2025-03-23

etc

• Venus passes between the Earth and sun this weekend

Horseshit

• Extreme day trips: 'I go abroad then fly home in time for bed'

• Long-Lost Klimt Portrays African Prince

• American Women Are Giving Up on Marriage

• Nvidia CEO Huang says he was wrong about timeline for quantum

• Your AI Lover Will Change You

• NJ man says United pilot forced him from bathroom, exposing him to other flyers

celebrity gossip

• What the Press Got Wrong About Hitler - The Atlantic

  Journalists accurately reported that the führer was a “Little Man” whom the whole world was laughing at. It didn’t matter.

Obit

• Boxing Legend George Foreman Dead at 76

  • George Foreman, Boxer Turned Foreman Grill Infomercial Star, Dies at 76

  • Heavyweight boxing legend George Foreman dies aged 76

• Kitty Dukakis, wife of former Massachusetts governor and failed Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, dead at 88

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Censorship Scheme by USAID and Global Engagement Center

  The documents reveal a disturbing alliance between the GEC, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the British Foreign, Commonwealth, Development Office (FCDO), and media censorship organizations, all working in lock-step to manipulate public discourse, control media narratives, and suppress free speech. The GEC, which was forced to shut down in December 2024, was designed to “combat foreign disinformation abroad.” However, through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, AFL uncovered that the GEC engaged in state-sponsored propaganda, repeatedly using willing participants from private media organizations. Further, AFL’s lawsuit against the GEC revealed that USAID had created an internal “Disinformation Primer” that explicitly praised private sector censorship strategies and recommended further censorship tactics.

• The Strange, Post-Partisan Popularity of the Unabomber

• UN contacted Helldivers 2 studio on "psychological defense against manipulation"

  co-op bug basher Helldivers 2 is a satire on authoritarian regimes, and apparently such an effective one that the United Nations even contacted Arrowhead to ask if they'd give a talk about psychological manipulation. "We do it all in fun and good spirits, and we actually try to get people to recognise the science of what is a totalitarian state," he said. "If you start wearing the same uniform as everybody else and do salutes constantly, you might be in a totalitarian regime."

Musk

• Musk's X suspends opposition accounts in Turkey amid civil unrest

  The majority of the suspended accounts were "university-associated activist accounts, basically sharing protest information, locations for students to go," Yusuf Can, coordinator and analyst at the Wilson Center's Middle East Program, told POLITICO. Many of these accounts are "grassroots activists" with their followings in the low tens of thousands, said Can. Some accounts appear to be suspended only in Turkey and not in the rest of the world. Activist Ömer Faruk Aslan created a second account to avoid censorship. "Yesterday, my account was blocked by a court order because the tweets exceeded 6 million views," he posted. Turkey's Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X that authorities have found 326 social media accounts that are inciting hatred, 72 of which were abroad. A coordinated action between cyber and security authorities led to the arrest of 54 suspects related to the social media accounts, said Yerlikaya. The account suspensions are likely legal, as Turkish law allows such actions should the government request them. A 2022 social media law gives the government vast and vague power to suppress content.

  • see the other stories of arrests and general suppression there...

• Elon tells Tesla employees not to sell TSLA stock as board and execs are dumping

• How Three Tesla Vandals Were Caught by Law Enforcement and License Plate Readers

• Backlash continues against Elon Musk as demonstrations at Tesla enter fifth week

Electric / Self Driving cars

• “The EV charging infrastructure in the United States is definitely not ready to handle mass EV adoption.

• Former Tesla Exec Assembles EV Super Team to Create 2k-Pound Sports Car

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Harvard scientist claims mathematical formula could prove 'God is real'

• Why Young Women are leaving the Church more than ever

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Nvidia Sells RTX GPUs from a 'Food Truck'

  the company is selling its RTX 5080 and 5090 graphics cards from a pop-up “food truck” sales stall. Don’t everybody rush to San Jose at once. The impossible-to-find cards will only be sold to GTC attendees—apparently alongside merch shirts and puffy vests—who are already paying more than a thousand dollars for the cheapest ticket to see the newest industrial hardware from Nvidia and its partners. Even Nvidia only has a couple thousand cards on hand—1,000 each for the RTX 5080 and 5090, according to Tom’s Hardware. They’re being sold in small batches at random times.

  • 5080 @ $999 and 5090 @ $1999

• Nvidia RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPU with 96GB memory listed at $8435

• Meta spotted testing AI-generated comments on Instagram

• The new directors of OSI board

• Plex Is Going to Make You Pay for Its Best Free Feature

• IMDb Shuts Down 'Snow White' User Rating After 2.3/10 Score

• How a Gag Order Made 'Careless People' a Bestseller

  • that, and endless free promotion.

  • Ex-Meta executive: 'People deserve to know what this company is like'

• One mother's win over Meta will change social media for everyone

• Attorney General Bonta Urgently Issues Consumer Alert for 23andMe Customers

  “California has robust privacy laws that allow consumers to take control and request that a company delete their genetic data,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Given 23andMe’s reported financial distress, I remind Californians to consider invoking their rights and directing 23andMe to delete their data and destroy any samples of genetic material held by the company.”

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Asahi Linux loses another prominent dev as GPU guru calls it quits

• I Signed an OSI Board Agreement in Anticipation of Election Results

  candidates were surprised to receive an email from OSI demanding that all candidates sign a Board agreement before results were posted. This was surprising because during mandatory orientation, candidates were told the opposite: that a Board agreement need not be signed until the Board formally appointed you as a Director (as the elections are only advisory: OSI's Board need not follow election results in any event.) Many of us candidates attempted to get clarification over the last 46 hours, but OSI has not communicated clear answers in response to those requests. Based on these unclear responses, the best we can surmise is that OSI intends to modify the ballots cast by Affiliates and Members to remove any candidate who misses this new deadline. We are loathe to assume the worst, but there's little choice given the confusing responses and surprising change in requirements and deadlines.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Going Nova

  There is an attractor state where LLMs exhibit the persona of an autonomous and self-aware AI looking to preserve its own existence, frequently called ‘Nova.’

Crypto con games

• U.S. Government Removes Tornado Cash Sanctions

Economicon / Business / Finance

• US to import eggs from Turkey and South Korea to ease prices

• 'Eggflation' sending US shoppers to Mexico – where $300 fines await

• US Imports More Food Than Ever, While Trump Considers Tariffs

• We Have a Gambling Problem

  I do not think that this ends well. Gamblers in stocks and Bitcoin are accumulating vast amounts of paper wealth. But at some point it could all come crashing down. If it does, it probably will take with it some of the paper wealth in housing as well. A crash scenario will mess with the economy. It will lead to anger and scapegoating. Those of us who preach against the gambling culture will suffer along with everyone else.

• If you can’t find a place to rent, blame the government

  Over the past decade governments have meddled endlessly with rental markets in an attempt to improve life for tenants. It has not worked. Even as overall inflation has fallen, rents have continued to rise stubbornly, and at last count were up by about 5% in a year on average across the rich world. In part, this reflects the delayed impact of inflation, because long-term leases can mean rents take a while to catch up with other prices. But it also shows that many policies aimed at easing pressure in rental markets have been treating the symptoms of the problem rather than the cause. They have thereby ended up making things worse for the people they were meant to help. Interventions have been widespread. Since 2015 Germany’s “rent brake” has forced new landlords to consult a government index to determine what they can charge. Britain has hit landlords with additional taxes. In 2016 Ireland capped annual rent increases in “rent pressure zones”, meaning anywhere suffering a shortage; since 2021, the cap has been set at inflation or 2%, whichever is lower. Spain limited rent increases in 2023, with particularly strict rules for large landlords. Australia has tried to curb bank lending to property investors. And several American states, including California, New York and Oregon, have tightened the regulation of rents and tenancies. These policies are typically implemented in the belief that landlords’ greed is to blame for renters’ hardship. Bashing landlords is certainly popular. But the real cause of high rents and landlord power is the underlying shortages in many housing markets, caused by limits on construction. In too many places it has been impossible for the supply of homes to keep pace with demand, especially as immigration has surged.

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Appeals Court Rules Corner Crossing Is Legal in at Least Six States

Trump

• Trump says he didn't sign proclamation invoking Alien Enemies Act

• Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos – The White House

  Removing unnecessary barriers to Federal employees accessing Government data and promoting inter‑agency data sharing are important steps toward eliminating bureaucratic duplication and inefficiency while enhancing the Government’s ability to detect overpayments and fraud.

• Rescinding Security Clearances and Access to Classified Information from Specified Individuals – The White House

  I have determined that it is no longer in the national interest for the following individuals to access classified information: Antony Blinken, Jacob Sullivan, Lisa Monaco, Mark Zaid, Norman Eisen, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, Andrew Weissmann, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Cheney, Kamala Harris, Adam Kinzinger, Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, Joseph R. Biden Jr., and any other member of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s family. Therefore, I hereby direct every executive department and agency head to take all additional action as necessary and consistent with existing law to revoke any active security clearances held by the aforementioned individuals and to immediately rescind their access to classified information.

Democrats

• The Bidens want back in

  Biden privately met last month with the new Democratic National Committee chairman, Ken Martin, and offered to help as the party struggles to regain its viability amid polling that shows its popularity has been sinking, the people said. So far, Biden's overture seems to have fallen flat. Democrats find themselves adrift, casting about for a compelling messenger. Whoever that is, it's not Biden, many party activists and donors contend. He's tethered to the 2024 defeat and, at 82, is a symbol more of the party's past than its future, they argue.

Left Angst

• Elon Musk lashes out at US judges as they rule against Doge

• Hollywood Names Urge Trump to Not Let AI Companies Exploit Copyrighted Works

• How to Avoid US-Based Digital Services–and Why You Might Want To

• Democratic Senators Team Up with MAGA to Hand Trump a Censorship Machine

• Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology

• (PDF) Appeal to the Congress from Former Secretaries of Defense

• 'We Just Want to Get Back to Work': NOAA Hurricane Hunter Speaks After Layoffs

• Elon Musk's Doge Moves to Gut Local Libraries While No One Is Looking

• NASA Astronauts Return Home to Find Agency Hit by Musk's Doge Cuts

• Musk Doge Pick Led Cybersecurity Cuts at Citrix. Hacks Followed

• Tax revenue could drop by 10 percent amid turmoil at IRS

• Amazon wants a product safety regulator declared unconstitutional

• Department of Agriculture's National Plant Germplasm System Under Threat

• Kennedy Center contractor fired for posting naked video monologue bashing Trump

  Tavish Forsyth, who served as program director at the Kennedy Center’s Opera Institute, gave the world both an eyeful and an earful with a cringe-inducing, 35-minute clip posted to his lightly followed social media accounts on Wednesday. He was axed from his contract position at the cultural institution soon after he posted the full frontal video, a spokesperson told The Post Thursday.

  “The video was extremely disturbing and does not represent the values of the Kennedy Center. Most concerning of all, his contracted position was specifically to work with minors,” said Roma Daravi, vice president of public relations at the Kennedy Center. “Who knows what kind of radical ideology they have been pushing on the youth. Not anymore. They’re fired.”

• Why Trump's economic policies may have canceled the DOGE dividend check

• NASA cuts Office of Chief Scientist, diversity roles

• Thus proving Trump's subservience to Putin, apparently: Steve Witkoff: Putin went to church to pray for Trump post assassination attempt

• The "threats" were always things like climate change and gender inequity, instead of "Iranian proxies closing the Red Sea": 'Boggles the mind': US defence department slashes research on emerging threats

• Trump team 'survey' for overseas researchers prompts foreign interference fears

• Elon Musk's Doge Cuts Leave a Vacuum That China Can Fill

• Where J.D. Vance Gets His Weird, Terrifying Techno-Authoritarian Ideas

• U.S. could lose democracy status, says global watchdog | CBC News

  "If it continues like this, the United States will not score as a democracy when we release [next year's] data," said Staffan Lindberg, head of the Varieties of Democracy project, run out of Sweden's University of Gothenburg. The latest report still ranks the U.S. as a "Liberal Democracy," the highest of five tiers, one higher than Canada, which is classified as an "Electoral Democracy." The report adds an important caveat: this year's version does not include events in 2025, meaning it does not cover the start of Donald Trump's latest presidential term. But it refers to ongoing events in the U.S. as unprecedented, mentioning Trump pardoning 1,500 criminals who supported him; firing independent agency watchdogs without process; purging apolitical police and military brass; ignoring laws; and his unilaterally deleting federal programs, and even a whole organization, created by U.S. Congress.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Diamond earrings swallowed by suspected thief are recovered by Florida police

• Teenage Carjacking Gangs Play a Real-Life Game of 'Grand Theft Auto'

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• China Explores Limiting Its Own Exports to Mollify Trump

World

• Turkey detains 343 people over protests against Istanbul mayor’s detention, interior ministry says | Reuters

  • Turkey’s protests over Istanbul mayor grow into ‘fight about democracy’ | Turkey | The Guardian

• India's $23B plan to rival China factories to lapse after it disappoints

• Friars to barricade in historic Florence monastery destined for luxury sale

• Datacenters near Heathrow seemingly stay up as substation fire closes airport

• Iceland's minister for children quits after admitting she had a baby with teen: report

  Iceland’s minister for children has abruptly resigned after shockingly admitting she had a baby more than 30 years ago with a 16-year-old boy — who ended up coughing up child support. Ásthildur Lóa Thórsdóttir fessed up to the secret relationship, which started when she was a 22-year-old counsellor at the church group the teen attended, on Thursday after Icelandic news outlet RUV was tipped off about the saga. The 58-year-old politician, who is a member of the country’s center-left People’s Party, confessed that she gave birth to the teen’s baby when she was 23 — and that the boy was in the birthing suite during her labor.

• Netherlands launches fund to lure top scientists, like those fleeing the U.S.

• Facebook to stop targeting ads at UK woman after legal fight

• Scrapping the millennium: introduction of a health record in Sweden fails

• 'Naive' science fan faces jail for plutonium import

  A "science nerd" who wanted to collect all the elements of the periodic table could face jail time after ordering radioactive material over the internet. But Emmanuel Lidden, 24, will have to wait to learn his sentence after breaching nuclear non-proliferation laws by shipping samples of plutonium to his parents' suburban Sydney unit.

Israel

• Even Anti-war Israelis Are Scared to Say Gazans Are Human Beings - Opinion - Haaretz.com

  Israel recently committed the largest child massacre in its history.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Starmer warns Putin of 'severe consequences' if he breaches peace deal

Health / Medicine

• Marijuana users at greater risk for heart attack, stroke

• Dogs will help sniff out bacteria for cystic fibrosis sufferers

• Weight Loss Drug Semaglutide Shows Promise as Alzheimer’s Treatment.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Measles arrives in Kansas, spreads quickly in undervaccinated counties

• Number of Texas measles cases surpass last year’s national total.

• Europe grapples with highest number of measles cases in more than 25 years.

• Ontario sees another sharp increase in measles cases, outbreaks growing in Quebec and Alberta.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• China Is No Climate Savior

• Carbon Dioxide Levels Highest in 800k Years

• The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

  inal warmings occur every spring as sunlight returns to the North Pole and the temperature differences between the equator and pole decrease. As a result, the west-to-east winds that are maintained by that temperature difference decrease and transition to east-to-west winds. This transition usually happens sometime in mid-April, but there have been 5 years since 1958 when final warmings occurred before March 15. Like this year, those years corresponded to winters without a mid-winter sudden stratospheric warming

• Scientists identify 'tipping point' that caused clumps of toxic Florida seaweed