Saturday, August 30, 2025
Friday, August 29, 2025
Deathgrip
You don't have to know anything about any of these people to know this is nuts.
Reportedly, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is wooing Maine Governor Janet Mills to run for the nomination. At 77, a win against Collins would make her the oldest senate freshman in history. (Platner is 40.) Platner’s campaign only becomes an insurgency against Susan Collins if he first survives the Democratic establishment. His pointed critiques of party inaction have already set the tone. His candidacy isn’t just about beating Republicans, it’s about forcing Democrats to do more than fundraise off of their failures.
Whoopsie Doodle
They lie about everything.
Years after a Tesla driver using Autopilot plowed into a young Florida couple in 2019, crucial electronic data detailing how the fatal wreck unfolded was missing. The information was key for a wrongful death case the survivor and the victim’s family were building against Tesla, but the company said it didn’t have the data.
Then a self-described hacker, enlisted by the plaintiffs to decode the contents of a chip they recovered from the vehicle, found it while sipping a Venti-size hot chocolate at a South Florida Starbucks. Tesla later said in court that it had the data on its own servers all along.
The hacker’s discovery would become a key piece of evidence presented during a trial that began last month in Miami federal court, which dissected the final moments before the collision and ended in a historic $243 million verdict against the company.
Life Is But An Illusion
I have some, um, nuanced views about the whole Fed Independence issue, but if the people who run it aren't willing to preserve it, then it never really existed anyway.
Unless, of course, he makes the decision to stand up for the rule of law and explain that the attack is not merely on the central bank, but democracy and the constitution. Powell should give a public, primetime television speech explaining the stakes, that the president’s order was legally invalid and that the Federal Reserve system will ignore the order. Federal Reserve Board General Counsel Mark Van Der Weide and the legal division of the Federal Reserve Board are no doubt advising Powell that any such bold action would open Powell up to the risk of a “for cause” firing from Trump himself. Their legal analysis is sound but their political instincts are wrong.
When your opponent is Donald Trump you escalate in response to threats; you don’t try to appease him. Powell must do everything in his power to compel the conventional wisdom of market traders to more adequately “price in” the degradation of the rule of law. This must include tying the rule of law and the threats to the constitution to the credibility and standing of the Federal Reserve itself. Powell’s term expires in less than a year anyway. If defending the constitution and his own institution is not worth the risk, what would be? The Federal Reserve has already made the error of letting itself become isolated from the attacks on the rest of the administrative state. Powell can still change course, but time is running out. Federal Reserve Chairman Powell: hang together with Lisa Cook.
Seems Bad
We seem to have cycled through our effective official policy being: 1) it's not happening, 2) it's happening but we're not responsible, 3) we're responsible but it's too expensive to do anything about it, also something something China and Africa 4) it's too late to do anything about it, and back to to 5) it's not happening.
The collapse of a critical Atlantic current can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event, a study has concluded, making deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions even more urgent to avoid the catastrophic impact.
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system. It brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. The Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis.
Self-Preservation
I get that the rich and powerful can insulate themselves from a lot of the deprivations they inflict onto the rest of us, but it is a bit difficult to protect yourself against various plagues. You would think some members of the Oldest Deliberative Body In The World (by age of members) would have some minor concerns about this.
Also, Magic Beans
I was going to criticize something else in this WaPo piece, but then I reached the end and found something which we increasingly see in pieces on every topic. Basically, "...and then artificial intelligence will solve everything."
In classic Trump fashion, such quick deadlines might help focus people and force them to innovate faster. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has, so far, certified only a dozen third-party service providers to collect and pay duties on international mail. That number will grow soon. Embracing artificial intelligence, including predictive analytics, could help speed packages through customs, no matter their value.That first sentence is amazing, also, too.
Thursday, August 28, 2025
37
I think 37% is about as low as Trump can go unless a shit economy kicks in, or some other catastrophe, but if that isn't low enough for people to treat him as unpopular...
President Donald Trump’s approval rating dropped to a new low of his second term, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.
The new poll found that Trump’s approval rating slid 3 percentage points since the survey was last conducted in July. According to the poll, 37% of voters approved of how Trump was handling his job as president while 55% said they disapproved.
Somehow Tony Blair Returned
Signifying nothing good.
Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister who led his country into the war in Iraq and whose eight-year tenure as a Middle East envoy got — at best — mixed reviews, raised eyebrows on Wednesday when he attended a White House summit on the future of Gaza.
Cindy Who
It does say a lot about That Town that everybody stopped taking her calls.
#Gaza is at a breaking point. I've just seen it myself.
— Cindy McCain (@WFPChief) August 28, 2025
@WFP operates in conflict zones all over the world. Families in Gaza are starving—and we know how to deliver at scale.
We must revive our network of 200+ food distribution points, community kitchens & bakeries ASAP.
So Much For The Tolerant Left
Just because I demonize them for several hours every day to my audience of millions?
The conservative personality admitted on his self-titled Fox News show that he fled the metropolis because he was pushed to the limit by a few glances — or perhaps glares — he suffered through during an experience at a local eatery.The violent left with their eye daggers.
"It's not going to impact my life, because I left New York," Hannity said while discussing the potential for Zohran Mamdani, the son of film director Mira Nair, to win the city's mayoral race.
"You know why I left New York? High taxes, quality of life, crime," the 63-year-old stressed, before telling his audience, "I had a hard time going to a restaurant in New York City because people would stare at me and hated me."
He added, "They had daggers in their eyes."
The Plagiarism Machine Is Now The Snitch Machine
Yah don't use this.
In a new blog post admitting certain failures amid its users' mental health crises, OpenAI also quietly disclosed that it's now scanning users' messages for certain types of harmful content, escalating particularly worrying content to human staff for review — and, in some cases, reporting it to the cops.People are going to SWAT themselves trying to "write" fiction.
"When we detect users who are planning to harm others, we route their conversations to specialized pipelines where they are reviewed by a small team trained on our usage policies and who are authorized to take action, including banning accounts," the blog post notes. "If human reviewers determine that a case involves an imminent threat of serious physical harm to others, we may refer it to law enforcement."
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
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