2026-02-07

Worthy

• Fraud Investigation is Believing Your Lying Eyes

  There was recently an attempt by an independent journalist to expose fraud in a Minnesota social program. It was deeply frustrating; the journalist had notably poor epistemic standards, which secondary media seized upon to dismiss their result.

  The class-based sniffing almost invariably noted that prestige media had already reported stories which rhymed with the core allegation, while sometimes implying that makes the allegations less likely to be true, through a logical pathway which is mysterious to me. The journalism went quite viral anyway, in part because of sensationalized framing, in part because of signal boosting by an aligned media ecosystem and aligned politicians, and in part because the journalism develops one bit of evidence that has a viscerality that paperwork dives often lack: these purported childcare operations routinely have no children in them.

  Minnesota has suffered a decade-long campaign of industrial-scale fraud against several social programs. This is beyond intellectually serious dispute. The 2019 report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor (a non-partisan government body) makes for gripping reading. The scale of fraud documented and separately alleged in it staggers the imagination: the state’s own investigators believed that, over the past several years, greater than fifty percent of all reimbursements to daycare centers were fraudulent. (Separate officials took the… novel position that they were only required to recognize fraud had happened after securing a criminal conviction for it. Since they had only secured a few criminal convictions, there was no way that fraud was that high. Asked to put a number on it, repeatedly, they declined.)

  • Amazing effort to stay apolitical, worthy of applause. Of course, he will be pilloried as a Trumpist heretic for agreeing "there is fraud," because Trump has also said that.

Horseshit

• I've spent 20 years as a touring guitarist. The live industry is broken

• CT scans unwrap secrets of ancient Egyptian life

• How to Survive a Fall Through the Ice

• BMW Commits to Subscriptions Even After Heated Seat Debacle

• I am the Excel world champion

• The Forgotten Epidemic Born Out of Poverty

  This ailment is known as pellagra, and it was discovered as early as the 18th century when it inflicted Spanish peasants. At the time, it was commonly confused with leprosy as it can cause skin sores. The condition also triggers symptoms throughout the body including diarrhea, neurological issues like tremors, and even dementia. In 1869, Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso suggested that pellagra comes from spoiled corn, as it often affects people with corn-heavy diets. Lombroso’s theory entered the conversation when pellagra became epidemic throughout the Southern U.S. Some eugenicists suggested that it stemmed from racial or hereditary factors. A 1912 investigation of a South Carolina mill village reported that the disease was infectious, a finding that guided doctors for years.

  • Was it poverty that caused the deaths from an easily treatable disease, or all the people who "knew better" than the poor peasants who had been avoiding the problem for years?

• The Olympics May Have a Problem Thanks to Ski Jumping

• Single bone in Spain offers first direct evidence of Hannibal's war elephants

• Ostarine, the Wonder Drug That's Plaguing Sports

• Beauty Lovers Waste $6.2B on TikTok Makeup Trends They'll Use Once

Epstein

• No: Are the released pictures from the Epstein documents in public domain?

• Epstein files reveal deeper ties to scientists than previously known

• Latest Epstein files release rattles Silicon Valley

• Who entered Epstein's jail tier the night of his death?

  Newly released Department of Justice documents show that investigators reviewing surveillance footage from the night of Jeffrey Epstein's death observed an orange-colored shape moving up a staircase toward the isolated, locked tier where his cell was located at approximately 10:39 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2019. That entry in an observation log of the video from the Metropolitan Correctional Center appears to suggest something previously unreported by authorities: "A flash of orange looks to be going up the L Tier stairs — could possibly be an inmate escorted up to that Tier."

  It also appears, according to an FBI memorandum, that reviews by investigators led to disparate conclusions by the FBI and those examining the same video from the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General.

  Official reports state that Epstein died by suicide some time before 6:30 a.m., when his body was discovered by a corrections officer delivering his breakfast. No official time of death was ever determined. In recent months, there have been questions about the work of investigators probing the circumstances of his death.

  • "In recent months"

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• The EU's Secret Assault on Your Free Speech

• (Jan 2026) Effect of antivaccine tweets on Covid-19 vaccinations, cases, & deaths

  We find observational evidence that exposure to antivaccine content on Twitter caused about 14,000 people to refuse vaccination between February and August 2021 in the US, resulting in at least 545 additional cases and 8 additional deaths. This work provides a methodology for linking online speech with offline epidemic outcomes. Our findings should inform social media moderation policy as well as public health interventions.

Musk

• Starlink fuels SpaceX growth with potential phone, more internet services

• Tesla likely can't escape 'Blade Runner 2049' lawsuit

• Twitter is not real life

  even though ICE’s net favorability rating is at -26 percentage points with all voters, it’s almost break-even with people who get their news from Twitter. Compare that to other social media platforms like Reddit and TikTok, where over 70% of voters viewed the agency unfavorably.

  Musk’s interference with the algorithm has been well-documented, and the algorithm’s pro-Republican bias is evident to anyone who spends even a couple of minutes on the platform.

• Tesla bet big on Elon Musk. His politics continue to haunt it

  • Whereas the WaPo's politics have resulted in nothing but success?

• SpaceX Delays Mars Plans to Focus on Moon

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Volkswagen overtook Tesla as Europe's top EV seller in 2025

• Stellantis's Shift Away from Electric Cars Will Cost It $26B

• Ford shows off the tech going into its $30k electric pickup truck

• Waymo exec admits remote operators in Philippines help guide US robotaxis

  • Waymo Gets Grilled by Lawmakers over Chinese Cars and Overseas Workers

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• Humanoid robot Unitree G1 trudges through ice and snow at -47.4 °C

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• College Board Banning Students from Using Smart Glasses During SATs

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• China has seized Sony's television halo

• I Now Assume That All Ads on Apple News Are Scams

• 'Ripping' Clips for YouTube Reaction Videos Can Violate the DMCA, Court Rules

  • Californian Court Rules That Ripping YouTube Clips Can Violate the DMCA

• 'Depths of Wikipedia' Creator Annie Rauwerda on 'Fragile' Internet Citations

• Windows update is wreaking havoc on gaming rigs worldwide — Nvidia recommends uninstalling Windows 11 KB5074109

• Roblox forecasts strong annual bookings as gaming platform momentum grows

• DRAM prices to double in Q1 as AI ambitions push memory fabs to their limit

• Debian project leader warns of developers' silent withdrawal

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Honest and Elitist Thoughts on Why Computers Were More Fun Before

  It's simple but controversial: Computers were more fun when they weren't for everyone. There, I said it.

• A handful of wholesomely bad ads for 90s SPARC clones

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA had 3 years to fix fuel leaks on its Artemis moon rocket. Why are they still happening?

• Why it's so hard to fuel the Artemis rockets

• Scientists in Colorado prepare for Artemis II mission to space

• Congress advances bill requiring NASA to reconsider deorbiting space station

  • Stash or splash? NASA asked for ISS deorbit alternatives

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• ChatGPT sucks at being a real robot

• A new bill in New York would require disclaimers on AI-generated news content

• Alphabet could more than double its capex in 2026, unsettling investors

• Claude has been having a moment – can it keep it up?

• Accelerando, but Janky

  OpenClaw might be a blip, but right now it has spawned another Cambrian explosion of DIY agents, with everyone and their lobster creating minimal/more secure/tailored versions of it. If sandboxing was already high on everyone’s mind, the fact that people are actually giving API keys and “money” to a set of convoluted digital noodles running in a JavaScript runtime with administrative privileges drove everyone over the edge in various ways. In short, it’s the Wild West, and there are no stable, clear patterns emerging yet.

• Wall Street just lost $285 billion because of 13 markdown files - Martin Alderson

  The "SaaSpocalypse" began on the 3rd of February 2026 - with $285bn wiped off technology companies on the public markets. Reading into it, I was surprised to see mention of Anthropic launching a legal tool. I use Claude a lot, and I hadn't heard of it. A cursory web search didn't bring anything up. It turns out the "legal tool" in question is a collection of markdown files in the knowledge-work-plugin on GitHub. It's approximately 156KB - which means for every byte of markdown, nearly $1mn was wiped off SaaS company valuations.

• Big Tech's 'breathtaking' $660B spending spree reignites AI bubble fears

• Goldman Sachs using Anthropic AI to automate accounting and compliance

• Apple reportedly scales back plans for AI-powered health coach

• Welcome to the $600B AI era, where Big Tech is spending like it's a Gilded Age

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Crypto Takes a Deep Slide Despite Trump's Support

• Bitcoin gets a zero price target in wake of Burry warning

• $50 on war in Iran: How geopolitical bets have surged on Polymarket

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Y Combinator Reverses Decision to Stop Investing in Canada Firms

• The AI boom's surprising winners aren't even tech companies

  When investors don't understand tech bubbles, they buy soap bubbles instead.

• U.S. Dealers in Full Panic Mode After Canada Green-Lights Chinese Cars

• Toyota retains top auto crown in 2025 with record sales

• The age of a treacherous, falling dollar

• Amazon Stock Falls Sharply on Earnings. Spending Continues to Soar

  • Amazon joins Big Tech AI spending spree

  • Amazon expects capex to hit $200B in 2026

  • Amazon Falls After Vowing to Spend $200B on AI This Year

  • Amazon plunge continues $1T wipeout as AI bubble fears ignite sell-off

  • Amazon Shares Sink as Company Boosts AI Spending by Nearly 60%

  • Amazon shares sink as it prepares $200B AI spending blitz

• AI fears pummel software stocks

• The Software Rout Is Spreading Pain to the Debt Markets

• U.S. Automakers' Foreign Troubles Now Extend to Canada

• Pizza Hut is closing hundreds of locations - ABC30 Fresno

  Yum! Brands, which also owns Taco Bell and KFC, revealed in Wednesday's earnings call that 250 "underperforming" Pizza Huts are closing in the first half of this year, which amounts to roughly 3% of its US footprint. A specific list of locations wasn't released.

• US job market posted the weakest growth outside of a recession since 2003

  • would this not be an unbroken continuation of the "longest economic recovery ever?"

• Nvidia rises 7% as Jensen Huang says $660B capex buildout is sustainable

• Dow surges 1,200 points for first close above 50,000 in sharp rebound from tech rout

  • The Road to Dow 50000 Was Perilous. What's Next Could Be Rockier

• Hobbit-Inspired Startup Becomes First New Bank Greenlighted by Trump 2.0

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• CIA World Factbook Ends Publication After 6 Decades

• The $921M Special Interest Machine That Controls California

  The California Policy Center’s analysis lays it bare: California’s public sector unions collected $921 million in 2018 alone. That’s not campaign contributions—that’s annual revenue. The prize they’re protecting? According to Govern For California, state and local governments spend $240 billion per year on public employee compensation and benefits.

• CISA gives federal agencies one year to rip out end-of-life devices

• Los Angeles Democrat Mayor Karen Bass COVERED UP part of report into Pacific Palisades fire over fears it would lead to lawsuits, sources claim.

• US spy chief’s office investigated voting machines in Puerto Rico.

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

• Nashville is furious about power outages. Republicans say ‘woke’ is to blame.

  The finger-pointing escalated this week as some Republicans argued that a major utility company run by Democratic appointees has “woke” policies on diversity and tree-trimming that are the causes of customers’ woes. There’s bipartisan and widespread consensus that Nashville Electric Service, which serves the city as well as surrounding counties, mishandled the storm, struggling to mobilize enough workers and equipment to quickly clear fallen trees and restore service. Roughly 6,000 customers still don’t have power 11 days after the storm. Amid communication snafus, some residents were incorrectly told their lights were back on.

  • The certainly had more trouble than neighboring counties; while having more resources and less vulnerable infrastructure.

Trump

• Pam Bondi's DOJ Is Sabotaging The Trump Coalition | ZeroHedge

• How Trump’s MAHA movement unexpectedly took a bite out of food price inflation.

• White House launches direct-to-consumer drug site TrumpRx

Democrats

• Rep Rashida Tlaib faces terrorist ties allegations in new report

  "The conduct of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, including her rhetoric, affiliations, campaign infrastructure, and ideological alignment with certain individuals and organizations, raises serious concerns about potential risks to the ethical and institutional integrity of the United States government," the report, released by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy’s advocacy and policy-oriented arm, states.

• ‘Comeback Kid’ no more: Dems aren’t protecting the Clintons from Epstein scrutiny - POLITICO

  Bill and Hillary Clinton are in House Republicans’ crosshairs — and the Democratic Party they once led isn’t coming to the rescue. A youthful vanguard of progressive office-holders unlikely to even recall the Clinton presidency, let alone defend the former president’s foibles, have largely opted against defending the once formidable pair, even as many regard the GOP effort to compel their testimony blatantly hypocritical and politically driven. Last week, in fact, nine Democratic lawmakers joined Republicans and voted in favor of holding the two-term president in contempt for defying a subpoena to testify as part of the panel’s investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Just three broke ranks on a similar vote against the former secretary of State.

  “I think it has less to do with Bill and Hillary Clinton themselves and their legacy, and more to do with the way that the party has shifted itself over the last 20 years,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost, (D-Fla.), who was among the Democrats who voted to hold the former president in contempt and is, at 28, the youngest member of Congress. “We want to be more aggressive and find the truth, and it’s less about allegiances to, you know, individuals, and more about what’s best for our party and what’s best for this country.”

  • DC Democrats Turn Their Backs on the Clintons: 'They Bring Nothing But Baggage'

Left Angst

• Incarcerated activists from Oscar-nominated documentary sent to solitary

  “The transfer of inmates is based on intelligence that they are engaged in activity that is detrimental to the safety and security of the facilities and the public,” prison officials said in an statement emailed by a spokesperson, Kelly Betts. The moves come as some have pushed for a new prison labor strike this year similar to one in 2022 that drew national attention.

• Homeland Security is trying to force tech to hand over data about Trump critics

• Trump administration to end job protections for up to 50k federal workers

  • Federal Rule Removes Civil Service Protections for High-Ranking Career Employees

  • Trump admin issues new rule, making it easier to fire 50,000 federal workers.

• ICE and CBP's Face-Recognition App Can't Verify Who People Are

• US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

  As of a couple years ago, Americans' ignorance of their own immigration system was merely frustrating, as I encountered both squishy liberals and xenophobic conservatives talking about undocumented immigrants and insisting that they should "just follow the rules." But today, as murderous ICE squads patrol our streets kidnapping people and sending them to concentration camps where they are beaten to death or deported to offshore slave labor prisons, the issue has gone from frustrating to terrifying and enraging. Let's be clear: I played the US immigration game on the easiest level. I am relatively affluent – rich enough to afford fancy immigration lawyers with offices on four continents – and I am a native English speaker. This made the immigration system ten thousand times (at a minimum) easier for me than it is for most US immigrants.

  • This is the first "change the Laws" advocacy I have seen from the Left on this issue this year. The rest want laws unenforced until they find it more convenient.

• Trump says will revoke church tax exempt status if leaders don't comply with him

• Why Cops Frequently Got Caught Planting Drugs in 2017

• THP has just released dashcam footage after a TN legislator claimed a person was "run over" by a state trooper during an anti-ICE protest.

  "The video shows two men, including presumably the person the legislator identified, running into the cruiser on their own accord."

  • 1,600 students in that school: Tennessee students protest ICE in walkout, rally

  Around 125 Brentwood High School students walked out of class on Feb. 4 to protest ongoing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, operations nationwide, some of which have turned deadly.

• Jeff Bezos Just Taught Liberal Elites How Oligarchy Works

• Trump shares video with racist clip depicting Obamas as apes

  • Republicans condemn Trump's racist video portraying the Obamas as apes

• US Government to fund Maga-aligned think-tanks and charities in Europe

  • Wasn't foreign aid spending really super important a few months ago? but now its bad?

• Team GB skier urinates ‘F— ICE’ in snow at Winter Olympics

• Let's stop giving that money away, period: Grant Guidelines for Libraries and Museums Take "Chilling" Political Turn

• Elon Musk Will Be Deposed over What He Did with DOGE

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Truck driver allegedly behind fatal Indiana crash is in ICE custody

  The driver of a semi-truck at the center of a multi-vehicle crash that left four dead in Indiana is in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody after a detainer was placed on him. Indiana State Police said the fatal crash happened Tuesday around 4 p.m. in the area of State Road 67 and County Road 550 East in Jay County, where the truck collided with a van. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Fox News that driver Bekzhan Beishekeev is a Kyrgyzstani national who entered the U.S. via the Biden-era CBP One cell phone app on Dec. 19, 2024, at the Nogales, Ariz., port of entry, and he was released into the U.S. via parole by the Biden administration.

• Tennessee Appeals Court Rejects Argument That Covenant Shooter Manifesto Must Remain Concealed to Avoid Copycats.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Possibility of US selling Australia nuclear submarines is increasingly remote

• US Army looks for robots that can clean up chemical and bioweapons messes

• US Accuses China of Secret Nuclear Explosive Tests

  • China Testing Nuclear Weapons and Covering Its Tracks, U.S. Alleges

• U.S. asks American citizens to 'leave Iran now'

World

• 'The EU runs on Microsoft' – and Uncle Sam could turn it off

• Cubans rendered powerless as outages persist and tensions with US escalate

• TikTok's 'Addictive Design' Found to Be Illegal in Europe

  • TikTok hit with charges by EU for its addictive features

  • EC preliminarily finds TikTok's addictive design is Digital Services Act breach

  • TikTok told to change 'addictive design' by EU or face fines

• Canada Warms Up to EVs from China

• Macau's Grand Emperor hotel rips up lobby floor to sell off gold bricks

• Pakistan to test students real-world skills before they graduate from IT degrees

• Japan cherry blossom festival cancelled because of unruly tourist 'crisis'

• Takaichi's Long Trip from Heavy-Metal Drummer to Japan's Political Heavyweight

• Overseas transfer of map data could cost Korea up to $136B, study warns

• Sainsbury's staff using facial recognition tech eject innocent shopper

• The Sci-Fi Quants Dominating Europe's Most Volatile Power Market

• The Globalization of Canadian Rage

• She's upending Japanese politics with two words: "I'm pregnant"

• Pilot mistakenly attempted to take off from a taxiway at Brussels Airport

Greenland

• Europeans have made concessions to US over Greenland, JD Vance says

Iran / Houthi

• Iranian regime propaganda floods Wikipedia

• Iran seizes oil tankers, threatens 'massacre' in Strait of Hormuz, hours before US talks

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Starlink Blocks Russian Troops' Internet Access, at Ukraine's Request

• The Russian offensive is slowing after Musk blocks Starlink access, says Ukraine

• Russian general Vladimir Alekseyev shot several times in Moscow

• The Russian economy is finally stagnating. What does it mean for the war?

• The Assault on Ukraine's Power Grid

China

• First 'practical PhDs' awarded in China – for products rather than papers

• China's space aircraft carrier: superweapon or propaganda?

• When Bad UI Design Kills: China Bans Flush Car Door Handles

• We had sex in a Chinese hotel, then found we had been broadcast to thousands

• France places two Chinese nationals under investigation for spying - France 24

• I drove three Chinese cars – here's why they would clean up in the US

• China is about to launch their own space shuttle capable of returning to Earth

Health / Medicine

• ADHD became a multimillion-pound industry for private equity

• Statin pills much safer than advertised, major review finds

  • Most statin side-effects not caused by the drugs, study finds

• 'Prevent cancer before it starts': New WHO study maps risks

• We have an anti-aging vaccine. Why aren't more people getting it?

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Marine biologists discover 28 new deep sea species–and an old VHS tape

• Millions of Litres of untreated sewage flow into the sea in New Zealand

• Contaminated: The Carpet Industry's Toxic Legacy

• Missouri Senate considers bills to halt solar development on farmland

• Structures Within the Earth Have Altered Magnetic Field for Millions of Years

• Seas to Rise Around the World – But Not in Greenland

• New critique debunks claim that trees can sense a solar eclipse

• Microplastics studies–here's what's solid science and what isn't

• Covid-19 cleared the skies but also supercharged methane emissions