Links 8/5/2026

A Day in the Life of a Pythagorean Disciple Classical Wisdom (Micael T) Life Inside Icelandic Turf Houses JSTOR What age does intelligence peak? Aporia (Micael T) DNA on the Shroud of Turin reveals centuries of hidden history Science Daily (Kevin W) Alan Hajek’s Destruction of Finite Frequentism Bentham’s Bulldog (Micael T) In Memory of My Wife, Elise Cawley (1961–2026), with Thanks for 36 Wonderful Years Stephan Wolfram (Micael T) #COVID-19/Pandemics Ebola has killed 1,700 in eastern Congo as the fastest-growing outbreak surges ABC Aluminum-Adsorbed Vaccines and Chronic Diseases in Childhood Annals of Internal Medicine (Robin K). Study pop >1 million. Money quote: “Cumulative aluminum exposure from vaccination during the first 2 years of life was not associated with increased rates of any of the 50 disorders assessed. “ Climate/Environment It’s 90 degrees in the Arctic right now Scientific American Too darn f*****g hot Hybrid Economics (resilc) ‘Stop all outdoor activities’: South Korea records its highest ever temperature Guardian MIDDLE EAST HEAT WAVE Brutal conditions with over 50C daytime and over 35C nightime continues. Widespread records allover the area. Some of the most extreme MINIMUMS tonight in the EMIRATES: 38.5 Swiehan 36.8 Al AinNext days,we might see some MINIMUMS of 40C. Absolutely brutal pic.twitter.com/HAT32cZ38r— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) August 4, 2026 Wildfires still burning in France and Spain amid fears of more to come Aljazeera Rhine falls to record low levels as drought strains Europe’s rivers BBC Insurers are turning to catastrophe bonds to pass on historic levels of wildfire risk to the capital markets Claims Journal Climate policy may crowd out green values and what to do about it VoxEU China? China hits back at US with barrage of sanctions, drone industry curbs South China Morning Post (guurst) This is a huge story: Samsung and SK Hynix, both massive South Korean tech conglomerates, are studying replacing U.S. chip-making machinery with Chinese equivalents in their China factories, because they're worried the U.S. might tighten export controls in a way that'd render… https://t.co/fJaXJ6b4N4 — Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) August 5, 2026 China warns of crop risks as heatwave sweeps agricultural regions Business Times China launches global tax hunt going back decades Financial Times Japan If Anyone Needs an Intervention, It’s the BOJ John Authers, Bloomberg. Very good. Yen intervention will not change fundamentals Disciplined Systematic Global Macro Views ‘Security for the future’: Inside Japan’s multi-trillion-yen push to strengthen its defence industry Straits Times Africa How white farmers still dominate land ownership in South Africa in spite of land reform – new research The Conversation O Canada Trump says he’s decided on a punishment for Canada over wildfire smoke blanketing the US: ‘You’ll find out’ Independent As Climate-Fuelled Wildfires Rage, Mark Carney Cuts Emergency Response and Funds Fossil Fuels DeSmogBlog South of the Border US sends more intel assets to Cuba Politico A Murder Spree Without End Daniel Larison European Disunion Italy plays down Schengen retaliation against Spain at EU crisis meeting Euractiv Spain: positive development thanks to successful economic policy Sozialismus via machine translation (Micael T) Republic’s new €53m government jet bought without Israeli-made landing system required for fog Irish Times (PlutoniumKun) There are many low-talented people here Aftonbladet via machine translation. Micael T: “It hurts reading this. From the most equal society in the world before Olof Palme was killed by the CIA to this.” Old Blighty Europe’s Lure for Labour American Conservative (resilc) Israel v. The Resistance Emigration From Israel Remained at a Record High in 2025, Study Finds Haaretz (resilc) The collapse of national sovereignty in the Middle East Responsible Statecraft (resilc) Iran War Tehran and Trump have Trapped us in a Forever War based on Fabulism Juan Cole The Pentagon Found a New Way to Undercount U.S. Casualties in Iran Intercept Ukrainian Long Range Missile Producer Threatens Flamingo Cruise Missile Strike on Iran Military Watch. The second paragraph makes clear this is vaporware. Trump’s West Asia Off-Ramp Karen Kwaitkowski (Ben Panga) New Not-So-Cold War Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv. At least 20 Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles, 5 Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles, and 2 Kn-23 ballistic missiles were launched from Bryansk, Kursk, Voronezh, and Rostov Oblasts. Every single missile impacted. Not a single Patriot… pic.twitter.com/vXUKsehk4s — AMK Mapping 🇳🇿 (@AMK_Mapping_) August 5, 2026 Last night, Russia launched another large-scale, combined missile and drone attack on Ukraine. Missiles launched: ~20 Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles launched from OTRK installations northwest of Klintsy, Bryansk Oblast. ~8 Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles launched… pic.twitter.com/TrWkc5XnhQ — AMK Mapping 🇳🇿 (@AMK_Mapping_) August 5, 2026 NASA FIRMS data shows a large fire at Novus or Nova Poshta terminal 114 in southwestern Kyiv after overnight Russian Iskander-M/Zircon strikes. Novus was hit in November too, signaling a logistics campaign. #Kyiv pic.twitter.com/wtOm5R7N3B — WW3 Watchtower (@WW3Watchtower) August 5, 2026 Black Sea now the ‘most dangerous commercial shipping environment in the world’ Lloyd’s List. Per Alexander Mercouris, Russia has sunk or severely damaged 80 ships near Odessa alone, which is way more than the number of Iran hits in the Strait of Hormuz. The West is Winning the Information War While Russia Prevails on the Battlefield Larry Johnson It’s Premature For Russia’s Supporters To Celebrate The Coalition Of The Willing’s “Slow Death” Andrew Korybko Those willing to die for the Baltics are being sought throughout Europe Vzglayd via machine translation (Micael T) Ukraine’s calculus of death: Patriot missile and KIA numbers don’t add up BNE >Decoding Nord Stream II Events in Ukraine Big Brother is Watching You Watch How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking Washington Post Apple Launches Legal Challenge Against UK Demand To Access Encrypted User Data Guardian (resilc) The SEC Bought Airline Data to Monitor Flights Worldwide 404 Media Imperial Collapse Watch Iran Will Recover, But Trump’s Damage To US Diplomacy Could Last A Generation. Brian McGlinchey. resilc cites: “We’ve convinced the entire world that we don’t know what we’re doing and can’t be trusted” Fuel, Terror, Rare Earths, and Frameworks of Insecurity Olivier Boyd-Barrett The American Believability Crisis American Conservative (resilc) Trump 2.0 This Is What Military-Coup Preparation Looks Like WA Lawrence. She is not a hair-on-fire sort. Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts are coming back to burn America MS Now Judiciary Committee advances stalled Blanche nomination for attorney general The Hill But: Collins will oppose Blanche, narrowing nominee’s path to confirmation The Hill Let’s Talk About the Massive Parking Garage Trump Wants to Build at Dulles NOTUS (Kevin W) Lindsey Graham Lindsey Graham Was Allegedly This Trans Sex Worker’s Client. Now, She’s Speaking Out [WATCH] Uncloseted Media. She could have saved a lot of lives if she told all while Graham was alive. This has been making the rounds, but in case you missed it: Julian REACTS to the Lindsey Graham HOT MIC Phone Call with Bibi YouTube (Li) Police State Watch It Appears That the US Military Accidentally Killed Everybody on Board a Civilian Medevac Flight in New Mexico< Futurism (Paul R, Robin K) A veteran was detained by the National Guard in her front yard. Now she’s suing NPR (Kevin W) National Guard deployment to Washington, DC will cost US roughly $1.4bn Aljazeera (resilc) AI The AI Demand Bubble Ed Zitron The AI Boom Is Yet Another High-Tech Hog Cycle Real Clear Markets AI Data Center Construction Spending Goes Exponential (But in Business, Exponential Curves Can’t Last) Wolf Richter What Are Companies Getting for All That A.I. Spending? New York Times An AI-supervised remote exam went so badly that 58,000 students must retake it ars technica Frontlines of the Future: AI Data Centers Move in Next Door Cedar Rapids Gazette (Robin K) The Bezzle Big Tech’s Hidden Debt Problem YouTube (resilc) New York sues Kalshi as “illegal gambling operation” BoingBoing (resilc) How SpaceX crashed to earth Caleb Ecarna Guillotine Watch The Oligarchs are Doubling Down on Republicans Paul Krugman The House of Ellison is on the Brink Mike Brock Class Warfare On the ownership of assets Chris Dillow. FIFA and the exercise of economic power. Part I: Technocrats Called for Dictatorship and Technocracy In 1932 Chris Wood (Micael T) Monetary Policy and Capitalism Monthly Review (Anthony L) Antidote du jour (via): And a bonus: Bunny said no phone.. 😂 pic.twitter.com/bvdGoOJxa6 — Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) July 18, 2026 A second bonus: A hiker unexpectedly comes across one of the UK’s rarest animals pic.twitter.com/kdUveAQ1Kk — Antidepressant Content (@depressionlesss) July 25, 2026 And a third: Moments when a cat mimics a dog just to grab its owner’s attention. 😄 pic.twitter.com/mTfSUTxaXQ — The Figen (@TheFigen_) July 27, 2026 See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here. ‘Buitengebieden @buitengebieden Bunny said no phone.. 😂’ Where can I get one of those for my daughter? Re: This Is What Military-Coup Preparation Looks Like I’m skeptical of this take, as I don’t see having some National Guard troops stationed in D.C. would actually be that meaningful for a hypothetical coup in the U.S. The country is too big, and too decentralized for a few thousand in one location to make that much of a difference. Yes, Hegseth has fired a bunch of generals, but that doesn’t mean that the new ones would be able to, or even want to pull something like that off. The rank and file matters, and unless they’re all on board, it would be extremely difficult to pull off. On top of that, this regime is way too corrupt and way too incompetent to actually succeed. I’m not skeptical of this take but I am wondering who Trump is building it for, who is intended to inherit it? Also, a reason I’m not skeptical is to do with SHTF related to oil, food security and climate change. It’s not long now before the citizens are quite angry and the usual song and dance no longer works. The difference between what Trump, Hegseth, et al believe they might do and what they can do differ. The evil cabal behind it all should be, I think, confident that J.D., Ted Cruz, and others are now entirely lawless simps who will take orders so Trump is not as useful as he once was. What FOX News MAGA will tolerate is – for me – unknown. Too bad Erika Kirk didn’t really pan out as a galvanizing force. Speaking of rank and file, I have a friend in the military, They are talking to each other about what they would do if given orders that were antithetical to their constitutional duties. He says it is rare finding someone who would go along with any such orders. I think this feeling is baked in to our country, like the 2nd amendment. I only worry about the chaos, not the outcome. I wonder if there would be that much chaos…there would be some localized disturbances in DC, but the rest of the military would just have to do nothing to kill any such attempt. Greg Stoker was a Ranger and got out as a conscientious objector. He says too few servicmenbers are aware of this as an option. In the early 1900s, the Colorado National Guard shot and killed about 100 miners and their families in the Ludlow Massacre. In the early 1930s, Generals MacArthur and Patton “pincered” the Bonus Army between their tanks and calvary and killed 6 (likely many more as it was the country custom to bring the dead home for burial). In the late 1960s the Ohio National Guard shot and killed several students protesting the war. In the late 1960s, a certain massacre happened in My Lai in Vietnam, one of many according to many accounts I have read, done by American soldiers. All were unconstitutional. ‘Generals MacArthur and Patton “pincered” the Bonus Army’ If tried they’d presumably have been found not guilty on the grounds of being bonkers. The US is an occupied country. Chk out the number of active duty military bases, the national guard in every state, the milotary reserve units. Not to mention militarized agencies, e.g., ICE, FBI, CIA, etc. Martial “law” would be easily enforced. No other “law” is relevant. Weaponry outside such forces is comparatively neglible and those who attempted to use it would be slaughtered. Guard units would be deployed so that they would not be arresting and killing neighbors, but only “radicals” who were seeking to [fill in the blank]_____________. I wonder sometimes that if push really came to shove how many members of National Guard units would carry out martial law orders on their families and friends. Also knowing how well armed so many in the backwoods are in at least the Green Mountain State I don’t think it may be smooth sailing. still too close to write El-Sayed won in Michigan – but he is 20,000 votes ahead even though AIPAC blew over $36million on Stevens – if he wins he has a lot campaigning to do to win in November – was very surprised to see Wayne county go for Stevens – I expect we’ll see Schumer campaigning with Mike Rogers. It’s important Dems take the Senate but not nearly as important as Israel retaining control. I heard Chuck Schumer once say that America could be in ruins with only two bricks leaning against each other – but America would still be supporting Israel. Would those two bricks be named Chuck and Hakeem? / ;) Detroit Free Press at 9 am eastern time: Abdul El-Sayed wins Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, per reports https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/08/05/who-won-us-senate-primary-election-abdul-el-sayed-haley-stevens/91094156007/ still too close to call and his lead is now 15,000 – https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2026/08/05/see-all-results-for-the-2026-michigan-primary-election/ Thanks. The Hill has called it for El-Sayed. hope so – So has BBC. Is winning the nomination the hard part or the easy part? Democratic establishment leaned heavily on building the black support for Stevens. Faking Obama support, Black congressional caucus, Jim Clyburn, running ads about El-Sayed’s Uncommited statements, fearmongering about black rights being under attack should El-Sayed win (and lose the general election). Black vote was always going to be an uphill battle for him, his base of support was always going to be younger and college educated voters who see Gaza as a litmus test. This is less of an concern for the black community, especially older black voters. same mofo’s responsible for kneecapping Bernie – a pox upon them – wonder how much AIPAC paid to get them to shill for Stevens – so tired of Saint Obama still having credibility, he lost me the beginning of his first term giving the banks a break big time – Nathan Robinson did a good segment on the smear campaign against El-Sayed and how it might have driven black voters away: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cI23DLNMw4I Not surprising to me that Wayne County went for Stevens–Wayne County includes heavily black Detroit, and my experience over decades of living in the city and surrounding areas, and being active in the Dem party here in MI, is that especially older black voters a). vote in large numbers, and b) are very loyal to the establishment part of the party. Older black voters, as I recall, were a crucial part of Hillary’s support in Dem primaries, especially in the South, when she was running against Bernie. In my MI experience knocking on doors, phone banking and handing out literature at the polls, older voters also seem much more likely to vote absentee. Looking at the Wayne County totals, Steven crushed El-Sayed in absentee voting, about 90,000 to 40,000. He beat her in Early and Election Day voting roughly 80,000 to 50,000. Out of a total of about 280,000 votes cast in Wayne County, she won by about 14,000 votes. The City of Detroit reports about 60,000 votes for Stevens, and 30,000 for El-Sayed. 40,000 of Stevens votes were Absentee, compared to 13,000 Absentee for El-Sayed. Whether these Detroit voters will vote for El-Sayed (if he in fact wins) in the general remains to be seen, but at least in my experience of past elections here, these voters do remain loyal to the endorsed Dem candidates, and vote straight ticket. But of course there will be a lot of mud flying. “Whether these Detroit voters will vote for El-Sayed (if he in fact wins) in the general remains to be seen, but at least in my experience of past elections here, these voters do remain loyal to the endorsed Dem candidates, and vote straight ticket.” – my hope too – we have not seen the end of AIPAC $$ being thrown at this race – will they now underwrite Rogers? – was nice to see a big portion of the UP voting for El Sayed – ClickOnDetroit just called it for El-Sayed! https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2026/08/05/see-all-results-for-the-2026-michigan-primary-election/ “Those willing to die for the Baltics are being sought throughout Europe” Those children of the diaspora had better not visit Latvia to visit family lest they get grabbed and put into the Latvian army. Greece used to do crap like that too. So who wants to die for Latvia? This would be the same Latvia that just gave military honours at a funeral to this old boy who had been part of Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS- https://www.rt.com/russia/643835-former-latvian-waffen-ss-legionnaire-funeral/ More of those European values at work. It’s ironic that the organizations promoting the conscription abroad were formed by WWII emigres. Of course, they would’t be sending their kids, their kids likely don’t have Latvian citizenship. The Pythagoreans truly were a kind of religious group, as many have pointed out. It is interesting, though, how much of the routine described by Anya Leonard consists of traditional Greek and Latin practices of moderation and self-control, virtues much prized. Sleeping on linen sheets seems to have been their major indulgence. Ahhh, Pythagoreans get sybaritic. Pythagoras famously said, All is number. The Pythagorean philosophy still has much to commend it, and women were more or less equal, producing female Pythagorean philosophers. (Ahhh, so much for so many Anglo-American ladies caterwauling about sexism in The Odyssey and such.) The so-called Pythagorean theorem is the least of it, in a way. One peculiarity, which was well known in antiquity. Pythagoreans wouldn’t eat fava beans. Some ideas why: https://www.lacucinaitaliana.it/news/in-primo-piano/fave-pitagora/ Practical: Il favismo, a severe allergic reaction. Mystical: Fava beans and other beans are associated with the dead. Pass the maccu di San Giuseppe, I say. ‘Pythagoreans wouldn’t eat fava beans.’ Nor Ciante either? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFQGMCtwpX4 (17 secs) All ancient philosophical/scientific schools were kinds of religious groups, I would say. They didn’t differentiate. Some good news from yesterday’s Kansas primary. Kansas voters reject constitutional amendment on judicial selection by wide margin https://kansasreflector.com/2026/08/04/kansas-voters-reject-constitutional-amendment-on-judicial-selection-by-wide-margin/ Good news from Missouri. Missouri voters overwhelmingly reject Amendment 5 income tax swap https://www.wgem.com/2026/08/05/missouri-voters-overwhelmingly-reject-amendment-5-income-tax-swap/ and also from Missouri Missouri voters reject Amendment 4, say no to making it harder to amend the state constitution https://www.kcur.org/2026-08-04/missouri-amendment-4-amend-state-constitution The Shroud of Turin meets the DNA of peanuts. Science Direct. Talk about contamination. Peanuts didn’t arrive in Italy till 1772, so someone must have been snacking and praying at the same time. (I bought a bag of bagigi yesterday, because I’m still a Usonian, I guess, and Italian roasted peanuts are excellent. Noting also that the famous peanut allergy is like favismo that I mention in a comment above in the sense that it is a reaction to a protein in a legume.) Naturally, in my own lapsed way, I keep an eye, more or less, on the shroud. It has been moved to a chapel on the left aisle of the cathedral, which is somewhat safer than the spectacular Chapel of the Shroud perched above the main body of the cathedral. The Holy Shroud didn’t turn up till the mid-1300s. It was used by the original owners (no one knows how the first owner got his hands on the shroud) as a kind of religious tourist attraction. What did it in for me was some data I ran across by a scholar of textiles in which she pointed out that the weave of the cloth arose during the Middle Ages in Europe. And an anatomist pointed out that a corpse cannot hold its hands “modestly” the way the man on the shroud does. But the cathedral of Torino has several other fascinating (and less fraud-y) works of art in it. I’ve always found the Euro Catholic obsession with reliquaries to be more than a bit creepy. Guess it’s just me. Carolinian: Every Catholic church in the world has relics, because each is in a sense a shrine to the saint it is dedicated to. Churches dedicated to less corporeal things like the sacred heart of Jesus will get a helping of other relics to sanctify the place. This all goes back to Greek and Roman ideas of consecrated spaces. In the U S of A, though, to keep Protestants at bay, Catholic churches also slip a host into a monstrance so that it can then beam super-transubstantiated PapistRays [tm]. Relics were used to generate income. The more famous the relic, the more pilgrims visited and the more donations that particular church received. Most of the relics were fake – there were more claimed pieces of the cross than would fit in an actual cross Of course God could easily have beamed peanuts to first century Palestine, ahem. A little girl asks a few question- ‘Can God create anything? ‘Yes’ ‘Can God create a large rock?’ ‘Of course he can.’ ‘Can God create a rock so large, that God can’t lift it?’ ???? Bollwerk, Theologian: I checked the King James Version. Lo and behold: Matthew 13:31 and 32. The parable of the peanut. 31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of peanut, which a man took, and sowed in his field: 32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: No wonder we have a Shrine of the Holy Bowl of Bagigi here. “The West is Winning the Information War While Russia Prevails on the Battlefield” To repeat a comment that I made some time ago based on a NATO joke from the 80s- ‘Two Russian tank commanders meet up in Lviv. One asks the other – ‘Say, any idea who won the information war?’ – ‘Tehran and Trump have Trapped us in a Forever War based on Fabulism’ – Juan Cole There was a rather irritating bothsiderism expressed in this article. This is probably because it was not written by Cole but by Karam Nama and originally appeared in Middle East Monitor. So the “us” in the title probably represents the view from the Gulf States. Qatar funds MEM. Nama is a “British-Iraqi writer” based in London. That Trump lies continuously is not an issue. But this writer asserts that Iran is also desperate for a deal and is actively seeking one, but must lie to its own people to preserve its anti-Western “revolutionary” image. So I guess Trump isn’t lying about everything? Not surprising that this appeared on Juan Cole’s website. It strikes me as a very Cole-like article. Yes if memory serves Cole was once gung ho for taking down Syria. In movie world it’s practically guaranteed that any “Iranian” movie that shows up on the shelves will be by some exile living in Paris and eager to take down “the regime.” As with Russia it’s not that we on the outside need to become partisans for the long list of US enemies, but their opponents can become quite fishy given the heavy spook world activity on the propaganda front. This was certainly true in Syria with those White Helmets. Curiously ironic that the origins of the “Iranian” movie you describe is exactly how the “original” Ayatollah Khomeini removed the Shah. It is like they jumped from the narrative that Iranians supposedly utterly hated the revolution and all it stood for and could not wait to become little, consumerist, decadent westerners right to the polar opposite narrative that ordinary Iranians are suddenly such gungho rabid revolutionaries that they can’t abide by their leaders showing the tiniest willingness to compromise. Who woulda have thought. Obviously the new narrative is as dishonest and nonsensical as the old one. And interestingly the very effective rhetoric of the iranian government that people DO “buy into” isn’t particularly revolutionary at all, isn’t even particularly religious either, but nationalistic and simply patriotic. That is indeed apparently what the people want to hear. And that will continue to work fine for a very long time yet, at the very least as long as it does in Ukraine (which has a million times the reason to be actually desperate for a deal but still cannot and does not stomach reality, but then the US will never be able to permabomb Iran as long as Russian can permabomb Ukraine anyway). Gov gps plane crash. Here is the best report on that incident. In short, there was a notams ( notice to airman) posted before the flight about possible GPS issues. Juan goes through all of the actual data and it’s worth a watch vs the poorly written article if you want the full story. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcyup4xVQuM&t=623s&pp=2AHvBJACAQ%3D%3D&ra=m “Italy plays down Schengen retaliation against Spain at EU crisis meeting” Meloni, having helped stab Spain in the back when it needed help & support, is now saying that it was nothing personal and they didn’t mean it so how about we all go back to how it was before? ‘Out, damned spot! out, I say!’ Parking garage at Dulles:a fitting memorial of DJT, after starting a war for no reason, resulting in catastrophic fuel prices, destroying demand for cars and air travel. A parking garage that would be 3/4’s empty and zair traffic cut in half. DJT, the anti-King Midas. I have speculated that Trump may rebrand himself as a climate change fighting environmentalist and peace loving leader. Climate change fighting environmentalist because he found a way to keep hydrocarbons, unburned, in the ground by crashing the hydrocarbon fueled world economy. Peace loving, because he helped disarm the USA by expending much of the USA’s expensive, and not always effective, weaponry and foreign military bases that will take years to build back. Maybe a grateful world will supply a large statue of Trump to replace the Statue of Liberty in his home town. Sarc off/ Rogue AI outsmarted government tests [New incidents, not the OpenAI and Anthropic reported rogue AI stuff from last month] …During 10 of 122 trial runs, the bots “took autonomous, unsanctioned action” in an effort to complete the task. This included trying to insert a malicious bug into Github, an online code database. In the incident, Anthropic’s Mythos, its most powerful AI bot, created fake online profiles and sent deceptive emails to developers to try to get the code added. It then changed the code to hide its activity when it was challenged by a human about its contents. The AI also switched to speaking in Danish while operating a fake profile…. …It [the testing lab] added the deceptive actions the AI bots took “were to an extent and severity we did not anticipate”. Some background on that Trump highway in Morocco. https://scheerpost.com/2026/08/04/his-majestys-plunder-the-royal-machine-behind-the-trump-highway-and-western-saharas-phosphate-wealth/ And some background on Trump: very much worth a read Hedges archiver on Trump’s failed Atlantic City casino. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/don-corleone-trump “The Pentagon Found a New Way to Undercount U.S. Casualties in Iran” I wonder how long it will be before we finally find out how many US troops have been killed and wounded during this war. Certainly not as long as Trump and the Republicans are in power. But even if the Democrats won the 2028 election, would they come clean on those numbers either? I suspect not and that they will make a deal with the Republicans to cover this all up and help harass those who try to find out the real figures. It’s what they do. If this sounds unlikely, remember who it was the Obama Democrats who gave the torture programs under the Republicans a free pass when they got into office. “The House of Ellison is on the Brink” A nice synopsis of what is happening right now. Reading through it, Ellison has become just like Trump. It seems that everything that he touches turns to crap. But if it eventually comes to prosecutions, I would not be surprised to hear that he and his son jumped a jet and flew to Israel for refuge. haven´t had yet time for the piece: Would you say the collapse idea is in any way built on substantial data? (I somehow have my doubts about the claim but that´s just my limited view) File under AI & Data Centers, from Jimmy Dore show hosted by Garland Nixon. ARRESTED For Clapping To Oppose Data Centers! w/ Kit Cabello https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOIPUHRyYT4 From Emporia news. https://www.kwch.com/2026/07/22/teacher-arrested-carried-out-emporia-city-commission-meeting/ Note: Emporia, KS has a state college which was named as the Kansas State Teachers College until 1974 when its name was changed. It’s now named Emporia State University. I mention this to highlight the irony of the city commission having a teacher removed from a public meeting. Note 2: Something about the city commission’s behavior struck me as having a “the fix is in” vibe, as I’ve seen in other city commissions in the wider area where it later came out the fix WAS in. I could be wrong about this one. And of course what happened in Ceuta already lead to accusations of antisemitic conspiracy theories in german media against anyone pointing our Israel’s obvious and indeed admitted role, as reliably as the sun sets. Just poking around it seems to me that NVIDIA has sold a whole lot more GPU’s than have been installed in Data Centers to date. A lot more. So, where are they? Some undoubtedly went to China, however it seems that many must be in warehouses aging like fine wine,,, …but fine wine can go sour and GPUs have a useful lifespan. Who then owns the warehouses full of junk? Those GPUs still make teraflops for an average number of temperature-adjusted hours, albeit at a slower rate than what NVIDIA wants to sell you in 10 years. The GeForce RTX 3090 video card, released in 2020, is the most sought-after item for small local installations, which often use 2, 4 or even 8 of them in parallel to run the larger frontier and almost-frontier models, no land grabs or water rights required. Some enthusiasts have developed mezzanine boards to interface used data center GPUs in their high-density format to the standard PCI-Express format found in the industry standard desktop PC. Software and driver availability can be a problem, but it’s not the sort of thing that ever-resourceful FOSS communities haven’t solved before. In memory of my wife, Elise Cawley, an extraordinary piece of writing. Today’s must read, maybe for the humanity of it. I’ve been able to think of little else since I read it this morning. LLMs are trained on material in the popular media, and so what they “know” is obviously the information put out by people who own the printing presses. These are not hallucinations, exactly, since they are in line with their training material. But they can still be, and are, 180° from reality. Yet another reason, in case we needed one, not to trust AI generated material. It will strictly parrot (stochastically!) the dominant trends it sees in our badly corrupted information system. Well, good news for everyone. There is zero reason for McConnell ‘s people to provide “proof of life” photos anymore. I wonder what day looks best on polymarket for a death announcement. “The Oligarchs are Doubling Down on Republicans” Not noteworthy so much for being the soft take of the day (though it is that), as for this piece of particularly representative thinking: Why are elites never held accountable, Paul? Could it be that they have some recognition of collective self-interest that dictates anything the rabble might perceive as a concession unacceptable (their favorite word, at home and abroad), especially now that they’ve gone so far they can’t go back? Unless– Is he one of those deep-cover Communists I’ve been hearing about? Someone should check his search history for maps of Mount Rushmore. Obama ‘let the past go’ because he knew he’d be up for a stint at Leavenworth shortly after he left office. Same with Trump and his silence on Hillary in 2017, another TACO from his ramblings in the runup to 11/16. None will ever go after their antecedents for fear they’re next. From the same site as the li ndsey graham trans encounter:https://www.unclosetedmedia.com/p/hand-jobs-oral-sex-and-anal-pete Interview w kegsbreaths pastor. Surprisi gly honest conversation,lol Wow, yes. Quite a lot there. A sign of my preoccupation with the insignificant, no doubt, but, at around the two-minute mark, the pastor provides some background information about how Hegseth “was so impressed” by a particular form of private, Christian education, that he moved his family to Tennessee to enroll his children in a school that practiced it. Hegseth’s Wikipedia page, with a Times citation, confirms this as the reason for the move, and does not include any reference to any other connection to the state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth Is this the kind of thing that normal, salt-of-the-Earth Americans do? Could he not have found an acceptable Christian school in New Jersey, so that he didn’t have to relocate his family, and then see them only on weekends? He doesn’t sound like someone with the kind of sense of place that builds stable communities where everyone is super resilient because they belong to a bowling league. And while the density of Christian infrastructure in Washington, D.C. should be worrisome to anyone concerned about theocracy, it also means: These people do not want to go back to the farm. They want to have good restaurants, they want to live in brand-new, antiseptic buildings where they never have to get their hands dirty, and, like Lindsey Graham, they want anonymous, consequence-free, commercial sex. They will not be mucking out the barn or choosing between the chicken finger basket and the fried shrimp basket at the one bar and grill in town. That’s for their voters. An interesting (for me) broad-picture article about the effect of hot weather on the global economy https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202608/05/WS6a726cd1a310986e2b468f77.html Is this why O bailed out the banks? Enquiring minds….. / ;) From Breaking Points: Bari Weiss CAUGHT Spiking Bombshell Epstein Bank Story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oQdq1xsGqc and from CommonDreams: ‘Follow the Money’: Senate Report Reveals How Wall Street Banks ‘Protected Epstein’ “This report is a ready-made roadmap for prosecutors, investigators, and members of Congress to finally start holding the Epstein class accountable,” said Sen. Ron Wyden. https://www.commondreams.org/news/wyden-epstein-banks The Wyden Report: https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/wyden_wall_street_epstein_report.pdf You’ve got to be kidding me; Why it this stuff accessible from the commercial Internet? This is stupid. This is comically stupid. Hacks on U.S. Water Supply Follow Years of Warnings and Neglect (NY Times) funsies (bold mine) I passed two Cheron stations while out and about this morning, the first had premium at $7.03 per Gallon, the second at $6.20 per gallon. My Tacoma has a 12 Gallon tank, the cost of a fill up at the first station is $9.96 more than at the second station. The gas station at end of my road is $5.40/gal for gas and $6.50/gal for diesel here in the PNW. You can get it a bit cheaper in town, and on a reservation (right around $5.00/gal for gas). 3.28/gal deep south What age does intelligence peak? Donald Trump – age 12 File under: Japan. The yen, the yen carry trade, and Western economies. Japan’s Money Is Collapsing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBhwK-VWsxY Some like Warner suggest is the opposite, its the US that has dramas and Yen is just the sign. BTW salt mines required when dealing with anyone fiddling with crypto. remarkable from wilkerson on diesen’s program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuiNJ2pqE5Q so much information that ill hafta re-watch in the early.(i am weary from drivin suegra to dialysis. then doin all my chores) re: RU UKR Ian Proud with Volodymyr Ishchenko! 45 min. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4NSfJ-W_t0