Recent Items

Links 7/29/2025

Posted on by

Toddler bites cobra to death after venomous 3ft-long snake coiled itself around his hands in India Daily Mail (Micael T). Shades of the snake-strangling young Heracles.This kid is already a legend. Hope his reputation proves to be a boon as opposed to a curse.

Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees unseen for 80 years LiveScience (Paul R). In case you missed the classic video How Wolves Change Rivers, that process continues.

Scientist claims to have evidence ‘our entire universe is trapped inside a black hole’ Unilad (Robin K). From March but not featured here. Seems apt.

Christopher Lasch, Plain Writing, and Democracy Providence (Anthony L)

What We Still Get Wrong About Psychopaths Nautilus. Micael T: “The good thing is that the guillotine doesn’t care about what goes on in the heads of the elites when it is time.”

#COVID-19/Pandemics

Study Shows a Need for Vigilance When Observing Long COVID Symptoms in Younger Children Rutgers. “Rutgers researchers say clinicians and caregivers may not recognize the symptoms because they are unfamiliar with it.”

Climate/Environment

Reindeer Flee to Cities as the Arctic Bakes in Unprecedented Heatwave Gizmodo

Turkey faces ‘truly great disaster’, warns Erdogan amid raging wildfires and sweltering temperatures across Europe Sky

Syria’s traditional agriculture nears collapse amid drought and crop failures New Arab

A Third of Slum Dwellers at Risk of ‘Disastrous’ Floods 360 Yale

Record marine heatwaves may signal a permanent shift in the oceans New Scientist

China?

Investor alert: Chinese AI is booming in global markets, and Huawei’s chips beat Nvidia’s Kevin Walmsley

Koreas

North Korea says it has ‘no interest’ in dialogue with South Korea Aljazeera

Thailand-Cambodia

Thai army condemns Cambodia for breaking ceasefire agreement Bangkok Post

But: Thai, Cambodian generals agree to halt strikes, reinforcement until Monday Bangkok Post

Africa

Sudan paramilitaries announce a parallel government, deepening the country’s crisis Los Angeles Times

Democratic Republic of Congo: At least 34 people killed after Islamic State-backed rebels attack Catholic church Sky

South of the Border

The AMIA case: The untold story Raphael Machado (Chuck L)

European Disunion

Imaginary Deals and the Temporal Moment Warwick Powell

US tariffs to cost German car giants over €10bn – study RT (Kevin W)

Click through for a translation:

Europe loses another neutral state Vzgylad viz machine translation (Micael T)

Germany Plans Compulsory Military Screening for Young Men DefensePost (Kevin W)

Germany intends to significantly expand its armed forces with plans to enlist up to 40,000 teenagers annually for voluntary military service by 2031 TVP World

The right was better before Aftonbladet via machine translation. Micael T: “So was the left.”

* * *

US-EU tariff deal a big Trump win but not a total defeat for Brussels BBC (Kevin W). “Not a total defeat”?

Old Blighty

Britain risks following France into a terrifying debt crisis Telegraph

Israel v. The Resistance

‘Worst-case scenario of famine’ unfolding in Gaza: IPC report Anadolu Agency

In a First, Leading Israeli Rights Groups Accuse Israel of Gaza Genocide New York Times (resilc)
WSJ promotes Israeli-backed warlord linked to aid theft as Gaza’s ‘future leader’ The Cradle (Kevin W)

Amazon Union Leader Chris Smalls Detained & Beaten by IDF, But US Media Ignores It Mike Elk

* * *

Houthis say they’ll target all ships linked to firms dealing with Israeli ports Times of Israel

* * *

Iran’s plan to abandon GPS is about much more than technology Aljazeera (Guardian)

Iran’s drought is creating a regime crisis Unherd

Syraqistan

Breadlines and Bare Shelves: Suweida Faces Deepening Humanitarian Crisis Syrian Observer

New Not-So-Cold War

Trump reduces Russia-Ukraine ‘deadline’ to 10-12 days RT (Kevin W)

E.U. Cuts Aid to Ukraine Over Corruption Concerns New York Times

Ukrainian “black PR man”: Ukraine’s richest oligarch is preparing a coup d’etat with the help of the army Top War (Micael T). Ukraine being Ukraine, even if true, this may just be a Zelensky shakedown operation based on guesstimates about the scale of his skimming.

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Tech giant Palantir helps the US government monitor its citizens. Its CEO wants Silicon Valley to find its moral compass The Conversation

Imperial Collapse Watch

US used about a quarter of its high-end missile interceptors in Israel-Iran war, exposing supply gap CNN

Looming US troop cuts in Europe raise questions about NATO’s future South China Morning Post

Trump 2.0

Trump uses press conference with Starmer to boost his golf business Guardian (Kevin W). Gross.

Justice Department files formal complaint against Judge Boasberg The Hill

Trump v. Fed

When will the press and public, in a variant of “the Emperor has no clothes,” start to see these fights as pathetic?

Federal Reserve likely to stand pat on rates this week, deepening the gulf between Powell and Trump ABC

Judge rails against last-minute bid by Trump ally to open Federal Reserve interest rate meetings to the public CNN

Who’s funding a Christian nationalist effort in Middle Tennessee? Channel5 (Paul R). This story shows up in search results but I am getting a 403 error.

Our No Longer Free Press

A Pro-Israel Nonprofit is Funneling News Content Through Bari Weiss’s “Free Press” Drop Site

Joe Rogan Gives Benjamin Netanyahu A Dose Of REALITY Young Turks. At the top, reports that Rogan refused a request by Netanyahu to appear on his podcast. Big props to Rogan.

Police State Watch

Militarized Law Enforcement Reaches a New Level under Trump Antiwar.com (Kevin W)

Mr. Market is Moody

America’s looming debt crisis could blow up the entire financial system MoneyWeek. Misleading headline. Article describes zombification, not a “blow up”. Admittedly, as Japan shows, the costs of zombification are routinely underestimated.

AI

Generative AI Asahi Linux Documentation (Paul R). ZOMG, the opener:

It is the opinion of the Board that Large Language Models (LLMs), herein referred to as Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use as software engineering tools, particularly in the Free and Open Source Software movement.

The AI explosion means millions are paying more for electricity Washington Post (Kevin W)

Cheyenne to host massive AI data center using more electricity than all Wyoming homes combined Associated Press (Kevin W)

The Bezzle

Stablecoins: the next big financial crisis waiting to happen Telegraph

Crypto lenders dial up risk with ‘microfinance on steroids’ Financial Times

Guillotine Watch

Billionaire Peter Thiel backing first privately developed US uranium enrichment facility in Paducah WKMS (Paul R)

Class Warfare

She Gave Away Her Inheritance. Now What? Bloomberg (resilc)

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus (Chuck L):

A second bonus:

And a third (guurst):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Subscribe to Post Comments
77 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “Scientist claims to have evidence ‘our entire universe is trapped inside a black hole'”

    And right there is the answer as why so much seems to suck.

    Reply ↓
    1. Michaelmas

      More seriously, the existing standard cosmological models and standard picture of the Big Bang etc. — the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model — are incomplete at best, and probably — wrong.

      That said, neither the black hole theory nor the observation about the preponderance of clockwise-rotating galaxies is novel, and the latter fact doesn’t rise to the level of evidence that we’re inside a rotating Kerr black hole (all black holes rotate AFAIK and at speeds up to 90 percent of lightspeed because they retain the rotation they had as stars, and this includes the massive black holes at the centers of galaxies).

      Though it’s a plausible theory.

      But there are lots of them out there. One of my favorites is the Ni shell universe model —

      Shell Universe: Reducing Cosmological Tensions with the Relativistic Ni Solution
      https://www.mdpi.com/2674-0346/3/3/14

      Essentially —
      1. Shell Structure: The universe is envisioned as a thick shell of matter, with galaxies and clouds of hydrogen or a hydrogen/dark matter mix forming this shell.
      2. Central Void: Inside this shell, there is a central void, meaning there is no matter in the center
      3. Gravitational Effects: A repulsive gravitational field is centered on the origin, causing matter inside the shell cavity to be attracted towards the shell. This also induces a gravitational redshift in light moving from the shell towards the center and a blueshift in light moving back towards the shell

      — which sorts out, or at least provides tenable answers to, a whole bunch of issues with the standard LCDM model, like the Hubble tension and anomalies in quasar counts.

      And interestingly, too, a Ni shell universe could exist inside a black hole, as far as I understand it, so these two theories are consonant. If our universe is a shell-like structure inside a black hole, the observed expansion could be an illusion caused by gravitational lensing and spacetime curvature within the black hole’s interior.

      Reply ↓
  3. none

    “Broken things? Bring ’em here. No charge. Just tea and talk.”

    Hate to say it but this story looks AI generated. All search hits are on Facebook and it has that special LLM implausibility.

    Reply ↓
      1. truly

        The Hennepin Cty fix it clinics are for real. I know one retired military guy and one retired airline mechanic that volunteer with these projects. They find it very rewarding volunteer work.

        Reply ↓
    3. Rod

      I can’t speak to whether it was AI generated, however I did think his wife’s quote:
      “Waste is a habit,” she’d say. “Kindness is the cure.” Has a truth to it.
      Saw a truck full of fluorescent fixtures—looking like the ballasts still intact—get emptied into our County C&D landfill cell the other day. Maybe 30-40.
      No thought. No appreciation. No protocol.

      Reply ↓
    4. Rod

      Won’t speak to the AI, however his wife’s quote:
      “Waste is a habit,” she’d say. “Kindness is the cure.” , I found authentic.
      Watched at the County C&D landfill as 30-40 fluorescent fixtures, many with ballast still attached, got dumped without a second thought.
      No thought-no appreciation-no care-no protocol.

      Reply ↓
    1. FreeMarketApologist

      Yes. It’s a pretty good one though. Notice when the trampoline breaks, the bit of stuff that flies off to the left sort of disappears as it gets to the border of the trampoline. And the seconds on the clock in the upper right are wonky.

      Reply ↓
  5. Samuel Conner

    Re: the news item about the MNRAS study on correlated spiral galaxy rotation in JWST data,

    if very old memory serves, the idea that “the end state of gravitational collapse toward black hole singularities might be the creation of conditions suitable for cosmic inflation inside the event horizons of black holes” has been around for decades. It leads to what one might call a “classical” (ie, non quantum many world) multiverse. Back in the 90s I encountered a paper speculating that, if fundamental physics parameters were reset in this process (but with some correlation with the parameters of the ‘parent’ universe), it would lead a kind of selection process favoring the proliferation of ‘descendant’ universes in which physics favored the formation of black holes.

    It’s neat to think that there might be ways to detect (through the effect of the spin state of the collapsed object in the ‘parent’ universe on phenomena in the ‘child universe’) a “pre Big Bang, pre cosmic inflation” condition of a larger world that contains ours.

    I wonder whether Mach might be troubled.

    Reply ↓
    1. Michaelmas

      the idea that “the end state of gravitational collapse toward black hole singularities might be the creation of conditions suitable for cosmic inflation inside the event horizons of black holes” has been around for decades

      Ah, you beat me to it.

      Reply ↓
        1. MaryLand

          In my simple mind it seems possible that all galaxies could be part of a plasma that rotates and constantly draws the inner galaxies towards the outside of the “bowl” and be pulled slowly upwards to descend into the center where it starts its journey slowly to the outer rim of one bowl and then repeats. It explains the “expanding universe” and the “contracting universe” observations. Yes, watching a stand mixer work through batter has infiltrated my mind. I’ll see myself out.

          Reply ↓
  6. The Rev Kev

    ‘𝕐o̴g̴
    @Yoda4ever
    Jul 24
    These elephants got drunk after eating lot of ripe Marula fruit in MalaMala Reserve..🐘🐾😅🥴🙂’

    Pretty funny this. Did some looking and found that Marula trees are a study in themselves. Bonus points because their Latin name seems to be Sclerocarya birrea–

    https://condimentclaire.substack.com/p/the-marula-tree

    But then my inner predator whispered to me that if you were a South African tribesman looking to get food for your kraal, that you could use a pile of these fruit as a trap for elephants. Just let them feast on them and when they are drunk, just ‘harvest’ the one that suits your needs as they may be too out of it to resist.

    Reply ↓
    1. vao

      But first you will have to find a marula tree to pick fruits, and what will you see when you come near one? Pretty sure that the elephants will be there first — a whole gang of them — and they won’t be pleased seeing an interloper trying to steal their preferred punch.

      As a matter of fact, as every gardener will confirm, animals always seem to appear and feast before human beings wherever trees carry ripe fruits.

      Reply ↓
    2. Mrinal

      Had a similar thought RevKev. Couldn’t a pride of lions take up on this opportune moment to hunt one? Not necessarily by design but by chance.

      Maybe, though, the elephant pride is even smarter than we think. Note the biggie (the matriarch?) walking regally in the background. She seems very steady, so maybe she didn’t partake of those wonderful fruits. Could this be their version of MADD (Mothers Against Drunken Driving)? Do they take turns gorging on the fruit?

      Reply ↓
    3. ilsm

      In autumn is interior Alaska, USA some people I knew would go to the cranberry and blueberry patches hoping to see black bear drunk on frozen fermented berries.

      I did not want to be that close to bear drunk or sober!

      Reply ↓
      1. JMH

        One of our cows got drunk on fermenting apples. The after effects were gastro-intestinal and, from the pitiful moaning mooing, we suspected an aching head from a hangover.

        Reply ↓
  7. pjay

    – ‘US-EU tariff deal a big Trump win but not a total defeat for Brussels’ – BBC (Kevin W). “Not a total defeat”?

    LOL! I read this article specifically to find out *why* it was not a total defeat. This is the only thing I could find:

    “The EU was in a weak position, I’m afraid. It had no choice. Trump was not going to back down and it settled for 15%, so it’s a bad day for international trade, frankly. But it could have been worse,” former EU trade negotiator, John Clarke, told the BBC.”

    You see, “it could have been worse.” So… not a “total defeat.”

    Notably, this BBC piece focused only on economic implications. So it could not consider Warwick Powell’s argument that the EU actually won by tricking the US into maintaining its long-term security commitment to Europe. Those wily Europeans! As everyone knows, the US has to be dragged kicking and screaming into its global military commitments. We would really like to just withdraw and go home, but our poor, dumb leaders keep getting tricked into being the world’s policeman. If only we weren’t so naive!

    Reply ↓
    1. Mikel

      The EU thinks they only got “a little pregnant” and the USA prioritizes SELLING weapons over its own long-term national security.

      Reply ↓
  8. duckies

    Trump reduces Russia-Ukraine ‘deadline’ to 10-12 days RT (Kevin W)

    In this economy, inflation hits so hard that 50 days would last you only a fortnight.

    Reply ↓
  9. The Rev Kev

    “Joe Rogan Gives Benjamin Netanyahu A Dose Of REALITY”

    I can’t see Netanyahu going on Joe Rogan. He was on the Nelk Boys YouTube channel and it came out that the entire script for that show was written by the White House and had no room for edits or input. Joe Rogan would never accept that as he does free ranging questions over a very long time period. Netanyahu would end up storming off Joe Rogan after a few pointed questions. And of course Rogan knows that Netanyahu is radioactive media-wise. That Nelk Boys channel lost over 10,000 subscribers within 24 hours of that show going to air and the comments got so bad that the group disabled the visibility of the dislike count on that video. And their audience were conservative young men. Bibi’s son Yair Netanyahu attacked Joe Rogan and was making all sorts of accusations but I myself reckon that that is pretty tall talk from a draft dodger who is hiding out from the Gaza war in Miami, Florida with his own bodyguards.

    Reply ↓
  10. leaf

    That article from Rabbi Shmuley is pretty bad, I think Chinese sympathy towards Israelis and Jews is at an all time low
    On the other hand, how does Rabbi Shmuley have so much influence to go around and consistently meet world/religious leaders? I thought he ran a sex shop business or something

    Reply ↓
  11. Deluxe

    If humanity devotes large enough percent of its energy production to AI, then that AI will be able to solve the energy problems of humanity, by turning itself off.

    Reply ↓
    2. ilsm

      I participate in an every other Saturday vid call with alumni of my fraternity. All but one of us is upper 70’s retired. Most engineers, one consulted with nuke plants for most of his work life.

      The sole working member is son of one of my deceased classmates, he was in the house 25 years after us.

      He works in energy/grid consulting. He said they cannot find enough engineers, power engineering being a sideline of EE.

      He also related that the grid in expanded metro DC could/possibly double in gigawatt capacity in 10 years seem the deep state wants proximity to big data centers.

      We then talked a little about how electricity is distributed etc….

      A lot of generating and a lot of new transmission capacity!

      While the mag 7 is investing half a trillion the grid needs scores of billions and lots of hard engineering/installations

      Reply ↓
  12. The Rev Kev

    “North Korea says it has ‘no interest’ in dialogue with South Korea”

    Of course they would. Unless there are substantial changes in South Korean behaviour, what is to be gained pandering to them. North Korea is finally coming in from the cold and it was only a day or two ago that a direct flight line was opened up between Moscow and Pyongyang-

    https://www.rt.com/russia/622076-moscow-pyongyang-first-flight/

    So maybe that country can develop their mineral wealth with other countries so that it will increase prosperity in that country. The days of the west employing a starvation blockade on that country will then recede into the past. Their military is getting an upgrade too. I had a joke with myself a few weeks ago – ‘What do you call a North Korean combat vet when he returns to North Korea from Kursk? An instructor.’ Turns out that it is true and that that battalion of North Koreans is training a force of 30,000 North Koreans that may go to fight in the Ukraine. So hopefully what this will mean is some of the tight controls that Kim has on that country can be relaxed a bit as things improve.

    Reply ↓
  13. Santo de la Sera

    “North Korea says it has ‘no interest’ in dialogue with South Korea”
    This headline is deceptive.
    There are nuances.

    “No interest” is a conclusion she reached after stating that superficial easily reversed actions are not sufficient to start talks, considering South Korea’s “blind trust” in its US security alliance and “attempt to stand in confrontation” with Pyongyang.

    Reply ↓
  14. t

    The Naval Hub hack – I wonder if DOGE was a factor?
    CVE Shutdown

    The US of A was once responsible for a very helpful cybersecurity resource identifying and tracking vulnerabilities. But DOGE came in with a chainsaw. (No doubt imagining the tech lords have an AI tool that could do better.)

    Reply ↓
      1. Pat

        Considering the players involved I don’t know that blame shouldn’t be split or considered a joint effort. The mechanism being a result of DOGE, but triggered to their advantage by Mossad.

        Reply ↓
  15. Mikel

    Germany intends to significantly expand its armed forces with plans to enlist up to 40,000 teenagers annually for voluntary military service by 2031 – TVP World

    How could they spin this another way? Getting ahead of youth unemployment…

    Reply ↓
  16. The Rev Kev

    “Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees unseen for 80 years”

    I was going to leave a comment how it is so strange that wolves would be changing the appearance of the woods. But when I thought about it, they aren’t changing the appearance of those woods, they are returning it back to the way that it used to be.

    Reply ↓
    1. Bugs

      It’s insane the amount of white-tailed deer and huge wild turkeys that you see in near-suburban Wisconsin these days. Plus the deer are suffering from a pandemic of a prion-based wasting disease. Wisconsin had a large natural wolf, bobcat, lynx and puma population before they were eradicated as “vermin”.

      I had a course in ecosystems during my masters work where the prof was very big on the theory that BSE (Mad Cow) came about because Europe had wiped out top predators and that absence meant “other” natural population controls would emerge. This guy was a total doomer, and smart dude.

      Reply ↓
  17. Screwball

    Cheyenne to host massive AI data center using more electricity than all Wyoming homes combined Associated Press (Kevin W)

    Inside that article there is another link; Trump’s AI plan calls for massive data centers. Here’s how it may affect energy in the US

    FTA:

    What does AI growth mean for my electricity bills?

    Regardless of what powers AI, the simple law of supply and demand makes it all but certain that costs for consumers will rise.

    New data center projects might require both new energy generation and existing generation. Developers might also invest in batteries or other infrastructure like transmission lines.

    All of this costs money, and it needs to be paid for from somewhere.

    “In a lot of places in the U.S., they are seeing that rates are going up because utilities are making these moves to try to plan,” said Amanda Smith, a senior scientist at research organization Project Drawdown.

    “They’re planning transmission infrastructure, new power plants for the growth and the load that’s projected, which is what we want them to do,” she added. “But we as ratepayers will wind up seeing rates go up to cover that.”

    Yea, about our energy. Like my electric bill isn’t bad enough now. I use AEP Ohio. I just looked yesterday at the going rates we can buy our power from. The best rates I can find are .07XX per kWh, up from .05XX just a year or so ago. Most of the rates are in the .08XX range. From that article it seems it will only get worse, and for what? AI to take over our lives?

    How about they pay for their own electric and leave ours alone. What a bunch of horse$hit!

    Reply ↓
    1. Mikel

      Wait until they get into the water. And there is a story in links scolding Iran about “water mismanagement”.
      The USA may as well say: “Water mismanagement…hold my beer.”

      Reply ↓
      1. Screwball

        Great point – that too. This whole AI thing reeks. I spent years in IT (now retired) so I’m not an idiot about tech, but I can’t see what all this AI is going solve. Best I can tell it has only created an AI bubble of BS.

        Example; I wanted to create a website for some historical local stuff. I bought a domain name, and then went looking for some software to create the site. WordPress & Wix are two of the main players. Both (if using the non open source WordPress) were very AI intensive trying to help create what I wanted. It drove me nuts. I didn’t need or want all the stuff it was trying to give me no matter how I explained it.

        In the end, I could do almost all I wanted with simple HTML code and then the rest with simple widgets. The AI was nothing but a pain in the you know what.

        So what exactly is it good for? Taking jobs would be my guess. Any human than can be replaced by AI will be, not matter how good or bad it may be. Deal with it mortals.

        Funny, never in my life have I saw what I saw yesterday – a help wanted sign in front of our local post office. What! How can that be – people used to stand in line just to take the civil service exam, or to put in an application at the post office. Now – help wanted signs.

        I can see the Boston Robotics robot man delivering my mail. Won’t that be great?

        Reply ↓
        1. Michaelmas

          Wix used to easy. I can definitely see the forced insertion of AI into that leading to enshittification.

          I built my WordPress site before the AI and that was easy too. I see they’ve stuck in AI on the control panel, but it’s possible to simply ignore it.

          Reply ↓
          1. Screwball

            I tried both a couple of months ago. Wix was downright awful with the AI stuff. Gave up on it in a hurry. I found the WordPress open source version and Elementor to be pretty user friendly. Once I played around with it for a while – making my own templates – it was pretty slick IMO. No AI at all.

            Youtube videos and Reddit can be a great help learning that stuff.

            Reply ↓
        2. Mikel

          Sounds like working with samples in music. All kinds of sampled loops to play with to find a sound or some bars…five hours later…just pick up the damn guitar. (Then you have to have those old school SKILLS).

          “So what exactly is it (AI) good for? Taking jobs would be my guess.”
          I’m going with use primarily as management tools in the workplace. Taylor-made for Taylorism (as I’ve said before).

          Reply ↓
          1. Screwball

            I have the music talent of a brick, but I have no doubt you are correct.

            A guy who I knew for my whole life died a couple of years ago. He was a glass artist. He cut/engraved glass using a lathe with stones. He did drinking glasses, plates, anything with glass. He did an eagle on a 3′ x 3″ glass that was off the charts beautiful and incredibly well done. Guy was amazing. He taught my mom to cut glass as we had a factory that did that stuff in town – hand cut glassware – now long gone.

            He said one thing that really stuck in my mind just before he died; nobody does things with their hands anymore. I think that’s a great point. Those talents and skills will be gone eventually.

            Reply ↓
            1. Vandemonian

              Not to mention reading an actual book.

              Literacy rates in schoolchildren seem to be declining in the west (although probably not Russia or China), and nobody wants old books anymore. Here in Oz the thrift shops are full of books, and they’re reluctant to take any more.

              Wikipedia, YouTube videos and TikTok clips are the future! /s

              Reply ↓
    2. Glen

      Presented here in all it’s (yellow waders ready) glory from Congress:

      “America’s AI Moonshot: The Economics of AI, Data Centers, and Power Consumption”
      https://www.congress.gov/event/119th-congress/house-event/118078

      I think they’re being pretty straightforward about what they want to do. They want to get back on top to a unipolar high tech world again with an AI moonshot. But they’re trying to do it as if they can get an A+ in Calculus without ever going to class, cracking open the book, or doing the homework. It’s all a cheat – they don’t have to fix the country, try to revive the middle class, fix over priced universities or healthcare or housing or worry about increasing rent or food prices. (In fact, just [family blog] the American people in all of this, their plan is to make AI do everything the ultra rich need done so everybody else is unnecessary.) They can get a slave Einstein-in-a-box that’s going to make everything magically better again, and kick the can down the road of doing the actual hard work to fix our country.

      This is of course pretty much a fairy tale that could only be concocted and believed by our billionaire oligarchs. China is ahead in pretty much every measurable tech category at this point including the future of power generation whereas America is going all steampunk with coal fired power plants for AI:

      Trump pumps coal as answer to AI power needs but any boost could be short-lived
      https://apnews.com/article/trump-coal-mining-electricity-ai-davos-36acbd0bb3a49eb3dc059b36f08aa573

      Reply ↓
  18. The Rev Kev

    ‘Alternative News
    @AlternatNews
    Jul 27
    Russia throws out Siemens – replaces German turbines with high quality Iranian ones.
    German company Siemens halted services to Russia due to Western sanctions.
    Iran has just signed a contract to supply Russia with 40 turbines for its gas industry, amid Western sanctions.’

    There was an article in Water Cooler once along the same lines. Seems that Iran has a well developed engineering sector because, you know, they didn’t outsource theirs. Can’t blame Russia here as Siemans broke their Russians contracts with those turbines that ended up in Canada for maintenance. And the Iranians would remind the Russians that Siemans helped with the Stuxnet attack so many years ago. They are compromised and not to be trusted. Being part of BRICS, I wonder if they will get more contacts from other BRICS nations.

    Reply ↓
  19. Mikel

    “Generative AI” – Asahi Linux Documentation (Paul R). ZOMG, the opener:

    “It is the opinion of the Board that Large Language Models (LLMs), herein referred to as Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use as software engineering tools, particularly in the Free and Open Source Software movement.”

    But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet:
    “All of the popular Slop Generators are trained on an incomprehensibly large corpus of text. There is ample evidence across the Web of this training material including copyrighted material, brazenly stolen by the Slop Generator proprietors with impunity. Due to the nature of Slop Generators, they are prone to regurgitating their training corpus almost verbatim. This presents a challenge for FOSS projects in that the use of generated slop is highly likely to violate intellectual property law by way of regurgitating the aforementioned stolen training material. This likelihood is proportional to the specificity of the problem area.

    Asahi Linux is a highly specific project, working in esoteric problem spaces on publicly undocumented hardware. Given the techniques used by Slop Generator manufacturers, it is not impossible for them to have confidential or leaked material owned by Apple or its vendor partners in their training corpi. It is therefore likely that Slop Generators will regurgitate this when queried in just the right way. We already forbid the use of illegally acquired or leaked documentation and tooling (e.g. Apple’s internal repair diagnostic tools). This also applies to regurgitated slop…”

    But we already know the BS that will be thrown back: “But…duh…duh…we have to keep up with China.” (cue scary music)

    Reply ↓
    2. scott s.

      We’ve been using MS CoPilot to review github code PRs for our FOSS project. I wouldn’t say it has great insight, but its recommendations are for the most part valid. Some of our devs say that the tools can help design a solution in a couple days that would take weeks otherwise (our devs are all volunteers doing this in spare time).

      But there are some PR submissions thrown over the fence from people unknown to the team that seem entirely AI generated and probably fall into the “slop” category.

      Our code is published under GPL 2, and I guess AI could hover it up and spit it out somewhere without the license and there isn’t much we could do about it. Maybe this will end up pushing FOSS towards things like MIT license.

      Something related but I haven’t looked into are AI font generators. Seems pretty obvious application and hard to prove if an AI was trained on proprietary fonts as there are so many out there with generous licenses.

      But the whole idea of using copyright as a way to stop AI seems like a loser to me. It’s going to push the doctrine of “fair use” pretty hard and considering copyright isn’t a right at all, rather a government created monopoly, I can see the needle moving towards expansive use of “fair use”.

      Software copyrights and patents in particular have been long an area of contention.

      Reply ↓
  20. Trees&Trunks

    The cobra-killing toddler: so the solution is to send truckloads of toddlers to Brussels (and other decision centres in the West) for them to bite off the head of the hydra?

    Reply ↓
  21. mzza

    Interesting that the author of “What We Still Get Wrong About Psychopaths” doesn’t mention the tenacity of Eugenics despite its century+ of disabuse (which may well have been a political decision to stick to the science at hand). Especially notable as eugenics tied so closely to the development of modern policing and the Carceral State.

    Also, with no biological cause, the ability to “treat” aberrant social behavior with profitable pharmaceuticals might be suspect, no?

    Currently reading an excellent biography of UK anarchist / scientist Alex Comfort (“Polymath: The Life and Professions of Dr. Alex Comfort Author of the Joy of Sex,” AK Press, 2023), and according to author Eric Laursen it seems that no small part of Comfort’s career and often international platform was used to struggle against unscientific science — first in his primary field of gerontology (ironically, now partly morphed into a tech-billionaire-funded race to achieve immortality for an elite few), and then in wider and wider circles as his fame and reputation grew.

    Interestingly Comfort was deeply invested in the idea that something like ‘science without borders’ could end the Cold War and be integral to creating a new society of the people.

    Which brings us back to the elites in power, and what seems like an obvious benefit for them if ‘science’ keeps ‘othering’ psychopathic and sociopathic behavior with biological causes — like Eugenicists working toward eliminating ‘inferior’ classes and races — lest society realize that those same elites continually reward both high-functioning psychopaths and sociopaths with leadership in political, military, security, and policing positions to act as the gatekeepers against the unwashed masses.

    Reply ↓
  22. Lefty Godot

    Not only is psychopathy not a “brain disorder” but a raft of other conditions that have been described as such (depression, ADHD, etc.) are also very unlikely to be brain disorders and much more likely to be “normal variations” in human neuropsychology. These variations may have a genetic basis and may involve different patterns of neurochemical activity than what’s seen in people who don’t have the conditions, but that doesn’t make them disorders of the brain or nervous system. And there are people who have had very striking true brain abnormalities (e.g., a woman missing the whole temporal lobe on one side of her brain) who appear behaviorally normal in almost all respects. There is definitely a problem with “spin” causing positive claims to be much more prominent in the journals, most likely for the “careerist” reasons the author of the article describes, and popular science books are almost always guilty of amplifying this spin and overstating whatever the sexy theory of the day is. But a lot of the problem comes down to the physicalist reductionism of many of the scientists who conduct neuropsychological research and their desire to be the first to identify the physical “abnormality” or “disorder” or “chemical imbalance” that a lucrative physical treatment can cure.

    Reply ↓
    1. GramSci

      They’re many of them, probably most of them, learned behaviors. To mzza’s point, op. cit., “eugenics” has become “meritocracy”, in woketalk, glorifying the mysteries of the human brain.

      Glad to see the author taking down neuroimaging, which puts a technicolor fig leaf over the color of our genitals and the fruits of our educational systems. Eye candy.

      Reply ↓
  23. Es s Ce Tera

    Of interest but unrelated to today’s links, Rebecca Watson (Skepchick) has an interesting post detailing the so-called “anonymous” source for data used by the NYT Mamdani hit piece, Jordan Lasker. And, in turn, his sources – hackers attacking university systems to compile lists of black and brown students.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2idYxioi3c

    I would not be surprised if ICE is using the data.

    Reply ↓
  24. Glen

    Here’s The American Prospect (TAP) summary of how the the BBB is going to impact American manufacturing. I realize this online magazine comes at it’s reporting from the left, but David Dayen and TAP seem to do a good job following the doings in DC, getting into the weeds of these bills:

    Donald Trump Is Destroying American Manufacturing*
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqiTec0oq6s

    I thought Biden’s efforts were too small and being lead by business leaders that had shown talent in destroying rather than creating manufacturing, but hey, it was a start. Looks like the baby is getting thrown out with the bath water because anything the other guy did must be undone. Oops.

    *I looked for an article to link to, but could not find it. There is a transcript available in the YT description.

    Reply ↓
    1. Grateful Dude

      FYI: “lead” in the English language is present tense; it rhymes with “need”. It’s also the name of a heavy metal. “led” is the past tense of “lead”; it rhymes with “lead”, the heavy metal.

      Please forgive me, but things like this confuse me when I read (“read” is present and past tense).

      Reply ↓
      1. Vandemonian

        …“read” is present and past tense…

        …with the same confusing pronunciation – ‘reed’ and ‘red’.

        Reply ↓
  26. Wukchumni

    We’re in an especially bubbly time, everything deemed an investment seems quite frothy and then sum…

    The first bubble of any sort I saw was in modern Israel silver commemorative coins dating from 1958 to say 1976, and by the mid 70’s, wow!

    Coins that had feverish demand and about 3/4’s of an ounce of silver in content were fetching $50 to $500 when silver was $4 an oz.

    They were limited editions, for instance the most valuable one was the 1963 ‘Seafaring’ commemorative of which only 10,000 or so were struck (compare that to 21 million Bitcoin, hmmm) and frankly nobody cares anymore, most of them are worth pretty much only the silver value, but once upon a time~

    Reply ↓
  28. jsn

    Of course Palantir “is looking for its moral compass”.

    If they admitted having it they’d have to admit its magnetic north is genocide. They’ve been running a demonstration project for several years now.

    Same false piety as everyone else who’s just noticed people are being systematically murdered in Gaza.

    Reply ↓
  29. Tom Stone

    It’s a strange world where peacefully protesting genocide is a terrorist act while enabling it is rewarded.
    It took me a while to understand that the fact that I “just don’t get” some things (Rape,Genocide) indicates that I am, in some respects, a decent person.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      As Caitlin Johnstone says, if you are still supporting Israel in 2025 then there is something wrong with you as a person.

      Reply ↓
  30. Ben Panga

    Re: “Billionaire Peter Thiel backing first privately developed US uranium enrichment facility in Paducah”

    Thiel’s dad was a Uranium miner. Peter went to elite South African schools while his Dad did crucial work for the Apartheid regime. Below also from Chavkin’s “The Contrarian”

    The work that Klaus had been hired to do was sensitive. South Africa, which administered Namibia as a client state called South West Africa, was already coming under pressure over the apartheid system and had been attempting to create a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

    The Rössing Mine, which Klaus was building, was a crucial part of that plan—a way for South Africa to survive U.S. attempts to cut it off economically and to defend itself in the event of a Soviet attack.

    Mineworkers had no illusions about this. “Rössing mined Uranium in direct contravention of the United Nations,” said Pierre Massyn, a public relations executive who worked there in the early 1980s. “It was my job to tell the world that our presence was justified.”

    To mine uranium in South West Africa was not just to be complicit in the preservation of the apartheid system, it was to exploit that system. Rössing was said to be better than some of the forced labor operations in South Africa itself, but was still known for conditions not far removed from indentured servitude. Migrant workers served under yearlong contracts before being forced to return to their “homeland”—as the apartheid regime described the semiautonomous Black-only areas.

    White managers, like the Thiels, had access to a brand-new medical and dental center in Swakopmund and membership in the company country club. Black laborers, including some with families, lived in a dorm in a work-camp near the mine and did not have access to the medical facilities provided to whites. Walking off the job was a criminal offense, and workers who failed to carry their ID card into the mine were routinely thrown in jail for the day

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      ‘Migrant workers served under yearlong contracts before being forced to return to their “homeland”—as the apartheid regime described the semiautonomous Black-only areas.’

      Isn’t that the system that the Trump regime wants to introduce into the US for their migrant workers? But they would be going back to their countries which I guess you could describe as their homelands. Maybe Peter Thiel gave him the idea.

      Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *