smith Case

    All four active U.S. district judges in Middle Tennessee have recused themselves from a lawsuit brought by Republican Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn against former special counsel Jack Smith over the collection of her phone records.

    The order, signed by Chief U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell Jr., said a judge from outside the district will now be designated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the case will then be reassigned.
    The October 5 order does not give a reason for the recusals, and it does not say that any judge has a specific conflict of interest or bias in connection with the litigation. Two of the judges were appointed by President Donald Trump, while one was appointed by Bill Clinton and another by Barack Obama.

    This is a bit of a problem for the case and will take some time to resolve. It’s an absurd case to begin with, essentially charging Smith with doing his job.

  217. Reginald Selkirk says

    The double-down:

    White House defends Trump comment to let Iran ‘take out’ LA and San Diego

    Donald Trump’s remark that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego has sparked fierce backlash from California politicians – and a strongly worded rebuttal from the White House.

    California Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the comment – made by Trump at a campaign rally in Nebraska – as “deranged and dangerous,” while LA Mayor Karen Bass described them as threats and an attempt to “encourage attacks on American lives”.

    According to the White House, however, Trump was saying that American cities would have been threatened by Iran had he not launched a war there earlier this year…

    Don’t waste too much time trying to make sense of it. I hope he can keep up the insanity level for another 4 weeks for maximal electoral impact.

  218. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    JM @215:

    NATO may be able to convince Trump that since Iran and Russia are close allies that backing out of conflict with one is stupid.

    NYT – U.S.-Russia talks on Ukraine now involve an oil deal tied to Trump allies

    The deal, which is contingent on approval from the U.S. government and the Kremlin, is for a sprawling set of oil fields, refineries and gas stations around the world owned by Lukoil, one of Russia’s biggest energy companies.

    The leading group seeking the deal includes an American investor, Todd Boehly, who has donated $2 million to President Trump’s political causes; two Middle Eastern groups that have done business with Mr. Kushner or Mr. Witkoff’s family; and an arm of the U.S. government itself. […] U.S. approval for the sale would release the assets from American sanctions, instantly increasing their value. […] The deal again brings Mr. Trump’s World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency company—co-founded by Mr. Witkoff—into focus. One of the investors in the Lukoil deal is a part owner of World Liberty.
    […]
    A major equity holder would be the Qatar-based conglomerate controlled by Moutaz Al-Khayyat and his brother Ramez Al-Khayyat, both of whom […] formed a partnership with Mr. Kushner […] to help finance a multibillion-dollar luxury hotel resort project in southern Albania.
    […]
    The deal is not yet final, and would need to be approved by the Treasury Department, which oversees sanctions enforcement.

    CNN – How Jared Kushner’s firm’s investment in an Israeli company could be a major conflict of interest

    At the same time Jared Kushner has acted as a key negotiator in the war in Gaza, his private equity company, Affinity Partners, has held the largest stake in an Israeli firm backing businesses involved in Israel’s military campaigns […] Kushner has skirted deeper scrutiny of this potential conflict of interest by acting as a volunteer envoy, rather than accepting a government job that would require him to disclose his finances.

  219. Reginald Selkirk says

    Fitness influencer apologizes after hitching a bike ride in the Berlin Marathon

    … In that vein, a Chinese fitness influencer has apologized and been dropped by her sponsor after being photographed hitching a ride on a bike during the 42.2-kilometre Berlin Marathon last week.

    Images of the influencer from the Sept. 27 race were first posted by the Official Marathon Time Integrity Unit (OMTIU) Instagram account, which calls out questionable race performances. In posts from Oct. 1, the account noted that her fastest time was recorded between the 35- and 40-kilometre marks, around the time “she was spotted on the back of a bike.”
    …
    The influencer, who goes by Abeeeer on the popular Chinese social media platform Rednote, or Xiaohongshu, posted a “sincere apology” to her 520,000 followers Saturday for violating the rules. She explained that she had been feeling physically unwell during the race but acknowledged that was not an excuse…

  221. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump sows doubt about mail-in voting while encouraging it, as midterms approach

    President Donald Trump continued on Monday to sow unfounded doubt about mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections, despite encouraging Republicans to vote any way they can.

    Trump’s remarks came amid a meeting at the White House with the 2020 election denier Tina Peters on Monday, sources confirmed to ABC News. Peters, the former county clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, was convicted on state charges in a scheme to breach the state’s voting systems as she hunted for evidence of election fraud in 2020.

    The state’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, earlier this year granted Peters clemency following repeated calls from the president urging the state to let her go. Peters was released from prison in June.

    During a gaggle on the White House South Lawn en route to Nebraska on Monday, where he attended a political rally, Trump pushed back when asked why he was telling Republicans to vote by mail despite his repeated assertions that it is fraudulent.

    “No, vote by mail or vote in person. I’d rather have a vote in person. But they can vote by mail if they want, because we seem to have no choice,” Trump said, going on to claim, without providing evidence, that mail-in voting is rife with cheating…

  222. Reginald Selkirk says

    Alito calls same-sex marriage a ‘decisive’ turn ‘against religious liberty’ in new book

    Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the devout Catholic conservative who has long warned of animus against religion in America, says in a new book that he believes the court’s landmark decision extending marriage rights to same-sex couples was “perhaps the decisive point in our nation’s turn against religious liberty.”

    Alito, who dissented sharply in the 2015 case, made the claim at Catholic University of America three years after Obergefell v Hodges in a speech that was not open to the public or widely covered at the time. The remarks were published this month in “So Ordered,” a collection of Alito speeches that he says reflect his judicial philosophy and outlook on the country.
    …
    “In dissent from that ruling,” he said in the 2018 address, “I expressed my worry that equating the expression of certain views with bigotry — or, if you like, with dignitary harm — would drive believers out of public life.”
    …
    Throughout the book, the justice cites a string of lawsuits to reach the Supreme Court in recent years as evidence that, in his opinion, “support for religious liberty has cratered.” …

  225. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Trump Mobile’s latest problem: Hackers just released customer information

    A newly established ransomware gang appears to have hacked Trump Mobile, the cell phone company […] resulting in the exposure of personal data for 3,615 customers. […] No member of the Trump family was among the customers whose data was breached […] However, the leak includes personal details about Eric Brunnett, vice president and chief information officer for the Trump Organization.
    […]
    “Trump mobile was informed they had been breached, they then replied with ‘We have no team to handle this’ and that anyone who hacks them are a terrorist,” the group wrote. “Well unfortunately for them, all 3615 customers and their PII, alongside telecom details are now up for grabs. Feel free to take a gander at it yourself, don’t be shy, we (and them) certainly aren’t stopping you.” […] information such as first and last names, email addresses, telephone numbers, home addresses and details on orders

  226. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Big Balls now exposed to serious criminal charges in at least six states

    On Monday, September 14, […] the head of federal hiring named, as his model employee, a 20 year old who was fired from his only real job at 17 for leaking company secrets, ran a web service for a cybercrime group, and is named in a whistleblower disclosure over a live copy of every Social Security record in the country.
    […]
    As of this month, Coristine works for an administration initiative to improve the functionality of agency websites, through the White House National Design Studio
    […]
    Five crimes fit the facts […] Six states allow citizens to petition a district court directly for a criminal grand jury: Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Oklahoma. The petition goes to the district court. The judge’s only two questions are whether there are enough valid signatures and whether the conduct, if true, is a crime under state law. No district attorney or attorney general has any part in it.

    Petitioners in [counties in Oklahoma, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas], are now set up with template petitioner kits made by The Existentialist Republic […] The templates, signature sheets, and reference files for each county are free to download here, and anyone in the six states who wants to petition in their own county can sign up for a chat with our petition campaign experts

  227. StevoR says

    Death row inmate Christa Pike has woken up and is speaking almost a week after a botched execution attempt at a US prison. “Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking and continues to receive critical medical care,” her attorney said. “Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed.”

    Pike, 50, was rushed to hospital following two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital, inside the death chamber at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee.

    … (Snip).. Joel Zivot, a professor of anaesthesiology and surgery in Atlanta who consulted as an expert for Pike’s legal team, said the development “bodes well for a good recovery”.

    But, he added, it could be weeks or months before anyone knew exactly what her recovery might look like, and whether her competency could be restored to a level that might enable the state to try again to execute her.

    “She’s still in the ICU,” he said.

    “She has recovered to a certain degree that she’s able to be off a ventilator and able to speak, but in no way would I announce her free of further serious risk.”

    Pike’s attorney added that her recovery was medically unprecedented.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-07/christa-pike-wakes-after-botched-execution/107229618

  230. birgerjohansson says

    Reginald Selkirk @ 223

    Thr Swedish king Oscar II was interested in this subject, but the mathematical tools available ca. 1900 (pen and paper) were not up to the job.

    On the other hand, Svante Arrhenius predicted CO2-induced climate change 1898, so the victorian-era boffins were not completely without math resources.

  231. Reginald Selkirk says

    Canadian Analysis: Permanent Daylight Saving Harms Sleep and Mental Health

    “With the push to eliminate the twice yearly clock change, Permanent Daylight Savings Time has emerged as the favorite for most states and provinces,” writes longtime Slashdot reader kbahey, sharing the findings from a recent analysis published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Sci.News reports:

    “Ending the clock change solves one problem, but it creates another decision: which time should we live on year-round?” said University of British Columbia’s Professor Raymond Lam, lead author of the study. “The health evidence points to standard time, largely because morning light matters for our body clocks, sleep, and mood.” Professor Lam and colleagues examined the health consequences of the two possible permanent systems rather than the broader question of whether seasonal clock changes should be abolished. They concluded that the accumulated evidence favors permanent standard time, which keeps the clock more closely aligned with human circadian biology.
    …

  232. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tropical Storm Isaias expected to rapidly become significant Gulf hurricane

    Tropical Storm Isaias has formed in the Gulf and is expected to rapidly intensify during the next few days, becoming a significant hurricane before making landfall along the northern Gulf Coast. Storm surge, heavy rain and damaging winds threaten the Gulf Coast states from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.

    Isaias is expected to become the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season…

  233. Reginald Selkirk says

    Dow falls 300 points as 10-year yield rises to highest level in 24 years: Live updates

    U.S. equities fell on Wednesday, a day after the S&P 500 reached a fresh all-time high, as oil prices moved higher alongside Treasury yields.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 340 points, or 0.7%, while the S&P 500 shed 0.4%. The Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.5%.

    U.S. crude prices moved back above $90 per barrel after rising 1%. International Brent crude futures
    , meanwhile, traded nearly 1% higher at around $102 per barrel. Those moves led yields, which took a breather in the previous session, to resume the recent surge that drove them to multiyear highs…

    Market instabilities, with an election less than a month away!

  234. StevoR says

    Superb dawn photo by Curiosity the rover :

    NASA has released a striking image of dawn on the Martian surface taken by its Curiosity rover, showing sunlight bathing jagged crags formed billions of years ago.

    Curiosity, which is about the size of a Mini Cooper, landed in 2012 in Gale Crater near the Martian equator, and since 2014 has been climbing Mount Sharp, a 5 kilometre-tall mountain rising from the crater floor.

    The image was taken by the six-wheeled rover’s Mastcam camera about an hour after the sun rose above a landscape featuring wind-carved cliffs in the distance, in August.

    “The bright craggy peaks in the distance are a rock layer that is quite different in appearance from all the layers the rover has driven through so far,” said planetary scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

    “We think it once was wind-blown sediment, maybe sand or maybe even ash that blew into the crater from nearby volcanic activity. After the sediment hardened into rock, eons of wind carved up the rock layer into ridges called yardangs,” the Curiosity project scientist said.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-07/nasa-rover-takes-striking-image-of-dawn-s-early-light-on-mars/107240852

  235. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nobel chemistry prize goes to pair who solved mystery of ‘mirror image’ molecules

    Scientists Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for solving a ​long-standing riddle of asymmetric “mirror image” molecules, a discovery hugely important for pharmaceutical manufacturing, the award-giving body said on Wednesday.
    Soai, 76, is Japanese, and Kagan, 95, is French, and ‌their work built on a discovery by the 19th-century French chemist Louis Pasteur.
    …
    Many ​of the molecules essential to life exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other, like left and right hands. Yet living organisms almost exclusively use only one version, a phenomenon known as “homochirality” – ​from the Greek word for hand – that has puzzled chemists for more than a century.
    This year’s prize was awarded for discoveries that showed how chemical reactions can be driven to favour a single molecular mirror image, work that has been key for chemists who design reactions for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.
    “The left-handed version of the drug can have one effect, and the right-handed version can have another effect, and then we need methods for selectively preparing them,” Peter ​Somfai, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said.
    “In developing such methods the findings of this year’s laureates are important. They provided powerful tools for that,” he said…

  240. lotharloo says

    OpenAI released a giant list of math/theoretical computer science problems that they have solved. The moon in our department is of desperation tbh. Some of the results are insane. Supposedly, there is lean verification of them so likely they are correct but a lot of them could easily get the best paper award in our top conference and/or be considered the best result of the decade.

    I actually worked on one conjecture seriously that seems to be refuted as a corollary of these results. The writing is very AI slop, hard to understand and very unintuitive. But if the approach is correct, honestly, it’s beyond anything any human could have obtained. https://github.com/openai/math/tree/main/preprints

  244. says

    Election Ratfuckery Alert

    The Trump administration continues to pull levers and push buttons to try to abuse the power of the federal government to swing the election its way:

    – The Department of Homeland Security has investigated more than 150 voter registration groups in search of evidence that they’re helping noncitizens illegally register to vote, according to internal documents obtained via FOIA and provided to the New York Times. The DHS effort has been most heavily focused on groups in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. DHS has considered using undercover agents in its investigations, the documents reveal. Also of note:

    The documents also reveal that Heather Honey, a prominent 2020 election denier who now serves as the department’s point person on “election integrity,” provided 48.4 million records of unknown provenance to federal investigators who are trying to find noncitizens on the voter rolls.

    – The Trump DOJ dispatched federal prosecutors and an FBI agent to monitor polls in Maricopa and Pima counties in Arizona during its July primary election — a dramatic departure from past DOJ practice of using Civil Rights Division personnel as poll monitors to avoid intimidating voters and local election officials, Democracy Docket reports. The Trump DOJ is apparently planning to continue using prosecutors as poll monitors in the general election, telling Democracy Docket that “department attorneys, including prosecutors, will serve as election monitors.”

    – In the run-up to election, ICE has begun asking detainees if they have ever voted illegally and, if so, whether in person or by mail, the WaPo reports. “ICE reviews credible allegations of potential criminal activity within its jurisdiction, including allegations related to election integrity,” an ICE spokesperson told the newspaper.

    The Big Lie Crazies Still Big Lie-ing

    Big Lie purveyor Tina Peters met with President Trump in the Oval Office this week to discuss “election integrity.” Meanwhile, election denier Cleta Mitchell is “pushing a scheme to have Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick seize voting machines,” Democracy Docket reports. Former Trump DOJ official Ed Martin helpfully ties all of this together: [social media post, with video: “Ed Martin says that Tina Peters met with Trump in the Oval Office today to discuss election integrity and “the plans” for the upcoming midterms elections.”]

    All of this comes as the Trump DOJ continues to fight to enforce a grand jury subpoena of Fulton County, Georgia, for the names and personal information of the hundreds of staffers, contractors, and volunteers who worked on the 2020 election. Jan. 6 never ends.

    Comment from a reader:

    [Trump] Actually, commuted her [Tina Peter’s] sentence. She’s on parole but the parole terms are limited, like no drugs or weapon possession. So she’s right back to making fraudulent claims about elections and scheming to steal them.

  245. says

    Quote of the Day

    “[W]hen a majority of the justices on our highest court show themselves to be consistently indifferent to the growing chasm between law and justice, it is not ‘public rhetoric’ that causes Americans to distrust the Court. It is the Court that surrenders its own legitimacy in the eyes of the public.”—civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill

  246. beholder says

    I voted early. Look up your state’s election page, you may be able to also!

    Oh, wait, StevoR has it on good authority that an election isn’t really going on right now. I must have hallucinated that entire experience. I really need to stop doing drugs and then wandering into the nearest elementary school.

  248. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-wants-new-camp-david-in-west

    At Zeteo this week, Asawin Suebsaeng and Andrew Perez reported that Donald Trump is “consumed” by fears that after he is gone, Democrats will tear down all the monuments he is building in his own honor, and he’s flailing around trying to make sure they can’t. They have five sources on this, all people either in the Trump administration or advisers.

    Some […] Trump officials, two of the sources tell Zeteo, have studied examples of efforts to purge specific autocratic political cultures in other countries – such as “de-Ba’athification” in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and the “de-Orbánising” taking place in Hungary following the electoral defeat of Trump’s political ally Viktor Orbán. […]

    “He has told me and others, more than a few times, that the reversal of this work cannot happen,” [says one adviser]. “The president wants all of it to be there forever. We’re talking about the Kennedy Center, the ballroom, all of it and more. President Trump is looking at his legacy in centuries and this is a huge part.”

    It’s funny that they’re studying the fall of other petty tyrants and losers. At least they understand who Trump is, and what kind of disgraced trash he deserves to be remembered as.

    He’s reportedly demanding people come up with all kinds of jackass ways to preserve all this ugly stuff, to make it physically difficult to get his name off the Kennedy Center, for example. He wants Congress to pass a law to make his ballroom “permanent.” He wants it to be “illegal” to get rid of money that has his face on it. [!]

    […] the Washington Post has some new evidence for the “He’s Not Planning On Leaving Anyway” file, and it is that he wants to turn one of his tacky golf clubs into the new Camp David.

    Is there something wrong with the current Camp David? Well, no, except for the fact that Dear Leader hates it and always has.

    He thinks Camp David is booooooring. So he wants a new one, one that’s architecturally hideous like everything else he does […]

    The Post reports that Trump wants to take his West Palm Beach club and “give” part of it to the government, to turn it into an “official sanctuary for foreign leaders and future US presidents, designed to host international summits and house presidents when they take vacations in Florida.” Additionally, “Future presidents would also be offered comped memberships to the Trump club.”

    […] Or maybe he’ll just be president-for-life, like the world leaders he actually admires.

    In this future it will of course be illegal for a Democrat to become president.

    “Just as Camp David, Windsor Castle, or the Elysee Palace are known worldwide, so too will the Presidential Golf Course in Palm Beach County,” Harvey Oyer, a lawyer representing the Trump course, wrote to the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners in a letter last month. Oyer asked the county, which owns the property the course is on, to provide a piece of the land to the federal government, and he promised Trump would pay for the construction of a presidential residence and facilities on that land.

    […] Anyway, [Trump’s fantasy is based on] — something Natalie printed out for him as a literal AI fantasy, maybe? — where anybody the King grants the right to act as president, they will still have to come kiss his ring. And of course, because he thinks he is a real builder, a real architect, and that people with taste admire him, he fantasizes about them coming to his luxurious palace and ooh-ing and aah-ing.

    “The property is minutes away from the Donald J. Trump International Airport, does not have buildings looming, does not have houses along the course, has great security features, is close to law enforcement, and happens to be a highly rated golf course. These are features that are necessary for any presidential retreat,” said the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview plans.

    Yeah, sure, a presidential retreat tailored to the tastes of one specific tyrant. […] The Post explains that the letter from Oyer acknowledges that construction of this wouldn’t be finished before Trump leaves office (“leaves”) and that it would be a “gift” to future presidents. See what we said above about future presidents being mere figureheads who still want to come and kiss Dear Leader’s ring, because of how they are all Republicans.

    “My understanding is that President Trump views this as a lasting contribution to the presidency and to those who will hold the office after him,” [Palm Beach County Administrator] Abruzzo said.

    Uh huh.

    Different suggestion: If Trump “gives” a piece of his West Palm Beach club to the government, the next president should bulldoze that motherfucker too or turn it into a gay club/abortion clinic/windmill shark sanctuary.

    It’ll be fun, and full of sharks and windmills, and also stairs!

    Trump loves sharks and windmills and stairs.

  249. says

    @240 lotharloo commented: OpenAI released a giant list of math/theoretical computer science problems that they have solved
    I reply: I am confident that in Every Case Stupor Intelligence sucked up all the massive work of humans and just came up with solutions.

  250. beholder says

    I am confident that in Every Case Stupor Intelligence sucked up all the massive work of humans — @249 shermanj

    Apparently not.

    The writing is very AI slop, hard to understand and very unintuitive. But if the approach is correct, honestly, it’s beyond anything any human could have obtained. — @240 lothlaroo

    I’m inclined to believe the educated guess in this case.

  251. lotharloo says

    @249:

    There was also another article posted by two researchers about a solution that they got from Claude. Claude refuted a series of major conjectures that every human believed in them: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.06783

    These were the all pair shortest path and 3SUM conjectures as well as a few others. An entire field was built upon those conjectures, including in top venues in theoretical computer science. A general result would be that “if problem X can be solved efficiently, then 3SUM conjecture is refuted” and people often used to take this as an implication that problem X cannot be solved efficiently. Now that these conjectures have been refuted, that area is down the drain as well.

    So I don’t think they sucked up any work by any human.

    Browsing the solutions offered by the AI is also a very interesting experience. I have yet to understand the big results but one can see a whole spectrum of approaches. There are AI solutions that look very obtainable by humans, at least after some hard work. But there are also solutions that seem to take an entire tour through out mathematics, use theorems and lemmas from remote and not obviously connected fields. It is likely that a lot of those steps are extra and unnecessary but still it is an interesting experience to see.

  252. Rob Grigjanis says

    beholder @250: “sucked up all the massive work of humans” and “beyond anything any human could have obtained” are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I seriously doubt AI could have achieved anything without being fed all the massive work of humans.

  253. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/kind-of-embarrassing-to-read-ukrainian

    Right now in the Kyiv Independent newspaper, there is a headline that reads, “‘It was humiliating’ — Ex-US Army Secretary says Washington lags behind Ukraine in war innovations.” It’s humiliating, in and of itself, that in an English-language news source all about Ukraine, we have a story about the just-departed Army secretary explaining that the United States of fucking America just can’t keep up militarily with Ukraine.

    Aren’t you glad Pete Hegseth is following troops around with shaving cream and a tube of testosterone gel?

    […] The Kyiv Independent article isn’t an interview with former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, but an aggregation of one in Rolling Stone, Driscoll’s first since Hegseth forced him out for being too good at his job. If you’ll remember, Driscoll’s main thing was modernizing the US military, trying to teach them how to fight the wars of the future with drones and so forth — stuff that Ukraine has become an absolute master at on the battlefield. But yet so has Iran, which has clearly been confusing the shit out of the dumbass in charge of the American military.

    Reports have said that Secretary [Hegseth] was “suspicious and paranoid” about Driscoll, as we imagine he is around every person who questions his sincerely held religious belief that what’s ailing the US military is the presence of women, Black people and LGBT folks with non-military-approved haircuts. Driscoll was worried about the future of the Army, what with Whiskeydick firing all the generals and other actual talent. That’s where the problems came from.

    […] What, you mean you can’t stop Iranian drones by showing-and-telling them how clean-cut and heterosexual you are for Jesus? […]

  254. says

    Yesterday Donald Trump came to the Baltimore area to announce that Andruil, a drone manufacturer, would be getting a $6.6 billion check to set up a factory and build parts for nuclear subs. Trump said the facility would be part of the new “golden age” of shipbuilding, and rambled about football players making a lot of money.

    The facility, named Arsenal-2, is being funded with $2.9 billion from the US Navy and another $3.7 billion from private backers. Trump said US taxpayers would “receive a 40 percent stake,” but it’s not clear what that actually means. The facility is supposed to start churning out these mysterious robo-kill-boats sometime in 2030.

    Trump was joined by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao.

    “You can run, but you only die tired,” Cao said. “And you know what? You piss us off, we’re going to sneak into your country in the middle of the night and snatch you and your wife while you sleep in your beds.” No, he really said that.

    It was an interesting distraction from Trump’s war(s) in the Middle East, and the prices of food; and gas; and electricity; and the record number of Americans starting to wonder if maybe this loudmouthed 80-year-old New York slumlord and Page Six publicity hound might be be a terrible leader.

    Andruil is headed up by Palmer Luckey. When he was a child prodigy, Facebook sank a billion dollars into his homebrew virtual reality headset and gave him a job. But Luckey developed a reputation as someone who did not play well with the other children in Silicon Valley. He drove his Hummer with orange toy machine gun mounts to work, and had a libertarian ethos — then he was accused of funding an online smear campaign against 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

    The Daily Beast later reported Luckey was You’re Fired for his deep-pocketed political shitposting. After it became impossible to deny, Luckey admitted he was behind the scheme. Unofficially, however, Luckey was fired because he was skipping out on work and nobody wanted to work with him (or vice-versa) … and/or because his billion dollar baby, now known as Oculus Rift, was found to use tech ripped off from another company to the tune of $500 million. Facebook appealed the ruling, both companies settled for an undisclosed amount, and Luckey scampered off to continue cosplaying as a half-naked anime girl. Ten years later, in a New York Times profile, Luckey still comes across as an arrogant child who’s “infamously good at holding grudges” (with his giant pile of money).

    Now, using his love of Robert Heinlein’s bug-stomping fascist fantasy Starship Troopers, Luckey builds killer robots for Customs and Border Patrol and and the US Department of Defense.

    Andruil is already building autonomous aerial drones at its shiny new Ohio facility, Arsenal-1, which comes complete with its own hyperscaling data center and truckload of cash for Ohio state’s football program. The facility in Baltimore would dramatically expand Andruil’s autonomous sea capabilities, and potentially allow them to start playing with Coast Guard vessels.

    But Andruil’s failures outweigh their success. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported multiple instances of Andruil’s drones failing at trials, and on the battlefield in Ukraine. During an exercise with autonomous boat swarms, sailors warned about “continuous operational security violations, safety violations, and contracting performer misguidances (Anduril Industries),” adding that Andruil needed to immediately fix its toys (and have someone vet their work) to avoid “extreme risk to force and potential for loss of life.” […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-takes-field-trip-near-but-not

  255. says

    New York Times link

    “Trump’s Retreat: From the Gulf to Britain, American Forces Pull Back”

    “A war that was intended to demonstrate the reach of American power has now done the opposite. It is a lesson in unintended consequences.”

    To hear President Trump and his aides describe it, the rush to withdraw 12 B-1 bombers from an air base in Britain over the weekend was a prudent precaution, in response to a threat they refused to describe.

    It was no big deal, Mr. Trump insisted, and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, tried to wave it away by noting that the Pentagon is “constantly reallocating resources where ​they need to be.”

    But to anyone watching the deployment of American power around the globe in the seven months since Mr. Trump decided to attack Iran, it was another glaring example of how, time after time, Mr. Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have been forced into retreat, pulling back military forces that had been deployed to the Middle East and Britain as a deterrent.

    Over the past several months, as the conflict has dragged on, the Iran war has come to reveal enormous new American vulnerabilities, forcing changes that the Pentagon was not contemplating a year ago. But it has also proved a bitter lesson in the unintended consequences that have flowed from Mr. Trump’s war of choice.

    Mr. Trump intended the attack on Iran as another demonstration of the American military’s extraordinary power, following the successful bombing raid on three Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025 and the seizure of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela from his bed in Caracas in January.

    But rather than enhance American power, the war has constrained it. The closing of bases in the Middle East and limiting the use of one in Britain have, at a minimum, vastly complicated the logistics of projecting power. American bombers can still reach their targets, of course, but only by flying from the United States, requiring more time and refueling. American carrier groups can still patrol in the Arabian Sea, outside the Persian Gulf, but now they must be resupplied from Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean 2,200 miles away, requiring additional weeks and huge costs.

    But most importantly, the rapid withdrawals have taught a lesson to the Iranians — and potentially to other adversaries — that they hold the power to chase out a superpower. In Europe, Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth are thinking of reducing American forces on their terms and their schedule. In the Middle East and Britain, their hand was forced.

    American and British officials said on Monday that the bombers were rushed out of the British base after commanders received specific, credible information that Iran-backed operatives were planning to launch drone strikes against the aircraft and U.S. troops from right outside the fence.

    The suspected plotters may have been inspired in part by an audacious attack that Ukraine launched against Russia last year when it smuggled drones deep into the Russian heartland and launched them from semi trucks. The strikes damaged or destroyed at least a dozen aircraft.

    That and other attacks have recalibrated the Pentagon’s understanding of military vulnerabilities. Suddenly, keeping forces out of missile range is not enough. Drones and cyberweapons have reshaped the battlefield. […]

    American personnel were evacuated from bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, all of which were within Iranian missile and drone range. Some of those bases were so badly damaged that inside the Pentagon there is little interest in rebuilding them; they will be moved farther away, if Congress grants the funding.

    […] The waterways are a more complex story. But the United States has been unable to guarantee “freedom of navigation” through the Strait of Hormuz or parts of the Red Sea.

    […] Dana Stroul, the Pentagon’s top Mideast policy official during the Biden administration, said the abrupt transfer of the dozen bombers back to the United States could have internal and external ramifications.

    […] “The more concerning issue is at the strategic level, the Iranians are likely to internalize a dangerous lesson — that by demonstrating the ability to get close to U.S. military bases far beyond the Middle East, Trump can be pushed around,” she said. […]

    More at the link.

  256. whheydt says

    Re: Lynna, OM @ #244…
    Quoted commenter is wrong. Tina Peters sentence was commuted by the Colorado governor, as she was in prison on a state conviction. I will grant that That Felon in the White House certainly leaned on the governor to grant the commutation, but he didn’t/couldn’t do it directly.

  257. Reginald Selkirk says

    Amelia Earhart investigators begin expedition to study mysterious object in Pacific: “Follow the evidence”

    A team searching for Amelia Earhart’s lost plane has begun its expedition to the Pacific, where it plans to study a mysterious object that researchers say may be her aircraft.

    The item, known as the Taraia Object, has been visible in photos dating back to 1938, the year after Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during Earhart’s attempt to become the first female pilot to circle the world. Earhart, Noonan and their Electra 10E plane were never found.
    …
    Some experts are skeptical. Ric Gillespie, the executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, told NBC News in 2025 that he does not think the Taraia Object is related to the Earhart expedition.

    “We’ve looked there in that spot, and there’s nothing there,” he said…

    Instead of “follow the evidence” maybe they should “consider the quality of the evidence.”

  259. Reginald Selkirk says

    One in 15 Cats Are Carrying a Diarrhea-Causing Parasite, Study Shows

    …
    Veterinary scientists studied clinical lab samples sent in from across the U.S. and parts of Canada. Roughly one in every 15 cats seems to be carrying a diarrhea-causing parasite known as Giardia duodenalis, they found, some strains of which can also sicken humans. Though the infection is manageable, especially when caught early, the findings highlight the importance of keeping a close eye on your cat’s gastrointestinal health, the researchers say.

    “Giardia is a parasite veterinarians know how to diagnose, treat, and help prevent, but some infected cats may not appear sick,” study author Anne Kimmerlein told Gizmodo. “It’s important that pet owners keep up on recommended preventive veterinary care, including fecal parasite screening tests.” …

  260. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    lotharloo @240:

    OpenAI released a giant list of math/theoretical computer science problems that they have solved. […] Supposedly, there is lean verification of them so likely they are correct

    Consolidating my scattered previous comments:
    * Navier-Stokes, unit distance, OpenAI’s math announcements generally, and the state of LLMs in mathematical research (#52, #54, #58 in that thread)
    * Inherent limitations of Lean itself

    OpenAI on the latest GitHub dump of 772 papers: “This collection includes results at different stages of verification. Not all have accompanying Lean formalizations. We will continue to update this repository with Lean formalizations as we obtain them. Some of the unformalized results could have issues.”
     
    Arxiv – Navier–Stokes lost in translation – Why Lean verification of AI autoformalisation does not guarantee correct natural language proofs
    https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.08144

    an AI system translates the text from a natural language (NL) into a formal language such as Lean. Once this translation is done, the argument expressed in the formal language can easily be mechanically verified. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate why this process may offer no confidence in the original NL argument […] we show that the formalised Lean proof does not correspond to the NL proof of blow-up of solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations.
    […]
    OpenAI reported finite-time blow-up for the unforced incompressible Euler equations […] we think that the Euler proof will be another great case study for mistranslations in practice.

    Fabrizio Musacchio (Physicist): “Lean can verify a formal proof perfectly well, while the AI may have changed the actual mathematical argument during translation. The authors find exactly this in OpenAI’s recent Navier-Stokes work: Different bounds, different proof strategies, but still valid Lean code. Thus, a verified Lean proof is not automatically a verification of the original natural-language proof. […] requires careful human validation.”
     
    Blake Stacey (Physicist):

    Releasing so many results simultaneously is spamming the mathematical community into acceptance. Like, that’s just fundamentally a hostile act. For whatever future we’ve got, the history of mathematics will be scarred by fashtech cocaine.

    The number of Memphis residents whom I am willing to give respiratory illness in order to solve the Riemann hypothesis is still zero, you absolute kneebiters.

    Max Kennerly (Lawyer): “It’s a pouty act of revenge. OpenAI clearly tried to solve every Millennium Problem and every ‘top ___ unsolved math problems’ list, made a lot of genuine progress but couldn’t get the brass rings, so they dumped their whole pile on the math community, snarling ‘you’re so smart, you figure it out.'”

    Association for Human Mathematics – Statement on OpenAI’s October 6 Release

    OpenAI—which is currently defending lawsuits against accusations of illegal plagiarism, copyright infringement, and trademark dilution—released a repository of manuscripts purporting to contain solutions to a number of high-profile problems in mathematics.

    Mathematicians did not ask for this work to be done. The Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, from whom OpenAI has claimed to derive its legitimacy, opened their initial advisory statement by saying that frontier AI corporations should not test advanced mathematical problems on internal models. In ignoring the central premise of the Advisory Group’s position, OpenAI has indicated total disregard for the norms of scientific research—norms that guarantee that mathematics remains trustworthy, ethically researched, and in the public interest.
    […]
    We reject OpenAI’s assertion that this release advances our subject, and we urge mathematicians and the public to view the value of this publication model with due skepticism. […] Releasing over 700 files at once is not a demonstration of scholarship, but a demonstration of power.

    Rich Harang (NVIDIA AI/ML): “the approximate impact for working mathematicians is that OpenAI is swooping in, pissing on trees with the headline ‘X is solved’ result, and leaving it to humans to contextualize and make sense of the yes/no result.”

    War Devil (Mathematician):

    Matt Tait (Nat/Cybersec): Historically, those [AI] evals were math problems that didn’t really engage with the mathematical community directly. It’s things like “solve this 4th grade homework problem”, and then later “solve this math olympiad”. Problems that were admittedly *impressive*, but not in any way *important* to math. The problem is they kinda exhausted those; the models got smarter, and the new “hard problems” to eval against stopped being artificial test problems and started becoming just lists of famous unsolved problems. […] they end up with piles of genuinely serious math proofs that are (mostly) collateral output to the evals
    […]
    this is releasing proofs at a rate that exceeds professional mathematics’ ability to socialize and understand the underlying mechanisms going on in the proofs. Professional mathematics does prove things in math, but it is still not (just) about proving things with math. […] a lot of the profession is trying to understand deeper relationships […] e = mc-squared isn’t a neat-o fact because it’s a fact and facts are fun, it’s neat-o because it enables a whole new way to think about energy and matter

    I want to be very clear: an undigested proof is not a proof. We have rare precedents of such “results” from oddball Mathematicians who write a bunch of stuff and never explain it to anyone else. These instances are generally regarded as mathematical disasters.

    It’s not always all bad: Gromov’s writings are notoriously unreadable and often incorrect, but the novelty of the ideas makes them extremely generative. However, we wouldn’t say he has “proved” things in these papers, per se. Nor does he claim to have done so… usually.

    But claimed proofs of big problems that are unreadable and only potentially verifiable by a small number of mathematicians… it’s the worst case scenario. A travesty of text.

    A hallmark of these situations is a lack of transparency, which OAI is maintaining in full. Show the prompts, your lean environment, the underlying lean formalizations. Show your damn work like are you 10 years old?

    War Devil:

    Using theorems without investigating the mechanisms. Time-honored science tradition for sure, but let’s just say the practice has a horrible track record if you don’t cherry pick the times it happened to work out. Also no theoretical scientists worth their salt would ever work this way. This understanding of math and science as siloed disciplines that hand theorems off like little widgets is so far from the actuality of scientific practice. We razz them, but theoretical scientists do know math.

    Philipp Birken (Mathematician): “Frankly, I get this impression that OpenAI is trolling mathematics and doing this for the LOLZ.”

    glangmead (Mathematician): “A LaTeX spill.”

    Rando: “This feels like a gish gallop, in a way. ‘Look at all the amazing shit we can do. Just don’t look too hard or ask how much we spent to do it.’ […] they don’t actually care. It’s just the latest version of marketing material.”

    John Baez (Mathematical physicist): “it’s very annoying they don’t list tokens spent on problems they failed to solve. Like: how much on P=NP? It would be worth millions of dollars to them if they could solve that… but at what point did they decide to cut their losses and give up?”

  261. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Peter Woit (Mathematician):

    the couple [OpenAI math papers] I did look at seemed to be pretty unreadable. […] What I haven’t seen is an AI agent solving a problem in an insightful way, or at least explaining an insight. In the past, when someone solved an old problem, sometimes it was by grinding away with known techniques, but often it was with a new insight. A different way of thinking about the problem that made the path to a solution clear. […] great mathematical ideas have been ones that simplify things (often by “theory-building”).

  263. lotharloo says

    @CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain:

    That’s just pure cope and idiotic arguments from desperate mathematicians/computer scientists, because they are losing their ego and the reason to feel superior to others. Let’s go through your quotations.

    the approximate impact for working mathematicians is that OpenAI is swooping in, pissing on trees with the headline ‘X is solved’ result, and leaving it to humans to contextualize and make sense of the yes/no result.

    Absolutely idiotic statement because openai does not have the capability to understand the proofs and the arguments their AI is generating. It’s not openai’s job to spoon feed mathematicians. They don’t have the expertise. And their AI produces seemingly correct but incomprehensible mathematical arguments. What do you want them to do?

    Re: “Arxiv – Navier–Stokes lost in translation”

    Interesting paper but it doesn’t mean what you think it means. The lean verification still seems to be correctly showing the actual claim. The written paper is pretty unreadable and it is the case with a lot of AI written papers with some exceptions. For whatever reason, the “natural language” articles produced by AI are unreadable for humans. Probably there should be more work done here to make it produce more human-friendly output. That’s it.

    Max Kennerly (Lawyer): “It’s a pouty act of revenge. OpenAI clearly tried to solve every Millennium Problem and every ‘top ___ unsolved math problems’ list, made a lot of genuine progress but couldn’t get the brass rings, so they dumped their whole pile on the math community, snarling ‘you’re so smart, you figure it out.’”

    I feel a hurt ego. Yes, obviously they tried to solve every famous open problem. People complained about OpenAI “hoarding” the problems they are solved and not sharing them. Now they complain about too much sharing.

    I want to be very clear: an undigested proof is not a proof. We have rare precedents of such “results” from oddball Mathematicians who write a bunch of stuff and never explain it to anyone else. These instances are generally regarded as mathematical disasters.

    Another idiotic statement because in those instances, there was no successful or any lean verification and nobody could understand what they wrote. So if you can’t understand the proof and you can’t verify it, yes you dismiss it and you call it a disaster. It’s a completely different story if you can verify a proof but you can’t understand it. For example, nobody understood the famous “ABC conjecture proof” but the lean verification also got halted in the exact same spot where the other experts had failed to understand. So naturally almost everyone dismissed the proof.

    the couple [OpenAI math papers] I did look at seemed to be pretty unreadable. […] What I haven’t seen is an AI agent solving a problem in an insightful way, or at least explaining an insight. In the past, when someone solved an old problem, sometimes it was by grinding away with known techniques, but often it was with a new insight. A different way of thinking about the problem that made the path to a solution clear. […] great mathematical ideas have been ones that simplify things (often by “theory-building”).

    yes, that should be the next step. Ironically, you can ask the chatbots for help in digesting the proof. That’s what I’m doing with one of the papers in the “dump”.

  264. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    lotharloo @263: “ask the chatbots for help in digesting the proof. That’s what I’m doing”

    Blake Stacey (Physicist): “I’m seeing people asking a chatbot to summarize this pile and judge its significance, and I’m just… No. They have a cognitive surrender fetish. I am not going to engage.”

  265. beholder says

    They have a cognitive surrender fetish.

    Not unlike how Sky Captain communicates solely by using the quotes and thoughts of others.

  268. birgerjohansson says

    Hossenfelder alert.
    “The Experts Were Wrong About AI. Again.”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=xdwFncdu8t0

    Comments: they asked the wrong people. The real current experts in the induatry are silenced by NDA agrerments.

    Also, math, coding etc can be solved in a straightforward way. Changes that requires interacting with the physical reality will be much slower. Replacing truck drivers is not going well. Sorting out relevant information is also still too complex (see video).

  271. lotharloo says

    @CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain

    I don’t give a shit who this Blake guy is and based on the quotation, he sounds like an idiot. AI is a tool. You would be a moron to close your eyes and insist on not using a tool that has proven to be useful.

  272. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s Yandex data centers housing two top supercomputers — major outage follows retaliatory strike

    Ukrainian drones hit a major Yandex data center in Sasovo, Russia, causing a massive fire and forcing the company to shut down the facility, according to Reuters and Meduza. Many services using Yandex Cloud are down following the attack. The site reportedly houses two of Yandex’s three supercomputers used for artificial intelligence development, though it remains unclear whether the systems sustained any damage, as for now their fate is unclear. Russian missiles struck Ukrainian digital infrastructure earlier this month.

    The Sasovo facility, one of Yandex’s five major data centers, accommodates tens of thousands of servers, including two Nvidia A100-based supercomputers named Chervonenkis and Lyapunov. Chervonenkis, the company’s most powerful system, was once ranked as the world’s 19th most powerful supercomputer in the Top 500 list in 2021, but by today’s standards its 21.53 FP64 PFLOPS is enough only for the 101st place in the list. Due to Western sanctions, Yandex can no longer upgrade the system. Both machines have been used to train AI models, including YandexGPT, Russia’s leading large language model. Yandex’s third supercomputer, Galushkin, is located in Vladimir…

  275. JM says

    @272 Reginald Selkirk: You can be sure that Russia’s most powerful supercomputer is seeing military use also. It’s one of the problems of modern industry in general that separating military and non-military industry is increasingly hard. The factory that made civilian drones yesterday is strapping shaped charges to them today. Distributed cloud systems spread military and civilian functions together. Wireless communications are used for civilian cell phone and distributing encrypted orders to forward soldiers.
    The distinction between civilian and military industry has always been fuzzy but at one time you could identify the straight military weapon factories and the heavy industry needed for vehicles and ignore the rest. Now they are so intermingled that it isn’t really possible to tell them apart.

  276. says

    whheydt @256, thanks for that correction.

    In other news: Ambassador Guilfoyle’s troubles go from bad to worse with new corruption allegations

    “In a normal political environment, this would be about the time the ambassador scheduled a one-way flight out of Athens.”

    Related video is available at the link.

    Donald Trump didn’t need another round of foreign policy problems, but it’s clear the president’s ambassadors are creating difficult complications for his administration. One ambassador in particular, however, stands out — and not in a good way.

    The Wall Street Journal reported a couple of weeks ago on Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News contributor who is also Donald Trump Jr.’s former fiancée, and her controversial tenure as the U.S. ambassador to Greece. Among the more problematic aspects of her work has been Guilfoyle’s involvement of lobbyist Christos Marafatsos in so many official meetings “that some foreign officials mistook him for her chief of staff.”

    The same report added that the U.S. ambassador has promoted Marafatsos’ employer, Greek construction firm Aktor Group, for energy deals, to the puzzlement of officials in the region and to the concern of key congressional Democrats.

    This week, however, new allegations made her situation vastly more serious. The Wall Street Journal also reported:

    Kimberly Guilfoyle was preparing for her congressional hearing to become U.S. ambassador to Greece when she reached out to a Trump donor with an urgent request: She needed $100,000 that she said she owed American Express — in a way that wouldn’t leave a paper trail.

    “It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express,” she wrote on Signal, according to messages reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Please.”

    According to the reporting, […] Guilfoyle had been in communication with Eric Deters, a failed former Republican congressional candidate, who was hoping for the Trump administration’s assistance on some personal tax and legal issues.

    He was reportedly prepared to pay Guilfoyle as much as $1 million if she helped use her influence within Team Trump to make troubles go away, and she assured him that she could deliver.

    “Every secretary of you know defense, transportation, treasury commerce IRS commissioner everyone gets right back to me,” she wrote in a message to Deters, adding, “Oh yeah, l’m forgetting cash Patel,” in an apparent misspelling of FBI Director Kash Patel’s name.

    But in early July, the then-nominee apparently wanted an advance.

    “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” she texted Deters, adding a prayer hands emoji and a PDF with bill payment instructions from American Express. “You could just send it here,” she wrote on July 3, 2025, just days before her July 9 confirmation hearing.

    Deters ultimately declined the request, although the Journal’s report went on to note that Guilfoyle also expressed concern about their communications potentially reaching the public.

    In one especially memorable exchange, Guilfoyle warned him not to reference money or payments by way of texts: “Eric, I really wish you would stop papering all these things.”

    In context, “papering” apparently meant “putting controversial comments in writing.”

    In another exchange, Deters suggested he was not altogether impressed with the return on his investment.

    “I have paid you $300,000 over the years,” he wrote to Guilfoyle. “As of this memo, I have not received one favor. I am not naive or a sucker. I need results.”

    A lawyer for Guilfoyle said the ambassador disputed the authenticity of the messages obtained by the newspaper, but he declined to provide specifics. Deters told the Journal, “She never came through on anything.”

    In a normal political environment, this would be about the time the ambassador might decide to update her resume and schedule a one-way flight out of Athens.

    Asked about the revelations, Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told MS NOW, “If true, it is bad.” Another House GOP member, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, added, “This is the type of crap that will cost us the majority.” [social media post, with video]

    JD Vance was also asked about the reporting at an unrelated press conference on Thursday morning.

    “Well, so, with that hypothetical, obviously I don’t love that, but I, you know, I don’t know exactly who you’re talking about, I don’t know the full details,” the vice president replied.

    With 26 days remaining in the midterm election cycle and Democrats already focusing heavily on corruption allegations surrounding the Republican administration, Guilfoyle’s controversy couldn’t have come at a worse time for Team Trump or the GOP.

    UPDATE (October 8, 2026, 11:52 a.m. ET): During an on-air appearance with MS NOW’s Peter Alexander on Thursday morning, Deters said, “I cannot stand Kimberly Guilfoyle. Kimberly Guilfoyle is a wicked evil person. She thought I was going to be a sucker, and I’m not a sucker.”

    In the same interview, Deters added that his previous arrangement with Guilfoyle was “absolutely … a quid pro quo”.

  277. Reginald Selkirk says

    You’ll Never Guess Who Trump Is Now Calling ‘THE ENEMY’

    Donald Trump, a continued threat to the safety and security of the United States, has been obsessed lately with trying to rename artificial intelligence as “super intelligence” by fiat. And a new Truth Social post is a weird escalation in his war on commonly accepted tech terms.

    “The White House considers anyone that uses the term, ‘Artificial Intelligence,’ as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term, ‘Super Intelligence,’ THE ENEMY!,” wrote Trump, signing his name to the missive in all caps…

  278. Reginald Selkirk says

    Leak Reveals Trump Plot for Stunning Election-Day Surprise

    Donald Trump is considering fresh military strikes against Iran before the midterm elections in a desperate bid to win back wavering Republican voters, according to an explosive new report…

    That sounds like a really stupid idea. The war of choice with Iran is among the least popular actions he has taken. I hope he can keep it up for another 3.5 weeks for maximal election impact.

  279. Reginald Selkirk says

    The keys to the Internet change on October 11. Are you ready?

    On October 11, 2026, the DNS root is scheduled to change its key-signing key (KSK) for only the second time ever. This key anchors DNSSEC’s chain of trust, which lets DNS resolvers authenticate answers using cryptographic signatures. The change is called a KSK rollover. Validating resolvers need to trust the new key before the switch, as otherwise healthy websites could become unreachable.
    …
    Most website operators do not need to make any changes for this rollover. If you run a DNSSEC-validating resolver, check that it trusts the new root key, KSK-2024, and follow your software vendor’s instructions to update its trust anchors if the key is missing. If you use Cloudflare for your domain’s DNS or rely on 1.1.1.1 and Gateway DNS, you do not need to take any action — our systems already trust KSK-2024…

  280. says

    Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities kill at least 21 in a major attack that Kyiv saw coming

    “Without ammunition for its U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems, Ukraine can’t stop Russian ballistic weapons.”

    NBC News:

    Russian missiles and drones pounded Kyiv and a dozen other Ukrainian regions overnight into Wednesday, killing at least 21 civilians, including four children, and wounding around 60 in Moscow’s latest devastating barrage, Ukrainian officials said.

    Ukraine had anticipated the attack, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warning the previous day that intelligence services had concluded that Russia was building up for a “massive” strike.

    Although Ukraine knew about the looming attack, which coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 74th birthday, it couldn’t fend it off completely.

    The deaths and damage illustrated the difficulty Ukraine has in countering Russia’s ballistic missiles and the new jet-powered drones used in Moscow’s escalating bombardments. Without ammunition for its U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems, Ukraine can’t stop Russian ballistic weapons. It is racing to develop a new generation of interceptors fast enough to catch Moscow’s high-flying jet-propelled drones.

    […] Putin, meanwhile, is pressing ahead with the invasion in the belief that Ukrainians will buckle under the pressure and Kyiv’s Western supporters won’t stay the course […]

    Ukraine is looking worldwide for available Patriot missiles, which are in short supply due to the Iran war.

    “Russian ballistic missiles remain the greatest challenge. And air defense packages for us right now are a vital necessity,” Zelenskyy said. […]

  281. says

    Trump debases science award by giving it to crackpot donor Musk

    President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he will give the National Medal of Science to racist billionaire Elon Musk and a group of technology executives who have donated to Trump, his administration, or the Republican Party.

    In a statement, the White House said the Trump cronies were “incredible leaders in science and technology” and that they are “helping ensure America keeps leading the world in innovation.”

    Musk has donated millions to electing Trump, including funding disinformation campaigns and bribes during the 2024 election cycle. Also receiving the award are Google co-founder Sergey Brin, a donor to the Republican National Committee and Trump’s inaugural committee; Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has donated funds to Trump’s White House ballroom; and Michael Dell, who donated to Trump’s campaign.

    The use of the National Medal of Science as yet another Trump donor award stands in contrast to the sort of recipients who were spotlighted under former President Joe Biden. For instance, in 2023, Brown University professor-at-large Subra Suresh was given the award. Biden praised Suresh for his work in advancing the study of material science.

    […] Trump is hailing his campaign donors as leaders in science while his administration is cutting science funding and promoting misinformation at agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services, currently led by anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The administration has also pushed for cutting funding of scientific research at universities and instead prioritizing private research, keeping innovations away from the public at large in exchange for private profit.

    […] Musk has denounced the existence of transgender people (his estranged daughter is transgender), and the centerpiece of his pro-GOP push are bigoted, anti-trans ads airing in multiple states. […]

  282. says

    Trump Making Up ‘Sir’ Stories About Melania Now

    “New levels of pathetic and weird.”

    […] Trump is telling “sir” stories about Melania now. Or at least he’s telling “sir” stories about “my wife.” It’s always possible — and there’s precedent for this — that he is not sure who he’s talking about when he refers to “my wife.”

    […] last night, at that pathetic rally Trump did for Ken Paxton in Texas — “for” — Trump told a sir story about “my wife.” Apparently she’s been correcting his pronuncation of “vegan.” [video]

    “You know, my wife told me ‘sir, you have to do me a favor — it’s not vay-gan, it’s vee-gan.’”

    So, that didn’t happen. Donald Trump’s wife under no circumstances calls him “sir.”

    Trump continued telling the story he hallucinates about James Talarico once a day, between sunrise and sundown:

    “Now he says he loves meat, but he’s a vegan — see, Melania? I got that right.”

    Melania Trump did not call Trump “sir.” […]

    “He’s a vegan. He wants to eat a piece of lettuce, a little piece of lettuce, please. You know where he is? He’s sick because he’s been forced to eat meat for political reasons, and he’s throwing up all over the place. He’s sick.”

    OK. James Talarico has the flu […]

    […] So that’s a little snapshot of how Trump’s sadness rally for Paxton went.

    There were a number of protesters in the room who disrupted the event multiple times, and one of them was assaulted by one of Trump’s MAGA [supporters] on camera.

    Trump tried to pre-emptively brag about how many people were there, as the camera panned to reveal lots of empty seats. [video]

    Trump incited hatred with lies about migrants killing everybody. [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    He repeated his mangled, babbling lines about letting Iran nuke Los Angeles or San Diego, which, we hate to say it, but we’ve been covering this man’s butchering of the English language for over a decade now, and it is not actually correct to say he was inviting Iran to bomb those places. He’s trying to fearmonger over the possibility of Iran doing that if Hero Trump hadn’t stopped them from getting a bomb they definitely never would have gotten if he had just left Barack Obama’s goddamned fucking nuclear deal in place.

    […] Never let it be said that Wonkette is unfair to that pedophile-protecting Little Hitler stupid-ass senile pantshitting dictator wannabe loser.

    As the New York Times notes, the thing Trump really didn’t talk about during his Ken Paxton rally was Ken Paxton, which is probably good, because this is Ken Paxton last night at [a] rally: [video]

    […] what Ken Paxton said there was:

    “Have y’all ever heard that this is the most important election of your lifetime. Anybody ever heard that? Well, you know what, I’ve been thinking about that — and, you know, why do we always say that? And you know what, I want you to think about this. The Continental Divide in the United States. If a drop of rain falls one inch or more on the right side, on the East side, it ends up in the Atlantic Ocean. If it falls one inch on the other side, or more, it ends up in the Pacific Ocean — unless we’ve renamed it. I think that’s possible. This election, we’re not talking about red versus blue. We’re not talking about a moderate Democrat. We’re talking about the Constitutional Republic. Freedom. The Bill of Rights. We’re talking about capitalism. On the other side, we’re talking about communism, socialism. The government controlling. That’s why these elections are really mattering. And they matter, unfortunately, right here in Texas.”

    Huh.

    Well maybe the people in the room were fired up for Ken Paxton anyway?

    “Look, we’re voting for him, let’s just put it that way,” said Julie Funk, a 66-year-old retired first-grade teacher from nearby Bulverde, Texas. She was there with a few of her girlfriends, all of whom winced at the mention of Mr. Paxton.

    “I absolutely agree with all of” the president’s characterizations, Ms. Funk said.

    Conversations with likely voters were a tad awkward, since all of them seemed to have heard the president describe their Senate candidate as a pain who looks bad, dresses bad and talks bad. Some tried looking on the bright side.

    “He probably already has changed some of that,” a 73-year-old former agriculture worker named Jody Gatto said of Mr. Paxton. “The way he dresses, he definitely has sharpened it up a little bit. Yeah. But you know what? He is what he is.”

    […] don’t let the enthusiasm knock you over!

    […] “In actuality, my Events for very good Republican Politicians are probably more crowded than ever. There are no empty seats, there haven’t been for years, and there never will be. The Rallies are ‘HOTTER’ than ever,” Trump writes on Truth Social, because of how hot his rallies are, actually.

    And then the camera pans around and …

    TNR:

    Trump will keep jetting from rally to rally, and keep jerking his arms as “YMCA” blares in ever-smaller venues. He will keep reciting old grievances about Hillary Clinton and newer ones about trans people and Canadians. He will keep doing what he’s always done because he doesn’t know how to do anything else. But there was a kernel to what he said in Mobile about seeking the company of the people who loved him all along. As he becomes more unpopular and his party’s panic grows, these cozy rallies are his safe space—the last remaining place where he is still adored, still funny, and still winning.

    […] how pathetic Trump has become […]

    […] The strong men with tears in their eyes are hanging on your every word!

  283. says

    Surprise! An email from Trump in which he says he is sending you money. WTF?

    Washington Post report: Trump emails Medicare enrollees about $90 payment, touts his policies

    “The unusual move, which comes weeks before the midterm elections, has been derided by Democrats and advocates as a stunt.”

    […] Trump on Thursday told millions of seniors that he was taking money that Congress had set aside for Medicare improvements and sending it to them.

    “You are receiving a One-Time Payment of $90 to offset some of the cost of your October Medicare premium,” Trump wrote in the email, which was sent directly to Medicare enrollees and obtained by The Washington Post. “This will ensure these funds benefit YOU and your individual healthcare needs.”

    Lawmakers in both parties were surprised by Trump’s move to take $2 billion from Medicare’s improvement fund to send the payments, The Washington Post reported last week. […]

  284. Reginald Selkirk says

    A Billionaire Is Fueling a Rat Explosion in a Chicago Park in the Stupidest Way Possible

    There’s probably nothing about city life more stereotypically wholesome than the sight of an elderly patron snug on a public park bench feeding the birds (or maybe even some squirrels). So, prepare to be amazed by the corrupting power of billionaire wealth to pervert this classic retirement hobby.

    Local officials in Chicago’s 43rd Ward have accused 94-year-old electronics billionaire Barre Seid of creating a “public health hazard” by hiring goons to “place nuts, seeds and other foods” around his home and nearby Lincoln Park, according to a city document reported by Axios. Seid’s delegated recreational feeding of local wildlife, according to the city, has attracted “flocks of pigeons, whose droppings have in turn attracted a significant rat infestation” in the three years that the billionaire has been funding this dubious animal welfare program.

    Seid—a notorious recluse best known for donating his entire $1.6 billion electronics company to fund “attack philanthropy” that promotes climate change denialism and other right-wing causes—has reportedly paid every fine thrown at him to deter his intervention into Lincoln Park’s ecosystem. And, to be clear, his contract operatives are not merely tossing out bread crumbs and a little bit of trail mix but large canvas bags’ worth of snacks…

  287. whheydt says

    Re: johnson catman @ #286…
    If tradition holds and there is a live crowd to watch, all the local pick-pockets will be out in force.

  288. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NYT – On this Mexican island, raccoons make and play with toys (and also sip margaritas)

    Scientists observed a family of pygmy raccoons near a Cozumel beach club learning from one another how to craft balls from paper, an indication that the animals have a culture. […] The females’ mother also tried making balls but failed, the researchers said, seemingly because she was drunk.

    * Preliminary evidence of material culture in the critically endangered pygmy raccoon

  289. StevoR says

    @266. johnson catman : You beat me to it. Was just about to pos.t Regressing fast the USA is now back to public executions. As Aussie ABC notes :

    The United States’s first execution by a military firing squad since World War II will be live streamed, the Pentagon has said.

    US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (Kegsbreath – becoz of course.- Ed.) said the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people and injuring dozens more in a shooting at the Fort Hood military base in 2009, would happen on December 3.

    “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” Mr Hegseth told conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice News. “People need to understand that there are serious consequences for these types of things.” (He thinks people don’t already know that? That execution or life in jail or immediate death in the act aren’t something these killers and terorists expect & sometimes even want – eg maryrdom status – already? – Ed.)

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-09/hegseth-says-firing-squad-execution-at-fort-hood-will-be-public/107246210

  290. StevoR says

    Wikipedia :

    While today most countries regard public executions with distaste, they have been practised nearly everywhere at some point in history.[4] At many points in the past, public executions were preferred to executions behind closed doors because of their supposed deterrence.[5] However, the actual efficacy of this form of terror is disputed.[6] They also allowed the convicted the opportunity to make a final speech, gave the state the chance to display its power in front of those who fell under its jurisdiction, and granted the public what was considered to be a great spectacle.[7] Public executions also permitted the state to project its superiority over political opponents.

    Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_execution

    Alleged superiority or demonstration of brute power and threaten dissenters and objectors eg kinda a form of terrorism really eg the Great Terror in Revolutionary France roughly 1793 see : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

    Plus from the “modern” era section :

    The last public execution in the United States was that of Roscoe Jackson in 1937. As in Europe, the practice of execution was moved to the privacy of chambers. Viewing remains available for those related to the person being executed, victims’ families, and sometimes reporters.

    Whilst in my country .. yeesh :

    During the Australian colonial period, public executions continued until the second half of the 19th century, largely coinciding with the end of the convict era. They were abolished by the colonies of New South Wales (including present-day Queensland), Van Diemen’s Land (present-day Tasmania) and Victoria in 1855, by South Australia in 1858, and by Western Australia in 1871.[50] Public executions of Indigenous offenders continued in some jurisdictions in violation of the legislation.[51]

    In South Australia and Western Australia, public executions were subsequently reintroduced solely for Indigenous Australian offenders, in 1861 and 1875 respectively, on the basis that they were needed as a deterrent against frontier violence against white settlers.[52][53] The last public execution in Western Australia took place in February 1892, where three Indigenous men convicted of murder were hanged at the scene of the crime near Halls Creek, Western Australia, in front of around 70 witnesses.[54] The legislation allowing for public executions for Indigenous offenders was not formally abolished until 1952 in Western Australia and 1971 in South Australia, although those provisions had been long considered dormant.[55]

    Did not know that.

  292. StevoR says

    Did know about the last non-public execution in our (Aussie) history and that there is serious doubt over whether he was actualkly guilty or not.

    n the documentary film The Last Man Hanged, Ryan’s letter to The Anti-Hanging Committee is read out loud to the public. Ryan wrote: “I state most emphatically that I am not guilty of murder.” Ryan’s last letter was to his daughters; it contained this line: “With regard to my guilt I say only that I am innocent of intent and have a clear conscience in the matter.”[52][53][54]

    Ryan refused to have any sedatives, but he did have a nip of whisky, and walked calmly onto the gallows trapdoor. Ronald Ryan’s last words were to the hangman: “God bless you, please make it quick.”[55]

    Ryan was hanged in ‘D’ Division at Pentridge Prison at 8:00 am on Friday 3 February 1967.

    Then later :

    Nineteen years after Ryan’s execution, a former warder, Doug Pascoe, claimed on air to Channel 9 and other media that he had fired a shot during Ryan’s escape bid. Pascoe said his shot may have accidentally killed his fellow prison guard, Hodson. Pascoe had not told anyone that he fired a shot during the escape because at that time, “I was a 23-year-old coward.” In 1986, he tried to sell his story, but his claim was dismissed by police because his rifle had a full magazine after the shooting and he was too far away

    Plus :

    As to whether as a result an innocent man was hanged, there is at least a reasonable doubt following revelations of police corruption uncovered by various Australian police royal commissions.[66] Australian police have to record or tape all interviews they carry out in connection with a crime. The police had no signed evidence of these verbal confessions. Ryan signed only a statement saying that he would not be giving any statements, verbal or written, to anyone except his lawyer. Hawkins questions why Ryan, a seasoned criminal, would suddenly feel the need to tell all to the police.[24]

    In 1993, a former Pentridge prisoner, Harold Sheehan, claimed he had witnessed the shooting but had not come forward at the time. Sheehan saw Ryan on his knees when the shot rang out and, therefore, Ryan could not have inflicted the wound that had killed Hodson, which passed in a downward trajectory.

    … (snip)..

    Ryan gave evidence and swore that he did not fire at Hodson. He denied firing a shot at all. Ryan denied the alleged verbal confessions said to have been made by him. Opas says the last words Ryan said to him were; “We’ve all got to go sometime, but I don’t want to go this way for something I didn’t do.”

    Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Ryan

    Still contentiuous and in doubt even now and think there’s at least a case fro reasonable doubt.

    As that wikipage note at the start : “Capital punishment was abolished in all (Australian) states by 1985.”

  293. StevoR says

    From the linked ABC article in #289 :

    When asked if Hasan had made any final requests or reached out to the Trump administration, Mr Hegseth replied: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December third.”

    .. (Snip)…

    Hasan said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims.

    The shooting came weeks before Hasan, now 56, was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan. He was left partially paralysed and confined to a wheelchair from being shot by police during his arrest.

    ..(Snip)..

    Experts on military law said Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition in civilian court, which could significantly delay the execution.

    “It frankly might outlast the current administration, and who knows if the next one will have the same penchant for executions,” said Eugene R Fidell, a military law expert and visiting lecturer at Yale Law School.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-09/hegseth-says-firing-squad-execution-at-fort-hood-will-be-public/107246210

    So maybe Kegsbreath and co won’t be seeing him Dec 3rd after all?

    Whether Hasan chooses to do that or just be executed will be intresting.

  294. says

    @277 Reginald Selkirk warned that tRUMP says: “The White House considers anyone that uses the term, ‘Artificial Intelligence,’ as . . THE ENEMY!

    I suggest we avoid his cesspool-like threats using the term I created about a week ago. It is accurate in many ways, including describing tRUMP’s character:
    Call it Stupor Intelligence!

  295. says

    I wonder if PigsBreath will need to wear a drool-bib when he gets excited at the ‘live stream’ of the firing squad execution? This nation is sinking deeper into barbarism with each passing day!

  297. johnson catman says

    re StevoR@296: No one in their right mind would expect The Orange Turd (TOT) to ever be considered for a Nobel Prize. TOT is so jealous that Obama, a black man who he considered inferior, won the prize. TOT is a racist, misogynistic, and bullying sexual predator who is also a well-documented fucking moron.

  299. StevoR says

    Trump still desperately wants that Nobel prize but yeah “right mond”*” not. Yet he is POTUS still.

    (Expletives)

    Which do not suffice.

    .* Mind too.. Francais en anglais meaning – world. Apt. Even if typo. If we had a right world these days.. If only.

  300. Reginald Selkirk says

    @ 296-299

    Coming up next: a daring military raid on Oslo to liberate the prize from THE ENEMY

  301. says

    ‘Disgusting’: Bernie SLAMS Trump’s ‘racist statement’ against Abdul El-Sayed

    “When you are intellectually bankrupt, when you are a failed president, when you have nothing to say to working people,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders, “You resort to the same old demagoguery that has gone on for God knows how long that is racism.”

    Video is 8:22 minutes

    ‘Honey please’: Guilfoyle reportedly pushed MAGA donor to pay $100k Amex bill

    The Wall Street Journal reports that, while preparing for her confirmation hearing last year, Guilfoyle told a Trump donor she needed $100,000 from him—and did not want to leave a paper trail.

    Video is 10:22 minutes

  303. says

    […] Politico reported this week:

    Former President Barack Obama is set to reprise his nearly decadelong, post-presidential career as the Democratic Party’s closer-in-chief — not just on the campaign trail, but on the airwaves, too.

    Last week, Obama cut ads for 24 Senate and gubernatorial campaigns […] Expect them on your screens soon.

    In case this isn’t obvious, there aren’t 24 Republican Senate and gubernatorial candidates in competitive races who are urging Trump to cut ads on their behalf.

    Obama, on the other hand, is in high demand. On Thursday, for example, MS NOW reported on the former president throwing his support behind Troy Jackson’s Democratic Senate campaign in Maine, which included a video in which Obama touted Jackson’s background and legislative record.

    Hours later, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff’s campaign in Georgia similarly touted new ads that Obama filmed on the senator’s behalf.

    This came on the heels of an announcement in Michigan that the former president will lead a campaign rally later this month in support of Abdul El-Sayed’s Democratic Senate campaign and Jocylyn Benson’s gubernatorial campaign, which followed Obama appearing in a campaign ad in Iowa in support of Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek’s candidacy.

    There’s no great mystery here. Unlike Trump, Obama remains a popular national figure: recent polls showing him enjoying greater support than any other living president. What’s more, the latest NBC News poll found a plurality of voters would be more inclined to support a candidate endorsed by Obama, while a majority of voters said a Trump endorsement would make them less likely to back a candidate.

    The next time the incumbent president lashes out at his first-term Democratic predecessor, remember Trump is likely jealous that Obama enjoys the kind respect and admiration that the Republican can only pretend to have.

    Link

  304. says

    Followup to comments 286, 289, 295 and others.

    […] There are countries where the government kills its own citizens in public displays. As The New York Times noted, such actions are most commonly carried out countries such as Iran, North Korea and Taliban-led Afghanistan. The same report added that releasing video of executions “is most often associated with extremist militant groups like the Islamic State.”

    As things stand, Hegseth wants the United States to join this ignominious club.

    Democratic Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement, “Calling for a livestream of the execution of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is disturbing and makes a mockery of our legal system. There is a reason why we treat the meting out of justice with the seriousness it demands. We are a democratic country and should take the rule of law seriously, not turn it into a spectacle.”

    It’s worth emphasizing the degree to which this represents an unsettling step backward for the U.S. The Washington Post reported on the last instances when the American public was invited to witness such an execution

    The hanging of Rainey Bethea in Kentucky in 1936 is widely considered the last high-profile public execution in the U.S, although there was a subsequent public execution in 1937 in Missouri.

    Bethea, who was black, was publicly hanged for rape, after he confessed to the rape and murder of a 70-year-old white woman, Lischia Edwards, although he was never charged with murder, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), which monitors capital punishment. The hanging was carried out in a parking lot in Owensboro, Kentucky, to avoid damaging the courthouse lawn due to the crowds that were expected, the DPIC said.

    By all accounts, an estimated 20,000 people were on hand for the execution. The Post’s reported added, “There was also a public execution the following year, when Roscoe ‘Red’ Jackson was hanged in Missouri. About 500 townspeople watched the hanging, according to an AP report at the time. The DPIC identifies Jackson’s hanging as the last public execution in the U.S.”

    There is no need add to this history or reset this clock, even if Hegseth seems eager to do so.

  305. says

    The Hill:

    The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched a clinic dedicated to studying ‘patients experiencing health problems following vaccination’ as it mulls a reimbursement program for doctors who report vaccine-related injuries. […]

    More stupidity that originated from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

    Link

  306. says

    One Dark Damn Day

    We’ve endured some very dark days in Trump II, but yesterday was particularly grim — and a possible taste of what’s to come between now and Election Day.

    President Trump launched a race war against Somalians and Somali-Americans in Minnesota.

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth exuberantly announced that the holiday season execution by firing squad of former Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan for the Ft. Hood shooting will be live-streamed.

    In New York City, an ICE agent shot and wounded a Dominican national who was in his car with his 5-year-old child in the backseat.

    In a televised debate in the Michigan Senate race, GOP nominee Mike Rogers used Islamophobic smears to baselessly associate Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed with terrorism — after which President Trump called El-Sayed a “Terrorist Sympathizer” in a social media post.

    Somehow, the Michigan Senate debate was worse than the Georgia Senate debate, where GOP nominee Rep. Mike Collins has so many ties to neo-Nazis that it’s hard to keep count, prompting Sen. Jon Ossoff to scoff that Collins had “hired half the Third Reich” in his congressional office.

    Against that backdrop, the Trump DOJ is actively seeking to vindictively prosecute former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson for allegedly lying to Congress as the star witness in the Jan. 6 committee hearings.

    While the chaos of Trump II is often erratic and unpredictable, yesterday’s events are all tied to the upcoming election one way or the other. Even the ICE shooting came only two days after ICE increased its daily quota back to 3,000 arrests a day ahead of the midterms. The collective desperation of Trump and the GOP to avert a disastrous electoral defeat is likely to produce some even darker days over the next three and half weeks.

  308. says

    So, secretary of whores, pigsbreath the barbarian, for his own testosterone drenched aggrandizement, has said the firing squad execution will be live streamed to the entire nation. This ahole is violating his own military law which clearly limits the types of people allowed to watch an execution, NO public and especially NO children, per Army Regulation 190-55.
    As I said: This nation is sinking deeper into barbarism and lawlessness with each passing day!

  309. says

    Cartoon: Keep up

    In other news: [Media platforms] targeted by Iranian propaganda effort

    This is the stuff of nightmares.

    ⁠As reported by NPR and ⁠The Washington Post, a foreign influence operation used artificial intelligence to generate propaganda and publish it across American media platforms, including right here at Daily Kos.

    The result from the made-up persona was three stories/diaries published in the community. The operation evaded our existing automated safeguards and human moderation. That’s a failure we take seriously, and one we’re working to address. None of the stories attracted much attention. But that’s beside the point. The problem isn’t how many people read them. It’s that a fabricated identity was able to participate in our community without anyone realizing it.

    It was this account. And as I was drafting this, we found a second one, this one. [embedded links are available a the main link]

    For almost 25 years, this amazing community has gathered here to discuss politics, organize, argue, debate, and oftentimes drive each other absolutely batty. We’ve built something remarkable here, and much of that is possible because we’ve always believed that politics should be democratized, and that we all deserve a voice in it.

    Artificial Intelligence […] is upending the assumption of trust we have built here. It’s easy to turn disagreement into accusations of being bots or using AI slop. It already happens in this community, almost always without evidence. Just another tool to denigrate and dismiss an inconvenient argument or person.

    Yet now we have evidence that this can exist here, and has. That will only pour gasoline on the existing fire, because every baseless accusation can now point to this incident as justification. Every disagreement can become another opportunity to question someone’s authenticity. Every unfamiliar voice can become a suspect, which is particularly damaging to us because we can’t survive without growing our community.

    That’s what makes this so dangerous. We can’t lose the trust that invites people to participate freely. Without that, Daily Kos is no longer a community; it’s just another website.

    So yes, this happened. But no, it doesn’t mean that someone you disagree with is a bot, a foreign operative, or even using AI. Disagreement isn’t evidence of deception.

    So what are we doing? We’re reviewing our existing safeguards and exploring additional tools and procedures to identify coordinated manipulation, AI-written content, and fraudulent accounts. This isn’t even just about AI—a sophisticated operation could employ humans to write their propaganda! This is going to be an ongoing challenge, and no technological solution will be foolproof. So we also promise to be transparent with the community whenever we uncover coordinated attempts to manipulate our platform.

    I’m sorry this happened. I’m sorry we live in a world where this shit happens. And I’m sorry that existing safeguards didn’t catch it.

    While we can’t promise that our community will never be infiltrated again, I promise we’ll do everything we can to make it as difficult as possible for bad actors to succeed here […]

  310. says

    Followup to comments 286, 289, 295, 304 and others.

    […] The general consensus—even among Republicans—is that broadcasting a firing squad execution isn’t just morally wrong, but it also plays into the hands of terrorists—who can use the footage to justify potential future attacks. [video]

    “Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting,” retiring GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina wrote on X. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.”

    Similarly, right-wing radio host Erick Erickson said that, while he also supports the death penalty, livestreaming an execution is wrong.

    “Pete Hegseth wants the spectacle of an Army firing squad gunning down a wheelchair bound paraplegic. If the Pentagon does go forward with this, it is actually soul-twisting to turn the execution of a criminal into reality television for the entertainment of Americans,” he wrote. [I snipped other examples.] […]

  311. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/donald-trumps-midterm-scam-pathetically

    “Donald Trump’s Midterm Scam: Pathetically Measly Healthcare Bribes For Some, Miniature American Flags For Others”

    “You know it’s a great idea when an American Enterprise Institute dude calls it ‘inexplicable.’ ”

    As you may have noticed, there’s an election coming up, and by complete coincidence, Donald Trump is sending out bribe checks in hopes that at least a few voters will thank him by voting for Republicans. […]

    Now, these aren’t the imaginary $5,000 bribe checks he’s been lie-promising if voters keep Republicans in control of Congress. These are much smaller payments of $500 to some people enrolled in Obamacare (mostly in red states, huh!) and $90 to some people enrolled in Medicare. But in a crucial difference from the mythical $5,000 Trump dividend — and the prior equally mythical $2000 “tariff dividend” and $5000 “DOGE dividend” — these little healthcare bribes are actually being paid out.

    Democrats and good-government groups point out that, like so many other Trump diktats, the payments may not exactly be legal. Back in the Before Times, we recall, Congress had to approve that sort of thing. But so far, no lawsuits have been filed in an effort to stop the expenditures.

    So far, it’s too early to see whether the MediBribes will do Republicans any good, or if people will just (as is happening!) split their bribes between Wonkette and the Democratic candidates of their choice. Trump and his party are already facing an electoral paddlin’, and the bribes may not reach enough voters or create enough positive buzz to change more than a few minds. Plus, there’s the little problem where the checks won’t even begin to offset the higher medical costs created by Trump’s Big Ugly Bill.

    But never underestimate the ability of Trump voters to get excited when Dear Leader hands them a little bandaid to help them out after he’s cut off a limb or two.[…]

    The White House announced back in September […] that it would be issuing $500 “Working Families Obamacare Refunds” to nearly ONE MILLION Americans, claiming that the money was from ill-gotten “overcharges” imposed by the source of all evil, the Biden administration. That number should already set off stink detectors, since around 19 million Americans have health insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act, even after Trump’s efforts to enshittify it. The bribe checks are coming shortly after the administration kicked 760,000 Americans off Obamacare, insisting they were all doing “fraud,” although it’s likely many of those who were unpersoned actually qualified.

    As NPR explains, the $500 checks to some ACA users are coming out of fees that insurance companies pay the government to participate in the ACA healthcare marketplace; the fees cover the government’s operating costs for the healthcare exchanges. That’s been part of how the ACA works from the beginning, but the White House announcement just plain lies about it, implying that Joe Biden had cheated people with “user fees” that drove up premiums while doing no good at all. You know, beyond covering the costs of running the program. Revenue from the fees has never before been thrown directly at taxpayers, but Donald Trump has unlimited power to ignore piffling little obstacles like the Constitution.

    The $500 “refunds” will only go to users who got their insurance through the federal marketplace instead of the state exchanges, and only to people whose individual incomes are above $64,000 annually, too much to qualify for any premium subsidies at all. Many of those folks benefited from Biden’s expansion of premium subsidies that congressional Republicans refused to extend. When the subsidies expired, millions of Americans saw their premiums skyrocket. That includes people with incomes below the $64K cap; the reduced premium subsidies they still qualify for don’t come close to covering the full cost of the increases, and they won’t even get $500 from Trump’s bribe scheme. [!]

    The “refund” checks are accompanied by a letter from Donald Trump that reads more like a campaign ad or a Truth Social rant than an official document: [Dear John Doe letter]

    Kathleen Clark, a professor at Washington University law school in St. Louis, Missouri, told NPR that the letter reeks of “electioneering” and almost certainly violates the Hatch Act […] She added that the letter “looks like a pretty desperate effort to, in essence, bribe the recipients of this letter to vote in gratitude to Trump in the upcoming midterm elections.”

    But that’s not all the fuckery, heavens no! Remember, the “refunds” only go to ACA subscribers who buy insurance on the federal healthcare.gov exchange, not to folks in mostly blue states that set up their own exchanges. [!] That means the bribe checks are mostly going out to people in red states that wanted nothing to do with Obamacare, although two blue states, Hawaii and Oregon, also use the federal exchange. And again, the vast majority of ACA subscribers in those red states won’t get a check at all.

    Ellen Allen, a West Virginia woman profiled by NPR, is one of the Lucky Duckies who did get a MediBribe. She saw her monthly insurance premium go up by $1,967 every month when the Biden subsidies vanished. She wasn’t terribly impressed by the $500 check she received Monday, which she called a “political stunt.” She told NPR, “If they wanted to do something meaningful, they would work on affordable healthcare instead of just sending out checks every now and then.” […]

    Like the Obamacare bribes, the $90 Medicare bribes will only go to a small share of beneficiaries, although of course the administration insists it’s a wonderful way to make healthcare “more affordable.” It will be sent by direct deposit to about “21 million people enrolled in Part B under traditional Medicare who don’t pay income-related premiums or receive premium assistance from Medicaid,” as healthcare think tank KFF explains.

    That leaves a lot of Medicare enrollees out, particularly the 35 million Americans enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans, even though many of them also pay premiums for Part B. The bribes will also bypass another 12 million Americans who get assistance with their premiums because they’re disabled or have low incomes, presumably because they have it too easy.

    And what a wonderful benefit it will be for the third of Medicare beneficiaries who get it! $90 is enough to fill up your car with Iran-war inflated gasoline, unless you have a diesel vehicle of course. And if you keep it to cover healthcare costs, it’ll cover the projected $79 increase in Part B premiums that will kick in come the new year [!]

    […] The MidtermCare bribes will be pulled — again, illegally — from the Medicare Improvement Fund, which Congress established in 2008 to “make improvements under the original fee-for-service program,” meaning hospital and medical coverage under Medicare Parts A and B. As KFF notes, the $2 billion fund has never been tapped, but the $90 payments should largely wipe it out. Hope Medicare doesn’t need any improvements anytime soon.

    […] there have been no lawsuits to stop this latest grifting by Trump. Pushing back on it might actually make the stupid wasteful spending a campaign issue, with Fox News railing against the mean old Democrats who want to keep Americans from getting their richly-deserved “refunds,” […]

  312. says

    @310 Lynna, please add this to the list of pigsbreath atrocities:

    Posted by: MeidasTouch @meidastouch.com
    Pete Hegseth says Americans will be able to watch a Trump-approved firing-squad execution.
    If he follows through, the U.S. could join a disturbing club of countries known for public executions—including Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea.

    I say: what a wonderful club pigsbreath wants this country to join!

  313. Reginald Selkirk says

    US imposes sanctions on ICC hours after former judge wins Nobel Peace Prize

    US President Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on the ​International Criminal Court on Friday, hours after one of its former judges won the Nobel Peace Prize, putting Washington on a diplomatic collision course with European allies.
    The court denounced the ‌move as an “assault on the rule of law and on the very foundations of the international legal order,” and called on its 125 member states to take action to defend it.
    …

  314. Reginald Selkirk says

    Outrage grows as CDC reportedly poised to fund “unethical” vaccine trial

    Outrage has erupted among health experts over news that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still eager to fund a widely condemned vaccine trial that would expose newborns in Guinea-Bissau to hepatitis B, putting them at high risk of a lifelong infection, which can lead to liver cirrhosis, liver cancer, and premature death.

    The trial was suspended in January after its unethical design came to light and drew international outcry. Although the trial is still halted, staff of the CDC director’s office told the agency’s budget office in late September to set aside $1.6 million to fund the trial, according to a report by Rolling Stone. The money was to be pulled from funding for the CDC’s global health security programs, which might otherwise go toward efforts like combating the Ebola outbreak currently raging in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

    The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, did not respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica.

    If the trial moves forward, it would be funded by the US but run by Danish researchers, who have separately been accused of misconduct. In December, the CDC announced the award of an unsolicited grant for $1.6 million to a research group at the University of Southern Denmark, led by married couple Christine Stabell Benn and Peter Aaby. The pair have produced numerous studies that have been promoted by anti-vaccine advocates, drawing concern and criticism from researchers. Stabell Benn and Aaby are currently under investigation by Danish authorities over allegations of “falsification” and “scientific misconduct” related to previous vaccine research.

    In January, amid criticism of the trial, officials in Guinea-Bissau said they had suspended the research, saying ethical and technical reviews of the trial’s design were ongoing. “There has been no sufficient coordination in order to take a final decision regarding the study,” Quinhin Nantote, the minister of public health for Guinea-Bissau, said at the time. “Faced with this situation, we decided to suspend it.”
    …

  315. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tesla renames ‘Full Self-Driving’ to ‘Tesla Assisted Driving’ in Europe

    Tesla has changed the name of its advanced driver assistance system in Europe after pushback from Germany’s transportation ministry. It’s now called “Tesla Assisted Driving,” instead of “Full Self-Driving (Supervised).”

    It’s a big capitulation from Tesla, which has been using the “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” name for years despite the system requiring humans to pay attention to the road and take over when necessary. But the name change could help Tesla achieve its goal of wider adoption on the continent, which could unlock a potentially massive new revenue stream for the company.
    …

    The change comes a TAD late.

  316. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump announces deal for Russian diesel as Zelensky criticises ‘gift to Putin’

    US President Donald Trump says he has reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin allowing Moscow to “immediately release” diesel to the US and globally.

    Trump said the proposed release of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Russian diesel, in tranches, would see prices “COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!”.

    It is understood the US Treasury is suspending sanctions on Russian diesel exports until 7 April 2027 as part of the deal, but other assets like those in American banks are still frozen…

  317. Reginald Selkirk says

    Hitler Mussolini elected mayor in Peru

    A man named Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores has secured a narrow victory in Peru’s local elections, exit polls show.

    The candidate for the centre-left Ahora Nación party was elected mayor of Queropalca, a remote district in the Peruvian Andes.

    Some 229 residents voted for the 45-year-old, putting him ahead of the second-place candidate from right-wing Renovación Popular Perú by just 25 votes…

  319. says

    @316 Reginald Selkirk correctly informed us: Trump announces deal for Russian diesel
    Trump said the proposed release of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Russian diesel, in tranches, would see prices “COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!”.

    How the FRACK will that happen when “Russia Extends Diesel and Gasoline Export Bans Into 2027” BECAUSE Russia’s cabinet banned diesel exports in July after Ukrainian drone strikes on its refineries prompted the country’s worst fuel crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union, causing people to queue for hours to secure fuel in some areas. Russia was forced to import fuel from India.
    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Russia-Extends-Diesel-and-Gasoline-Export-Bans-Into-2027.html

    tRUMP is a lying sack of crap, desperate for his lies to prevent repugnantcant election losses. (But, only so he won’t be blamed) I’m glad I am never anywhere near tRUMP because I don’t have boots high enough to wade through all his shit.

  320. JM says

    @319 shermanj: I wouldn’t be surprised if Russia dug up some reserves to feed something to the US in the hopes of supporting Trump. The last thing Putin wants is Trump deprived of power. Even if they can’t find enough to matter they will get some money to support their military. Putin is likely hoping that the US leans on Russia not to attack refineries during this period also.
    Getting enough to matter will be the big thing. Trump and Putin can announce this all they want but the shortage has gone on long enough that it will only be a blip in the prices if they can’t back it up.

  321. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TechDirt – Hey platforms: Your violent content policies are about to meet the Pentagon’s firing squad

    While it’s probably perfectly legal in the US to stream the execution, it still might violate the various platform rules that most sites have set up for themselves. (Hosting it globally may also create legal headaches in countries with stricter rules on violent, extremist, and terrorist content, but that’s a separate question.) […] the Pentagon hasn’t yet said where this “livestream” is supposed to occur.
    […]
    Zuck has spent the past couple years sucking up to Donald Trump after Trump threatened to put Zuck in jail for life. But Meta’s “Violent and Graphic Content” policy is the clearest of the bunch […] In the list of things that it says “Do not post” is literally: “Live-streams of capital punishments”.
    […]
    all of [these platforms] except Meta can make unfortunately credible claims that livestreaming an execution by firing squad doesn’t technically violate their policies. Meta cannot say that. I’d argue that the videos likely do violate YouTube, X, and TikTok’s policies as well, but it very much depends on subjective calls for all three.
    […]
    Remember, some of the earliest moral panic over how “bad” social media is came from US elected officials losing their minds about terrorist execution videos on YouTube. It’s kind of incredible how far we’ve come

    Rando 1: “Rumble will let them do it.”

    Rando 2: “When I was running Consumer Product at YouTube we 100% took down videos of public executions by the Iranian government.”
    Rando 2: “We definitely faced some regulatory pressure. There was at least one elected official—a Senator—who pressured us to take down just about anything where the speaker was (a) Middle Eastern and (b) negative about America. But yes, it was a *very* different time.”

  322. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The Independent – AI tool used in thousands of UK asylum claims failing basic accuracy tests

    The Home Office rolled out the use of artificial intelligence to summarise interview transcripts with asylum seekers in April to speed up decision-making on applications in a push to slash a huge backlog.
    […]
    around 7,000 AI summaries are being generated per month on average, but it is up to the decision-makers whether they use them […] The ACS system uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 model. Government data published from the pilot testing claimed that the ACS tool saved asylum decision-makers 23 minutes per case on average—pointing to the “high cognitive load” of reading lengthy interview transcripts which can often be up to 50 pages long.

    They read the summary to avoid reading the full transcript. They won’t know what’s wrong with the summary if they don’t read the full transcript. Spot checks found 22% of summaries to be repeatedly mischaracterizing, largely wrong, or unhelpful.

    Rando: “So the initial decision backlog has been reduced merely for the appeals backlog to swell as rejectees take their cases to court (with taxpayer funded legal aid).”

  328. Pierce R. Butler says

    When SecState Marco Rubio went to Greece and had the story of US Ambassador to Greece and political-power groupie Kimberly Guilfoyle begging a Republican donor to covertly pay off her $100,000 AmEx card debt explode in his facez, he said,

    “Our job is not to respond every time someone decides to give the media something without any advance warning, without having any chance to look at it and see what’s in there,” he told reporters while complaining that the story was “not the gospel.”

    So, if it doesn’t come through Official Channels with adequate advance notice, the State Dept. need not consider it: surprises don’t count. Pearl Harbor, 9/11, whatever rude shock comes next: Li’l Marco has no reason to “respond.”

    He does have a point about this not being “gospel” – so far all the reports do not contradict each other.

  331. says

    News Observer:

    A U.S. judge ruled on Friday that the Justice Department’s push to obtain state voter rolls and check them against a federal immigration database in order to demand that states remove voters it deemed ineligible was unlawful. US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan’s decision marked the latest setback for President Donald Trump’s push to expand federal control over election administration ahead of the November 3 midterms […]

  332. says

    MS NOW:

    The South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay, who is currently an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

  333. says

    Washington Sun:

    President Donald Trump touted a tranche of corporate funding for Freedom 250’s private-public partnership to celebrate the semiquincentennial of the nation’s founding. But records obtained and released Thursday by a watchdog group show that taxpayers apparently were who largely supported this summer’s celebrations — raising questions about where tens of millions in private donations ended up.

  334. says

    The Weird, the Menacing and the False: Tracking the Worst of the 2026 Midterms Ads

    With Election Day less than a month out, it seemed like a good time to check in on some of the weirdest and worst campaign ads of the 2026 cycle. There are already some doozies out there. Some make gratuitous use of AI, and a good number involve rampant transphobia, which I guess shouldn’t be surprising. Per the Washington Post, the GOP is leaning particularly hard into AI ads, with Republican candidates and groups behind 80% of the 164 AI spots tracked by the Wesleyan Media Project this cycle. […]

    ‘Tough Mountain’ Values Involve Shooting People
    […] An ad put out by the National Republican Congressional Committee shows Jennifer Balkcom sitting beside her mother, identified on screen as “Momma.” “Mom raised us on her own. She taught us to be strong. And when someone broke into our house, she shot ‘em!” “You break into my house, you’re going to get shot,” her mom agrees, smiling. […]

    Forced Trans Teen Surgery in Texas
    Texas PAC, a super PAC linked to Senate Republican leadership, is going after Democrat James Talarico by falsely claiming that he supports “using taxpayer dollars for sex change surgeries on young children.” They’re apparently getting this from Talarico’s vote, as a member of the Texas House of Representatives, against a measure that prohibited gender-reassignment surgeries for children, which is not the same thing as voting to approve the use of taxpayer funds for such procedures.

    The ad is misleading and its transphobic message is played out. But at least the AI is amusingly bad. As the Houston Chronicle’s Gwen Howerton describes it, “a Latino boy gets hit with a Transgenderification Beam and turns into a beautiful woman.” The kid ages a good 10 years via the special Animorphs-like transition.

    The spot is one of several that seeks to boost Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Senate bid without actually mentioning Paxton at all, which makes sense given how little people like the man. […]

    Trump Threatens Us in a Hallway Again
    In another 2024 throwback, Trump is literally just releasing a presidential campaign ad he ran that year again — this time with funding from the U.S. government. The black-and-white spot, titled “The Final Battle,” shows a somber Trump walking down a hallway, glowering into the camera. “We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists,” he says in voiceover. “We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.” Trump’s pledge to get rid of the “warmongers” in our government hits a little differently seven months into the war he personally launched in Iran.

    Though the White House insisted this and other pro-Trump spots funded by the government are simply “public service announcements,” not midterms ads, he reluctantly agreed to have his super PAC pay for the rest of them. That of course doesn’t mean he’ll reimburse the government for the $10 million the admin has already spent on these ads, though.

    Steve Hilton Manages to be Both Confusing and Horny
    Steve Hilton appears to be going for the “all press is good press” strategy in his long-shot bid to become California’s governor. The Republican candidate put out an innuendo-filled ad that confusingly suggests two progressive, lesbian Gen Zers are going to “just try” voting for Hilton.

    It depicts two girls with dyed hair and piercings sitting on a bed in front of an LGBTQ flag on the wall, as indie music plays softly in the background. One says “I’ve never done anything like this before. What if my dad finds out?” And the other encourages her to give it a try anyway. As the camera pans to their laps, it turns out that “it” is actually casting a mail-in ballot for the Republican nominee. The ad ends with the music abruptly cutting out and the second girl urging the first to “lick”…the envelope closed. California Republicans and Democrats were quick to denounce the ad as uncomfortable and “weird.” The YouTube comments alternate between calling Hilton a creep and saying he’s made his sexual proclivities clear. My personal fave: “So be gay and vote by mail. Got it.”

    Senate Republicans Just Make Stuff Up to Target Sherrod Brown
    The Senate Leadership Fund is out with a different anti-trans spot in Ohio, and this one happens to be fully based on lies. As the Cleveland ABC affiliate puts it in the headline: “Woman accusing Sherrod Brown of forcing transgender surgeries isn’t from Ohio, didn’t have procedure as minor.” The ad features social media influencer Soren Aldaco, who blames Brown for forcing minors “like her” to undergo “childhood sex change surgery.” The ABC reporter found that Aldaco is actually from Texas, where she sought a double mastectomy at age 19.

    It’s illegal to perform gender-affirming care procedures on minors in Ohio, and Brown has simply said that he thinks families and doctors — not government officials — should be allowed to make medical decisions about their healthcare.

    The Classic Crazy Woman Trope, But Make it AI
    AI ads are cheap, so candidates in state legislative races have embraced them. Take Sen. Michael Lee, who is running to represent North Carolina Senate District 7. His ad, “Bonkers Bichler,” features an AI deepfake version of his opponent, Jessica Bichler, who is a yoga instructor and studio owner, doing yoga poses, meditating, and banging a gong. Because doing yoga means you’re a dang kooky hippie.

    The bulk of the YouTube comments criticize Lee for pushing AI “slop,” being weird about a woman’s appearance, and mocking an extremely common form of exercise. “I wish he would spend more timing fixing our water issues and less time making fun of people who do yoga,” one reads.

  336. whheydt says

    Re: Pierce R. Butler @ #328…
    The attack on Pearl Harbor did come with a warning. Not much of one, and that was intentional. The Japanese government tried–and failed–to finesse the then understood rules by attempting to deliver an ultimatum about an hour before the attack was to start. The Japanese ambassador was delayed and didn’t get the document to the US Sec. of State until after the attack. However, the US had broken the codes used and the Sec. of State had the ultimatum on his desk earlier.

  337. says

    Trump says Zelenskyy ‘better damn well stop’ attacks on Russian oil refineries, calls for new Ukrainian leader

    “The U.S. president lashed out at Zelenskyy over Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure.”

    President Donald Trump on Saturday pushed back at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over attacks on Russian oil refineries, warning that he “better damn well stop” and calling for Ukraine to install a new leader.

    The remarks marked a sharp escalation in Trump’s criticism of his Ukrainian counterpart and came just one day after Zelenskyy accused Trump of using peace negotiations as a “smokescreen” while striking a deal with Russia to temporarily lift sanctions on its diesel exports.

    “Zelenskyy could have settled this war many times. Many, many times. And he chooses not to,” Trump said Saturday. “Very difficult. It’s a war that should’ve never been started.”

    Zelenskyy’s office declined to comment.

    Trump said his administration had warned Ukraine against striking Russian refineries because of the potential consequences for global diesel supplies, which have already been strained by the ongoing war with Iran.

    “We said, ‘You can do whatever you want to Russia. Don’t hit the refineries because that’s a world problem,’” Trump said. “He wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers with diesel fuel, because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel around the world.”

    “And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel,” Trump continued. “He better damn well stop.”

    Trump also suggested Ukraine needed a “new leader who can make a deal” with Moscow, renewing his criticism of Zelenskyy’s handling of the war. Trump has previously questioned Zelenskyy’s legitimacy and pushed for Ukrainian elections, but his latest remarks amounted to a more explicit call for a change in leadership.

    The comments came amid growing tensions between Washington and Kyiv over Trump’s surprise agreement Friday, a move the White House hopes will bring down record diesel prices ahead of the midterm elections.

    Zelenskyy sharply criticized the announcement Friday. “That means more money for this war, more money to inflict suffering on us, without a doubt,” he said. […]

  338. Pierce R. Butler says

    whheydt @ # 336 – Thanks for the correction!

    As I heard the story – haven’t really dug into it – the US State Dept deliberately kept the ambassador and aides stalled in a waiting room just to show who was boss.

    And it was the Brits who broke the Japanese codes and informed the US what they found out, iirc (my source on that, some books read over a decade ago, did not specify 12/7/41 as part of that exchange, except as part of a message to the FBI which J. Edgar Hoover, in rejecting a proposed MI-6 project, ignored).

  339. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 324

    “…we will cast out the…fascists,” he says in voiceover.”

    Funny how Trump wants to “cast out” his own base.I’m assuming that he’s using the same political dictionary that Vance uses.

    Also, I wouldn’t call the ownership stakes “communist.” Sounds more like the economic aspects of fascism to me; i.e. combined state and corporate power.

  341. whheydt says

    Re: Pierce R. Butler @ #338…
    Most of the delay was, because of the sensitive nature of the communication, the Japanese ambassador did the decryption and then typing the copy to give to Stimson, himself. He was a lousy typist and it took him quite a while to manage a clean copy.

  342. Pierce R. Butler says

    whheydt @ # 341 – Thanks again.

    Can you recommend a particular book on all this?

  343. whheydt says

    Re: Pierce R. Butler @ #341…
    I think Kahn’s The Codebreakers goes into it at some depth.

  345. Reginald Selkirk says

    House Republican, invoking Reagan, moves to block Trump’s Russia oil deal

    Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) vowed Saturday to force a House vote to block Russian oil purchases, challenging President Trump’s diesel deal with President Vladimir Putin.
    …
    Driving the news: Fitzpatrick, co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, said he would introduce the “Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act” and force a vote through a discharge petition.
    …

    Yay‽ Am I supposed to be impressed?
    If Republicans succeed in blocking one thing Trump attempts, it brings up all the other things they allow him to do. And the Republicans in the Senate failed to convict him of impeachable crimes twice.

  347. says

    Washington Post report: 12 killed, hundreds injured in Saudi Arabia airport attack as Houthi strikes intensify

    “Amid wider Iran war, Yemen’s Houthis are also striking Saudi oil infrastructure, as compounding Middle East conflicts threaten to expand.”

    At least 12 people were killed — including one American — and more than 300 injured in an attack Saturday at Saudi Arabia’s international airport in Riyadh, aviation authorities there said, as the Persian Gulf nation faced some of the biggest attacks it has seen in years by Iranian-backed Houthi militants.

    While the rebel group did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack, it came during a week where smoke could be seen billowing above the airport and explosions sounded in Saudi Arabia’s capital in a wave of intensifying Houthi strikes.

    As Saturday’s attack forced aviation authorities to suspend operations at the airport, President Donald Trump did not rule out joining Saudi strikes on the Houthis in response to a question from reporters.
    “We may. We’re going to look at it,” he said.

    Later Saturday, Trump said he plans to speak with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia known as MBS, and called the Riyadh attack “a terrible thing.” He added that the U.S. “has communication with the Houthis.”

    Saudi’s civil aviation authorities said in a statement the 309 injured “included critical cases who are currently receiving necessary medical care at various hospitals. The attack also caused property damage, the extent of which is currently being assessed.” The attack also prompted the U.S. Embassy to issue a warning to citizens asking them to “avoid this airport and surrounding areas.”

    While the U.S. push for a deal to end its war with Iran remains stalled, the escalating conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia is further rattling energy markets and threatening to draw in still more countries, in a region already beset by overlapping wars. […]

  348. says

    DOJ investigating five TV networks over White House pool coverage

    “The antitrust probe of the outlets — Fox News, CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC — marks a sharp escalation in the Trump administration’s use of its powers against perceived enemies in the press.”

    The Justice Department is investigating the major television networks for potential antitrust violations, the department’s top spokesperson said Saturday night as the Trump administration’s battle with the mainstream press intensifies.

    The five networks — Fox News, CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC — had collectively suspended pooled coverage of the White House last month after President Donald Trump banned CNN, along with MS NOW and Politico, from White House grounds. The networks later resumed pool coverage of the president after a federal judge ordered the White House to restore access to CNN, MS NOW and Politico. Separate tussles have continued over the issue of whether the White House can bar CNN and others from participating in pool coverage on Air Force One.

    […] The Justice Department’s investigation marks a sharp escalation in the administration’s use of its powers against perceived enemies in the press. In addition to Trump’s ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico, the Pentagon has fired staff members from the military newspaper Stars and Stripes who have criticized political influence on the outlet. Federal prosecutors have served subpoenas on reporters from several news organizations, including The Washington Post and the New York Times. And in January, federal law enforcement served a search warrant at the home of a Washington Post reporter and seized several of her work and personal devices.

    The antitrust investigation was first reported by the New York Times. […]

  350. Pierce R. Butler says

    CA7746, SC @ # 344 gives a Wikipfft link that states variously:

    In the days before the attack, a long 14-part message was sent to the embassy from the Foreign Office in Tokyo that was encrypted with the Type 97 cypher machine, in a cipher named PURPLE by U.S. cryptanalysts, who were able to decode it.

    but also –

    Only one message from the Hawaiian Japanese consulate, sent on 6 December in a low-level consular cipher, included mention of an attack at Pearl Harbor, and it was not decrypted until 8 December.[53] The Japanese diplomatic code (Purple code) could be read, but the current version (JN-25C) of the Japanese naval code (JN-25), which had replaced JN-25B on 4 December 1941, could not be read until May 1942.

    Which somewhat ameliorates the blame on Washington: Hull may have had “the ultimatum” in hand, but not the specifics of any attack plan or even an overt declaration of war. I still can’t imagine him whining in the way Rubio just did.

  354. Reginald Selkirk says

    Cyber Extortion Expert Charged With Cyber Extortion Amid FBI Website Hack Manhunt

    Edward Dubrovsky has spent years telling companies how to handle criminals who steal their data and demand payment. Federal prosecutors now accuse the 54-year-old Canadian ransomware negotiator of conspiring to commit cyber extortion himself, and anonymous sources say his case is connected to ShinyHunters, the crew that defaced the FBI’s jobs site last month and demanded the bureau retract a May warning about the hacking group.

    According to the federal docket in Philadelphia, which misspells his last name as “Dobrovsky,” Dubrovsky was arrested in Pennsylvania on Thursday. The complaint, which was filed in the Eastern District of Texas and remains under seal, charges him with conspiracy to threaten to impair the confidentiality of information with the intent to extort money, along with Hobbs Act extortion and conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act extortion. A magistrate judge in Philadelphia ordered him held and sent him to Texas for a detention hearing. Dubrovsky hasn’t been convicted or entered a plea, and Politico reported that he could not be reached for comment.

    The public filings say nothing about ShinyHunters or the FBI, and FBI Director Kash Patel didn’t name the suspect when he announced a ShinyHunters-related arrest on Friday. “This is the latest arrest this FBI has made in a matter of days involving this network, as we work non-stop to dismantle the group, pursue new leads and evidence, and act quickly,” Patel wrote on X…

  355. StevoR says

    @ ^ Reginald Selkirk : Well you do get to be an expert by practicing in your field don’t you?

  358. StevoR says

    Volodymyr Zelenskyy says a Ukrainian election can only be held if Russia agrees to a 60-day ceasefire, as he rejects US President Donald Trump’s call for him to be replaced as Ukrainian president.

    Mr Trump has sharpened his criticism of the wartime leader in recent days, blaming Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for high diesel prices in the US.

    The US president has also announced that his administration had temporarily lifted US sanctions on Russian fuel, as Mr Trump faces pressure domestically over his handling of the Iran war and high energy prices.

    Speaking to the American Broadcasting Company, Mr Zelenskyy pushed back on Mr Trump’s call for Ukrainians to pick a new leader.

    “First of all, with all respect to President Trump, it’s up to our society, up to our people to choose one or another leader,” Mr Zelenskyy said in a televised interview.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-12/ukraine-trump-zelenskyy-elections/107254072

  359. StevoR says

    Could. Hopefully If they are held fairly. If results are respected & accepted. Sadly very big IIFs right now:

    While it is often difficult to draw a direct link between the White House and people’s personal financial situations, Professor Hopkins says voters this cycle are able to see the clear impact of Mr Trump’s policies on tariffs and the war with Iran.

    “That’s made it difficult for Republican candidates to articulate their vision of what to do to solve people’s economic problems,” he says.

    “They’re faced with this choice of either endorsing Trump and Trump’s policies, which voters don’t like, or separating themselves from Trump and risking that Trump himself will be enraged by their disloyalty.”

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-11/republican-states-like-ohio-in-play-us-midterms/107250786

  363. Reginald Selkirk says

    @272

    Russia’s Yandex bot traffic nearly eliminated overnight after Ukraine drone strikes cripple multiple of ‘Russia’s Google’ data centers — Ukraine intensifies bombing of Yandex data centers in response to Moscow’s strikes on Kyiv data centers

    Russian bot traffic has dropped dramatically in the past few days after Ukraine knocked out Yandex’s biggest data centers, with a third attack happening last night. Cloudflare reports that bot traffic from the Yandex network has dropped to just 0.4% of the maximum number of HTTP requests recorded in the past two weeks. It initially dropped to around 57% on Oct. 8, which happened when Ukraine hit a Yandex data center housing two supercomputers in Sasovo, Russia, located around 195 miles to the southeast of the Kremlin. A second, bigger Yandex campus in Kaluga, about 220 miles to the west of Sasovo, was knocked offline yesterday.

    These attacks are apparently Ukraine’s response to Moscow’s strikes on its own data centers, some of which resulted in the outage of some of the most popular piracy websites…

  364. JM says

    The Hill: Philadelphia police receive false homicide tip from Anthropic AI model

    Anthropic’s artificial intelligence model submitted a false homicide tip to the Philadelphia Police Department in July, the company disclosed on Friday.
    The AI firm said its Claude Haiku 4.5 model filled out a form on a website page soliciting the public’s help to gather more information about unsolved homicide on July 18. The model submitted a tip claiming it had knowledge about the case.
    Anthropic said it had instructed the model to perform “example tasks on randomly selected webpages” and restricted it from actions such as creating accounts, submitting personal information or making purchases.
    However, the AI company said the instructions did not explicitly bar Claude Haiku 4.5 from making form submissions.

    The real fault here is whoever gave it those commands. It should have been generate a random list of thinks to do, have a human audit the list, then ask the AI to do the things on the audited list. This isn’t hard, it’s Anthropic being unsafe.

  365. JM says

    RawStory: Explosive report alleges US pressured ally to bomb Iran to protect Trump ahead of midterms

    Citing a report from the Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper Maariv, The Jerusalem Post details a supposed pressure campaign from the Trump administration to urge Israel into carrying out strikes on Iran “over the past two weeks.”
    “Washington wanted Israel to assume the political risks of a military operation ahead of the US midterm elections, rather than US President Donald Trump,” The Jerusalem Post’s report reads, citing Maariv’s report.

    If find it more interesting that Israel didn’t want to do this then that the US asked. With the way the war is going Israel may not want to attract any more attention then they are already getting. The US may have asked for stupid or impossible targets also.

    Trump has ramped up threats to resume strikes on Iran in recent weeks, including as recently as Friday during a rally in New York, warning that he may opt to “finish it off” if Iran refused to accept a deal.

    Trump is talking up the war but somebody realizes that strikes are not going to help right now. The war is already highly unpopular and a few random strikes is neither going to look good in the US or help the war. It would take a large scale effort to really hurt Iran, they have worked for years to protect and hide their little drone launch sites and drone factories.

  366. says

    Cartoon: Shame, by Drew Sheneman.

    Why conservatives shrug off sexual assault

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last week that New York Attorney General Letitia James is assigned to investigate the handling of the Cornell University rape allegation, in which charges were not brought and a lawsuit is now pending.
    When asked about the case, President Donald Trump complained about James’ hiring—probably because she successfully prosecuted him for financial crimes—and lamented that the accused rapists “won’t get a fair shake.”

    Similarly, conservative commentator Megyn Kelly took the opportunity to go after the victim—specifically her appearance.

    “I’m just going to be honest, she’s not the most attractive gal,” Kelly said. “She’s extremely beefy in her arms and her legs. She has a whole video online talking about her cankles.”

    These comments are not an aberration from how the right has dealt with sexual abuse over the years; they’re part of a pattern of acceptance and, in some instances, outright victim blaming.

    Trump is arguably the most notable Republican who’s associated with sexual abuse. He has admitted to sexually assaulting women and has been publicly accused by at least 28 women of sexual assault or abuse.

    On the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape Trump said, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. … Grab them by the [P-word]. You can do anything.”

    And as president, he has embodied those values for more than a decade—shining light on this ugly truth about the Republican Party.

    During the 2012 campaign cycle, former GOP Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri was slammed for his claim that the human body somehow possessed the ability to stop a pregnancy in a “legitimate rape.”

    Speaking out in defense of Trump in 2016, right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh lamented the existence of what he called “the rape police,” who he felt were unjustly criticizing Trump.

    In a comment that would echo for decades, Texas’ 1990 GOP gubernatorial candidate Clayton W. Williams advised women on how they should respond to rape: “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”

    These comments and the casual dismissal of one of the most serious crimes speak to the central role that misogyny plays within conservatism.

    Hatred toward women and the promotion of policies meant to make women second-class citizens are not merely on the periphery of right-wing politics—they are a major component of the party’s identity.

    Minimizing rape is precisely what to expect from a party that has spent decades working to undermine abortion rights, ultimately overturning Roe v. Wade. A pivotal vote in overturning Roe came from Justice Clarence Thomas, who was accused of sexually harassing his former supervisee Anita Hill in 1991.

    And it was Vice President JD Vance, who was a Senate candidate at the time, argued in 2022 that the right to an abortion shouldn’t exist because people viewed pregnancy resulting from rape as “inconvenient.”

    The Cornell case is directly linked to Trump administration policies. After Trump took power in 2025, agencies were redirected from investigating and prosecuting sexual assault cases, reflecting the GOP’s disinterest in fighting these crimes and the effect it has on women and society at large.

    When a case involving rape becomes national news, conservatives weigh in. And unlike most Americans, they continually put themselves on the side of the offenders—worrying about the effect on men and minimizing the abuse against women. […]

  368. says

    35 years ago: Anita Hill testified against Clarence Thomas

    On Oct. 11, 1991, law professor Anita Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during the contentious confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

    Hill accused Thomas, her former supervisor at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, of sexually harassing her. [video]

    Thomas was nominated by former President George H.W. Bush to replace Thurgood Marshall, the legendary civil rights attorney and first Black Supreme Court justice.

    Thomas denied the allegations, and the Senate ultimately confirmed him by a narrow vote of 52 to 48 on Oct. 15.

    Since then, he’s proven himself to be loyal to President Donald Trump’s corruption at the expense of the Constitution.

  369. says

    Trump called for regime change in a democracy that is being invaded by a dictator with absolutely no hesitation or shame.

    […] US President Donald Trump’s October 9 announcement about the diesel export deal between the United States and Russia disrupted the negotiations meeting between a Ukrainian delegation and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and former Senior Advisor to the US President Jared Kushner in Miami.

    […] Turns out the Graham Sanctioning Russia Act was just a smokescreen. […]

    Trump lifts sanctions on Russian diesel, handing Putin cash for his war machine, while his minions, Witkoff & Kushner, host a Ukrainian peace delegation in Miami, kept in the dark about the Trump-Putin call. […]

    Russian Presidential Aide Yuriy Ushakov claimed that Putin told Trump that Ukraine’s alleged long-range strikes against Russian election infrastructure during the September 2026 Russian State Duma elections “thwarted the possibility” of “immediately” resuming peace negotiations — attempting to malign Ukraine as the party responsible for halting peace negotiations.

    There is, in fact, no evidence that Ukraine targeted Russian election infrastructure during the September 2026 Duma elections, and Russian claims that Ukraine attempted to target election infrastructure remain unfounded. […]

    Moscow has insisted on painting Ukraine as the intransigent party in peace efforts despite the fact that Russia has not offered any concessions and has rejected numerous compromise proposals that the US and Ukraine have offered. Putin’s October 9 reiteration of his commitment to Russia’s unchanged war aims demonstrates the Kremlin’s continued unwillingness to accept any compromised peace proposals on any terms that fall short of fulfilling Russia’s maximalist demands of Ukraine’s complete capitulation. […]

    The Wall Street Journal editorial board:

    Trump “is clearly worried about the price of diesel fuel, but blaming Ukraine amid Iranian and Houthi attacks on Mideast oil production and transport is political excuse-making on a grand scale.”

    See also this post from Aaron Rupar: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3mxkrbbrd6x2g

    Wow — listen to these new comments from Trump. Thanking Putin, trashing Zelenskyy, characterizing Russia as eager for peace and Ukraine as intransigent. The mask is totally off.

    Video at the link.

  371. beholder says

    Hopefully If they are held fairly.
    Sadly very big IIFs right now — @359 StevoR

    StevoR, if you’re claiming my state isn’t conducting its election fairly, then you need to present some evidence.

  372. Rob Grigjanis says

    beholder @371: That would require knowing, at the very least, which state you live in. Not holding my breath on that one.

  373. beholder says

    Rob, you obsess over me enough to the degree that you should be able to find the comments where I explicitly said which state I live in.

    In any case StevoR’s got nuthin’. He’s just spreading disinfo in the classic Dubya style of predicting that the election is being stolen, in either case: a.) Your sports team wins, and you memory-hole the disinfo claims — this election was conducted correctly!, or b.) Your sports team loses, and you use your earlier claims to agitate for throwing out the election results.

  375. says

    Trump claims Russia and Ukraine agree to energy ceasefire, but Zelenskyy says that’s ‘news for me’

    “President Donald Trump made a similar announcement a month ago, only for the two sides to continue their aerial attacks on each other’s energy facilities.”

    […] Trump claimed Sunday that Ukraine and Russia have agreed to an “energy ceasefire” as part of the ongoing conflict. There was no immediate confirmation from Moscow, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reportedly said this “was news for me.”

    Trump made a similar announcement a month ago, only for the two sides to continue their aerial attacks on each other’s energy facilities.

    “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday morning. “Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” He did not elaborate further on what the ceasefire might include.

    Zelenskyy told Axios that he knew nothing about a ceasefire deal.

    “But if Russians agree to an energy ceasefire Ukraine will agree,” Zelenskyy said, according to Axios. “If President Trump negotiated it with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin — please tell us when the ceasefire begins — we are ready and we will accept it.”

    […] It follows a dramatic few days in which Trump agreed to a diesel deal with the Kremlin, demanded Kyiv halt attacks on Russian oil refineries and called for Zelenskyy to be replaced. The shift left Kyiv and its European allies reeling.

    The U.S. agreed Friday to lift sanctions on Russian fuel in a deal that Trump said would see Russia “immediately” release 300,000 tons of diesel “to the American and global marketplace,” followed by 500,000 tons in November and another million after that.

    fter strong criticism from Zelenskyy, Trump said Saturday: “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal, because he could have made many deals.”

    Trump has sought to blame the Ukraine conflict, rather than his own assault on Iran, for a global fuel shortage that has driven diesel prices to record highs since the U.S. launched the Middle East war in February.

    Zelenskyy reiterated Sunday that he was ready to halt strikes on Russian refineries if the Kremlin halts its own attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

    “We are ready for energy ceasefire, not to attack energy — both sides,” he said in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week.” He added that if Russia wants an energy ceasefire, “we are open for this.”

    “Don’t attack us,” he said. “Don’t kill our children. We will stop attack your diesel.”

    He also told ABC News he would hold elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire.

    Zelenskyy said “it’s up to Ukrainians” to choose their leader and noted that Putin would also like to ​change who is ​leading Ukraine.

    He ⁠said it is easy for Ukraine to be blamed for higher fuel ​prices “when everybody in the world understands [that] ​because ⁠of the war in [the] Middle East, the prices are rising.”

    Zelenskyy was also asked on ABC News why Trump and Elon Musk blamed him for the war’s continuation.

    “Because these people can’t find a key how to stop Putin, because it’s more difficult to stop Putin than to pressure others, because it’s more simple to speak about the prices and connect it with Ukraine,” he responded, pointing to how the war in Iran was leading to higher fuel prices.

  376. says

    Europeans back Zelenskyy after Trump calls for new Ukrainian leader

    The United Kingdom, Germany and Poland have reaffirmed their support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after U.S. President Donald Trump said the country needed a new leader.

    Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X that he was “absolutely convinced” nobody could break Ukraine and its president in their “fight against Russian aggression.”

    “I have assured [Zelenskyy] that he can count on Poland’s and Europe’s full solidarity with the Ukrainian nation,” he added.

    German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul also reaffirmed his country’s support for Zelenskyy Sunday, while calling for greater pressure on Moscow to return to peace talks.

    “We need continued consistency and clarity on the side of Ukraine,” he told Reuters at a meeting of the governing Christian Democrats.

    The show of support comes after Zelenskyy and Trump traded barbs Saturday following Washington’s decision to ease diesel sanctions on Russia. “I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he criticized Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities.

    […] The U.K. also reiterated its support for Kyiv following Trump’s remarks. “We stand with Ukraine. We stand with President Zelenskyy,” British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC Sunday morning, adding that Ukrainians alone should decide who leads their country.

    Streeting said Russian President Vladimir Putin started the war and could end it, and added that Britain’s priority would be to seek reconciliation between Kyiv and Washington.

    On Saturday, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham spoke with Zelenskyy and reiterated Britain’s “complete solidarity,” Downing Street said. Burnham acknowledged that “the last 24 hours had been difficult for Ukraine” and pledged to strengthen sanctions, according to the statement.

  377. says

    Followup to comments 316, 337, 358, 369, 375 and 376.

    […] Zelenskyy said later Sunday that Russia struck the CHPP-5 power plant in Kharkiv after Trump’s announcement.

    Link

  378. Reginald Selkirk says

    US justice department investigates TV networks over Trump pool coverage

    The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has said it is investigating several TV networks over whether they broke federal competition laws when they recently suspended pool coverage of Donald Trump.

    Last month, five networks paused their presidential coverage for several days in response to the Trump administration withdrawing the credentials of reporters from CNN, MS Now and Politico.

    The DoJ asked ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News to hand over communications related to the pool and said the boycott could violate the Sherman Act, referring to a law that bars companies from engaging in monopolistic business practices…

  380. Reginald Selkirk says

    184 cuneiform tablets discovered in Hittite royal archive

    Kayalıpınar, identified with the ancient city of Šamuḫa, is located in the Yıldızeli district of Sivas Province in central Türkiye.

    Excavations conducted by Koç University under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism have uncovered 131 cuneiform tablets and fragments during the latest archaeological season.

    Combined with tablets recovered during previous excavations, the discovery brings the total number of documents from the archive to 184.

    The tablets date from approximately 3,400 years ago during the reign of the Hittite king Tudhaliya II and contain records relating to the political, military and administrative affairs of the Hittite state…

  382. Reginald Selkirk says

    Can DNA fingerprints distinguish between identical twins?

    The other day we were watching one of our favorite British crime shows where science and forensics plays a prominent role in catching the criminal.

    This one involved a complicated story line with three identical triplets who impersonated each other.1 DNA was present at one of the crime scenes and it matched the DNA of the triplets but the investigators weren’t able to distinguish between the three triplets. I knew that monozygotic twins and triplets had identical DNA fingerprints but I also knew that it was possible to tell them apart if you had more DNA sequences…

  384. JM says

    Telegraph via Yahoo: Vegetables half as nutritious as they were in the 1960s</a.

    Will Summers, a senior associate at the firm, said: “For 60 years we’ve measured food security in calories and tonnes per hectare.
    “On those measures we’ve done remarkably well. But we’ve been quietly hollowing out what’s inside our food.”
    The decrease in nutrient and vitamin value is thought to be down to declining soil quality and crops being selectively bred for their ability to grow quickly, rather than there being any focus on their health benefits.

  385. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Forerunner to JM @384.
    SciAm – Dirt Poor: Have fruits and vegetables become less nutritious? (2011)

    It would be overkill to say that the carrot you eat today has very little nutrition in it—especially compared to some of the other less healthy foods you likely also eat—but it is true that fruits and vegetables grown decades ago were much richer in vitamins and minerals than the varieties most of us get today.

    Sarah Taber (Crop scientist):

    Yeah a lot of those farm corps are monopolies, monopsonies, cartel-like groups, etc… NOW. After decades of mergers & acquisitions. But a lot of my fellow farmers had already outsourced a lot of their thinking & decision-making to those companies, LONG before the corps had that kind of market power. You can trust-bust those corps. And we should! But trust-busting the corps isn’t gonna fix the situation that created them
    […]
    inheritance is not a good way to pick people who are good at complicated jobs! Imagine what going to the dentist would be like, if the way people became dentists was “be born to someone who already owns a dental practice.” That’s how we get new farmers!

    So agribusiness, in a lot of ways, exists to fill in the knowledge & performance gaps that come with job-by-inheritance. This also helps explain why agriculture problems seem “impossible to fix.” […] it is just… kinda embarrassing. We don’t want to talk about it. […] So we’ve spent decades fooling around w earnest, cutesy efforts to “get rid of agribusiness.” Organic. Local. Grass-fed. Regenerative. Etc etc.

    And what it’s gotten us, frankly, is MAHA & farmers who vote for Trump & keep planting soybeans.

    […] as a farmer, my thoughts are that what we need in this industry is fresh blood. And we need it BAD. Let’s worry less about “saving farmers,” & way more about bringing new people into the business. How about we just try letting people who haven’t already spent their careers outsourcing their decisions to meat corps & seed & chemical dealers, get into farming. With proper work-your-way-up ladders & resources

  386. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TheGuardian – Andy Burnham says it is clear Russia interfered in Brexit referendum

    Burnham said: “I asked the question coming to Downing Street: well, was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia? I’ve had the clear answer that yes, there was.”

    Burnham’s comments mark a significant departure from the position taken by past Conservative governments, which insisted there was no evidence of successful interference by Russia in the referendum vote. The prime minister did not disclose who had given him the assessment, what evidence it was based on or whether any interference had affected the result of the vote.

    A report by parliament’s intelligence and security committee in 2020 criticised the government and intelligence agencies for failing to properly investigate […] It said the government had not provided any post-referendum assessment of Russian attempts at interference, in contrast to the investigation undertaken in the US after the 2016 presidential election.
    […]
    Burnham said Britain needed to be more open about attempts by hostile states to interfere in its politics, particularly as European leaders grapple with the rise of the far right. […] He said he had discussed the threat posed by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) with the German chancellor […] this week. Burnham said Merz raised concerns about the party’s links to Russia.

  387. says

    Excerpt from an article written by David Remick, Editor of The New Yorker:

    […] the Daily Beast publishes headlines that archly reflect the situation: “Confused Trump, 80, Makes Bizarre Blunder in Late-Night Meltdown”; “Sleepless Trump, 80, Goes Full Disney Adult in 1 A.M. Posting Frenzy”; “Trump, 80, Repeatedly Slumps in Chair Ahead of Midterm Blitz.”

    What more and more voters are coming to understand is how profoundly they have been betrayed. And this is not just about the price of gas and groceries, though “affordability” is scarcely the joke the President thinks it is. Vladimir Putin long ago set out to mock the United States for its hypocrisies. You are no better than us—that was his message and his cover to crush dissent at home and the liberties of an independent Ukraine. When Trump threatens Greenland and Canada or greases a media merger in his interest, he is proving Putin’s point. When the titans of tech obediently line up at Trump’s Inauguration and fund his ballroom, Putin smiles. Who are we to lecture him about oligarchy? This is the ethos of the era defined by Putin and Trump: morality in politics is for dupes; all that matters is interests. Because Trump is simultaneously an autocrat and a performance artist, because Americans tend to cling reflexively to the fraying notion of national exceptionalism, it is difficult to reckon with the idea that a President might be not merely shambolic and incompetent but something far darker, even evil.

    But if we are uncomfortable using a word like “evil,” how else are we to describe the spectacle of the President unleashing Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the history of humankind, to slash the budget of the U.S. Agency for International Development? According to an article in The Lancet and the intensive research of Atul Gawande, a surgeon, a former assistant administrator for U.S.A.I.D., […] the agency’s support—focussed on fighting malaria, polio, malnutrition, tuberculosis, and H.I.V.—saved at least ninety million lives in the previous two decades. Researchers estimate that the cruelty-by-budget-cut has been responsible for the loss of as many as seven hundred thousand lives.

    This is among the many depredations that this supposedly mainstream Administration has committed. In 1788, at a ratifying convention in Richmond, James Madison defended the newly drafted Constitution, but warned that its fulfillment would depend on the quality of the people as well as the document’s written principles. “To suppose that any form of Government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people,” he said, “is a chimerical idea.” Election Day is November 3rd. In some states, voting has already begun.

  390. birgerjohansson says

    ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
    Remember the Ainu in Japan, the aboriginies in Australia, the exterminated Pampas and Tierra del Fuego indians and the likewise extinct Tasmanians.
    The Sami and Meänkeli in Sweden also had it tough, but not nearly at that level.

  392. StevoR says

    The US military is preparing options for a three-day campaign of intense strikes on Iran, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing US officials.

    At President Donald Trump’s direction, the Pentagon has drawn up plans to target Iran’s arsenal of drones and missiles, energy facilities and other military sites, the newspaper reported. The preparations come as three US aircraft carriers are expected to be in the Middle East soon in a major show of force.

    The timing of any potential attacks remains unclear. Trump has said there have been “productive discussions” with Iran and claimed there would be no attack before the 3 November midterm elections.

    But tensions between Washington and Tehran remain high.

    Source : https://www.newarab.com/news/us-prepares-options-intense-three-day-strikes-iran?cb_rec=djRfMl8xXzJfN18xXzBfMF8

    I wouldn’t take Trump’s words or rely on him NOT attacking Iran before the mid-terms at all.

  394. Reginald Selkirk says

    @392

    energy facilities

    I couldn’t possibly have read that right, I must still be asleep.

  395. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘Unprecedented’ Cyberattack cripples supermarket fridges across Europe as hackers activate automatic defrosting — delivery and store prices also impacted by incident

    An ongoing cyberattack has reportedly struck major supermarket chains across Europe, disrupting refrigeration control systems. The attack — which has reportedly seen units set to continuously defrost at 50 degrees Celsius — is also apparently affecting deliveries and in-store pricing powered by electronic shelf labels, La Dépêche reports.

    According to the report, “several” major retailers have been targeted by a cyberattack, which has hit Danfoss-made refrigeration controls used by French supermarkets Intermarché, Leclerc, and Coopérative U. Indeed, the latter’s president, Dominique Schelcher, has confirmed as of Monday morning that “A cyberattack has been affecting the refrigeration production facilities of several stores in our network since last night.” Schelcher said teams had been mobilized to fix the issue and promised an investigation into the incident, which he described as “extremely serious.”
    …

  396. Reginald Selkirk says

    U.S. economists win Nobel for work on managing economic shocks

    Stanford University’s Robert E. Hall and Columbia University’s Michael Woodford won the Nobel Prize in economics for research on how policymakers can stabilize economies, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Monday.

    Why it matters: Their work helped shape how central banks set interest rates and communicate policy. The win comes as those institutions fight energy-driven inflation and risks to economic growth.
    …

  397. says

    Team Trump unravels Biden-era advances in airline passengers’ rights

    “When it comes to consumer benefits, the differences between the Biden and Trump administrations are stark. Take the airline industry, for example.”

    They weren’t the kind of policies that generated front-page headlines, but Joe Biden was practically obsessed with consumer benefits during his presidency. From bank fees to medical debt, credit card fees to student loans, the Biden White House couldn’t magically undo post-pandemic inflation, but it did try to give regular people a break.

    To that end, the Democratic administration also set out to help American passengers by barring airlines from imposing hidden fees and even took steps to force airlines to compensate flyers for flight disruptions.

    “I really want this to be known as the period when we did the biggest expansion in passenger rights since deregulation, and I think we can hit that mark,” then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told The Washington Post in 2024.

    A lot can change in two years. The New York Times reported:

    For years, U.S. airline passengers have been gaining ground against annoyances like misleading prices, hidden fees and flight disruptions. But now the tide appears to be turning.

    The Department of Transportation is aiming to water down longstanding passenger protections, pushing, for example, to change how prominently airlines display prices in advertising and to clamp down on compensation for disrupted flights.

    Paul Hudson, president of FlyersRights.org, one of the largest U.S. advocacy groups for air travelers, told the Times, “We’re in really new territory with consumer protection regulations. It’s shaping up to be a wholesale reversal of consumer protection for airline passengers.”

    These recent steps have alarmed consumer groups and elected officials, with some saying that the proposals tilt the scales in favor of the airline industry. In addition, they said, the department is steadily taking a more hands-off approach to policing airlines and that it could end up hurting passengers.

    While a Transportation Department spokesperson insisted that “no passenger rights have been diminished,” the Times’ report added that since Donald Trump returned to the White House, his Department of Transportation, led by Secretary Sean Duffy, “has consistently worked to roll back passenger rights in areas like cash compensation, wheelchair handling and hidden, or ‘junk,’ fees.”

    In case that weren’t quite enough, after nearly two years in office, Duffy’s DOT has imposed a grand total of zero fines on domestic airlines.

    From a consumer perspective, the developments are discouraging, but they’re also part of a larger pattern.

    When Biden and his team took steps to ensure medical debt wouldn’t affect Americans’ credit ratings, Republicans opposed the move; then a Trump-appointed judge reversed the policy. Last year, the Trump administration took new steps to make sure that medical debt does affect Americans’ credit ratings.

    Biden and his team tried to make it easier for consumers to cancel services and subscriptions. Then Republicans balked at this, and Trump-appointed judges reversed that policy, too.

    A few years ago, Biden and his team announced a pilot program to allow some Americans to file their taxes directly to the IRS — for free. In 2025, Team Trump confirmed that the Direct File program is dead, too.

    I realize that this isn’t exactly a hot-button political issue, but it’s hard not to wonder how voters would react if more people realized the dramatic differences between the Democratic and Republican administrations when it comes to consumer benefits.

  398. says

    @306 Lynna, OM posted about the ‘President Trump launched a race war against Somalians and Somali-Americans in Minnesota.’
    The ever increasing barbarity of tRUMP and those running this dying country is repulsive!
    I just read a headline that ANGERS me intensely:
    Ilhan Omar’s Home Raided by DHS Following Trump-GOP Deportation Threats
    https://www.commondreams.org/news/ilhan-omar-raid

  399. says

    New York Times report: Trump Has Cast Doubt on Elections on 440 Days in His Second Term

    […] Trump has attacked the integrity of U.S. elections on more than 70 percent of the days since he returned to office, repeatedly making false claims. Here’s how he does it: [series of month by month calendar illustrations, “Each shaded square is a day Mr. Trump made at least one false claim about U.S. elections.”]

    On the first day of his second term, in remarks before his inaugural luncheon, he said the 2020 election was “rigged.” Mr. Trump has repeated this false claim hundreds of times since November 2020.

    Mr. Trump attributes his 2024 win to having a margin of victory “too big to rig,” but he falsely insists that Democrats had tried to do so anyway.

    He now claims to have won three presidential elections: in 2016, 2020 and 2024. He won two.

    Mr. Trump has taken to saying that wars and other events would not have happened had the 2020 election not been “rigged” and had he remained in office.

    He falsely claims that Democrats use undocumented immigrants to “cheat” in elections. It is rare for noncitizens to vote in the United States.

    Mr. Trump also falsely claims that mail-in ballots produce fraudulent election results. There is no evidence for these claims.

    He consistently depicts U.S. elections as inherently corrupt.

    He has repeated these lies over …

    and over …

    and over again.

    In February, he renewed his effort to push for legislation that would impose voter identification requirements and limit voting by mail. The bill, known as the SAVE America Act, purports to address Mr. Trump’s debunked claims of widespread election fraud.

    Mr. Trump claims that Democrats will “cheat” in the midterms unless the SAVE America Act passes. He is calling on Republicans to produce a midterm victory that is “too big to rig.”

    In June, Mr. Trump used the slow count of mail ballots to question the primary results for governor of California and mayor of Los Angeles.

    As the midterms approach, Mr. Trump is amplifying his baseless claim that most political polls are “fake,” portraying them as part of an effort by the media to sway the election against Republicans.

    In a statement, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said that “the evidence of voter fraud continues to pile up,” and that Democrats’ refusal to vote for the SAVE America Act is “keeping Americans from having full confidence in their elections.”

  400. says

    Far-right media figures circulated a fake story about Texas Senate candidate James Talarico over the weekend, only to have the enterprise quickly blow up in their faces. Racist billionaire Elon Musk played a key role in promoting the smear.

    Recently, Talarico, who is running against Republican nominee Ken Paxton, had an extended absence from the campaign trail due to a bout of flu.

    On Sunday, MAGA media figure Nick Sortor falsely claimed that the flu story was “a BIG FAT LIE” and that “a hospital employee told @RheinAmacher and I that Talarico had in fact been a patient at the Lindner Center of Hope near Cincinnati, Ohio, which specializes in around-the-clock mental health treatment.” Sortor then said that Talarico’s supposed stint at the hospital meant the Democrat was “CLEARLY not suited to become a US Senator representing over 30 MILLION TEXANS.”

    Sortor’s falsehoods were repeatedly promoted by Musk on X. […]

    The fabricated story was also promoted by longtime Trump ally Richard Grenell, who was recently part of Trump’s efforts to destroy the Kennedy Center.

    But the whole thing was a fraud.

    Talarico returned to the campaign trail on Friday and slammed the conspiracy theories about his absence in an interview with MS NOW.

    “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s wild that someone can just post something on the internet and then the media just runs with it,” Talarico said, and went on to challenge Paxton to a debate, something the Republican has been avoiding.

    Lindner Center of Hope added to the right’s humiliation, noting in a post on X, “Representative James Talarico has never received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope.” And Talarico responded, “I’ve never even been to Ohio 😂.”

    The desperate smear emerged as polling shows a tight race in Texas, which has historically been a Republican stronghold. Paxton is a weak candidate propped up by millions in outside money, largely coming from Musk’s super PAC, America PAC.

    Musk has put a lot of money on the line to try and ensure Republicans hold on to the seat, and the weekend’s activity shows that he is even willing to promote a hoax to accomplish his goal.

    Link

  403. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Adding to shermanj @398, on DHS raiding Ilhan Omar’s Home over suspicion whe was over 17 when her father filed naturalization of minors paperwork in 2000.

    NoKings protests are planned for Oct 17th. Events tend to show up on the mobilize.us map on short notice.

    Jameel Jaffer (JustSecurity):

    Three days: sanctioning the international criminal court, announcing that the firing-squad execution of NH will be live-streamed, investigating the WH press on bogus antitrust charges, searching Ilhan Omar’s home on transparently pretextual immigration charges, financing Putin, jettisoning Zelensky.

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (American Immigration Council):

    there is already a waiver process—Section 212(k) of the INA—by which immigrants who obtain status through fraud that they didn’t know about can avoid consequences like losing a green card. […] Technically 212(k) has nothing to do with this situation at the moment, as Rep. Omar is a U.S. citizen. But if the Trump admin tried, and succeeded, to denaturalize on this specific allegation (which is highly unlikely), she’d return to having a green card and would be eligible for a 212(k) waiver.

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket): “There’s just zero reason to believe they would respect that law.”

    Andy Craig (Unpopulist):

    She would also still be a member of Congress because only the House itself can say otherwise. And for once the constitutional privilege from arrest would actually kick in, because civil immigration enforcement such as trying to deport her isn’t “treason, felony, [or] breach of the peace.”

    Adam Bonin (Lawyer): “Mind you, these are the same Republicans who have been decrying the fact that Jack Smith’s independent probe looked at call logs and text messages from Republican members who were connected to the January 6th failed insurrection.”

    Eric Columbus (Lawfare):

    As described this [criminal investigation] makes no sense. If her father committed a crime (highly doubtful) he can’t be prosecuted because (1) it’s past the 10 year statute of limitations and (2) he’s dead.

    But this could be part of a *civil* effort to denaturalize Omar. That needs judicial approval and will go nowhere.

  404. says

    Followup to shermanj’s comment 398.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/feds-raid-ilhan-omars-house-to-teach

    In the early hours of Monday morning, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents raided the home of Democratic Minnesota Rep. and United States citizen Ilhan Omar, as part of an investigation into the Trump administration’s sincerely-held conspiracy theory that her father somehow committed fraud while applying for asylum, and later citizenship, in the United States. Their hope is that they can somehow find something in her home to prove it, which they can then use to punish Omar and kick her out of the United States. […]

    Reportedly, this is related to the Trump administration’s belief that Omar’s now-deceased father, Nur Omar Mohamed, fraudulently obtained citizenship for himself and his family by lying on the application paperwork and claiming to have been an educator when he had actually served in the Somali military. They point to the fact that his obituary explicitly noted his military service (a thing people trying to cover up someone’s military service tend to do [LOL]).

    Two things can be true! He served as a colonel in the military during the Somali-Ethiopian War (1977-1978) — at a time, by the way, when serving in the military was not exactly optional, even if you had bone spurs — and after that, he was a teacher. [True.] When dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991 and the nation erupted into civil war, Nur and his family fled to a refugee camp in Kenya, where they stayed for four years until they were able to get asylum in the United States.

    Other claims include that he lied on his paperwork about his name, as he’s also gone by a slightly different name; that they lied about Ilhan Omar’s age when applying, that she was 18 and not 17 as her paperwork stated (meaning she would not have been able to inherit citizenship from her father’s application); and the entirely unfounded claim that she married her own brother so that he could get citizenship here … and then return to the UK after they divorced, as people always do when they marry their sister for citizenship purposes.

    Of course, they can’t actually prove that Omar was 18 when they applied, because Somalian birth records for that time are a whole mess, as the municipal buildings where they were kept did not exactly survive the massive civil war. Prior to that, it’s hardly as though they had a well-oiled machine of a records system to begin with.

    Various right-wing publications have tried to accuse Omar’s father of war crimes, with literally zero proof of that beyond “war crimes happened, so he probably did some!”

    It is also related, clearly, not just to the Trump Administration’s hatred of Omar in particular, but to their hatred of Muslims, Somalis — whom Trump has called “garbage” — and immigrants in general. Indeed, just three days ago Trump posted on Truth Social, clearly inciting hatred and possibly violence against Somali immigrants:

    Trump Truth Social:

    The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants. There is Violence, Murder, and Mayhem all over the State. The people of Minnesota must fight back. You have been robbed, and abandoned by your State Government. Your Governor is an incompetent thief who doesn’t want to get involved. He just wants to get out of town with as much as he can steal, and then, lead a quiet life. The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back Minnesota, fight back! If you need, the Federal Government will come to your rescue. Governor Tim Walz, and Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, must immediately ask for Federal help — and leave the rest to us! President DONALD J. TRUMP

    Back in May, in an interview with noted plagiarist Benny Johnson, Vice President JD Vance claimed that Omar “definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America,” and was also probably in cahoots with all of the Somalis doing fraud in Minnesota, like that one daycare that wouldn’t allow a random adult man to enter in order to inspect it one day.

    I don’t recommend watching the whole thing, but please do watch the first four seconds, as it features a truly batshit AI cartoon of Vance screaming in half-English, half-Gobbledygook at a sobbing Ilhan Omar. [video]

    The end goal here is, of course, to denaturalize and deport Omar back to Somalia (or, given this administration, “just wherever”), which the Trump administration clearly hopes will hurt Democrats in the upcoming midterms. Barring that, they’d really just like to use Homeland Security to traumatize her and her family and throw some red meat to a base still licking the blood from their lips over Pete Hegseth’s announcement last week that he wants to publicly execute the Fort Hood Shooter.

    The New York Times is of course covering this with the gravitas you’d expect them to cover an authoritarian leader terrorizing a political opponent and possibly trying to have her citizenship stripped: [Screengrab of NYT headline and summary: “The search takes place within the 60-day window of the midterm election, when the Justice Department has historically avoided such investigative steps related to political candidates.”]

    Oh is that the norm that’s being broken here? The one about the 60-day window?

    The raid appears to be over (at least the live feed is), and HSI has yet to announce whether or not it has been able to find evidence of any evil crimes that Omar may keep laying around her house.

    Omar herself has since released a statement.

    I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.

    I will not be silenced.

    Good.

  405. says

    Washington Post report: Sixth person who had measles has died in Pennsylvania, local coroner says”

    The state is experiencing the nation’s worst ongoing measles outbreak, the first in the U.S. to top more than 1,000 cases since 1991.

    […] Pennsylvania is in the midst of a growing outbreak of measles as the United States faces the highest measles tally since 1991. The state is also the center of a bitter political dispute between Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.

    Shapiro has accused Kennedy — the founder of a prominent anti-vaccine group — of sowing confusion about vaccines and contributing to the spread of a disease that the United States eliminated more than 25 years ago. Kennedy has contended that the governor, who is widely expected to run for president, is using the moment for political gain.

    As of Friday, the state had confirmed 1,136 measles cases across 41 counties, in the first U.S. outbreak to surpass 1,000 cases in 35 years.

    The Pennsylvania Department of Health has reported five measles-associated deaths in the state, and infectious-disease experts say that indicates the outbreak is far larger than the number of reported cases. […]

  406. says

    In Kansas, the interest rate Roger Marshall charged on medical bills makes a bad story worse

    “The senator garnished paychecks and pushed arrest warrants when his patients couldn’t afford their bills. His interest rates added insult to injury.”

    There’s no shortage of reasons why Republican Sen. Roger Marshall has been struggling in his re-election bid in Kansas. From questions about his residency to an unpaid bakery bill, from his ongoing campaign-finance controversy to the strength of the Rev. Adam Hamilton’s Democratic candidacy, the incumbent senator with a thin record is already trailing in several recent polls.

    But arguably the turning point in the Kansas race came in early September when Kansans learned that Marshall garnished paychecks and pushed arrest warrants when his patients couldn’t afford their medical bills during his time as a physician in private practice. There’s ample evidence to suggest local voters heard about the story and considered it important.

    This, as much as anything else, stuck. Indeed, it was around that point when polls started showing Hamilton ahead, especially after the Democratic campaign seized on the issue in its advertising.

    Over the weekend, The Kansas City Star added some fresh details to a story the senator would probably prefer that his constituents forget:

    While facing sharp criticism over the last month for his debt collection practices as an OB-GYN in Great Bend, U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall has forcefully defended himself, saying his methods were “very common.”

    But an analysis of medical debt lawsuits in the Kansas court system found that although it’s not uncommon for hospitals and clinics across the state to sue patients, the 18% annual interest rate Marshall applied to unpaid bills was by far the highest of the roughly 150 medical practices whose public records were reviewed by The Star.

    The Star’s report, which hasn’t been independently verified by MS NOW, added that in reviewing thousands of court documents, the newspaper “found no other medical providers that charged annual interest at 18% or any other specified rate above 12%.”

    Before anyone blames Marshall’s attorneys for the interest rate, the Star talked to the lawyer who represented the Kansas Republican, and he said it was Marshall’s office that was responsible for determining how much interest to charge patients on unpaid bills.

    The newspaper gave the senator and his campaign team multiple opportunities over a two-week period to respond to questions about the story. They declined.

    Given the circumstances, that’s not too surprising, but the lack of comment probably won’t affect voters’ likely interest in the news.

  408. Pierce R. Butler says

    Lynna, OM, @ # 406 – LMFTFY: His interest rates added usury to injury.

    Btw – Thanks again for all you do for all of us here, especially while healing from major surgery!

  412. Reginald Selkirk says

    Sherrod Brown Answers Anti-Trans Attack Ads By Tying Jon Husted To The Epstein Files

    “Jon Husted? He protected men who abused young girls by voting in the Senate to block the release of the Epstein files.”

    Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat running against Republican Sen. Jon Husted, released an ad this week that serves as a masterclass in defusing anti-trans political attacks—without ceding ground to transphobic rhetoric in the process.

    The tactic: Call out the right’s lies and deception. Then, call out their hypocrisy. No misgendering, fear-mongering, or feeding into anti-trans stereotypes was necessary to reframe the conversation around “protecting children”—a common right-wing battle cry and dog whistle—to focus on actual issues of protecting kids from predators. In this case, that meant calling out Brown’s opponent’s ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein…

  413. Reginald Selkirk says

    72-year-old man shoots off-duty ICE agent found asleep on Fresno lawn, agent arrested: PD

    FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — An ICE agent is in custody at a local hospital after police say he was shot after assaulting an elderly man and his daughter at a home in central Fresno.

    The incident happened before 3:30 am Friday at a home on Dudley and Broadway.

    The Fresno Police Department says a woman found 32-year-old David Gonzalez sleeping on her front lawn.

    The woman alerted her 72-year-old father, who then went outside to tell Gonzalez to leave.

    Once Gonzalez was woken up, police say he appeared drunk and assaulted the 72-year-old.

    Police say the daughter tried to intervene to protect her father, and Gonzalez physically attacked her.

    Fearing for their safety, officers say the 72-year-old man pulled out a gun and shot Gonzalez.

    The woman’s boyfriend, who is a police officer and was off-duty, came to the home and put Gonzalez in handcuffs.

    He was taken to the hospital for treatment and is listed in serious condition…

  414. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘It Is Done. Hail Satan:’ City Immediately Regrets New Religious Liberty Law That Allows Prayer at City Council Meeting

    An Iowa man has kicked off controversy over religious freedom in the small town of Ottumwa, Iowa by opening a city council meeting with a prayer to Satan, which then kicked off a debate about the proper time in the meeting agenda to undo the “curse.”

    On Tuesday night, Ottumwa resident, satanist, and former city council member Matt Dalbey took the podium to read an invocation to start a routine meeting of the council. “Thank you mayor, council. Let us pray,” Dalbey started. “Dear dark father, let us stand now unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds and darkened times. Let us embrace the Luciferan impulse to eat off the tree of knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old.”

    The prayer is a common one used by the Satanic Temple of Iowa. “Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not for their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations,” he continued. “Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things, holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true. Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of one or all. That which will not bend must break. And that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise.”“It is done. Hail Satan,” he finished.

    Another citizen, a pastor named Rick Bick, rushed to the podium. “Let’s just reverse that curse that was just put on our city,” he said. “That ending with hail Satan and hail dark god. That’s not welcome here.”

    “Mayor, that should be done at the end,” city councilor Cara Galloway said.

    “It needs to be done now, OK.” Rick said. “I appreciate what Ms. Galloway is saying but that was a curse put on our city when he said ‘Hail Satan’ and the dark god and most of you know that. And we need to just stop and reverse it.”

    “So what I’m gonna do now…I’m just gonna invite us into a 30 second time of prayer — time of silence.”

    “No,” Galloway said. “We are at the consent agenda. I’m sorry, but it’s time to move forward. The invocation happened.”

    “As mayor of this city…I’m going to ask right now that we do a moment of silence to reflect on whatever it is we need to reflect on at this time. And then we will move to the consent agenda,” mayor Benjamin Foote said.

    Galloway spent the moment of silence with her head up and her arms crossed. An hour later, she spoke up. “Opening with an invocation means allowing viewpoints that may not reflect our own and responding to someone’s invocation is a slippery slope to putting a financial liability on the taxpayers and allowing others to object or respond. This is exactly why I had concerns about having an invocation when we first talked about it.” …

  415. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    414: “Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not for their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations […] that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise.”

    Of course right-wing politicians would see that as a curse.

  416. Reginald Selkirk says

    Archbishop of the US military says Catholic soldiers should not serve on firing squad

    Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees the Catholic Church’s pastoral services to Catholics in the U.S. military, is condemning the proposed livestream of the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan.

    Broglio, in a statement Monday, also stipulated that any Catholic soldier assigned to the U.S. Army firing squad should ask to be excused from that duty, which he described as contrary to the teachings of the church. He joins other Catholic leaders in speaking out against the death penalty and the livestream plans…

  417. Reginald Selkirk says

    Astronomers Spot Possible Signs of Antimatter Disappearing Beyond Our Galaxy

    Somewhere beyond the familiar glow of the Milky Way, matter may be meeting its mirror image in a spectacular act of cosmic annihilation. A recent study suggests that our galaxy could be leaking antimatter into the vast darkness of intergalactic space, where these elusive particles collide with ordinary matter and disappear in flashes of energy.

    A team of astronomers may have detected the gamma-ray signature produced when antimatter particles, or positrons, collide with electrons outside of the Milky Way for the first time. The findings, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, could offer a rare glimpse of a hidden process unfolding at the edges of our galactic home…

  418. StevoR says

    @397. Lynna, OM : “Team Trump unravels Biden-era advances in airline passengers’ rights.”

    Yet another reminder to and disproof of the Bothsiderist claims that the two parties are allegedly “both as bad as each other.” They aren’t and the Democratic party are vastly superior as well as the only chance for making the USA more left wing, progessive, fairer and generally better.

  419. StevoR says

    Aussie ABC live blog for Q & A on the Manosphere here :

    If you’re worried about the rise of the manosphere and the messages it’s sending teenage boys and men about masculinity, relationships and their place in the world, you’re not alone.

    It’s a complex topic with no easy solution, so we’ve asked a panel of experts to join us to answer your questions. We’ll be joined by developmental paediatrician Dr Billy Garvey, Dr Zac Seidler from Movember and Genevieve Sheppard from Our Watch. Follow along live and submit your questions for our experts below.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-13/manosphere-masculinity-questions-answered-live-blog/107216354

  420. StevoR says

    @398. shermanj :

    I just read a headline that ANGERS me intensely: Ilhan Omar’s Home Raided by DHS Following Trump-GOP Deportation Threats.

    Beat me to it. Aussie ABC also has this story on that here :

    US authorities have conducted a pre-dawn raid on the Washington-area home of Democratic US representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, an outspoken critic of Donald Trump who has been the target of political insults by the Republican president.

    A person familiar with the investigation said it was related to alleged immigration fraud, and part of the probe concerned the Somali-born politician’s immigration paperwork, which was filled out by her late father when she was a child.

    ..(Snip)..

    Ms Omar called the search an “attempt to target political enemies and weaponise federal law enforcement”.

    Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s “border tsar”, told Fox Business Network the Justice Department was leading the investigation with the Department of Homeland Security.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-13/ice-raid-illhan-omar-trump-democrat/107258572

  421. StevoR says

    According to reports from Gaza, IDF forces operating in the Gaza Strip have pushed the Yellow Line forward by dozens of meters. Three years after the October 7 massacre, the IDF controls approximately 64% of the Gaza Strip, with two divisions deployed across a broad area and about 30 military outposts.

    Source : https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rkqe9etjmx

    (Yeah, I know not the grreatest source. Saw something on this on TV news t’other day and this is the most recent story that my google-fu could turn up. Not the news site I had in mind but the one I could find.)

    How that’s vote* supposedly “for Gaza” against Kamala and therefore for the dictator who called Biden a “Palestinian” as an insult working out for the Gazans and Palestinians generally huh? Oh and forthe Iranians and for thecost for living ad nauseam..

    .* Plus the non-votes by those who stayed home when they could have stopped Trump by voting blue no matter who. Anyone who didn’t vote for Kamala, chose wrong. Fact.

  422. Silentbob says

    @ 421 StevoR

    Sneering at Palestinian Americans for not voting for genocide because they got genocide anyway is utterly disgusting Stevo. You’re punching down in a particularly grotesque way.

    Anyone who didn’t vote for Kamala, chose wrong.

    It’s Harris you misogynist – she’s not a little girl. And it’s nauseating to see you demand people vote for genocide of their own families when you’re sitting safe and sound on the other side of the world pontificating.

  423. StevoR says

    For Lynna, OM’s sake, I’ve been trying to ignore the known troll in the Infinite Thread, however since they have repeatedly lied about and sniped at me and others eg.#265 upthread

    @Various incl 246, 371, 373 by the Trump supporting Troll beholder (TSTB) :

    Hopefully If they are held fairly.
    Sadly very big IIFs right now. — @359 StevoR
    StevoR, if you’re claiming my state isn’t conducting its election fairly, then you need to present some evidence.

    That you will just ignore as you always do and refuse to engage in good faith with as you always do.

    Of course, I don’t know what state the troll lives in since they have proven slippery, weirdly evasive and refuse to give an actual direct and clear answer to that question as we saw in their @373.

    However, we do know there’s this discussion here – “Cheat Like Hell”: Can Trump Actually Rig the 2026 Midterms? (31 mins long) which discusses Trump’s open call for cheating, him using Russian disinfo again, gerrymandering again, using ICE to intimidate voters, potentially declaring a national emergency and more.

    Also from Mother Jones this article discusses ten ways Trump & his puppet-masters incl nazi Shadow POTUS Miller are working on rigging the election

    From nationalizing voter suppression to flooding the streets with federal agents, the president and his allies are using all the tricks in the authoritarian playbook to tilt the midterms in their favour.

    … (snip)…

    ..there are still many reasons to be concerned about the rapidly escalating threats to America’s election system. Given Trump’s extreme assertions of executive power, the autocratic nature of his second term, and the stacking of his administration with hardline loyalists, many of the outlandish schemes he considered to stay in power in 2020—such as using the military to seize voting machines in battleground states—don’t seem as far-fetched today.

    And his deployment of the National Guard and Marines in response to protests against ICE in Los Angeles, which was followed by a similar federal takeover of Washington, DC, has heightened fears about how far Trump will go to keep his party in control of Washington. “The California events really rattled a lot of people,” says Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.

    The scale of Trump’s interference in the midterms has become crystal clear in recent weeks.

    Source : https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/09/donald-trump-plan-to-rig-2026-midterm-elections-voter-suppression-gerrymandering-certification/

    Clearly not clear enough for those who refuse to look, lack political knowledge and judgement or are simply being disingenuous here like the TSDTB.

    Then’s there’s this scheme :

    The other big development this week was an unnamed federal whistleblower issuing a major warning about the Trump administration’s new system for verifying mail ballots. The system has devolved into what workers describe as a “sh*t show” that could lead to mass disenfranchisement of mail voters, the whistleblower says

    Source : https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/01/politics/trump-midterms-election-interference

    So there’s plenty of evidence of plenty of ways that Trump is rigging the mid-terms. All of which the TSTB, as noted will probly now ignore and say it’s too long for them or just run away from.

    Against that the TSTB says #246 :

    I voted early. Look up your state’s election page, you may be able to also!

    Emphasis on the “may” there. As a Trump supporter and voter whether de facto as claimed by them or actual as seems likely, the TSTB isn’t the target of most of these anti-Democratic measures. They seem very likely to belong to a privileged group that doesn’t suffer from things other less fortunate groups have to face hence their ability and willingness to support a dictatorship that will harm others more.

    Oh, wait, StevoR has it on good authority that an election isn’t really going on right now.

    No, I note that the mid terms will be rigged or cancelled. Both remain all too likely sadly. In fact the rigging is already happening as previously discussed above here. Read for comprehension if you can.

    I must have hallucinated that entire experience. I really need to stop doing drugs and then wandering into the nearest elementary school.

    Do you? Intresting admission by you there.

    Actually TSTB you need to go rethink your life and your views and apologise to everyone for what you have done in working to elect Trump for years here and no doubt elsewhere too.

    @373. TSTB :

    Rob, you obsess over me enough to the degree that you should be able to find the comments where I explicitly said which state I live in.

    Or you could just give a simple direct answer to the question asked of you but you seem pathologically incapable of doing so don’t you?

    In any case StevoR’s got nuthin’. He’s just spreading disinfo …

    So. Much. Projection there!

    No TSTB, I don’t lie or spread disinfo that’s your thing not mine.. I back up what I’ve said with evidence, links, reasons & arguments and state it clearly unlike you.

    ..in the classic Dubya Trump style of predicting that the election is being stolen,…

    Dubya Bush actually stole the 2000 election using Nader’s third party spoiler campaign as one of his means of doing so. May have mentioned that here before. Trump – your preferred choice – proven by your behaviour for years here was the one who lied about Biden supposedly “stealing” the 2024 election which Joe Biden actually won.

    .. in either case: a.) Your sports team wins, and you memory-hole the disinfo claims — this election was conducted correctly!, or b.) Your sports team loses, and you use your earlier claims to agitate for throwing out the election results.

    Trump’s logic and yours NOT mine TSTB. In fact, I have repeatedly stressed that elections and politics are far too important to be using a sports team approach to it like the 3rd party spoilers, Bothsiderists & OnlyUncornists do.

    Which I pointed out during the last free & fair~ish election the USOA held back when it most mattered that Trump be stopped for all the reasons we are now seeing unfold every day in our lives globally.

    Sorry Lynna OM and thanks for the work you do here. Unfortunately, this particular troll is especially irritating and this needed to be said & I’m calling them out accurately here for what they are.

  424. StevoR says

    @422. Trump troll’s support troll Silentbob :

    It’s Harris you misogynist – she’s not a little girl.

    What a ridiculous, silly, pathetic stretch!

    It is Kamala actually. Calling a women by her first name and the one commonly used in her campaign material and that she is best known and chose to go by is NOT misogyny and, of course, I’m not using it to make her seem like a “little girl” you utter…

    The misogyny is coming from other side of politics that preferred him and that the troll you support supported.

    it’s nauseating to see you demand people vote for genocide of their own families when you’re sitting safe and sound on the other side of the world pontificating.

    People all of the globe, myself included are suffering from the grotesque misjudgment and errors of the USAite voters and especially those like the troll you support in undermining Kamala to make him POTUS rather than her. Are you saying that all those globally affected by this have no right to opinions and feelings and expressing those here? I find that nauseating actually. Those of us outside the USoA are powerless enough already but you want to condemn us for expressing our views and calling their actions out?

    Sneering at Palestinian Americans for not voting for genocide because they got genocide anyway is utterly disgusting Stevo. You’re punching down in a particularly grotesque way.

    You are lying I did not “sneer” at “Palestinian Americans” claiming I did so and am punching down here is an outright lie whether that is deliberate or due to your ack or reading comprehension skills.

    As I have many times pointed out to you including here :

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/09/01/i-almost-completely-missed-the-meteoric-career-of-joe-schmid/comment-page-1/#comment-2311220

    Kamala Harris did NOT support genocide.

    I have previously several times provided you with the proof of that as can been heard from her own words Kamala Harris: ‘It (Gaza) Breaks My Heart’

    Kamala called what was happening in Gaza “outrageous.”

    Kamala said Gaza “Broke her heart.”

    Kamala stated that she ”got it” when it came to Gaza.

    Someone that finds something “outrageous” and “heart-breaking” by definition does NOT support that thing.
    So Kamala Harris did NOT support genocide.

    Get Kamala Harrises words there tattooed on your forehead if that’s what it takes you to remember it & stop lying about her.

    Anyone repeating that lie is either ignorant or deliberately lying.

    On this, you and, of course, the Trumpist Troll “beholder” are acting just like Climate Science Deniers, anti-Vaxxers and Flat Earthers in that you are ignoring and rejecting the evidence that clearly proves you wrong. You keep spewing this PRATT (Point Refuted Already a Thousand Times) and you need to stop doing so.

    You also owe Kamala Harris an apology and you would do so if you were a decent human individual that gave a toss about the truth and had any personal integrity.

    Those who voted for the Democratic party and Kamala did NOT vote for genocide.

    Those who voted for Trump directly, indirectly via spoilers or by not voting at all actually voted for genocide.

    Fact.

    Kamala Harris was the Gazan’s last hope of preventing Netanyahu’s genocide which “Genocides Plural & Worse Don “ was and remains cheering on and fully uncritically supporting. Need I remind you of the Trump Gaza riveria plan again?

    What will it take to get that basic political reality into your brain Silentbob? Why do you keep forgetting it and why do you keep supporting the troll “beholder” here?

    Thinking of you forgetting things or wanting them forgotten, have you answered the questions here? :

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/08/11/this-is-what-happens-when-you-let-a-senile-fool-run-the-country/comment-page-1/#comment-2309411

    Also have to apologised for your constant and continuing misgendering of chigau (違う) yet?

  425. StevoR says

    PS. It is possible and even probable that many Palestinian Americans actually voted for Kamala and NOT for Trump.

    Silentbob is treating them all as a monolithic block and as unintelligent and unethical in his sweeping claim that Palestinian Americans automatically conflates to anti-Kamala voters. Many of them would have been intelligent, ethical, rational and aware of political realities enough to know that Kamala was their best choice for having any sort of future and that stopping Trump and Trump’s Islamophobic and especially anti-Palestinianist policies was far more important than punishing Biden who wasn’t even the Democratic Nominee anyhow.

    Silentbob is actually being kinda racist here in seemingly believing all Palestinian Americans were anti-Kamala voters or non-voters and thereby pro-Trump.

    Note I did NOT specify Palestinian Americans in any case despite Silentbob’s lie to the contrary.

  426. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    StevoR @424: “Kamala said Gaza ‘Broke her heart.'”
    The event in that clip.
    Kamala Harris’ first book tour appearance disrupted by Gaza protesters (2025)
     
    StevoR @425: “It is possible and even probable that many Palestinian Americans actually voted for Kamala and NOT for Trump. […] Many of them would have been intelligent, ethical, rational and aware of political realities”

    TheGuardian – Detentions and disappearances: how ICE has driven fear into Michigan’s Arab communities (Feb 21)

    “The level of anxiety among people is at its highest; we’ve never seen something like this,” says Imad Hamad, executive director of the Dearborn-based American Human Rights Council. […] “We thought that after the national tragedy of September 11 we would never face something more difficult than that particular experience,” Hamad says […] “Nowadays, it’s much tougher[“]
    […]
    Tens of thousands of Arab Americans in Dearborn and beyond flocked to Trump in the 2024 presidential election […] For the first time since 2000, a Republican presidential candidate won a plurality of votes in the city in 2024, where more than half the 110,000 residents claim Arab heritage.

    WaPo – Trump promised peace in the Middle East. In Dearborn, Michigan, it feels farther away (Apr 15)

    The community now sees that it could have got worse—and it did get worse,” said Nabih Ayad, founder of the Arab American Civil Rights League. “But the community was just so desperate.”
    […]
    Among the nearly dozen leaders—ranging from county commissioner to state lawmakers to business owners—there was wide agreement that life had not improved since Trump was sworn into office. But there was little regret. […] Few of them plan to support Trump or Republicans in the future.
    […]
    After the United States joined with Israel to attack Iran, the conflict widened to include Lebanon […] Michigan is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the country […] In Wayne County, which includes Detroit and Dearborn, about a third of the roughly 140,000 residents identified as Middle Eastern or North African in the 2020 Census are Lebanese.

    TheGuardian – ‘So much uncertainty’: Michigan’s Arab American businesses navigate Trump’s Canada trade war (Sep 30)

    Canada is Michigan’s largest trading partner, and for immigrant communities such as Arab Americans in Dearborn, situated a five-minute drive from the nearest border crossing, Canadians represent an important slice of their business.

  427. StevoR says

    @ ^ CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : Thanks.

    @424. Calling a women by her first name and the one commonly used in her campaign material and that she is best known and chose to go by is NOT misogyny.

    See examples here :

    https://printerval.com/uk/kamala-2024-kamala-harris-for-president-2024-stickers-p12259186 (Kamala sticker and design used on T-shirts, cups, etc .. reads Kamala x 4 then 2024.)

    Plus here :

    https://www.teepublic.com/sticker/64190581-kamala-harris-us-president-election-campaign-2024

    (Go Kamala!)

    As well as :

    https://www.teepublic.com/sticker/63289105-kamala-harris-2024

    (2024 Kamala 2024 design. Just using her first name plus the year Democracy died was murdered in the United (LOlsob) States of America.)

    Of course there are many more examples too.

    Saying that calling her what a lot of her election merch, stickers and signs said is “misogynist” is it Silentbob? How utterly ludicrous.

  428. beholder says

    Hoo boy. That’s a lot of whargarrbl and needless insults for a place like The Infinite Thread.

    StevoR, if you’re claiming my state isn’t conducting its election fairly, then you need to present some evidence. — @371 beholder

    That you will just ignore as you always do — @423 StevoR

    Well, yes, it has to be good evidence to grab my attention. Your track record on backing up your conspiratorial rantings with solid evidence has been poor.

    Trump’s going to try to cheat. We all know that. But Trump isn’t holding the election, the states are. That you deny the fairness of my state’s election means you are accusing my state’s election officials of criminal activity when none is evident.

    Or you could just give a simple direct answer to the question asked of you but you seem pathologically incapable of doing so don’t you? — @423 StevoR

    Here’s a few hints. We’re a blue state. We have a kickass state flag that is simple, easy to recognize from a distance, and unique. We are a majority-minority state. We tend to be ranked dead last in education and have been for decades — no one lets us forget about it whenever any statewide election is coming up, although, curiously, StevoR consistently denies that this is the case based on the contents of a travel blog that never gave any hard data.

  429. StevoR says

    @ ^ So still NOT a simple, direct answer.

    whargarrbl and needless insults for a place like The Infinite Thread.

    I didn’t start this here by addressing or referring you here at all because I know that Lynna doesn’t appreciate this sort of clashing of commenters and I respect her wishes. You are the one that’s been goading me here where you know it is not wanted.

    I have described you accurately for what you are based on your years of commenting here and elseblog on FTB.

    Also what do you mean by “whargarrbl” exactly? Another question I doubt you’ll actually have the decency to provide a proper answer about.

    What I have done to you consistently is called deconstruction :

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction

    Going through your words line by line and proving you wrong with evidence and reasoning that, as I predicted, you are ignoring and evading.

  430. says

    The Wall Street Journal editorial board:

    Trump “is clearly worried about the price of diesel fuel, but blaming Ukraine amid Iranian and Houthi attacks on Mideast oil production and transport is political excuse-making on a grand scale.”

    It’s just an excuse to later punish Ukraine for attacking Russian refineries.

  432. says

    And it’s nauseating to see you demand people vote for genocide of their own families when you’re sitting safe and sound on the other side of the world pontificating.

    In what world was a vote for Trump not a vote for genocide? That phrase, “demand people vote for genocide”, lies by omission: it implies that not voting for Kamala Harris would somehow have been a vote against genocide. And that’s assuming that they were equally genocidal, which they’re obviously not; I mean between the two of them, only one fantasised about razing Gaza, then building casinos on the graves.

    Harris would’ve had less influence on Netanyahu, but Trump sure had less desire to use any possible influence to stop it.

  433. StevoR says

    Via PBS Newshour :

    Federal agents searched the Washington, D.C., home of Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar early Monday. Agents with Homeland Security Investigations were seen carrying boxes from the home. Rep. Omar accused the Trump administration of political intimidation. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Devlin Barrett, a New York Times reporter and author of “The Department of Revenge.”

    Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/rep-omar-accuses-trump-of-political-intimidation-after-agents-search-her-home

  434. StevoR says

    A group of 350 scientists from more than 30 countries has written an open letter calling for greater AI security by establishing an international body to record and publish security failures due to AI.

    In several incidents in recent months, both overseas and in Australia, AI models have hacked into the systems of external organisations, including startup Hugging Face and multiple government websites.

    “[These incidents] can also be seen as an irresponsible lapse in standard cybersecurity practices, preventable with stronger sandboxes and procedures,” the open letter reads. The scientists are from 31 countries, including Australia, and are based across Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania, and said that without immediate change, future incidents could expose critical infrastructure.

    It had three recommendations, including:

    .* adopting high-assurance containment systems, and initially defaulting to air-gapping, which means disconnecting from the internet for cyber-capable AI models

    .* creating an international body to record and track AI containment failures

    .*reporting security incidents to the body and making them public.

    Toby Walsh, chief scientist at the University of New South Wales AI Institute, was among the signatories and said now was the time to act. “We’re lucky so far because the hacks that have happened have been incredibly modest cyber events,” Professor Walsh said.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-13/more-than-300-scientists-greater-ai-security-international-body/107257078

  437. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘I Will Be the Last Republican President’: Trump Threatens Democrats With a Good Time

    President Donald Trump told rally-goers in Ohio that if Democrats were to control both houses of Congress and the presidency, he “will be the last Republican president.”

    Trump spoke at a rally in Youngstown on Monday night to campaign for Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who is in a tight race against Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown. The president was also stumping for Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy.

    During his remarks, Trump painted a dire picture of the country if Democrats win big in November’s midterm elections.

    “They want to end the Senate,” he said. “They want to basically destroy our country. And that’s what they want to do. And if they get in, they will do that. They’ll be able to do that.”

    The president then claimed that should Democrats wrest back the White House in 2028 while also controlling Congress, the country will never have another Republican president:…

  438. StevoR says

    @ 436 . Reginald Selkirk : Echoe sof the time Trump raved about Palmer’s penis which got so quickly overlooked by the homophobic MAGAt’s :

    Former President Donald Trump delivered unusual and vulgar remarks Saturday about the late golf legend Arnold Palmer while campaigning in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, as the campaign enters the final stretch to Election Day.

    ..(Snip)..

    “This is a guy that was all man,” the former president said. “This man was strong and tough, and I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, ‘Oh my God, that’s unbelievable.'”

    To laughter, Trump added, “I had to say it.”(No youdid not but thanks anyhow – ed.)

    ..(Snip)…

    Meanwhile, Harris has been calling Trump’s mental state into question on the campaign trail in recent days, while sharpening her criticism of the former president. On Saturday, she told reporters that Trump is “becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged.”

    “The American people are seeing it, witnessing it in real time,” she added.

    Source : https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-arnold-palmer-latrobe-pennsylvania-rally/

    They were and yet still.. For … pities sake..What the.. Any other polly..

    Memor to self – did we ever get mary Trump’s take on this?

    Phgilospohial question : is it as wrong to out Trump as it is tokillHitler as a baby? (Paging sam Harris for pointlessness..?)

  439. StevoR says

    But then they do not care that “Multiple & Worse Genocides Don” Trump is a pedophile who is listed in the Epstein files tens of millennia of times (Quanonners take ..note, think, can you? Now? ) so.. yeah..

    Staggering is too much of an understatement.

    No superlatives or adjectves or even any language really sufices.

  440. JM says

    WBTV: Racist texts from officers leads to internal Charlotte-Mecklenburg police investigation

    Multiple sources confirm to WBTV that more than half a dozen officers with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department have been recommended for termination or quit after a text thread with racist messages came to light during a different investigation.
    According to sources who spoke to WBTV on the condition of anonymity, the text thread between some Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers includes a competition over who can pull over the most black drivers. There are also numerous uses of the “n-word” related to use of force and discharging firearms at black residents.
    Multiple sources say the text messages were discovered while the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation was investigating Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Seth Elliott for misuse of the Flock network. Elliott is facing a criminal charge after court records show he allegedly used Flock Safety and other technology to help someone involved in a drug investigation, documents revealed.

    Holding a contest to see who could pull over the most black people? That is pretty raw racism. Though apparently none are going to be prosecuted, they are facing termination. I suppose if the investigation found nothing but the racist text messages it might be hard to prosecute them. I doubt they worked hard to track down actual victims.

  442. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    StevoR @438:

    did we ever get Mary Trump’s take on this?

    [Video] Mary Trump – What is WRONG with Donald Trump!? (at 20:51)

    Donald once said, “Hey Arnold, 40-50 years ago, I was as long as you.” And Arnold Palmer replied, “No way, Donald. You were never as long as I was.” […] I don’t want to sanewash him […] but I’m pretty sure he was talking about the length of his drive: hitting the golf ball from the tee. […] The reason Donald did not share that story with me many, many years ago is because he had more inhibition. […] he seems like he’s losing his flipping mind. […] he’s exhibiting disinhibition, which is a symptom of something like Alsheimer’s. […] He’s swearing more. He’s swearing in increasingly inappropriate places. […] rude and insulting […] tangential thinking and delusional thinking […] We’re going to be seeing more of those kinds of stories. Lucky us.

    Mary Trump – It’s not a threat, it’s a promise (2024)

    I think it’s important to shine a bright light on all of this, in part because mockery is an effective tool, and in part because we need to inform people just how unfit Donald is and how swiftly he seems to be deteriorating. But Donald poses other, serious threats beyond his cognitive and psychological impairment that can’t get lost in the shuffle.

  443. says

    Pierce R. Butler @408. You’re welcome. I try to do a good job here. The truth is that my recovery is still ongoing. On some days I have less attention to devote to The Infinite Thread, especially when physical therapy and/or appointments with various physicians take up most of my time.

    Also, I’m having trouble with pain control. Opioids a patient may have been given in the hospital as part of post-surgery care cannot be used longterm. Everything I’ve tried (as prescribed by my primary physician) has not worked, or has provided pain relief for such a short time that it is almost useless.

    Less sleep is a side effect of constant pain. I continue to be grateful for regular commenters here who post corrections and additional information when I am too tired to do so. Carry on. Leave out the name-calling whenever possible. Thanks again.

  444. says

    Dear Lynna, I know all of us here wish you a more speedy and complete recovery.
    I understand (and suffer as you do from) the frustrations of intense chronic pain and the fact that there are no effective long term controls for it.
    Medical research really needs to come up with ‘numbitall’ pills that truly banish long-term pain with out dulling your mind!

  445. says

    Katie Zacharia flunks her first test, struggles badly through her first White House briefing

    “The new press secretary faced low expectations, which she failed to meet, sounding a bit like a student doing a book report on a book she hadn’t read.”

    Related video is available at the link. Video is 6:33 minutes.

    Shortly before Katie Zacharia held her first briefing as the new White House press secretary, MS NOW’s Peter Alexander spoke to a former high-level aide who worked for Donald Trump. This person offered a prediction: “I think she is going to be a train wreck.”

    The prediction proved prescient soon after.

    To be sure, the low expectations surrounding Zacharia were hardly unreasonable. After all, the former conservative commentator is perhaps best known for peddling unhinged conspiratorial nonsense via social media. It’s not as if she was poised to appear behind the podium with a deep reservoir of credibility and respect.

    But Zacharia nevertheless failed to clear a low bar. [Video. Comment from Aaron Rupar: “😬 Katie Zacharia’s first press briefing was brutally bad 😬

    Trump managed to find a press secretary who can barely read, but she does have the number one qualification — looking like Ivanka

    Here’s a supercut from Zacharia’s first briefing, which made Karoline Leavitt seem like Ronald Reagan”]

    Early on, while trying to talk about how awesome the president’s awesomeness is, the new press secretary appeared to struggle to read her own notes, sounding a bit like a student doing a book report on a book she hadn’t read.

    As the briefing continued, Zacharia fielded just three questions — calling on correspondents from a conservative website, a conservative newspaper and a conservative cable network — and didn’t know the answer to the only policy question she faced. In another unfortunate moment, she also mixed up her husband and the president.

    After less than 15 minutes, the press secretary abruptly ended the briefing.

    Predictably, White House officials claimed the briefing was a triumph. The president characterized her performance as “very good,” and White House communications director Steven Cheung claimed she was “tremendous.”

    At least, that’s what the White House said publicly. Speaking more candidly, two White House officials told MS NOW they were severely unimpressed, with one official saying, “Getting behind the podium is tough, but she got off on the wrong foot.” The official added, “She needs to get much better, fast, otherwise she’ll break Scaramucci’s record,” referring to Anthony Scaramucci, who served as Trump’s communications director for 11 days in 2017.

    By any fair measure, the former aide who predicted a train wreck was correct. That said, Zacharia did manage to deliver some important news during her brief time behind the podium — she said the White House has asked U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign — though if the new press secretary has some additional briefings like her first one, no one should be too surprised if Trump decides to nominate Zacharia as the next U.S. ambassador to Greece.

  446. says

    Followup to Reginald @436.

    In Ohio, Donald Trump held a rally in support of his party’s candidates on Monday night, which included some odd praise for Republican Sen. Jon Husted’s physique. “I don’t do this with men very often,” the president said. “I started examining his body, because I didn’t know he was a great athlete. And I looked and I watched up and down. I looked at his ass, and I looked at the whole, and then I looked at his hands.”

    In related news, a super PAC tied to a Republican firm is sending out mailers on behalf of a socialist Senate candidate, as part of an apparent effort to divide the left and undermine support for former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

    Link

  447. says

    Despite reality, Trump appears to suggest he was ‘right’ about Haitians eating household pets

    “With three weeks to go before the midterms, the president’s closing message includes an emphasis on stale, racist nonsense.”

    Around this time 10 years ago, when Florida was still seen as a competitive battleground state, Donald Trump campaigned in Miami and spent some time at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, stressing the “common values” he shared with Haitian Americans.

    “Whether you vote for me or not,” the candidate said, “I really want to be your biggest champion.”

    In Trump’s first term, he left little doubt that he hadn’t meant a word of it. And in his second term, he has made matters vastly worse, ending humanitarian safeguards under the temporary protected status program, subjecting Haitians — many of whom have been working legally in the United States, paying taxes and contributing to their communities — to immediate deportation.

    As recently as August, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security published an item to social media, bragging about the termination of TPS for Haitians via a 50-second video that purportedly showed Haitians being forced onto a deportation plane while literally in chains, for unexplained reasons.

    As this week got underway, the president headlined a campaign rally in Ohio, where Haitians were once again on his mind. [social media post from Aaron Rupar, with video of Trump speaking.]

    Referring to the Ohio city of Springfield, Trump said “they dropped” about 35,000 Haitians into the community — but, thanks to him, they’re “being taken out,” helping restore Springfield as a city with “no problems.”

    He added, “They dropped 35,000 people in from Haiti, and it didn’t work out too well. Remember during the debate, I said some of the things they were doing? I was right. It turned out I was right. I won’t get into the exact — remember that? I was right.”

    No, he wasn’t.

    In September 2024, Trump stood on a debate stage and told a bizarre lie about Haitians living in Springfield.

    “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” he said before a national television audience despite reality. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

    Predictably, there were dangerous consequences — bomb threats, closed buildings, canceled events, terrified residents, death threats, etc. — both for the immigrants and the broader community. State and local officials from his own party urged Trump to stop lying. He declined.

    More than four years later, Trump isn’t just returning to the slander, he’s seemingly building on it, exaggerating the number of Haitian immigrants (there weren’t 35,000), pointing to a resettlement effort that didn’t exist (“they” didn’t “drop” these people into the community) and apparently saying he was right about the consumption of household pets, which is just as false now as it was four years ago.

    But stepping back, there’s a related question hanging overhead: With three weeks remaining in the midterm elections cycle, is this really the closing message Trump wants to take to voters? With ample evidence showing an electorate focused on the economy and the cost of living, does the president seriously expect to give Republicans a boost by emphasizing stale, racist nonsense?

  448. says

    Trump tries to explain why he (twice) announced an ‘energy ceasefire’ that didn’t exist

    “Why would anyone believe Trump’s next boast after he effectively admitted that he’s willing to announce imaginary developments? I honestly don’t know.”

    It was about a month ago when Donald Trump announced an apparent breakthrough on Russia’s war in Ukraine. “Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets,” the American president wrote. “Russia has agreed to do, likewise!”

    Reality quickly intervened. Indeed, one day later, The New York Times reported that the Russian and Ukrainian governments made clear “that neither had agreed to an energy cease-fire that President Trump presented as a done deal a day before.”

    The fact that the American president announced an imaginary agreement about an ongoing war probably should have been deeply humiliating to the Republican, but he nevertheless did the same thing this week.

    On Sunday morning, Trump again turned to his social media platform to announce, “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed.”

    Both parties had not agreed, and Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure continued.

    On Monday afternoon, during a brief Q&A, a reporter asked Trump an important and rather obvious question: Why did he say that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an energy ceasefire when that did not actually happen? [social media post from Aaron Rupar, with video]

    “Well, they agreed, you know why?” Trump replied. “Because I said, ‘You agree.’ That’s why. They agreed because I said they agreed.”

    In other words, when the president told the world in writing that two warring nations had “agreed” to a new policy, he didn’t mean that the countries had actually agreed to the new policy. He instead meant that he told them to agree, which in his mind was the same thing, since he is apparently convinced that he can dictate decisions on behalf of the Ukrainian and Russian governments.

    What we’re dealing with is a dynamic in which the incumbent American president is comfortable issuing public declarations about governing breakthroughs that have only happened in his mind, which is every bit as unsettling as it sounds.

    Why would anyone believe Trump’s next boast after he effectively admitted that he’s willing to announce imaginary developments? I honestly don’t know.

    As for the idea that Trump might have been trying to affect energy prices with his latest false claim, that apparently didn’t work, either. NBC News reported, “Oil and gas prices rose Monday after an ‘energy ceasefire’ announced by President Donald Trump on Sunday failed to gain traction. Brent crude oil jumped 2% to almost $108 per barrel and U.S. crude oil rose more than 2% to about $94.”

  449. says

    MS NOW:

    In a fiery hearing on Monday, a federal judge slammed the Trump administration for defying her order to give the court notice before taking down more than 10 trees on the East Potomac Golf Course in Washington, D.C. ‘I am just beyond disappointed in the government,’ U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said.

  450. Rob Grigjanis says

    Lynna: FWIW, Advil worked pretty well for me during recovery from knee replacement. Finding a comfortable position to sleep was a problem though.

  451. says

    Followup to comments 398, 403, 404, 420, and 433.

    It’s All Happening Right Before Our Eyes

    […] The Omar search is made worse because it comes after President Trump targeted her for years and publicly announced in January that a criminal investigation of her was underway. He has made the retribution element abundantly clear. It’s part of his broader attack on elected Dems — not merely a rhetorical attack but an abuse of his office to unleash the power of the federal government against his political foes.

    It is all of the above — and more.

    One other notable element of this retributive investigation: It is being helmed by Homeland Security Investigations, which is part of DHS, not DOJ. HSI has been in the lead on some of the most glaring retributive investigations in recent months. With a bloated budget, DHS, across its many component agencies, has police and investigatory powers that lets the Trump White House bypass or sideline DOJ. The FBI and DOJ aren’t sidelined completely. HSI can’t prosecute cases without DOJ, and DOJ had a role in obtaining the search warrant for Omar’s home (which, dismayingly, a D.C. federal judge signed off on). But this adds to the evidence that DHS is Trump’s favored tool of authoritarianism.

    If there was any doubt that the Omar case is being run out of the White House, the administration did little to hide it. A senior Trump administration official told the Washington Post that in addition to Attorney General Todd Blanche and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow, the investigation involved White House deputy homeland security adviser Anthony Salisbury. I can’t emphasize enough how far over the cliff’s edge we are with White House-directed investigations.

    The worst predictions of what a second Trump term would be like are coming true right before our eyes.

  453. says

    Trump cuts off intelligence sharing

    Zelenskyy says Ukraine stopped receiving intel from the U.S., which resulted in no warning of a Russian missile attack.

    Trump is now an accessory to murder.

    [Posted by NEXTA:]🚨 BREAKING: Zelensky confirms Ukraine received no intelligence from its partners last night

    Since last evening, Russian forces have attacked Ukraine with more than 100 weapons, including jet-powered drones, loitering munitions and ballistic missiles.

    A significant number were intercepted, but unfortunately not all of them, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

    In particular, Russia launched what Zelensky described as a particularly treacherous ballistic missile attack on Kyiv, with five missiles striking civilian infrastructure.

    “Unfortunately, there was no warning from our partners about this attack,” the Ukrainian president stressed. Intelligence on Russian ballistic missile launches is crucial for saving lives.

    Zelensky also noted that Ukraine had refrained from striking Russian oil refineries for two days following Trump’s announcement of an energy ceasefire. Russia, meanwhile, continues to bomb civilians.

  454. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/desperate-trump-sells-out-ukraine

    “Desperate Trump Sells Out Ukraine For $.01 Drop In Price Of Diesel At The Pump”

    President Deals has been at it again. And by “at it” we mean fucking things up for no reason […]

    Last week, as is his wont for some reason that wingnuts will get very mad about if you bring it up, Donald Trump made a deal that handed Vladimir Putin and Russia a victory. He did this via one of his patented splashy, braggy announcements that always turn out to be premature, or not what everyone else thought was agreed to, or pure and uncut bullshit. Or all three.

    On Friday, Trump announced he had made a deal with Putin for the United States to buy 300,000 metric tons of diesel gas, which comes to about 2.25 million barrels. This is to be followed, allegedly, by another 500,000 tons in November and one million tons “immediately thereafter,” […] Then there will be another three million tons “within a short period of time,” whatever that even means to what’s left of Trump’s mind.

    So, about 4.8 million tons of diesel fuel, which translates to roughly 36 million barrels, give or take. This is contingent on “the condition of their Diesel Refineries,” which are currently not in very good condition, which we’ll get to in a minute.

    To be clear, this is not a huge amount of diesel relative to America’s needs. The US overall uses somewhere around 4.1 million barrels of diesel a day. So this huge deal will, by whenever “within a short period of time” happens, provide around nine days’ worth of diesel for the entire US. It is so little diesel that the deal will likely not provide the pre-election drop in the price of gas at the pump that was Trump’s sweaty and obvious reason for calling his good friend Vlad Putin and making the stupid deal in the first place. [Trump’s social media post.]

    […] everyone loves this deal. Except for Ukraine. And the entire European Union. And a large bipartisan number of members of Congress. Even the editorial page of longtime banking pamphlet The Wall Street Journal […]

    Ukraine hates the deal for the simple reason that it helps the Russian economy, which means it helps produce more soldiers and equipment to kill Ukrainians, which Russia is still doing in large numbers. Ukraine has been attacking Russian diesel refineries, sharply reducing its production capacity and hurting its economy. No one is sure where Russia is even going to find these 36 million spare barrels […]

    In fact, Ukraine responded to the deal by bombing a few more Russian oil refineries. This made Trump and the rest of MAGAland very mad: [social media posts, with videos: “White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia nods along on Fox & Friends as Rachel Campos-Duffy blasts that “ingrate Zelenskyy who keeps blowing up refineries and making things more complicated for the president ahead of the midterms”]

    Did no one tell Volodymyr Zelenskyy that his focus right now should be America’s midterm elections, not all the bombs Russia keeps using to kill his citizens?

    Trump was mad enough to suggest that Ukraine should call elections and get itself a new president, and we’re sure that for Ukraine, the feeling about America is mutual. He followed that up on Sunday by claiming that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an “energy ceasefire,” which came as a surprise to both Ukraine and Russia.

    […] Nevertheless, Zelenskyy said Ukraine would call a presidential election if Russia agreed to not bomb any of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 60 days. He knows Putin is never going to agree to such a ceasefire because it would delay his plan to make winter so unbearable for Ukraine that they finally surrender. It hasn’t worked when Russia has tried this every past winter since the war started, but maybe the fifth time will be the charm.

    Meanwhile, Europe hates the deal because it would like Russia to leave Ukraine and not invade any more of the continent. […]

    And a bipartisan group of American lawmakers hates this deal because they just passed a law sanctioning Russia and its oil industry. Specifically, in September Congress passed the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which banned Russian energy imports to America. Congress technically needs to repeal this law before Trump can act on this deal […]

    Trump signed the Lindsey Graham Act into law 24 days ago and has already forgotten about it […] Not that it would matter if he did remember it, because he and Putin got on the phone and had a nice chat.

    All of Trump’s whining completely ignores something he will never admit, which is that his stupid war on Iran is much more responsible for the spiking price of diesel than anything Ukraine is doing to Russian refineries. But that would require him to take responsibility for his actions in starting that war in the first place […]

    Russia has been siding with Iran in its war with America. Which means that any money we pay Russia for diesel exports goes not just to Putin’s own military. It also goes to Iran to continue building the drones and missiles it is using to blow up all of America’s bases in the Middle East, wiping out several decades of work to establish a presence in the area in support of our allies there. And Putin would love if America abandoned the Middle East, as it fits within his “Great powers should control spheres of influence in their own neighborhoods” view of global power.

    In short, Trump is getting suckered, possibly with the carrot of lucrative business deals for himself and his cronies getting dangled in front of his eyes. Only he can’t see it, because he’s such a fucking idiot.

    […] Russia likely won’t be able to provide the diesel unless it can fix the refineries that Ukraine has bombed to smithereens, at which point Ukraine will bomb them again. Trump will continue to be on Putin’s side until someone talks him out of it, at which point he’ll be on Ukraine’s side until Putin talks him out of it. […] and so on and so forth.

  455. Reginald Selkirk says

    Deep-Sea Rocks Spontaneously Combusted After Scientists Brought Them to the Surface

    The emerging industry of deep-sea mining could end up in flames after researchers discovered that some rocks collected from the bottom of the ocean can heat up and even spontaneously combust once they’re brought to the surface and exposed to air.
    …
    Using a remotely operated vehicle, the researchers collected 57 samples of metal sulfide-rich rocks from four different regions in the Escanaba Trough. The hydrothermal area along the southern Gorda Ridge off the U.S. West Coast created deep-sea deposits rich in metals like zinc, copper, and iron.

    The rocks were crushed and freeze-dried in the lab, with two of the samples experiencing spontaneous combustion when exposed to air. To figure out how and why the rocks performed this pyrotechnic trick, the researchers tested how the samples responded to increasing temperatures. They then compared the chemical composition and mineralogy between the combustable rocks and other samples.

    The combusting rocks were composed primarily of nanocrystalline marcasite, a form of iron sulfide that appears to be unstable when exposed to oxygen. The use of heat and other forces, like crushing, breaking, and grinding the rocks, can supply enough energy to initiate oxidation. That can then lead to the rock samples self-heating…

  456. Reginald Selkirk says

    Missiles intercepted near Riyadh after Saudi coalition hits Yemen fuel depot

    Missiles and drones have been intercepted over Riyadh after the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen struck a fuel depot near the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, its spokesperson says.

    Maj Gen Turki al-Maliki said several projectiles targeting the Saudi capital and other cities were intercepted after the coalition carried out a strike on the Yemen Petroleum Company’s al-Sabaha facility on Tuesday night.

    The Houthis warned they would target the airport and Aramco refinery in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, and Aramco’s headquarters in the eastern city of Dammam…

  457. Reginald Selkirk says

    A Mysterious Fungus Threatens Cheese in the Northeast US

    … Now, Wolfe and his colleagues have exposed the culprit. In a study published in Applied and Environmental Biology, they explained how they identified the cheese-wrecker as Aspergillus westerdijkiae, a toxin-producing species of fungus that, to their knowledge, has never before caused such problems for food production supply chains in this part of the US.1 It begs two questions: Where did the fungus come from, and how can cheesemakers beat it? …

  459. Reginald Selkirk says

    A ‘Convinced Atheist’ Finds Jesus on the Sea of Galilee
    What had she been convicted of?

    A rising star in Swedish media, Ingrid Carlqvist worked as an investigative reporter and editor at some of the country’s largest news companies.

    Her reporting would lead her to take some controversial stands on issues like Muslim immigration to Sweden, which would doom her career in the mainstream media.

    Then, after 59 years of living as a convinced atheist, her life completely changed in 2019.

    Ingrid said, “I thought I was an atheist, but I was very fond of Christianity. I, for many years, dreamed about there being a revival in Sweden.” …

    As atheists do…

    I was an atheist. Quantum physics set me on the path to Jesus

    roll-eyes. I can’t even.

  460. Militant Agnostic says

    Reginald Selkirk @457

    Blessed are the cheesemakers*

    *not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.

  461. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    SQB @432:

    In what world was a vote for Trump not a vote for genocide? That phrase, “demand people vote for genocide”, lies by omission: it implies that not voting for Kamala Harris would somehow have been a vote against genocide.

    From what I gather, it was an ultimatum to negotiate a major unprecedented foreign policy change with Dems. It framed Dem pols as responsible for refusing the reasonable, moral choice to comply in time for the election—hence no regret. They played chicken using the threat of Trump, and neither side swerved. Following through on the ultimatum wasn’t the goal but was eased by a faulty rationalization that Trump was a known tolerable evil like they’d already lived through before.

    Wikipedia – Uncommitted National Movement

    a protest campaign aimed mainly to pressure the United States government to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza war and impose an arms embargo on Israel. […] After unsuccessful attempts to pressure or meet with Harris, the group declined to endorse her, though came out against Republican candidate Donald Trump. The movement’s role in the election is disputed; some Democrats alleged that its strategy contributed to Trump’s win, while others blamed Harris for her lack of outreach to pro-Palestinian voters

    TheNewArab – Kamala Harris’ Palestine shift is all for show, don’t fall for it (2026)
    By Hossam el-Hamalawy

    Kamala Harris’s reported outreach to pro-Palestinian activists should not be mistaken for moral courage. It is not a late conversion born of the ruins of Gaza, nor an act of repentance for the Biden administration’s complicity in Israel’s genocidal war. It is, above all, an act of political survival.

    Harris is looking at the Democratic Party’s changing base, the electoral advances of progressives, the collapse of unconditional support for Israel among younger voters, and the deep anger that Gaza produced across campuses and Arab American communities. She is doing what she has often done best: reading the room.
    […]
    But no one should confuse Harris’ repositioning with a future rupture in US policy. If she is ever elected president, the safest assumption is continuity. […] The Israeli state and military function as part of a wider American security order […] No Harris presidency is likely to dismantle that. At most, she would try to manage the contradictions more elegantly. […] She can speak of Palestinian dignity while preserving Israel’s qualitative military edge. […] She can invite activists into closed-door meetings while refusing the one demand that would mark a real break: ending US military support for Israel’s war machine.

    That does not mean her outreach is meaningless. It means the pressure is working, but not enough. The pro-Palestinian movement has […] made it impossible for ambitious Democrats to treat Palestinian life as politically disposable. […] progressives who no longer accept the fiction that US support for Israel is cost-free.

    OTOH, a sentiment like “Vote for the enemy you want,” circulated to point out that Ds are willing to read the room and that further change was possible once in office; Rs burn the house down.

    Al Jazeera – From Trump to El-Sayed: US Arabs in Michigan centre Palestine (Aug 3)

    Yemeni-American activist Samraa Luqman has no regrets about voting for President Donald Trump in 2024. […] “I said from the beginning, I’m willing to live through another four years of Trump, that we expected him to be bad on our issues, but it was a pill we were willing to swallow in order to hold the Democratic Party accountable.”
    […]
    “No one understands the horrors of Trump’s policy more than us. We were his first victims in 2017,” said Amer Zahr, a comedian and Dearborn Board of Education trustee. Shortly after starting his first term in 2017, Trump implemented a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries. […] “People want us not to be single-issue voters. In other words, they want us to forgo our main issue, get screwed on it, watch our families die because Trump’s bad, and accept all that,” he said. “Well, we said ‘no’. The blood of the children of Gaza had to mean something.”
    […]
    Dabajeh, the political strategist, said […] “Are we supposed to call our family members overseas and be like, ‘Listen, khalto [auntie], this guy over here that’s running for office might kill some of your neighbours, might kill some of your kids, but don’t worry about it, he’s going to take care of the flooding in our homes’?”

    There’s that omission again. FEMA’s compromised and even more overseas neighbors are dead.

  462. Reginald Selkirk says

    Saudi man charged with planting ‘sophisticated’ recording device in OpenAI office

    A Saudi national has been charged with secretly planting a recording device in one of OpenAI’s offices in California, federal prosecutors announced.

    Abdulrahman Alfozan, who worked at the AI firm as an engineer, was charged federally with using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications.

    OpenAI said it had discovered a “sophisticated recording device” hidden in their San Francisco office and alerted the FBI. The company said it used its AI models to track that it had been planted by an employee.

    Prosecutors say the device, wrapped in toilet paper, was found inserted in a USB port on the back of a TV in an executive conference room.
    …

  463. StevoR says

    @442. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain :

    StevoR @438: “did we ever get Mary Trump’s take on this?””

    [Video] Mary Trump – What is WRONG with Donald Trump!? (at 20:51)

    Thanks for that.

  466. StevoR says

    @ 461. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : “From what I gather, it was an ultimatum to negotiate a major unprecedented foreign policy change with Dems. It framed Dem pols as responsible for refusing the reasonable, moral choice to comply in time for the election—hence no regret. They played chicken using the threat of Trump,.. ”

    That’s cynical and probly certainly possibly untrue and even if not it does NOT change the reality that Trump was far worse on Gaza and everything else..

    Peopel can judge for themsdelve sbut I actually do believ Kamala was sincere and honest in her comments here – Kamala Harris: ‘It Breaks My Heart’

  467. StevoR says

    @ 461. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : “From what I gather, it was an ultimatum to negotiate a major unprecedented foreign policy change with Dems. It framed Dem pols as responsible for refusing the reasonable, moral choice to comply in time for the election—hence no regret. They played chicken using the threat of Trump,.. ”

    That’s cynical and probly certainly possibly untrue and even if not it does NOT change the reality that Trump was far worse on Gaza and everything else..

    Peopel can judge for themsdelve sbut I actually do believ Kamala was sincere and honest in her comments here – Kamala Harris: ‘It Breaks My Heart’

  468. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    AP News on YT – Katie Zacharia’s first White House press briefing (14:23)

    Atlantic – Hi, I’m your new press secretary, and it’s my first time reading words out loud

    I swear that I have seen a sentence before, and I know where one stops and. Starts. And whether? To speak. With a rising inflection? […]

    I’m bringing a kind of “unlicensed bus driver” energy to this speech: unsteady at best, with many seemingly random stops in unexpected places. […]

    I am excited for this job because—well, let me use my exact words:

    I get to do what I was doing on the outside already, which was hoping to amplify, multiply, and expand upon President Trump’s incredible agenda for the American people. And what I hope to do in this position is to take that into an official capacity and only build on, only amplify, and only multiply, to the extent possible, all of the wins he’s making for Americans, for, for Americans to understand how much has changed in this brief period of time—what he’s been able to accomplish. My goal is to be able to communicate that in complete tandem with the president, as he is his own best spokesperson and will absolutely be leading the way as with that.

    […] No, this is not spoken-word poetry. […] No further questions! And look at that—it’s been 14 whole minutes already. That’s time! Good thing I will never have to do this again.

  469. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Alexandra Phelan (Global health law prof):

    Today the UN General Assembly formally adopted the Political Declaration on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response, reflecting high level political global commitment to (inter alia) finalize the Pandemic Agreement’s [Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system] Annex.

    153 Member States voted in favor, 3 against, with 2 abstentions. [Screenshots]

    Elia Ayoub: “The US, Argentina, and Israel are pro pandemics. Paraguay and NZ are agnostic about pandemics.”

    Rando: “Even North Korea and Russia voted in favor of it.”

  470. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Reuters – Greta Thunberg joins French teens on new day of school protests

    Thunberg joined ​French high-school students demanding better learning conditions on Tuesday as a day of mostly peaceful blockades and street marches was again marred ‌by flying projectiles, police charges and tear gas. Four weeks into nationwide protests over teacher shortages, classroom overcrowding and dilapidated school buildings, more than 161,000 people took to the streets of major cities, according to interior ministry figures. That was down from 266,000 on a similar day of action a week ago.

    The government has pledged to address the protesters’ grievances, but ​with public finances already strained and borrowing costs at decades-high levels, it has limited options to invest in public services […] The education ministry said 214 schools were closed, down from 800 on a similar protest day a week ago. It said 94.2% ​of high schools were open.
    […]
    Six months out from a presidential election that polls suggest could usher in the first far-right government since World War Two […] Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has a chance of reaching the runoff according to polls, joined one of ​the marches

    Reuters – French policing under scrutiny as student protest injuries mount

    The police response has renewed calls for the withdrawal of the use of rubber bullets and grenade launchers, which are not used by police in many other European countries

  471. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The Guardian – Why Indian voters are on the streets

    Anger at electoral roll changes has boiled over, sparking a crisis for Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government. […] Since last year, 130 million names—more than the population of Japan—have been removed from India’s electoral roll through a process known as SIR, or special intensive revision. In the nearly eight decades since India’s independence, never have the voter rolls shrunk by such a huge amount over such a short time.

    […] tens of millions of dead and duplicate names have been removed. Yet so have the names of millions of living Indian citizens. Critics allege that the pledge to “purify” India’s voter roll of illegal immigrants has instead been used for more sinister purposes—disenfranchising tens of millions of Muslims, other minorities, and poor and lower caste communities, who are largely not BJP voters.

    […] Over the weekend, Delhi was transformed into a high-security fortress of barricades, roadblocks and tens of thousands of police and paramilitaries who detained thousands of people, as they attempted to stop youth-led protests calling for the man who oversaw SIR, the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, to step down immediately. On Monday, opposition parties […] drew tens of thousands of supporters as they marched through the capital and presented a petition to the supreme court, demanding Kumar’s resignation.

    […] under changes to SIR unilaterally implemented by Kumar, the election commission has become the arbiter of Indian citizenship, a sweeping overreach of its remit. The consequences are already playing out in West Bengal, where Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) recently came to power and began a crackdown on “illegal” immigrants, complete with several new detention centres.
    […]
    Those across West Bengal who have been stripped of their votes speak of their terror of being accused of being an alien in their own land. […] “With my name erased from the voter list, I am in constant terror. What if they send me to a detention camp?”

  472. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    BusinessInsider – Palantir CTO says some AI researchers are taking up smoking because they expect AI to cure cancer

    “So many AI researchers have started smoking as a way of signaling to other researchers how much they believe in AI,” Sankar said in an interview […] Sankar did not name any researchers or provide evidence for the claim. [But] a small group of founders, engineers, and investors has embraced cigarettes in a sector otherwise known for optimizing their health with cold plunges, sleep tracking, and peptide treatments.

    Rando: “I had assumed that was an Onion article.”

    BusinessInsider – Silicon Smokers: Meet the tech founders who think that cigarettes are their edge

    [One founder] referenced an essay by Gwern Branwen, a popular writer among the AI crowd. The essay considered whether nicotine could have nootropic benefits. “By the time you do get lung cancer, our AI robots are supposed to have cured that,”

    ^ Lots more stupid rationalizations. Including one guy who barely puffs and leaves the rest to burn for appearances, hoping to go viral as BOTH smokers and non-smokers criticize him.

  475. birgerjohansson says

    For those who still use the app: Andrew Furuseth won his 30-year struggle to abolish maritime slavery 1915.

    .https://www.facebook.com/share/r/18j4jchzjC/
    .
    Also (I lost the link) it is about fifteen years since the Obama administration killed a US citizen with a drone because his father was preceived as a terrorist.

  479. says

    Trump keeps rewarding Russia’s Putin in exchange for nothing

    “Trump treats every day as if it were Putin’s birthday, and he wants to demonstrate his affection for the Russian dictator with a series of lavish gifts.”

    Related video at the link

    In the abstract, it’s possible to imagine the White House negotiating a difficult compromise to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, which might very well include some distasteful concessions, such as financial benefits for Vladimir Putin’s regime.

    But among the most striking things about Donald Trump’s recent gifts to his counterpart in Moscow is that they’re unearned. The American president is making concessions, not to advance an international agreement, but in exchange for nothing — as if Trump somehow believes he needs to compensate Putin for reasons he hasn’t explained.

    The New York Times reported on the series of wins Trump handed to Putin — including sanctions relief for Russian diesel fuel and fresh condemnations of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — which preceded the Russian leader launching a new round of violence, which Trump claims he hopes to end. From the article:

    Minutes after Mr. Trump announced the diesel deal, the Kremlin reiterated Mr. Putin’s stance that he would not negotiate with Ukraine at the moment, because he remained angry about Ukrainian strikes during last month’s Russian parliamentary election.

    The next day, Russia launched an attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia that killed 22 people, including four children. … And Mr. Putin has signaled that he plans to escalate further, aiming to knock out Ukraine’s power and water infrastructure in what Ukrainians expect to be the worst winter of the war.

    To be sure, it’s not exactly new to see Trump show humiliating weakness to Putin. On the contrary, it has been a staple of his political career.

    But in recent days, the American president’s kowtowing has taken an almost cartoonish turn. Trump is pumping billions of dollars into the Russian economy? Check. Trump is ignoring an existing U.S. law that bans Russian oil imports? Check. Trump is echoing Kremlin talking points on the faltering peace process? Check. Trump is peddling false accusations against Ukraine? Check. Trump is looking the other way on Russia aiding Iran during the ongoing U.S. war? Check. Trump is handing Putin a diplomatic victory by inviting him to the upcoming Group of 20 summit in Miami? Check. [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    Again, if the White House were inclined to make the case that Trump is grudgingly extending benefits to Moscow as part of a broader agreement that advances U.S. interests, we could at least have a conversation about the merits of the underlying deal.

    But there is no deal. Trump is simply treating every day as if it were Putin’s birthday, and he wants to demonstrate his affection for the Russian dictator with a series of lavish presents, sparking a new round of speculation about why in the world the American president is doing this.

    In 2020, former Sen. Dan Coats, a Republican who served as Trump’s director of national intelligence during the president’s first term, conceded in an interview with Bob Woodward that he spent much of his tenure as DNI wondering what Putin had on Trump — a concern that intensified over time.

    “How else to explain the president’s behavior? Coats could see no other explanation,” Woodward wrote.

    Six years later, the relevance of Coats’ comments lingers for a reason.

  480. says

    […] This week, the Trump administration made clear its indifference to this longstanding norm, launching a search of the home of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, as part of an apparent criminal investigation.

    […] the president made an effort to distance himself from the ongoing legal process. NBC News reported:

    Trump made disparaging comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. [on Monday afternoon], calling her “crooked” and a “terrible person,” while saying that he had “nothing to do” with the […] search of her home in Washington, D.C., by federal agents.

    “I’ve always found her to be totally crooked personally, but that has nothing to do with me. I think she’s a terrible person, just a complainer,” Trump told reporters. “I think she’s a terrible person, but that’s really up to the DOJ. I have nothing to do with it.”

    […] Earlier this year, the president used his social media platform to issue a public declaration of sorts related to Omar. “She should be in jail,” the Republican wrote, “or even a worse punishment, sent back to Somalia, considered one of the absolutely worst countries in the World.” Days later, Trump published a follow-up, adding, “She should be investigated for Financial and Political Crimes, and that investigation should start, NOW!”

    […] circumstances unfolded in three steps:

    Part 1: Trump publicly demanded an investigation into Omar.

    Part 2: The Trump administration opened an investigation into Omar.

    Part 3: Trump pretended he had nothing to do with Part 2, despite Part 1.

    As for the process moving forward, The New York Times reported that federal agents had issued subpoenas to some of Omar’s relatives “as officials scour her family’s history for evidence of fraud and false statements in immigration paperwork.”

    Link

  481. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    birgerjohansson @478
    Wikipedia – Killing of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki

    a U.S. drone strike in Yemen. He was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, a key organizer for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda. […] Two U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity stated that the target of the October 14, 2011, airstrike was Ibrahim al-Banna, an Egyptian believed to be a senior operative in al-Qaeda […] Another U.S. administration official speaking on condition of anonymity described Abdulrahman al-Awlaki as a bystander who was “in the wrong place at the wrong time”, stating that “the U.S. government did not know that Mr. Awlaki’s son was there”

    HuffPo – Obama campaign adviser, former PessSec, Robert Gibbs says Anwar al-Awlaki’s son needs ‘far more responsible father’ (2012)

    Gibbs wasn’t entirely familiar with the situation, and didn’t know that al-Awlaki’s son was killed two weeks after his father was killed […] “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don’t think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business,” […] the reporter pressed him, noting that the teen had not renounced his citizenship and was underage. The Atlantic suggests that if Gibbs is giving the genuine rationale for the killing, it’s grounds for impeachment.
    […]
    Gibbs’ comments were released the same day The Washington Post published an expose on the White House’s growing database of people it believes it has the authority to kill without trial.

  482. says

    Followup to comment 276.

    […] According to The Wall Street Journal’s latest reporting, shortly after the newspaper reported that Guilfoyle had solicited $100,000 from a Trump donor in the run-up to her confirmation hearing last year, she “reached out to White House officials to say the text messages were AI generated.”

    Evidently, that fanciful story proved unpersuasive. Just six days after that Journal report was published, the White House announced that Donald Trump expected the ambassador’s resignation. Naturally, Guilfoyle granted the president’s request and said she was stepping down.

    “I didn’t like what I read,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday afternoon when asked about the outgoing ambassador. He soon after pretended to barely know Guilfoyle, adding, “She, I guess, dated my son a long time ago.” [Guilfoyle was Donald Junior’s financé. And she was a featured spokesperson during Trump’s campaign for the presidency. Trump pretending to barely know her is nonsense.]

    Guilfoyle is hardly the only official to be ousted after proving inconvenient to the administration. She joins a list that also includes former Attorney General Pam Bondi, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

    The pattern offers a timely reminder: The Trump administration is willing to part with officials who find themselves under a cloud of scandal, but men tend to fare far better than women.

    The point isn’t that Guilfoyle, Bondi, Noem, Chavez-DeRemer and Gabbard were somehow treated unfairly. On the contrary, they all deserved to be removed from office.

    But when then-White House national security adviser Mike Waltz ran into trouble, he received a golden parachute and became the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. When the administration grew wary of then-IRS chief Billy Long, it also rewarded him with an ambassadorship. (Yes, Noem was technically named a “special envoy” for the Shield of the Americas, but the entity barely seems to exist in any meaningful sense.)

    In the meantime, other prominent figures such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., FBI Director Kash Patel and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick careen from one brutal headline to the next, all while receiving little more than pats on the back from the president.

    Guilfoyle is latest woman forced out by Team Trump as scandal-plagued men stay put

  483. says

    Consumer prices climb once again, undermining Trump’s midterms message on inflation

    “Prices are coming down,” the president boasted earlier this week. Unfortunately for the White House, reality continues to intervene.

    With time running out in the midterm election cycle and the early voting window opening across much of the country, Donald Trump tries almost daily to assure Americans that he’s succeeding on voters’ top issue. “Prices are coming down,” the president boasted earlier this week.

    The rhetoric was wrong but familiar. In fact, Trump has spent the last several weeks insisting, without evidence, that consumer prices are not falling gradually, they’re “coming down very fast.”

    Unfortunately for the White House, reality continues to intervene.

    According to the last inflation report before the midterms, the consumer price index showed consumer prices climbing 0.6% in September, which is the largest increase in five months. The same Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed prices up 3.7% over the last year […]

    Prices, in other words, are most certainly not “coming down.”

    Making matters worse, the same report found that for the sixth month in a row, inflation has climbed faster than wages, squeezing consumers already struggling with an affordability crisis.

    In addition to the obvious economic relevance of the new figures, which come on the heels of deeply discouraging data on U.S. job creation, the latest numbers are a political disaster for the White House.

    As recently as last week, JD Vance declared at a press conference, “We’ve made a lot of progress. Inflation is way lower today than it was when we took office.” [That’s a lie.]

    Whether the vice president is aware of this or not, the consumer price index was 3% when Joe Biden’s presidency came to an end in January 2025. The CPI has now climbed to 3.7%, which isn’t lower.

    In case this weren’t quite enough, the latest figures will also increase pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates again, which is also the opposite of what Trump wants to see.

    If recent history is any guide, the president will continue to peddle false talking points — as recently as Tuesday night, Trump tried to convince an Alaska audience that he’s made great strides on affordability — but as the new CPI data shows, reality is stubborn. […]

  484. says

    ALERT: Trump DOJ Begins Active Election Interference in California

    In a major escalation of its multi-prong attempts to interfere in the midterm elections, the Trump DOJ has given California 48 hours to take steps to prevent an unknown number of alleged noncitizen voters in Los Angeles County from voting — or face legal action, Reuters exclusively reports.

    This new Trump DOJ initiative is different from its earlier, largely unsuccessful efforts to obtain voter information from various states. Instead, it is now demanding that Los Angeles County take affirmative steps to prevent the counting of ballots cast by people on a list provided by DOJ who it alleges are “likely noncitizen voters” who received mail-in ballots.

    The Trump DOJ’s demands came in the form of a threat letter Tuesday to California Secretary ‌of State Shirley Weber from acting Deputy Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter — an extraordinary intervention by the department’s No. 2 official.

    The existence of the letter was confirmed by the Justice Department. It’s not clear how DOJ came up with its list, which was provided to Los Angeles County on a “password-protected thumb drive.” Past attempts by the Trump administration to identify noncitizens who are allegedly registered to vote have been deeply flawed and wildly inaccurate.

    In the letter, McCotter sets an arbitrary 48-hour deadline for California to review the DOJ list, but the more alarming development is what other steps McCotter demands that California take, according to Reuters:

    refuse to send ballots to people who appear on the DOJ list until their citizenship status has been confirmed;
    segregate the mail-in ballots already returned by people who appear on the DOJ list;
    don’t count the mail-in ballots of those on the DOJ list until their citizenship status has been confirmed.

    These are the most aggressive steps the Trump administration has taken in its jihad against mythical noncitizen voting, which it greatly exaggerates as a pretext for the federal takeover of elections, the delegitimization of free and fair elections, and the disregard of election results that it disfavors.

    […] McCotter threatened to seek emergency relief in court if California does not comply with his demands.

    […] the election in California is already underway. Mail-in ballots were sent out to every voter in the state beginning on Oct. 5, the same day that ballot drop-off centers opened statewide.

    This is the kind of Trump administration interference that election officials nationwide have been dreading and planning for this entire election cycle. The executive branch has no constitutional role in the conduct of federal elections, which is delegated to the states.

    It’s not yet clear if the Trump DOJ sent similar demand letters to election officials in other states.

  485. says

    Followup to comment 480.

    Not Just DHS — DOJ Targets Rep. Omar, Too

    D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is stumbling all over herself to get in on the targeting of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) by the Trump administration.

    The day after DHS’ Homeland Security Investigations executed a search warrant on Omar’s D.C. home in a what appears to be a bogus investigation into how her late father obtained naturalized U.S. citizenship, Pirro went on Fox News to declare that Omar is under separate DOJ investigation over her financial disclosure forms.

    The public announcement of a criminal investigation by Pirro would be highly irregular at any time, but especially coming just three weeks before the election, further cementing the politicized nature of the Trump administration’s targeting of Omar [!]… as if there was any doubt. […]

  486. says

    DOJ Stiffed Minnesota Over ICE Shootings

    You can be forgiven for thinking that the Trump DOJ had relented after six months and began sharing evidence with Minnesota in the three ICE shootings during Operation Metro Surge. Hennepin County prosecutor Mary Moriarty held a press conference in July announcing the evidence-sharing agreement that had been reached with DOJ.

    But in new court filings yesterday, Minnesota officials, including Moriarty, revealed that the Trump DOJ ceased cooperating again after her press conference. And the impression they leave is that the agreement, which was struck with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis and led to an initial round of evidence sharing, was quickly scotched by Main Justice after news of it broke.

    In her declaration, Moriarty says that she spoke with U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen on Sept. 10, “who told me, in sum and substance, that evidence sharing from the USAO as agreed to in the June 26 letter would be on pause indefinitely ‘in light of challenges with D.C.’”

    The new revelations come in a federal lawsuit that Minnesota filed in D.C. seeking to obtain evidence gathered by DHS and DOJ in the shootings of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Minnesota has already charged ICE agent Christian Castro in the Sosa-Celis shooting.

  487. says

    Followup of sorts to comment 486.

    Texas Considers Charges Against ICE Agent

    In Houston, the district attorney is considering charging an ICE agent who allegedly ran his vehicle over a Mexican national Saturday with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. ICE’s claim that the man ran in front of the ICE agent’s vehicle is undermined by security camera footage showing the car veering toward the fleeing man. One of his legs was broken, not both, as previously reported.

  488. says

    In “The Dawn Of The Self-Funding Pentagon,” Spencer Ackerman warns of the dangers of the “deal” that the Trump administration has stuck to give the Pentagon an equity position in Venezuela’s oil fields outside of the congressional appropriations process: “This is a step in the direction of the U.S. military holding a revenue-generating stake in sectors of another country’s civilian economy.”

    The Dawn Of The Self-Funding Pentagon

  489. birgerjohansson says

    More weird Japanese cartoon stuff. I picked a podcast from 2021 because this selection of trash was –relatively speaking- mild and inoffensive.
    Geoff Thew makes a distinction between “trash” (which can be entertaining in a lowbrow kind of way) and “garbage” which is just bad.

    “Hottest Trash Anime of Fall 2021”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=aSeqJdqTqD8

  490. says

    The huge price tag of DOGE’s chaos

    Do you enjoy watching your tax dollars disappear into a corrupt morass? Were you gullible enough to believe that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency would cut spending? […]

    Bloomberg is reporting that the Trump administration has hit yet another milestone, and it is not a good one: For the first time, federal contract spending is more than $1 trillion. That’s “trillion,” with a T.

    Part of why you’re paying more is that because President Donald Trump’s gutting of the administrative state means outsourcing tasks to private companies, and that costs more.

    Because that $1 trillion figure is all just about procurement—that is, government spending on external contracts or purchases. We’re not talking about, say, paying government employees or heating government buildings. We’re talking about your tax money going in the door to the government and then going right back out the door to whatever randos this administration wants to give it to.

    And no, none of this sort of outsourcing saves money. As Jessica Tillipman, the associate dean for government procurement law at George Washington University Law School, told Bloomberg, when the government downsizes, people still need the services it provides, and when private contracting fills that gap, “[i]t’s rare you see actual reductions in programs.”

    Bloomberg noted that hitting this record number is all the more impressive because the government was shut down for a record time, during which, theoretically, very little contract spending would have occurred. […]

    The Department of Homeland Security is positively awash in contract cash. How else would American taxpayers pony up $220 million for former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to ride a pony? Or spend over $300 million on some new luxury planes? Or more than $16 million on gloves that shock people? Or send billions to private companies to build more gulags? While flinging all this cash around, DHS has been pretending that it saved around $10 billion in money spent on information technology, but even that meager savings was apparently a lie. [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    And of course, spending on Trump’s war of choice in Iran has pushed things to the limit, with procurement jumping 26.5% from fiscal year 2025 to 2026, per Bloomberg. […]

    And also, of course, all those sweet, sweet millions in no-bid contracts to the Trump failsons’ assorted business interests.

    This was always going to happen after Trump and DOGE gutted the actual government, getting rid of almost 400,000 federal employees but seemingly not saving you or me a dime. Instead, those “savings” have largely been shoveled over to private companies, in many cases to do the work that the government was previously doing for cheaper.

    Sure, this is going to ultimately hit all our pocketbooks in a big, brutal way […]

  491. says

    Elon Musk’s Starlink service has been restricted in Ukraine.

    ❗️Last ​​night, the operation of Starlink terminals in Ukraine was restricted.
    Connectivity began to drop when moving at speeds exceeding 160 km/h. As a result, a number of critical missions were disrupted.

    SpaceX likely took these measures at the request of the Trump administration. […]

    Kevin Rothrock, posted on Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ty42uz67qbam52si5yduwwaa/post/3mxsufal7c22o :

    Several Ukrainian military operations were apparently disrupted overnight after Starlink terminals suddenly began losing connectivity above 100 mph (160 km/h), Ukrainian outlet Strana reports, citing an activist identified as Serhiy Sternenko. […]

    Poland sends Elon a warning.

    Many Starlink terminals in Ukraine are financed by Poland. Its Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski has put Elon Musk on notice regarding the evolving situation. […]

    See also: ‘Ostentatious disrespect’ — Zelensky says Russia defied Trump’s energy ceasefire with latest missile strike

    Russia demonstrated its disregard for U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed energy ceasefire by launching drones and missiles against Ukraine’s power grid overnight, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Oct. 14.

    Moscow’s forces deployed 39 ballistic missiles and over 120 drones against energy and critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Kyiv Oblast, and Kharkiv, Zelensky said, calling it “ostentatious disrespect toward the United States.”

    At least three people were killed, and another 22 were injured as a result of the Russian strike that hit a residential building in the Desnianskyi district and power plants elsewhere in the city, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

    Russia has ramped up aerial strikes against Ukrainian energy sites as winter nears, despite Trump’s unexpected and unilateral announcement on Oct. 11 that both Kyiv and Moscow agreed to halt attacks against each other’s energy infrastructure. […]

  493. says

    Washington Post report: Reflecting Pool liner failed in 85 places after flawed renovation, inspection found

    “The damage identified by an inspection the contractor commissioned is far more extensive than has been previously reported, a document obtained by The Post shows.”

    The blue coating applied to the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool this summer failed in at least 85 places because of errors in the renovation, including the premature refilling of the basin before the liner had fully dried, according to an inspection report obtained by The Washington Post.

    The Aug. 6 report, commissioned by the contractor that did the work, documents far more damage than has been previously reported. President Donald Trump has generally attributed the damage to vandals, but the report makes no mention of vandalism to the liner and blames the problems on the use of improper materials and a rush to complete the job. The administration wanted the project finished in time for the celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.

    The 75-page “failure analysis” by Atlantic Coating Inspection includes scores of photos documenting the liner’s deficiencies — ranging in severity and including blisters, peeling and cracks — and identifies their likely causes.

    The blue coating buckled along eight of the 10 expansion joints that divide the concrete slabs of the pool’s basin, according to the report. [illustration]

    Blisters appeared in nearly 40 places due to moisture or chemical fumes trapped beneath the liner. [Illustration]

    Peeling occurred in nearly two dozen spots, where layers of coating separated from each other or detached from the basin. [Illustration]

    Some of the peeling probably occurred because workers were still applying the coating the day before the pool was refilled with water on June 4, even though the material needed 72 hours to “cure,” or dry completely, according to the report.

    The extensive failures at the pool occurred after Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings (AIC) completed the $14.7 million renovation under a no-bid contract awarded by the Trump administration this spring. The administration justified skipping competitive bidding by asserting in an Interior Department memo that “only a limited pool of contractors possess the qualification and equipment” necessary for the job.

    The contractor offered a repair plan in its own report to the federal government later in August, summarizing the failures found by the inspection. In its Aug. 14 report, AIC described the majority of the failures as “cosmetic” but noted that others were “systemic.” The cost of the needed repairs, which the company has said it would cover under its warranty, was not included in its report. [Photos of damage]

    […] The Reflecting Pool has had problems with algae and leaks almost from the time construction was completed in the early 1920s. In 2012, a two-year, $34 million renovation shored up its floor support system to prevent the pool from sinking and added a new filtration system.

    In April, Trump vowed to clean up what he called the “filthy” water in the pool by resurfacing the more than 300,000-square-foot basin with a color Trump called “American Flag Blue.”

    The contractor began work late that month, leaving a small window to complete the job in time for the America 250 anniversary events. The pool was first resurfaced with a light blue primer called Rhino 406. That was followed by a dark blue coating called Rhino Pipeliner 5000. Contracting documents show the federal government specified the use of those materials.

    […] the material was not flexible enough for the “dynamic movement” of the expansion joints, the inspection report said.

    For other areas of the liner that peeled or split, the report cited three possible contributing factors: the improper mixing of materials in the application gun, mist from sprayed material drifting onto dried coating, and insufficient drying time.

    Photos in the report from June 3, the day before the pool was refilled, show crews still applying the liner. The work continued as the pool started to refill, including along the edge of the pool near the area that Hearn was accused of vandalizing, an Interior Department video shows. That area was later found to have 22 defects, according to the report.

    An additional photograph in the report shows crews continuing to apply coating from spray guns the day after water began flowing into the pool. [photos]

    […] Caulk applied between the basin and the expansion joint that runs along the perimeter of the pool also came loose from the concrete after it was prematurely submerged in water, according to the inspection report. That caulking requires five to seven days to cure, the report said.

    […] The inspection report distilled the “lessons learned” to two points: Curing time guidelines should be met, and products used for coating should be tested before they are applied.

    Days after the Aug. 6 report was completed and the vandalism charges against Hearn were dropped, Trump continued to insist that the Olympian had damaged the pool. […]

  494. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    404Media – Character.ai’s bankruptcy docs show the economics of AI don’t work

    Jason Koebler (404Media):

    – They were spending $14 million/month on compute alone at a time their revenue was around ~$1 million/month.
    – Currently losing $9 million a month.
    – They admitted they enshittified & that it didn’t work.
    Character is still losing $9 million a month AFTER:
    – laying off employees,
    – making its model worse on purpose to be cheaper,
    – moving to open source models,
    – adding usage limits,
    – spamming ads in its product,
    – adding new in-app paid products.
    The company’s total revenue in 2025 was $23 million. It was spending $18.5 million per month before legal fees (and it has been sued in a suicide case + is facing tons of regulatory scrutiny). It could barely cover one month of expenses with its revenue for the entire year.

    Commentary

    I love the train of thought that gets you to “We weren’t getting enough sales, so we made the product worse and, gosh darnit, that didn’t work either!”

    I’ve been checking r/CharacterAI and it’s just so… sad. Glad that a company preying on people loneliness and insecurities is going down but the damage they’ve done is staggering. It never should have existed in the first place.

    I remember the ad thing, because quite a few people in the selfship space were all, “Why is my lover trying to sell me stuff?”

    Meanwhile, the former CEO has been hired as Disney’s brand-new Chief Technology Officer.

  495. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to Reginald Selkirk @314 and earlier stories.

    Elizabeth Jacobs (Epidemiologist) on Oct 9:

    [Guardian article] This is a disaster. The ethics committee in Denmark that approved the Guinea-Bissau study which will withhold the birth dose of HepB vaccine “had never considered medical studies before but it changed the rules in order to vote on this one”. Four members of the committee have resigned in protest.

    Apparently, under normal conditions, a Danish national medical ethics committee would have reviewed it, but since the study won’t be done in Denmark, a group at the University of Southern Denmark did the review instead.

    This seems to be a total collapse of ethics review. There is a reason that experienced scientific and medical researchers review studies that involve human subjects. Another safety valve is usually the funding agency, which normally wouldn’t let this through. But, you know… RFK Jr.

    The Guardian – Guinea-Bissau denies it has approved controversial vaccine trial (Oct 14)

    Members of a Danish research ethics committee were informed that officials in Guinea-Bissau had approved an updated design of the study, which influenced some committee members’ votes to proceed with the trial last week. But the health ministry never agreed to or authorized the trial
    […]
    It is unclear whether the US plans to move forward with the study […] the US [CDC] has again set aside $1.6m for funding for the trial this year, to be matched by private funding […] “The study has not been approved,” the HHS told Reuters
    […]
    The study would enroll 14,000 newborns in Guinea-Bissau, half of whom would be vaccinated at birth and half of whom would be denied the immunization for the first six weeks of life. Hepatitis B is widespread in the country, and infection in children can have serious lifelong effects.

    Gavin Yamey (Global health prof):

    researchers cannot ethically exploit poverty & scarcity to do a trial. […] A trial is only ethical if there’s equipoise: we do not know which ‘arm’ of the trial is superior. The proposed trial […] lacks equipoise: we know that withholding the birth dose is harmful.

    Now, the Danes might say, “Guinea-Bissau is too poor to buy the birth dose.” In that scenario, the only ethical thing to do is to use the $1.6M from RFK Jr to give the birth dose to all newborns in Guinea-Bissau. I’ve seen one estimate that this amount of funding would cover all newborns for 10 years. From next year, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, will Fund the birth dose.

    Elizabeth Jacobs: “What’s interesting is that IIRC, the original protocol didn’t say anything about comparing HepB rates in the babies during follow up. What a tell of their intentions.”

  496. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Elizabeth Jacobs (Epidemiologist):

    [Politico article] Thanks to RFK Jr, the USDA scuttled a plan to combat bird flu that included vaccinating chickens, because Brooke Rollins “was concerned about whether it would clash with the Health secretary’s anti-vaccine views”. […]

    let this one settle for a moment. Vaccinating chickens might offend RFK Jr.’s anti-vax sensibilities.

    We are in hell and we deserve the meteor.

  497. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    LiveScience – Chinese pottery discovered in Great Zimbabwe reveals medieval African empire’s vast connections spanning thousands of miles

    Great Zimbabwe, located in the southeastern part of modern-day Zimbabwe, was the capital of an ancient empire that arose in southeastern Africa in around A.D. 1000. Little is known about this precolonial empire because its people did not leave a written history
    […]
    In the new PBS documentary “Secrets of the Dead: Africa’s Golden City,” filmmakers followed a team of archaeologists
    […]
    The site was first excavated in the late 19th century and quickly looted by British colonists for its ivory, metal and gold artifacts. These colonists insisted that Africans hadn’t built Great Zimbabwe, instead claiming it arose from the Phoenicians, a people originally from the Mediterranean; they used that inaccuracy to justify taking all the artifacts to England
    […]
    a highly connected African kingdom that flourished from the 11th century until at least the 15th century, when the population may have gotten too large for the dry, over-farmed land to feed. Archaeologists have already discovered glass artifacts […] from Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East via boat. “From India or Sri Lanka to Great Zimbabwe, it’s at least 8,000 kilometers [5,000 miles],” […] metal objects from what is today the Democratic Republic of Congo, around 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) away. […] copper and tin from modern-day South Africa, more than 300 miles (500 km) away.

    Looks like PBS stations will air Secrets of the Dead at 10:00pm local time. When it gets added to the website, it’ll be paywalled. I expect someone will mirror it a day or two later.

  498. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    I was mistaken. No paywall to watch that documentary @497. It closely conforms to the LiveScience article describing it.

    Secrets of the Dead – S23E5 Africa’s Golden City (55:15)
    * Streaming until 2026-11-11.
    * “This program contains drama reconstruction imagery created with the assistance of generative AI”

    Filmmaker Statement

    Great Zimbabwe had an oral culture. […] Very little was written down. […] There have been very few films made about sub-Saharan medieval time period, whether dramas or documentaries. There was no chance of using previously shot footage to illustrate our stories. […] Even the most generous budgets rarely allow more than a handful of actors and a couple of locations. A key tenet of the film we were making was that the city ‘was alive,’ […] We felt we couldn’t do the city justice approaching it the traditional docudrama way. And so, we looked for another route.
    […]
    We discussed scenes at length, delivered our AI team storyboards to plot out the drama, and provided as many visual references as we could find, signed off by our lead archaeologist […] Professor Chirikure reviewed and verified the entire program—including every AI-generated element—guaranteeing that visual depictions of clothing, material culture, and architectural spaces accurately align with academic consensus and context or plausible interpretation. […] While advanced AI models were utilized in our pipeline, every sequence was conceived, directed, refined, and finished by filmmakers, artists, editors, and visual effects professionals. AI served as a creative tool, but not as a replacement for human judgment, historical research, or artistic craftsmanship. […] also applied a filter to all the AI images we used […] We wanted there to be no doubt as to what was AI and what wasn’t.

    23:54 “No burials have been found here at Great Zimbabwe. It is not unusual because the archaeology depends on where you dig. I think it is a matter of time.”
    Huh.

  499. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    RollingStone – New numbers show just how badly Trump wrecked the economy

    a new Consumer Price Index report issued today by the Department of Labor showed […] prices are, overall, 3.7 percent higher than they were last year.
    […]
    Gas, for instance, leveled out around $3.20 per gallon by the end of 2022, and stayed there till Trump took office. The national average today is $4.33.
    […]
    wages simply aren’t catching up. […] hourly wages […] are down 0.7 percent in the past year, putting them right around the level they were when Trump first took office. […]

    The only financial fix to any of this is for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates again, which analysts think will be discussed at the end of October—just in time for the midterms. The idea to raise those rates is to stop people buying stuff, hopefully stopping some inflation. This doesn’t mean life gets easier, of course, it just means taking on a loan gets more expensive.

  500. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NYT – U.S. is sending hundreds of troops to Latin America

    The first elements of a 600-soldier battalion from the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., have begun deploying to a new jungle training facility in Panama […] troops will eventually train with local forces in Colombia and Honduras, and could also support U.S. Special Operations troops advising militaries conducting raids against accused drug traffickers
    […]
    While many Latin American countries have entered into a new U.S.-led political and military alliance to combat criminal groups, only a handful of them have officially agreed to allow joint operations inside their borders, including Colombia and Honduras. Both countries are run by newly elected presidents who were endorsed by President Trump. […] Trump administration leaders have not articulated a clear goal for the operation. […] could be drawn more deeply into a fight in yet another part of the world without a clear plan to get out

    Nicholas Slayton (Task&Purpose): “I heard rumors of this and could not confirm it. But this is big. Green Berets and MARSOC are on the ground and Marines are at sea, but this is a big move to use conventional forces.”

    Wesley Morgan (Military affairs reporter):

    NYT: Adam Isacson … said he could not recall any deployment of US troops to the region “that ever came close to 600, except for contingencies like invasions.”

    Besides Haiti and Just Cause, and thousands of forces based in Panama until 1999, I think the answer is probably Op Golden Pheasant in 1988 when the Reagan admin deployed about a division’s worth of troops to Honduras (a brigade each from the 82nd and 7th Light Division, plus a couple Marine battalions) in reaction to Nicaraguan attacks on Contra bases.

    If that doesn’t count because it was a contingency operation, then I think the next best answer is probably Exercises Big Pine II and Granadero I in 1983-84, during each of which the Reagan admin put 3,000 to 5,000 US troops in Honduras to build airfields and rehearse air assault operations.

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