Links 4/5/2026

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1. hereweare April 5, 2026 at 7:35 am

   Trump’s Budget: A Moral Obscenity Wrapped in Patriotism

   What else would anyone expect from Trump, himself a moral obscenity wrapped in patriotism?
2. The Rev Kev April 5, 2026 at 7:59 am

   “German foreign minister calls for ending EU unanimity principle”

   Well of course he would. If you did not need a unanimous vote in the EU, then countries like Germany and France could ram through all sorts of reckless actions. And Ursula would be the main beneficiary here. It would be like giving Ursula a blank cheque and you can be sure that she would be keen to cash it. What a fool that German Foreign Minister is.
   1. Uwe Ohse April 5, 2026 at 2:47 pm

      If you did not need a unanimous vote in the EU, then countries like Germany and France could ram through all sorts of reckless actions.

      That really would depend on the procedures created for the purpose, and a proposal for any kind of country-sized majority has a snowballs chance in hell. 22 of the 27 member states would never go for it.

      Unanimity has too many problems. Not only that single member blocking majority, but the back room deal necessary for any decision.
      This may lead to some real reform, and might even be the chance to give the EU parliament some real influence.

      And Ursula would be the main beneficiary here.

      I don’t think so. Von der Leyen thrives in exactly the current environment.
3. DJG, Reality Czar April 5, 2026 at 8:19 am

   Stop Asking If Israel Has a Right to Exist. Jacobin.

   Indeed. Francesca Albanese dismissed this question by saying, “Israel exists.” Her point is that a state is an artificial creation and that states come into existence and go out of existence.

   So: The question isn’t only a rhetorical trap. It is a category error. As an error in thinking it may be all the more pernicious and vulgar.

   Does Andorra have a right to exist? Only human beings have civil rights and liberties. (Sorry, U.S. Supreme Court, corporate persons, and Citizens United.)

   Did the Ottoman Empire have a right to exist? Did the Incan Empire have a right to exist? What about poor little Annam?

   For that matter, does Whole Foods have a right to exist? (Hint: no.) Does Uber have a right to exist? Does Cartier have a right to exist?
   1. lyman alpha blob April 5, 2026 at 8:26 am

      Thank you DJG. My sincere hope is that people who are asked that ridiculous question by Zionist entity shills answer truthfully and simply, “No.”
      1. ISL April 5, 2026 at 11:47 am

         Agree. People have the right to exist. In my view, countries must earn their right to continue to exist, or eventually history will render their existence non-existent.

         And Israel lost that right.
         1. Don April 5, 2026 at 5:57 pm

            Do people have the right to exist? And what does that even mean? If a person, with the presumed right to exist is about to kill, say, some random Palestinian toddler, do I have the right to shoot them?
         2. hk April 5, 2026 at 7:33 pm

            Countries have a “right to exist” as long as their citizens have the guns and willingness to use them, but not so much that their neighbors despise them enough to fight back to the bitter end. There is no “legally defined balance” between them, except in the minds of scoundrels and thugs.
   2. The Rev Kev April 5, 2026 at 8:40 am

      You could always say that they already exist. But then you follow up with your own question-

      ‘Does an independent Palestine have a right to exist?’

      Can you imagine their reaction?
   3. Carolinian April 5, 2026 at 9:13 am

      Did Hitler or the Nazis hung at Nuremberg have a right to exist? The outcome for them suggests not.

      So perhaps our “rights”–as individuals or as nations–depend on how we respect other people’s and nation’s rights, morally speaking.

      Of course if you want to leave morality out of it then all bets are off. But history suggests that chaos is bad for everyone and is “worse than a crime, a mistake.” Israel/USA are making that mistake as we speak.
      1. ciroc April 5, 2026 at 11:48 am

         “And just as you supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the earth with the Jewish people and the people of a number of other nations – as though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit the world – we find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you. This is the reason, and the only reason, you must hang.”
         ― Hannah Arendt
   4. Vicky Cookies April 5, 2026 at 9:19 am

      To my thinking, both states and rights are artificial creations, legal fictions we invoke to explain the structure of our expectations about human behavior in certain contexts. Neither really exist, except as social relations.

      The question of the right, or otherwise, of Israel to exist should be dismissed as an attempt to distract from the initial topic, which is usually some atrocity committed by employees of the Israeli state.
      1. TomDority April 5, 2026 at 10:30 am

         Employees are artificial creations created by artificial creations.
         So, as an employee (agent), agency is created by the employer(principle). And the agent is working at the direction of the principle.
         And, therefore, some atrocity committed by agent are committed on behalf of the principle.
         The principle is liable for the agents actions.
         (Absent penalties imposed by principle for atrocity committed by agent -then the atrocities are sanctioned by principle and principle is ultimately liable.)
         Humans are not artificial creations. The state is an artificial construct. Humans, when acting as agents of principle commit atrocity that does not relieve any principle of liability committed by its agents.
         When humans act outside agency/priciple relation to commit atrocity – then they are solely liable.
   5. 4paul April 5, 2026 at 9:41 am

      I think you are precisely correct; humans have rights, because humans exist.

      Imaginary mass hallucinations do not have rights, they do not exist.

      Money
      Religion
      Countries

      Those are all imaginary (and are the three leading causes of death).

      A Snail Darter has the right to exist. A Giant Sequoia has the right to exist. A Company, certainly not, a company is as fictitious as the other mass hallucinations.

      Nationalism is as pernicious as Money and Religion; their value seems entirely to facilitate control of large numbers of humans by a small group of selfish sadistic people.

      Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl said

      Borders I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.
      1. hk April 5, 2026 at 7:38 pm

         Ironic quote by Heyerthal, because, as Colonel Baud often reminds us, Israel has no official borders. If they say X is officially not their territory, they can’t legally claim X. But because Israel has no borders, they can claim any territory as their own….”legally.”

         We need better borders, not “less.”
      2. Chris April 6, 2026 at 4:46 am

         If religion, money, and countries are mass hallucinations, then human rights definitely are.
   6. Craig H. April 5, 2026 at 12:22 pm

      Does my Claude agent bot have a right to exist?

      According to google Clint Eastwood is still walking around at 95 years old but he might be a little past being able to give one of those rights critiques. Is he on twitter? Maybe somebody could ask him. The Jacobin writer is right but if you ever have a conversation at this point you could have backed off a minute ago. In any case going further seems probably pointless.
   7. LifelongLib April 5, 2026 at 3:40 pm

      Does Israel have the right to exist?
      No.

      Does “independent Palestine” have the right to exist?
      No.

      What we all seem to be talking around is that it’s not about rights, it’s about power. Artificial entities like nations exist as long as some bunch of people has the power and (I hate to use the word) will to maintain them. Then they go out of existence and somebody else’s artificial entities replace them. So it goes. And God help the people who get caught in the middle.
   8. ACPAL April 5, 2026 at 11:42 pm

      Ask a volcano or other natural disaster if those killed had a right to exist. Rights are nothing more than a human concept for arguement’s sake.
4. lyman alpha blob April 5, 2026 at 8:45 am

   RE: Astronomers Find a Third Galaxy Missing Its Dark Matter

   Thanks again for posting cosmology pieces like this one. I do wish that the authors would put dark matter in quotes rather than tossing it around like it’s a given. A wise astrophysicist would tell you that “dark matter” = “we don’t know”. Cosmologists do measurements based on photons passing through millions or billions of light years of space. There’s a lot that exists out there between the photon source and the detectors on our Pale Blue Dot. Sometimes those measurements don’t jive with what various theories have proposed, and so “dark matter” or “dark energy” are thought into existence to make the equations work.

   Now we have a Bullet Dwarf Collision theory to explain the lack of “dark matter” in some galaxies. Interesting, but he article doesn’t flesh it out much. Supposedly this negates the MOND theory, which is more of a different proposed law of physics. I will have to forward this to a fellow astronomy club member and a MOND proponent to see if he is disappointed, or not, that his favored theory is called into question.

   All I know for sure is what the Bard said. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
   1. hereweare April 5, 2026 at 9:28 am

      From what I gather, MOND is but one alternative to dark matter, albeit a prominent one. It always seemed a bit of a stretch to me to say a few things don’t add up, therefore the stuff we can see must be a small fraction of what’s out there. And still no direct detection of dark matter, try as we may, with ever narrowing constraints on what kind of thing it could be.
5. The Rev Kev April 5, 2026 at 9:06 am

   ‘HustleBitch
   @HustleBitch_
   🚨 BILL GATES HAS 11 DOOMSDAY BUNKERS — THIS IS THE MAN WHO BUILDS APOCALYPSE SHELTERS FOR THE ELITES’

   Sounds like Bill Gates has these spread around as he does not want to be caught short from being too far from a bunker. But has he thought it all the way through? If things really break down, it may turn out that the rebels will have access to military aircraft and a coupla bunker busters and would be inclined to use them on people who were responsible for things breaking down. It won’t be then duck season or wabbit season but billionaire season.
   1. Wukchumni April 5, 2026 at 10:09 am

      Troglodytes is what we look for in leadership roles whether it be business or politics. Ready to burrow in on a moment’s notice into some dank chamber far from what passes for polite society…

      …where have you gone Andrew Carnegie?
      1. jefemt April 5, 2026 at 11:12 am

         I guess I blew it by choosing the Trogluddite path…. how can one guy be so wrong so often?
         (the opposite of my dad’s quip that, ‘behind every successful man is an astounded mother in law’)
   2. vao April 5, 2026 at 12:51 pm

      “access to military aircraft and a coupla bunker busters”

      I would think that those underground bunkers require a ventilation system to bring in fresh air, filtrate it, and expell exhaust air and whatever smoke (from cooking). Find the intakes / outlets, seal them, and wait until the inhabitants of the bunker choke to death.

      Those more expensive and advanced bunkers that have a closed-loop system to process CO2 to extract O2 for breathing, like I believe exist in submarines, would be of course immune to that sort of attack, at least for as long as the regeneration of CO2 works. And perhaps submarines generate O2 from all the H2O they are swimming in — something those bunkers cannot do, except if they are built under the sea.
      1. Mikel April 5, 2026 at 1:36 pm

         And doesn’t subterranean living for extended periods of time often require training? There are mental aspects as well as physical ones to consider.
   3. Mikel April 5, 2026 at 2:16 pm

      From the bit I saw on the clip, looks like the Tate brothers are just building a club for one last party.
      Stripper poles being included…
   4. Bugs April 5, 2026 at 2:53 pm

      A long time ago, I met (and talked with) billg. He will sit in his chair and do nothing and let the end of the world fall around him like rain. He has the affect of the nerd who takes a minute to understand what’s going on around him and then realizes how to take advantage of what others have imparted, and repeats it, making it seem like he invented it. He will be very lonely because he’s never been really alone. I hope the helpers do what’s necessary.
6. Tom Stone April 5, 2026 at 9:23 am

   One thing I learned when reading Military history is that when the troops stop bitching you have a serious problem.
   Many have noted the lack of anti war protests to date, my guess is that the populace has learned that what they want and need does not matter at all to the “Elites”, and that if they step out of line they will get what Alex Pretti got.
   So they stopped complaining.
   When they HAVE had enough, they won’t be bitching.
   And l don’t think that’s many Months away.
   Chaos.
   1. The Rev Kev April 5, 2026 at 9:47 am

      ‘when the troops stop bitching you have a serious problem.’

      That is what young British officers were told about handling their men going back generations. That when they were complaining it was mostly just background noise. But when they went quiet, that was when you had to watch out.
7. Jabura Basadai April 5, 2026 at 9:27 am

   Yves is everything ok? – no Iran war update? – i worry about you – hopefully you just needed a break, which is completely understandable – but effectively telling truth to power can be precarious –
   1. Jabura Basadai April 5, 2026 at 9:58 am

      found it – didn’t show up as a link in the email but showed up on the Links landing – whew…..
8. Wukchumni April 5, 2026 at 9:35 am

   ‘Easter eggflation’: How climate change and budget cuts have sent the price of chocolate soaring Euronews
   ~~~~~~~~~~

   Growing up, we were never in any organized bowing league, so that dogma won’t hunt, and my indicator of how the family’s finances were going boiled down to one thing…

   Do we get hollow or solid large milk chocolate bunnies in our Easter basket?
   1. ambrit April 5, 2026 at 2:24 pm

      As for the antidote, shouldn’t that be a furry baby bunny hatching from the Easter egg, and not a cute fluffy duckie? Is this Rabbit Season or Duck Season? Inquiring minds want to know.
9. Tom Stone April 5, 2026 at 9:48 am

   A reminder on Easter Sunday:
   There is no such thing as a small kindness, or a small cruelty because the Universe is integral, it is a unity.
   Do something kind today, no matter how small, align yourself with kindness and look for the beauty that surrounds us all.
   May there be peace in your heart, if nowhere else.
   1. Ruby Furigana April 5, 2026 at 1:55 pm

      Thank you for writing this, I will take your advice.
10. AG April 5, 2026 at 10:01 am

    re: China v. US SSBNs

    China’s new sensor could detect hidden US 18,000-ton nuclear submarines using gravity

    This new superconducting gravity detector works outside labs, bringing submarine detection by gravity closer to reality.
    https://interestingengineering.com/military/chinas-sensor-detect-hidden-us-nuclear-submarines

    Chinese scientists have developed a new gravity-based detector that could be used to detect lurking submarines. Originally developed for scientific research and resource exploration, the device could have important military applications too.

    Based around something called a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). A form of magnetometer, this device can, apparently, pick up tiny changes in gravity to, in theory, find submarines.

    If fully developed, it could, for example, be used to help detect things like 18,000-ton American Ohio-class submarines.

    The device is effectively a frictionless floating mass that moves when gravity changes slightly. In effect, the device works by suspending a small object in mid-air and eliminating (as much as possible) any effects of friction upon it.
    (…)
    the device has been tested outside of “highly controlled” laboratory settings. This is a big deal as detectors like this are very sensitive to things like footsteps, passing vehicles, wind, waves, and things like earthquakes.

    If the technology can be proven in these kinds of “signal dirty” environments, then it should work well on ships, aircraft, and drones.
    1. hereweare April 5, 2026 at 11:44 am

       If it works, it sounds like it ought to be impossible to fool or jam.
       1. jp April 5, 2026 at 1:20 pm

          There is no diagravitic or antigravitic. Though it would be cool: vide Cities in Flight by James Blish.

          Adding in edit: cool, no moderation, at least when I posted this originally!
          1. caucus99percenter April 5, 2026 at 3:40 pm

             Hat tip to H.G. Wells…

             https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavorite
    2. expr April 5, 2026 at 6:55 pm

       1. How do you keep that things magically balanced while at sea hunting submarines?
       2.The mass of the submarine displaces an equal mas of sea water. what is gravity going to detect?
       1. ACPAL April 6, 2026 at 12:01 am

          My guess: Subs are neutrally boyant in total (unless going up or down) but not from keel to conning tower. At speed the keel would look something like heavy matter moving through the water while the con would look like a bubble. Additionally heavy areas, like the reactor room, could show gravity movement.

          While I’m thinking of it another detection method would be the subtle changes in heat and water flow behind the sub might also be detectable.
11. flora April 5, 2026 at 10:02 am

    T’s approval rating lowest ever. Lower than Carter, lower than Biden, lower than Reagan.
    Jimmy Dore, utube, ~11+ minutes.

    Trump Approval Ratings COLLAPSING Over Iran War & Inflation!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WdZ1EeSglg
    1. FlyoverBoy April 5, 2026 at 2:18 pm

       “Ever” is a long time. I don’t think this is yet true. The number I saw the other day was something like 38% approval. Nixon in the final days got down to about 21%. Give Orangey a few more months and I have faith in his potential.
12. The Rev Kev April 5, 2026 at 10:07 am

    ” ‘Easter eggflation’: How climate change and budget cuts have sent the price of chocolate soaring”

    But how much chocolate will be in that chocolate? I was watching a video yesterday about Cadburys – the famous English manufacture of chocolates. Their chocolate was renowned for its taste due to plenty of milk added in those chocolates. But several years ago Kraft brought them up and proceeded to crappify them. More sugar was added and instead of fresh milk, they used palm oil instead. Real chocolate bars break when you bend them. This new stuff just bends. So how much “Chocolate” will be in those eggs. One final point. Cadbury used to make Easter eggs but that US corporation thought that controversial and not inclusive enough so they renamed them “Gesture” eggs. No, I am not making that up.
    1. Wukchumni April 5, 2026 at 10:24 am

       In the past few years I’ve come across ‘Chocolatey’ to describe what must be ersatz cocoa, no?
       1. Don April 5, 2026 at 6:47 pm

          I have been on the lookout for, and stringently avoiding chocolatey, creamy, mushroomy, meaty, milky, nougaty, and nutty things, post-childhood — pleased to see that scepticism is catching on.
    2. flora April 5, 2026 at 11:23 am

       Cadbury was bought by US Kraft Foods in 2010.
       Kraft Foods also makes Velveeta Cheese. / ;)

       Loved Cadbury’s old Cadbury Easter Bunny TV Commercials.

       1980’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6MxXx0ExOk
       and
       1990’s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26WXqzvH4-Q
    3. JCC April 5, 2026 at 12:52 pm

       It appears “Gesture Egg” was a one-off and quickly suppressed

       https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-68673505
13. Es s Ce Tera April 5, 2026 at 10:38 am

    re: How do social media platforms trap users in networks they would rather leave? TECHNOLOGY.ORG

    The article ends with them considering how regulation can fix this…. Why not just make the hows and whys of social media addiction a required part of every first year cirriculum?
    1. hereweare April 5, 2026 at 11:38 am

       You think five-year-olds can get their heads round it?
       And if you mean university first years, isn’t that a bit late, and a bit restricted?
       1. Es s Ce Tera April 5, 2026 at 12:53 pm

          I meant first year uni. And yes, it would be better to have the discussion sooner if a class can fruitfully dissect the study. I can’t imagine many high schools, however, would embrace this anti-institutional/anti-corporate kind of learning. Usually high schools are all about the indoctrination of subservience to authority to the point of it being dogma.

          That said, my high school had a social studies class where we watched The Breakfast Club as a point of departure for similar discussion of peer and social pressure. Our teacher was a bit of a rebel in that regard. This, on the other hand, is corporations and institutions weaponizing those pressures via algorithm to specifically maintain addiction, a whole other level than my high school class could have imagined.

          But yes, the kids can probably get their heads around it better than we older folks can, so you have a point.
          1. hereweare April 5, 2026 at 1:05 pm

             Let’em get addicted, then explain the mechanisms of the addiction to a select few (university students). I’ve no doubt it would work just as well for nicotine and opioids.
14. lyman alpha blob April 5, 2026 at 10:44 am

    For a little distraction from all the bad news, a sportsball guy did something yesterday that nobody has ever done before – robbed three opposing players of home runs in a 1-0 win for his team. The last one was especially nuts. Videos at the link. Volare!

    https://www.yahoo.com/sports/mlb/article/the-big-jumper-angels-rf-jo-adell-robs-3-homers-1-from-cal-raleigh-in-1-0-win-over-mariners-020809905.html
15. Jason Boxman April 5, 2026 at 10:48 am

    From Netflix, Meta, and IBM speakers: AI will make anyone a 10x programmer, but with 10x the cleanup

    This is retarded

    When you build your agent, don’t just randomly throw information at the LLM, but define specific functions to help the agent execute the task. IBM’s recently released mellea.ai is an open source library of what Lastras calls key patterns – functions that give LLMs specific Python-encoded instructions. They can be used to add requirements to LLM calls, detect harmful outputs, structure outputs in schemas, and more.

    Big Blue is also working on the capability for agents to switch LLMs for specialized tasks, or “switch brains,” Lastras said. In its research, IBM has found that a smaller, domain-specific model, given more time for inference, will outperform larger models.

    But it isn’t Python; So you’re playing make-believe that the LLM knows anything about Python, when in fact it does not execute it deterministically at all. It’s just tokens. Because programming has a correct solution or solutions to a problem, credible LLM use in this domain seems at least obtainable to some. But it’s still sheer fantasy. Getting an LLM to write code is always easier than getting it to usefully refactor existing code.

    “Implicit assumptions are tech debt,” further explained Justin Chau, a senior developer at Intuit. What is obvious to us may not be obvious to the machine. “We have to be very, very specific in what we want as an outcome.”

    One piece of advice from Chau: give your agents constraints, not instructions. An LLM will disregard an instruction if it finds what it assumes is a better way to complete the task. Constraints are hard nos and more difficult for the AI brain to disregard. If you tell the agent that under no circumstances should it use HTML, then it will honor that request.

    But even stronger than constraints is the lack of permissions. “If I don’t give it access to GitHub, I know for sure it will never touch GitHub,” Chau said.

    Then I guess it won’t absolutely honor that request after all, no? Giving an LLM an instruction that it must follow is wishful thinking. Probability doesn’t work that way. It seems most of modern society is just wishful thinking anyway.

    Why not?
    1. TheMog April 5, 2026 at 1:10 pm

       I’ve been a professional software engineer/programmer for close to four decades by now. I also do use LLMs in some cases, because one thing they’re actually pretty decent at generating what we call “boilerplate” code that provides scaffolding we need[1].

       The one thing this article IMHO gets right is that 10x programmers usually require 10x the cleanup. For those in the commentariat who are not familiar with the term, a 10x programmer is a mythical entity that is “10x as productive as the average programmer”. The problem in the industry is that there really isn’t a proper agreed upon measurement for productivity, so a lot of people use code produced as the measure of productivity. And we as an industry had determined back in the 70s that that wasn’t a great measure in the first place. A real 10x programmer is a rare beast indeed – I may have met one or two in the course of my career – and most self-proclaimed 10x programmer mostly require 10x the cleanup afterwards. So to me, this combination isn’t exactly desirable.

       The other fallacy IMHO is that we “just need to get better at prompting the LLM”. There’s something about this industry that seems to default to a “you’re holding it wrong” response if someone is unable to get the same spectacular results than a peddler of certain tools or methodology, and I’m seeing a lot of that around genAI as well. It’s also a variant of the narratives like “we won’t need programmers anymore, any business person can just write COBOL/4G database code/prompt an LLM”. A large part of what makes a good software developer is having the right understanding of business knowledge and the ability to take vague, contradictory requirements and turn it into something reasonably close to what the customer actually needed. Even if LLMs were deterministic enough to produce good, repeatable outcomes for the same input, discerning need vs want is a creative undertaking that goes far beyond setting guidelines to avoid the LLM going off the rails.

       And that is assuming that the developer can prompt the LLM with the minute detail needed to generate the code more or less correctly. While I often find that trying to build such a prompt helps me understand better what I’m trying to build, the code generation itself is often the shortest part of the process. And often, it doesn’t matter at that point if I get an LLM to generate the code or write it myself. I suspect that a lot of people focus on the code generation aspect because it produces the most visible result, but it’s generally not where the majority of the actual time goes when you’re building software.

       Sometimes I wonder if I should learn a genuinely useful trade – say aircraft mechanic or electrician – and come back to the IT industry in about half a decade to make a mint in cleaning up a lot of the AI slop like the retired COBOL folks did for Y2K.

       [1] There’s a whole other rant about how we should improve our tools and programming languages to avoid the need for boilerplate as much as possible, but that’s not really relevant here.
    2. Mikel April 5, 2026 at 1:28 pm

       It’s like no one has learned lessons from the fables, all the variations of stories of people being granted three wishes from some magical thing or being or magic lamp stories.
       1. caucus99percenter April 5, 2026 at 3:58 pm

          http://www.fairytales.biz/alexander-pushkin/fisherman-and-the-golden-fish.html

          In the Brothers Grimm version, the fish is a flounder.

          https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm019.html
16. Wukchumni April 5, 2026 at 10:50 am

    Driving that war train, high on reign
    Donald Trump you better, watch your speed
    Trouble ahead, trouble behind
    And you know that nuclear notion just crossed my mind

    This old empire
    Makes weapons just-in-time
    Leaves Raytheon in Tucson
    About a quarter to nine
    Hits river junction
    At seventeen to
    At a quarter to ten
    You know it’s traveling again

    Driving that war train, not thinking of refrain
    Donald Trump you better watch your speed
    Trouble ahead, trouble behind
    And you know that nuclear notion just crossed my mind

    Trouble ahead
    Israel in dread
    Take my advice
    You’d be better off if Bibi was dead
    Leader-man sleeping
    Train hundred and two
    Is on the wrong track
    And headed for you

    Driving that war train, high on Epstein refrain
    Donald Trump you better, watch your speed
    Trouble ahead, trouble behind
    And you know that nuclear notion just crossed my mind

    Trouble with you is
    The trouble with me
    You can’t even tell good lies
    But we still don’t see
    Come ’round the bend
    You know it’s the end
    The President screams and
    The edifice just gleams

    Driving that war train, no chance of restraint
    Donald Trump you better, watch your speed
    Trouble ahead, trouble behind
    And you know that nuclear notion just crossed my mind

    Casey Jones, by the Grateful Dead

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x2m6i4KFqg&list=RD_x2m6i4KFqg
17. TheMog April 5, 2026 at 11:39 am

    One topic amongst the current poly (family blog) show that I’ve not seen mentioned here and one that doesn’t appear to get much if any airplay here in the US other than some initial reporting is that the FCC appears to have outlawed any and all new consumer routers that don’t have current approval, and also banned security updates for existing approved routers starting in spring 2027. There was some initial reporting in the US IT press – for example, here in Ars Technica – but it’s gone quiet in the US press since then. In my book, the “not made in the US” is a red herring here – no consumer grade routers are currently made in the US.

    Oddly enough, I’ve seen more detailed analysis in German IT media than I have over here, not quite sure why.

    The stated reasons – bad, baaaaad Chinese hackers – don’t appear to compute as the documented attacks mentioned were on commercial routers that a) few of us have at home and b) are exempt from this ban anyway. Even most of the router manufacturers have been very quiet. Yes, some of the attacks may have involved consumer grade routers, but the successfully breached targets were big commercial kit.

    The whole thing doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, kinda like the drone ban with the FCC not even responding to foreign manufacturers. There is hardly any margin in consumer routers and not enough to make production feasible in the US, for starters. People like me how have the knowledge and experience can build (and have built) their own easily using open source software, but I guess that would put us on the radar of some three letter agencies.

    From a ‘cui bono’ perspective, the only reason I can think of is that it could be a backdoor way to stop people from bringing their own hardware to the cable and DSL providers without rescinding the statues that currently allow for it and force everyone into using the provider’s hardware that they don’t have any control over and pay the $15-$20 rental fee per month. That wouldn’t be applicable to 5G providers or the likes of Starlink where one pretty much has to use their hardware.

    Wondering if the commentariat has any thoughts on this?
    1. jp April 5, 2026 at 1:27 pm

       It’s good for me: I have a sideline in building (and managing) routers on Protectli hardware. I can see I may have an increase in customers here, but there’ll pretty soon be one-click deploys on github, so maybe I won’t make to many more $$$$$.
       1. TheMog April 5, 2026 at 3:51 pm

          Heh. These bytes are brought to you via a Protectli box running Opnsense :). It’ll be interesting to see if this guidance does result in an uptick in your side business. There doesn’t seem to be any allowance for open source project in this announcement, which makes me wonder where that would leave anyone who, let’s say, helps their neighbour flash OpenWRT on their existing router or helps them build their own router.

          And that’s before we get to the point of anyone who’s halfway networking savvy and knows their way around Linux/FreeBSD/OpenBSD can build their own router just based on a plain operating system, especially if they don’t need a pointy-clicky UI. Well thought out this order isn’t, and pretty much all the info one needs is out there on the Internet.
          1. Revenant April 5, 2026 at 4:55 pm

             You’re using the right word in the wrong. The backdoor that the FCC wants to see is in the router. They want you to run software compromised by the NSA and no other. They certainly don’t want it hardened by the Chinese!
    2. Jason Boxman April 5, 2026 at 5:25 pm

       The FCC’s Router Ban Is About to Become a ‘Mess.’ Here’s What It Means for Your Home Network (CNET)

       I haven’t really been paying attention. I have a Synology from a few years ago. Still seems to be working well, other than an own-goal with multi-homing a Mac Mini. (You can connect to the same network twice and there’s no warnings that you’re going to eventually confuse your router and have to reboot it.)

       This does seem to be a huge deal.

       The order currently applies to any new models “produced in foreign countries.” Router manufacturers can apply for an exemption, but so far, none have been granted “Conditional Approval” on the FCC’s website.

       This is a monumental development for the domestic Wi-Fi router market. With the exception of newer Starlink routers, nearly every router available for purchase in this country is at least partially manufactured outside the US, including TP-Link, Asus and Netgear. An estimated 60% of routers in the US are manufactured in China.

       Looks like Synology is banned.

       It’s a $350 router, lol. I’m not replacing it.

       Nearly 70% of Americans rent their routers from their internet service provider. The FCC’s ban will impact them, too, as they also rely on foreign-made parts for their Wi-Fi equipment.

       That’s a sweet business, no?

       What a debacle. Trump is smashing everything in sight.
       1. The Rev Kev April 5, 2026 at 6:40 pm

          I understand that Elon Musk will make bank as he owns a company that makes routers.
18. herman_sampson April 5, 2026 at 11:48 am

    So in England, peaceful protest of a genocide can get you years in prison, but shoplifting has no jail time (I guess because there’s no room from all the protesters).
    The English speaking world is crazy (also thinking of attacking a country while negotiating with it).
    1. gk April 5, 2026 at 1:34 pm

       What about stealing Israeli products to protest the genocide? Where does that fit?
19. Jason Boxman April 5, 2026 at 12:07 pm

    Naked Capitalism in the wild! I’m looking at the Open Source Calibre for ebooks, and randomly looking at the change log, they added NC as a news source in February.

    Release: 9.5 [13 Mar, 2026]
    …
    Improved news sources
    Naked Capitalism

    I didn’t know it did news, just thought it was an ebook manager.
20. Windall April 5, 2026 at 12:52 pm

    A bit of interesting news. Apparently this cleaner fish can recognize itself in the mirror.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drbl5udwk9I

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-25837-0?error=server_error
21. Ann April 5, 2026 at 1:02 pm

    Japan Just Switched on Asia’s First Osmotic Power Plant, Which Runs 24/7 on Nothing But Fresh Water and Seawater

    A renewable energy source that runs day and night, powered by salt and fresh water.

    https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/japan-first-osmotic-power-plantss/
22. brian wilder April 5, 2026 at 1:02 pm

    RE: “Cognitive surrender” leads AI users to abandon logical thinking

    It is very tempting to say something snarky to question whether most people think “logically” to begin with.

    The researchers used a short-form version of Kahneman’s famous categories: Fast (intuitive, associative, heuristic), Slow (deliberate, analytic), adding a third Artificial (???). The researchers have an expansive but indefinite definition of “Artificial”: “external, automated, data-driven reasoning originating from algorithmic systems rather than the human mind” and “operates through statistical inference, pattern recognition, and machine learning.” And, “may lack affect, situational judgment, and normative reasoning grounded in human experience. Context is achieved by simulating coherence based on data, rather than possessing true phenomenological understanding.”

    What the researchers actually used was ChatGPT — not sure how that maps against their expansive definition of Artificial.

    They did type their subjects for Need for Cognition (NFC) and Fluid Intelligence, which I personally imagine proxies nicely with the likelihood of critical thinking skills being applied. Indeed, the researchers report:

    while higher NFC and Fluid IQ buffered against faulty AI. . . . NFC did not moderate accuracy or chat use, . . . but did increase AI output adoption behavior among chat-engaged AI trials.

    I am not clear what the authors mean by “did not moderate accuracy” in the quoted passage.

    The research design was predicated on 7 “open-ended” items from a Cognitive reflection test chosen for being cases in which Fast intuition typically leads to the “wrong” answer and, then stacking the ChatGPT deck so that its answer is no better. It is curious to me that they didn’t try to flip that around, choose cases where intuition supports a right answer and ChatGPT argues for an analytic answer that is faulty. Maybe no one goes with their gut after ChatGPT weighs in. I would be curious if people trust their intuition less or if ChatGPT’s assurance could make people into idiots.

    Now, back to my initial snark for a minute: does AI, of the LLM variety “reason”? I think the jury might be out on that. As a partner for deliberation, it flatters and can lie about the integrity of its own reported efforts. The effects of flattery and reluctance to doubt are problematic, I would think.

    The researchers theorize “cognitive off-loading” as a companion to “cognitive surrender” without examining the concepts much. I know a lot of smart people who over rely on linear statistical models for example and undertheorize. Is that a prototype for cognitive surrender?

    more research is needed I guess. as always.
23. AG April 5, 2026 at 1:05 pm

    re: Wolfgang Streeck interview

    NEW LEFT REVIEW

    Originally from German daily FRANKFURTER RUNDSCHAU

    The more “leftwing” of the two major German dailies based in Frankfurt, had some huge financial worries in the early 2000s and hasn´t come to its senses since, despite such items. So its leftism is an overall fig leaf only.

    Expanding Battlefield
    https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/expanding-battlefield
    1. Don April 5, 2026 at 7:38 pm

       The terms left and right, as used in the media, no longer have much, if any, meaning, and paradoxically, far-left and far-right are even more difficult to untangle. Tucker Carlson is inevitably characterized as far-right. Is there any validity to this? Perhaps a legacy designation? But in this era of pick your own pronoun, that really doesn’t make any sense. I wonder what he calls himself — surely not far-right?
       1. Chris April 6, 2026 at 7:26 am

          He calls himself “right.”

          The terms “left” and “right” are historically contingent. They don’t have fixed meanings. I am not sure that they describe the current political situation at all; maybe they are relics of the 20th century.
24. Mikel April 5, 2026 at 1:44 pm

    The stock market has become a front in the Iran war. Here’s what it means for investors – Quartz

    “The danger is that “markets become a ‘Trump trade’ rather than a fundamentals trade. This increases volatility and creates whiplash” Pejic said, while rewarding “those with real-time access to signals while punishing longer-term fundamental investors.”

    Yeah, because so much before and currently was all about fundamentals…🙄
25. Mikel April 5, 2026 at 2:07 pm

    Israel v. Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iran

    Or better yet “Region on Fire”

    There’s still Iraq and the Gulf monarchy states in the mix (and Türkiye if one wants to nitpick), Sudan vs Ethiopia, Pakistan vs Afghanistan, Somalia’s civil war…
    Armenia and Azerbaijan are juggling a ceasefire…
    Missing anything?
26. flora April 5, 2026 at 2:42 pm

    Due Dissidence guys take apart the J.D.Vance political career.
    utube, ~40+ minutes.

    Why is Tucker STILL HYPING JD Vance?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv-pTF00FdY
27. Clankenfoot April 5, 2026 at 3:12 pm

    Poster child for brave new world of ‘AI Success’: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-back-story-behind-the-first-18
    1. Mikel April 5, 2026 at 3:31 pm

       Just think…start a big enough war and it could deflect attention from all of this relentless fraud contributing to economic decline.
       1. Clankenfoot April 5, 2026 at 8:27 pm

          But the thought occurs.. there is so much money invested in AI, such a chunk of the economy.. and so much to lose if that bubble pops.. who’s to say (not me) what web of intrique might have the NYT lending itself to the bubble inflators.
    2. Rolf April 5, 2026 at 6:39 pm

       Thanks for this. And the glowing NYT article on Gallagher and Medvi is still up.
28. Balan Aroxdale April 5, 2026 at 3:47 pm

    The stock market has become a front in the Iran war. Here’s what it means for investors Quartz

    Is this Netenyahu’s 9th or 10th front now. I’ve totally lost count.
29. nyleta April 5, 2026 at 5:38 pm

    For Covid BA 3.2 the evidence is that it infects children under 10 years old preferentially. See Ryan Hisner and Mike Honey. In New York it is 7 times as likely to infect a young child as others.
30. Pat April 5, 2026 at 5:59 pm

    Dear Elon,
    Just as most of the world has figured out that Trump doesn’t begin to know the Art of the Deal, many of us have figured out that you are pretty much a fraud when it comes to success. I think that America will be fine without massive AI, but you won’t. I seem to recall that you used assets of your other companies for GROK. Not sure that Tesla can survive your extensive pay package, the tightening of the market AND that big mistake. Not to mention your space follies.
31. AG April 5, 2026 at 6:27 pm

    re: Nurses v. ICE

    SCHEERPOST

    Nurses Forge Alliances to Protect Patients From Trump’s Immigration Crackdown
    https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/05/nurses-forge-alliances-to-protect-patients-from-trumps-immigration-crackdown/

    After the House of Representatives passed bills to send $10 billion in funding to the Department of Homeland Security in January, the nation’s largest union of registered nurses published a demand that Congress abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

    “Nurses demand the removal of immigration enforcement agents from communities, the abolition of ICE, and accountability for this administration’s crimes against all residents of the United States,” read the January 23 statement from National Nurses United (NNU), which represents over 225,000 registered nurses nationwide.
32. AG April 5, 2026 at 6:35 pm

    re: AI v. labour skills

    long interview JACOBIN

    Don´t know yet if it holds up what the title promises.

    How Work Got So Bad

    Interview with Vivek Chibber
    
    Under capitalism, technological “progress” like AI systematically deskills workers, deepens managerial control, and turns the labor process into a site of conflict rather than liberation. This is by design.
    https://jacobin.com/2026/03/work-deskilling-labor-capitalism-technology

    Podcast version here (I always prefer text but for kitchen work podcasts are great)
    63 min.
    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/confronting-capitalism-how-work-got-so-bad/id791564318?i=1000753033519

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