2026-02-18

Horseshit

• Maybe America Needs Some New Cities

• Communal Living Is the Ultimate Parenting Hack

• My Big Kink Survey dataset, raw

  • I expect the author's agendas have polluted whatever value may have been available from such data to begin with. Everyone lies about sex, the more so the kinkier it is.

• The Sweet Lesson of Neuroscience

• Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve?

• The cameraman who skates backward to capture Olympic triumph and defeat

• What is the new etiquette for tipping?

• Did That Bald Head Get Your Attention? One Startup Hopes So

• Top plastic surgeon fuels 'penisgate,' says he injected ski jumper last month

• Zillow launches Zillow for Warcraft, new way to explore World of Warcraft homes

Epstein

• The Infrastructure of Jeffrey Epstein's Power

• How the men in the Epstein files defeated MeToo

• Epstein Files: The Blackmail of Billionaire Leon Black and Epstein's Role in It

• The Consequences of the Epstein Document Release Start to Pile Up

  A whole lot of Democrats believed that the release of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Epstein documents was going to turn into a political nightmare for President Trump — and no doubt, the additional revelations about the likes of Steve Bannon, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and Elon Musk have generated some embarrassment and bad headlines. But the harder consequences are hitting the likes of Goldman Sachs general counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, Bill Gates, Noam Chomsky, and other figures on the left, as well as corporate executives.

  As I have repeatedly noted, it is amazing how many wealthy, powerful elite men who climbed to the pinnacle of American society through keen judgment claim they hung around Jeffrey Epstein at length and never noticed anything unusual or suspicious about him. And now the same question can be asked of certain women. Did Kathryn Ruemmler send a lot of emails to a lot of men joking about their genitalia? Is that sort of thing normal in the world of white-collar criminal-defense legal work?

• The Quintessential Epstein Files Email

  On June 5, 2015, Kathy Ruemmler, then a corporate lawyer for Latham & Watkins but just one year removed from her stint as White House counsel for Barack Obama, emailed her good friend Jeffrey Epstein. Ruemmler, who was once under consideration to become Obama’s attorney general, wrote, “I am working on a PR strategy for MJ White v. Elizabeth Warren.” Epstein responded, “Good[.] mj is good.” And Ruemmler followed on in a response, “Yes, and EW is the worst.” This is the perfect Jeffrey Epstein email, with as much explanatory power about this man, and more important the world he associated with and cultivated, than anything to do with child sex abuse. It shows that there is in fact an Epstein class, which not only believes in their own personal impunity, but seeks to protect their fellow travelers as well. And that ultimately lines up with a political and economic vision that favors corporate domination over the public interest.

• Aft, AAUP Demand SEC Probe over Apollo Execs' Epstein Contacts

celebrity gossip

• Anderson Cooper Reportedly Steps Away from 60 Minutes After Nearly 20 Years

Obit

• The Rev. Jesse Jackson, pioneering civil rights activist, dies at 84

  • Obituary for Jesse Jackson

  • Jesse Jackson, Civil Rights Leader Who Sought the Presidency, Dies at 84

• 'Like a Virgin' songwriter Billy Steinberg dies at 74

Musk

• SpaceX to Compete in Pentagon Contest for Autonomous Drone Tech

• Irish Data Watchdog Opens Inquiry into X over Grok AI Images

  • EU also investigating as Grok generated 23,000 CSAM images in 11 days

  • EU launches probe into xAI over sexualized images

  • Ireland joins regulator smackdown after X's Grok AI accused of undressing people

• Tesla's 45 Austin Robotaxis now have 14 crashes on the books since June 2025

  • Tesla Robotaxis Reportedly Crashing at a Rate That's 4x Higher Than Humans

Electric / Self Driving cars

• The Car World Is Going Electric, Without America

• Ford's New 2028 Electric Truck Will Be a Fully Modern EV for $30,000

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• Americans are unleashing their anger on food-delivery robots

• The DJI Romo robovac had security so poor, this man remotely accessed thousands of them | The Verge

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Surprising Revival: Gen Z Men and Highly Educated Lead Return to Religion

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Rethinking High-School Science Fairs

  At a certain point, when enough data has come in, you have to acknowledge your experiment has failed. The competitive high school science fair machine keeps churning — one of the largest competitive fairs runs more than 350 feeder fairs and offers over $9 million in annual prizes — but science fairs have drifted a long way from their original purpose. They no longer serve elite or ordinary students well. Science fairs should be about formation to think as a scientist, not about students attaching themselves, remora-like, to prestigious labs. Internships have their place in professional training and career planning, but a science fair should channel students’ competitive and exploratory energies in a more thoughtful direction.

  • They seemed to be perfect for the purpose of Science(TM) as it is now understood; a place to recruit faceless burrocrats who will do anything to keep the boat from being rocked.

• The great computer science exodus (and where students are going instead)

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• WD and Seagate confirm: Hard drives sold out for 2026

  • Western Digital is sold out of hard drives for all of 2026

• Secondhand laptop market goes 'mainstream' amid memory crunch

• Major PC OEMs Reportedly Exploring Chinese CXMT Memory Amid Shortages

• Why I'll never give up my DVD collection

• Apple issues warning to all 1.8B iPhone users over spyware attack

• Google patches Chrome zero-day as in-the-wild exploits surface

• Meta is wrong to try to sneak into facial recognition with Ray-Ban glasses

  • Meta plans to add facial recognition to its smart glasses, report claims

  • Dinner Is Being Recorded, Whether You Know It or Not

• AI giants are hoarding memory chips, pushing prices to hyperinflation levels

• Many consumer electronics manufacturers will bankrupt due to AI memory crisis

• Instagram boss defends app in trial over alleged harms to kids

• Texas sues TP Link alleging Chinese government access to its devices

• Micron Is Spending $200B to Break the AI Memory Bottleneck

• Discord Rival Gets Overwhelmed by Exodus of Players Fleeing Age-Verification

• What happens to a car when the company behind its software goes under?

• US lawyers file class action accusing Lenovo of bulk data transfers to China

• Meta research found supervision doesn't curb teens' compulsive social media use

• Open-source game engine Godot is drowning in 'AI slop' code contributions

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Planetary Scientists Discover Recent Tectonic Activity on the Moon

• NASA to attempt second full fueling test of its Space Launch System rocket

  • NASA to Run Critical Artemis 2 Fueling Test Despite Pesky Technical Issues

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• OpenAI Tapped for Voice Control Tech in US Drone Swarm Challenge

• German Wikipedia bans AI generated text completely

• An economist explains why he's still 'bullish on America' – AI and all

• A.I. Salaries Are Causing Couples to Rethink Money in Relationships

• After all the hype, some AI experts don't think OpenClaw is all that exciting | TechCrunch

• Software? No Way. We're an A.I. Company Now

• Jet Engines Are Powering Data Centers

• Former 'Morning Edition' host accuses Google of stealing his voice

• Nvidia, Groq and the limestone race to real-time AI

• Privacy, fairness concerns sparked by AI pricing

• Women Mourning the "Deaths" of Their AI Boyfriends

• The anxiety driving AI's brutal work culture is a warning for all of us

• A.I. Pioneer Yann LeCun Warns the Tech 'Herd' Is Marching into a Dead End

• Students Are Being Treated Like Guinea Pigs: Inside an AI-Powered Private School

• Apple Ramps Up Work on Glasses, Pendant, and Camera AirPods for AI Era

• In Arson Case, a Judge Wrestles with A.I.-Assisted Apology Letters

• 'This is the hill I'm going to die on' – David Baldacci takes on OpenAI

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Polymarket courts Chinese users despite ban

• Bitcoin's plunge should end the hype that it is digital gold

• Nederland threatens Polymarket with €420K/week fines for unlicensed gambling

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Federal Reserve set to loosen US bank rules in attempt to boost mortgage lending

  • Let citizens have the subsidies that immigrants were eligible for

• Long-term unemployment is becoming 'a status quo' in today's job market

• Lenders to Commercial Real Estate Owners: Pay Up Now

• Unaffordable Housing Impacts How Americans Consume, Work and Invest

• The Finance Industry Is a Grift. Let's Start Treating It That Way

• Amazon has lost $450B in value during this historic losing streak

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• How governments are increasingly soaking the rich

• Nancy Mace proposes bill to make aliens deportable, inadmissible for animal cruelty.

Left Angst

• DHS demands Google, Reddit, Meta, Discord provide data of users criticizing ICE

• Vaccine Makers Curtail Research and Cut Jobs

• How the Kakistocracy Became a Quackistocracy

  In many ways the Trump administration’s hostility to vaccines is similar to its hostility to clean energy, which I wrote about yesterday. Both policy swerves will kill Americans. If Trumpists succeed in forcing the U.S. to burn more coal, thousands will die from air pollution. Only a year into the Trump 47 administration, there is already a resurgence in almost conquered diseases due to the anti-vax MAGA crusade. Both these sudden policy serves are economically destructive: A 2024 report from the Centers for Disease Control estimated that each dollar spent on childhood vaccination has saved around $11 in societal costs. Moreover, the Trumpists aren’t content with just cutting off federal funding — they’re determined to stop anyone else from doing the right thing. The Trump administration has imposed a blockade on privately funded wind and solar projects, while RFK Jr.’s allies are pushing to prevent states from implementing childhood vaccine mandates.

• Colbert Says CBS Canceled His Interview with Democrat over FCC Concerns

  • Stephen Colbert Says CBS Blocked James Talarico Interview over FCC Fears

  • CBS didn't air Rep. James Talarico interview out of fear of FCC

  • Stephen Colbert says CBS forbid interview of Democrat because of FCC threat

• The Homeland Security Forum Where ICE Agents Talk Shit About Other Agents

• Trump Is Tearing Apart the North American Auto Industry

• Canadians promised to boycott travel to US. They meant it

• The Republicans Made Peace with Science

• U.S. Sent a Rescue Plane for Boat Strike Survivors. It Took 45 Hours to Arrive

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Rhode Island hockey shooter ID'd as transgender father Robert Dorgan

  The crazed gunman who killed two people and critically injured three others at a high school hockey game in Rhode Island on Monday afternoon has been identified as a transgender dad who railed against anti-trans hate in family legal disputes and deranged social media rants. Robert Dorgan, 56 — who shot four family members and a family friend before he turned the gun on himself following the deadly rampage at the Pawtucket ice rink — used the female alias Roberta Esposito, Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves said during a press conference Monday night.

• There's a Fight Brewing Between the NYPD and Silicon Valley's Palantir

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• U.S. releases new details on alleged secret Chinese nuclear test

• The Newest Old Tech in Warfare: Balloons

World

• Capita taps Microsoft Copilot to dig it out from UK pensions backlog

• UK gov want to use AI to prevent at-risk children from falling into crime

• Europeans are dangerously reliant on US tech Now is a good time to build our own

• EU Parliament blocks AI tools over cyber, privacy fears

• UK PM: "No platform gets a free pass"

• EU bans AI use on government work devices

• Amazon van gets stuck on Britain's 'most dangerous' mudflat path

• Australia's social media ban risks isolating kids with disabilities

• India's Solar Manufacturing Excesses Turn a Boom into a Glut

• Assad, obsessed with sex and video games, refused every lifeline he was offered

• India is using cheap green tech to electrify faster than China

• Dual nationals face scramble for UK passports as new rules come into force

• Police arresting 1k paedophile suspects a month across UK

Iran / Houthi

• Iran closing parts of Hormuz Strait for few hours during drill

• New anti-government chants reported across Iran after major rallies abroad.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia's economy has entered the death zone

• Facing a demographic catastrophe, Ukraine is paying for troops to freeze sperm

• Elon Musk’s Starlink crackdown cripples attacks on Ukraine as Russian casualty rates soar.

• Ukraine recaptures 201km² after shutdown of Russian forces' access to Starlink

• In Russia, the humble cucumber becomes latest symbol of rising wartime prices

China

• China to require physical controls for vehicle functions, starting July 1, 2027

• Will Chinese 'involution' do to robots and AI what it's done to EVs?

• Deep in China's Mountains, a Nuclear Weapons Revival Takes Shape

• China once stole foreign ideas. Now it wants to protect its own

• China's high-speed rail network accelerates largest human migration

Health / Medicine

• Minnesota is epicenter of nation's "largest known outbreak" of sexually transmitted ringworm, health officials say - CBS Minnesota

  TMVII, or trichophyton mentagrophytes genotype VII, is the only known fungal-based sexually transmitted disease, according to the Minnesota Department of Health, and it's treatable with oral antifungals. The first case was reported in New York City in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with Minnesota's first reported case in July 2025, when a patient sought treatment for a genital rash. The health department says there are now "more than 30 confirmed or suspected cases" in the Twin Cities metro area, and other scattered cases in larger U.S. cities. It's most prevalent among men who have sex with men.

• Drinking 2-3 cups of coffee a day tied to lower dementia risk

• 99% of adults over 40 have shoulder "abnormalities" on an MRI, study finds

  • Perhaps the definition of normal needs updating?

• Myopia is driven by how we use our eyes indoors, new research suggests

• The Bacon Paradox

  In 1998, three scientists won the Nobel Prize for discovering a molecule that saves lives. It relaxes blood vessels. It lowers pressure. It prevents heart attacks. It is called Nitric Oxide. The primary raw material for this miracle molecule is the very thing we have spent fifty years trying to banish from our breakfast tables. We are running away from the cure because we have confused it with the poison. Beetroot. Rocket. Spinach. And yes, celery. These are the nitrate heavyweights. A 100g serving of rocket contains more nitrates than 5 kgs of bacon or hotdogs. If nitrates were truly the toxic assassin we are told they are, a salad would be a suicide note.

• The mysterious symptom popping up in some GLP-1 users

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Excess deaths caused by COVID vaccines, not just COVID or lockdowns

  for these Australian regions we can rule out COVID-19 and the lockdowns. It’s the jabs. If these regions that saw excess deaths rise along with mass vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccines, and they didn’t really have a COVID-19 problem or the sort of lockdowns that can cause widespread health crises, it is obvious that the jab - already acknowledged by Australian and other governments as causing deaths - is playing a significant role.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• 'All records broken' as storm leaves swaths of France under water

• Bacterial strain from 5k-year-old cave ice has resistance against antibiotics

  • 5k-year-old bacteria from ancient ice cave are resistant to 10 antibiotics

  • 5k-year-old bacteria thawed in Romanian ice cave

• Even in Antarctica, Insects Are Eating Microplastics

• Ship fuel sulfur content regulations may exacerbate mass coral bleaching events

• Global warming forced scientists to change the way they look at El Niño

• Skunk mating season becoming a headache for Bay Area residents