2026-01-29

Horseshit

• Being married can do that too: Being Single in Your Late 20s May Take a Toll on Mental Well-Being.

• Life on Peptides Feels Amazing

• Could You Survive the Black Death, the Sack of Rome and Other Catastrophes?

• Teenagers rescue adults in trainers and jeans from Helvellyn

• The novelist who took on the Italian mafia – and lived to tell the tale

• Midair collision near Washington DC followed years of ignored warnings

• Coffee pods urgently recalled over health risk posed to 120M Americans

  Decaf coffee pods have been recalled because they may actually contain caffeine, health authorities have warned. Keurig Dr Pepper has issued a voluntary recall over its McCafé coffee pods, the FDA announced this week. This includes 960 cartons containing 84 pods each, with UPC 043000073438. Affected products were distributed by Keurig Green Mountain and sold in California, Indiana and Nevada.

• Why are we still so afraid of using the grumpy old period?

• Want to Reach Nirvana? Try a Colonoscopy. - The New York Times

  I am not recommending colonoscopies solely for health reasons — to screen for cancer or Crohn’s disease or the other secret slimy dangers that might be lurking in your guts. That is extremely important, obviously, and it is the reason you will make the appointment. But it is not the reason to love your colonoscopy. You don’t go on a religious pilgrimage to fulfill the step goal on your Fitbit; you don’t listen to Bach fugues because their clockwork precision might make you better at algebra. You do it for the joy of the experience itself — because it makes you feel human and alive. This is also why we get a colonoscopy.

• How to get power naps right

• Celibacy taught me I'm too clever to find love

• From bones to steel: Why ice skates were a terrible idea that worked

• The Problem with Secondhand Clothing

• How one startup is using probiotics to try and ease the copper shortage

celebrity gossip

• Terry Pratchett’s novels may have held clues to his dementia a decade before diagnosis, our new study suggests

  Across Pratchett’s later novels, there was a clear and statistically significant decline in the diversity of adjectives he used. The richness of descriptive language gradually narrowed. This was not something a reader would necessarily notice, nor did it reflect a sudden deterioration in quality. Instead, it was a subtle, progressive change detectable only through detailed linguistic analysis. Crucially, the first significant drop appeared in The Last Continent, published almost ten years before Pratchett received his formal diagnosis. This suggests that the “preclinical phase” of dementia — the period during which disease-related changes are already occurring in the brain — may have begun many years earlier, without obvious outward symptoms.

  • Pratchett fans were aware at the time, but likely to put it down to fame and greed: Why put months into a book when the first draft will sell as well? The later Vimes stories, especially, are repetitive and lost much of the joy that earlier works had.

• Haley Baylee begs judge to toss ex-husband Matt Kalil's lawsuit over penis comments

  “Plaintiff’s complaint seeks to hold a woman in the public eye civilly liable for providing a truthful, autobiographical account of sexual trauma she suffered and described as having led to the end of a highly publicized celebrity marriage with an NFL football star,” the court papers read. “Deadass … for our whole marriage, deadass,” Baylee added. “But I was going to try it all. We tried it all: therapist, doctors. Not even lying … Looked up lipo-type s–t … That’s why it’s kinda funny. It’s like my life is a comedy, and it kinda writes itself. That was the biggest factor.” The model compared Kalil’s penis size to “two Coke cans stacked on top of each other, maybe even a third.” She ended, “We’ve tried, impossible unless you’re going to be in tears.”

  • "Is it bigger than a baby's arm?"

Obit

• Peter H. Duesberg, 89, Renowned Biologist Turned HIV Denialist, Dies

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• TikTok blocks Epstein mentions and anti-Trump videos, users claim

  • American horror story: Early issues for TikTok US

  • Oracle says data center outage causing issues faced by US TikTok users

  • TikTok allegedly blocks 'Epstein' in DMs after sale to GOP-linked investors

• Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds to midnight amid threats from climate crisis and AI

  • It is 85 seconds to midnight

  • Who Sets the Doomsday Clock?

• Crash Clock Measures Dangerous Overcrowding in Low Earth Orbit

  • Low-Earth orbit is just 2.8 days from disaster

• Bellingcat supplements local news coverage with forensic analysis in U.S. cities

• Can We Protect Science?

  It was a burning question at the World Economic Forum last week

Musk

• Tesla lands major Semi charging deal with nation's largest truck stop operator

• Chinese Dissident Sues X for Wrongful Account Suspension and Foreign Pressure

• A Small Swiss City Could Help Regulators Avoid the Next Grok Scandal

• SpaceX weighs June IPO timed to planetary alignment and Elon Musk's birthday

• Payment processors were against CSAM until Grok started making it

  • For These Women, Grok's Sexualized Images Are Personal

• The ones that these folks reported never existed: Tesla's unsupervised robotaxis vanish after earnings announcement

• Tesla discontinuing Model S and Model X to make room for robots

  • Tesla ending Models S and X production

• Tesla Profit Slumps, but Investors May Not Care

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Uber launches an 'AV Labs' division to gather driving data for robotaxi partners

• The Peter Pan Economy: Waymo and the Market Distortion of Infinite Runway

  The initial models assumed we would ride in lightweight, two-person pods like the Google Firefly costing $10K, but the industry moved towards crash-rated $100,000 Jaguar EVs. The optimists applied Moore’s Law to Wright’s Law problems. They assumed Lidar and batteries would get cheaper simply by waiting a few years (Time), but physical goods only get cheaper if you manufacture millions of them (Volume). Furthermore, algorithmic efficiency wasn’t able to defeat the cost of deadheading, leaving Waymos driving around empty nearly half the time in order to reposition or pick up passengers.

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• Bill Gates wants to tax the robots

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Pope Leo makes plea for men to stop talking to fake online girlfriends

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Yale to offer free tuition to families with incomes below $200k

• The Online SAT Was Supposed to Avert Cheating. People Are Trying Anyway.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• WhatsApp may soon require paid subscription for ad-free experience

• Lawsuit Claims Meta Can See WhatsApp Chats in Breach of Privacy

• Samsung May Raise iPhone RAM Prices by 80% QoQ; SK Hynix Reportedly Near 100%

• Memory prices may be leveling off - at four times what they were just a few months ago.

• Costco removing RAM from display units

• Amazon One palm authentication services ending June 3, 2026

• Google pays $68M to settle claims its voice assistant spied on users

  Google did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement of the class-action case, which accused the firm of “unlawful and intentional interception and recording of individuals’ confidential communications without their consent and subsequent unauthorized disclosure of those communications to third parties.” The suit further claimed that “information gleaned from these recordings was wrongly transmitted to third parties for targeted advertising and for other purposes.”

  • Google to pay $68M over allegations its voice assistant eavesdropped on users

  • Google settles for $68M after lawsuit claimed it recorded users

  • Google will settle its Assistant spying lawsuit for $68M

• Google's desktop version of Android looks to be real.

• Eww: App leaks users' masturbation habits

• Why wired headphones are swinging back into style

• Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

  People often say Linux is "too much work.". And I agree. They're completely justified to complain. There's the documentation page diving, the forums, the reddit threads. And, most importantly, you have to basically rewire your brain and stop expecting it to behave like Windows used to. But I looked at the list above and realized: Windows is now also too much work. And the difference with Windows is that you're going to do all that work while actively fighting your computer only for it to be undone when the next surprise update comes and ruins everything.

• Social media addiction trials unsealed docs show platforms designed to hook kids

• 'It's not too late to fix it'

• US tobacco brands bypass Instagram rules restricting youth access to content

• Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee says he is in a battle for the soul of the internet

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• AI Kind of Sucks at Retouching, Study Says

• SoftBank in Talks to Invest Up to $30B More in OpenAI

• Meta-Corning $6B fiber deal signals a new bottleneck in AI infrastructure

• Clawdbot inventor: "I can barely buy a Mac Mini from the Sponsors"

• A tech company's secretive plan to destroy books

  • Inside an AI startup's plan to scan and dispose of millions of books

• No Copyrights for AI Works, US Government Tells Supreme Court

• How the AI Labor Displacement Tsunami Could Wipe Out the Economy

• Wake up to the risks of AI, they are almost here

• People Hate Data Centers, So the Industry Is Spending Millions to Rebrand Them

• AI is booming. Tech jobs in San Francisco are not

• America's coming war over AI regulation

• Continued influence of AI-generated deepfake vids despite transparency warnings

• Will AIs Take All Our Jobs and End Human History–Or Not?

• AI Chatbots Undermining the Enlightenment

• Students using “humanizer” programs to beat accusations of cheating with AI

• Apple plans to launch AI-powered wearable pin device as soon as 2027

• AI Was Supposed to Revolutionize Work. In Many Offices, It's Only Creating Chaos

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA's WB-57 crash lands at Houston

• Japan lost a 5-ton navigation satellite when it fell off a rocket during launch

• Astronomers used AI to find 1,400 'anomalous objects' from Hubble archives

• Amazon's 180 internet satellites are too bright. It wants 3k more

• Artemis II–first manned moon mission in 52 years–could launch as early as Feb 6

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Amazon is laying off 16,000 employees

  • Amazon laying off about 16,000 corporate workers in latest anti-bureaucracy push

  • Amazon to Lay Off Around 16,000 Corporate Employees

  • Amazon to cut 16,000 jobs globally to streamline operations

  • Amazon to Cut 16,000 Jobs in Latest Round of Layoffs

  • Amazon reveals fresh round of global job cuts in email sent in error to workers

  • Amazon accidentally sends email confirming layoffs

  • Amazon bungles Wednesday layoff plan with misfired internal email

  • Amazon inadvertently announces cloud unit layoffs in email to employees

  • Amazon to Cut 16,000 Corporate Positions

  • Amazon axes 16,000 jobs as it pushes AI and efficiency

  • Internal messages reveal which teams, jobs affected in Amazon layoffs

• Amazon's latest pivot: Bye-bye, automated grocery stores

• GM is quietly becoming a subscriptions company

• General Motors' core profit rises on higher demand for SUVs, pickup trucks

• Trump's Embrace of Weaker Dollar Fuels Bets on New Downtrend

• Big Tech's borrowing spree raises fears of AI risks in US bond market

• UPS retires its fleet of MD-11 cargo aircraft

• UPS will cut 30K more jobs after 2025 layoffs as it unwinds Amazon partnership

• Nvidia Overtakes Apple as TSMC's Biggest Customer

• Boeing’s quarterly sales jump 57% as CEO says there’s ‘a lot to be optimistic about.’

• Despite AI chip boom and record high stock price, ASML to lay off employees

• What Is David Ellison's Warner Bros. Endgame?

• General Fusion Agrees to Go Public via $1B SPAC Deal

• S&P 500 tops 7k for first time

• Fed maintains 3.5 – 3.75% rate

• Starbucks scraps $250k cap on boss's use of company jet

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• New high of 45% in US identify as political independents

• Minnesota's Rent-Control Strategy Is Becoming a Cautionary Tale

• Mail carrier suspended after Facebook post about winter storm safety concerns

  A Greater Cincinnati mail carrier said he was suspended from his job without pay amid an internal investigation after he expressed safety concerns about the winter storm on social media. “I left extra early, it took me 45 minutes, usually takes 20. Roads were snow-covered and dangerous,” he recalled. But when he arrived at work, he said he found the USPS trucks buried in snow and no packages to deliver. “Our parking lot was poorly plowed. All the plowing was covering all the postal trucks, kind of burying them,” he said. USPS carriers are typically expected to clean off their own trucks, he added. Thompson expressed his frustrations with the system in a Facebook post about winter safety. USPS contacted him shortly after and told him to “‘take it down,’” he said, “or there could be repercussions.”

• FBI searches election hub in Fulton County, Georgia

  FBI agents were seen Wednesday carrying out a search at an election hub in Fulton County, Georgia, a location that became ground zero for concerns and complaints about voter fraud beginning in 2020. Agents were seen entering the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, a new facility that state officials opened in 2023 that was designed to streamline their election processes. It was not immediately clear what the FBI agents were investigating, but Fox News Digital is told the probe is related to the 2020 election.

Democrats

• Here’s Why Many Say the Ilhan Omar Assault Was Staged

  on Tuesday evening, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was attacked during her first in-person town hall of 2026 in north Minneapolis when a disheveled man sprayed her with an unknown liquid from what police described as a syringe while she was calling for the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

  At no point does she seem genuinely concerned for her own well-being. She barely flinches when she’s sprayed, and instead of backing off, she approaches the attacker. And despite being sprayed with an unknown, pungent substance, she continued the town hall.

  • Bit like CNN showing up at the rally where Trump got shot

  • Even Trump isn’t buying it: Ilhan “probably had herself sprayed”

• “I am Going to Kill Donald Trump”: Ohio Attorney General Candidate Runs on Rage

  A video is making rounds on X in which Forhan says, “I am going to obtain conviction, rendered by a jury of his peers, at a standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, based on evidence, presented at trial, conducted in accordance with due process, resulting in a sentence, duly executed, of capital punishment.” Forhan continued, “That is what I mean when I say I am going to kill Donald Trump.”

  This is protected speech under the First Amendment, but it is also reprehensible rhetoric at a time of increasing social unrest. Forhan is trafficking in rage in the hope that it will secure him a political office.

Left Angst

• US population growth slows as immigration declines

• If You Tax Them, Will They Leave?

• ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

  • "But illegals aren't eligible for Medicare so there shouldn't be any data there for them to use!"

• Trump administration has rewritten nuclear safety rules

• Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

• 'ICE Is Going Too Far': OpenAI's Altman Weighs in on Minnesota

• The Dildo Distribution Delegation

  The first dildo flew through the air like a rubber prophecy and skidded to a stop directly at the boots of a state trooper. And that’s when the United States government lost its entire fucking mind. Before anyone could even laugh properly, before a second dildo could achieve liftoff, before reality had time to process the absurdity of what had just happened, the cops panicked like Victorian men seeing an ankle. Tear gas. Pepper balls. Instant chaos. The very first rubber dick to touch government-issued leather boots triggered a full-blown chemical weapons response. That is not metaphor. That is not exaggeration. That is a literal sentence that happened in America in 2026.

  • This was MN State Troopers as far as I've seen reported; the Feds were in the hotel, and have not used tear gas.

• Minnesota State Patrol uses long range acoustic device to disperse protesters

• Apple Workers Are Livid That Cook Saw "Melania" Hours After CBP Killed Pretti

• Tennessee mayor clashes with Democrats over Planned Parenthood Facebook post

  Hamilton County, Tenn., Mayor Weston Wamp found himself in a heated online exchange with local Democratic officials this week after comments from a community member about Planned Parenthood on his Facebook page sparked sharp criticism and a public political clash. According to Chattanooga's Local 3 News, the exchange occurred after a commenter weighed in on a post featuring Wamp's family last Christmas, writing, "This is why we need Planned Parenthood, this picture right here." Wamp, a Republican, took a screenshot of the comment and wrote in a separate post, "Recently, a commenter on my family Christmas post suggested that my children were a reason why we need Planned Parenthood. "I found that vile comment deeply out of step with the values of Hamilton County," he said. The local Democratic Party fired back in a Facebook post, writing, "Hamilton County Democratic Party is disappointed by County Mayor Weston Wamp’s decision to manufacture outrage on social media rather than focus on the real work facing Hamilton County.

• Dozens of CDC vaccination databases have been frozen under RFK Jr.

• Always beware a declining superpower

  Even under normal leadership, a status-anxious US would be lashing out

• “Go ICE”: Chicago-Area Teacher Put on Leave for Two Words Posted on Facebook

  a physical education teacher is on administrative leave and faces possible termination after posting two words (“Go ICE”) on Facebook in support of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Local leaders and groups are demanding that he be fired, even though a posting opposing ICE would likely have been heralded rather than condemned. Social media exploded with commentators calling the teacher a “fucking piece of shit.” A flyer demanded termination because any expression of support for ICE is “inappropriate and unsuitable for an educator.” The flyer insisted that “keeping this teacher will disrupt the emotional welfare and therefore, the education of our students.” Local Democratic leaders immediately joined the mob. That includes Karina Villa, who posted a message saying she stands in “unwavering solidarity” with those demanding action given the “disturbing comments reportedly made by an educator.”

• Ecuador says ICE agent tried to enter consulate in Minneapolis

• Anti-ICE protesters warned of dire long-term effects of this brutal tactic

  “I think this is reaching public health crisis levels when you [see] so many people injured.” While commonly used chemical agents and projectiles are referred to as “less-lethal” weapons, “any one of them, if used improperly, could be very lethal, could be very harmful, could cause permanent disability,” Marino said.

• Trump's use of AI images pushes boundaries, erodes public trust, say experts

• Ring Denies Rumors That Its Footage Is Used by ICE

• Correcting the Record in the Social Security/DOGE Case

  The reason why I’m bringing up a 7.5-month-old ruling is because of a filing the Justice Department made in the district court in that same case (which is still going) just last Friday. Titled “Notice of Corrections to the Record,” the filing identified six different material misrepresentations that the Department of Justice made to the district court in that case—five that stemmed from declarations from Social Security Administration personnel, and one that came directly from a DOJ brief. The biggest headline of the filing is that two DOGE personnel working at the Social Security Administration were secretly in touch with an advocacy group seeking to “overturn election results in certain States,” and one even signed an agreement that may have involved, or at least contemplated, unlawfully using Social Security data to match state voter rolls. (Those employees have apparently been referred to the Office of the Special Counsel for Hatch Act sanctions, but I’m not holding my breath.)

  • The 2020 election Shall Not Be Questioned has become one of the iron principles of the left now. One might think they had something to hide.

• Federal agents involved in Minneapolis shooting placed on administrative leave

• Poll: Trump voters support military intervention in more countries

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Federal court rules Norfolk's license plate reader system is constitutional

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US weighs 'precision strikes' on Iranian officials as military build-up surges, sources say

  • Trump says Iran wants a deal as U.S. "armada" arrives

• US Black Hawk helicopter trespasses on private Montana ranch to grab elk antlers

  Collecting fallen (or “shed”) elk antlers is a popular pastime in elk-heavy places like Montana, but it’s usually a pretty low-tech, on-the-ground affair. That’s why last year’s story about a US Black Hawk helicopter descending from the skies to harvest shed elk antlers on a ranch was such an odd one. Was it really possible that US military personnel were using multimillion-dollar government aircraft to land on private property in the Crazy Mountains—yes, that’s their actual name—just to grab some antlers valued at a few hundred bucks? The Adjutant General for the Montana National Guard, J. Peter Hronek, quickly issued a statement on Facebook “regarding unauthorized use of military aircraft.” In it, Hronek said that he was “aware of an alleged incident involving a Montana Army National Guard helicopter landing on private property without authorization” and that “an internal investigation is underway, and appropriate adverse and/or administrative action will take place if the allegations are determined to be true.” The Black Hawk was apparently on a training flight at the time. The three servicemen on the chopper were eventually charged in Sweet Grass County Court with trespassing. They all pleaded not guilty. This week, pilot Deni Draper changed his plea to “no contest,” allowing sentencing to go forward without a trial (but without actually admitting guilt).

• Trump claims secret 'discombobulator' weapon was used to help capture Maduro

World

• Australia: Telstra warns older iPhones may be unable to connect to Triple Zero

• Sweden weighs Franco-British nuclear weapons cooperation

• Polaris Spaceplanes Wins Contract for Reusable Hypersonic Vehicle

• He Leaked the Secrets of an Asian Scam Compound. Then He Had to Get Out Alive

• Finland hopes to prevent cable damage with new surveillance centre

• Britain's Ministry of Defence signs on the dotted line with Palantir

• Pressure grows on ministers to end secrecy over UK medicines deal with Trump

• German Police Union using AI generated image of officer hurt by hooligans

• Pornhub to stop new UK users accessing site from next week

• Fish pile up at European ports as new digital system falters

• Germany issued formal travel advisory for US

• Steam maker Valve is up against a $900M lawsuit in the UK

• NATO leader warns Europe is unable to defend itself without US assistance.

• 36th Annual International Snowball Fight Competition to Be Held in Uonuma

Iran / Houthi

• Iran's internet is returning – but not for everyone

Israel

• Google suspends ad account of Influencer used to recruit Iranians for Mossad

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia's Grinding War – Massive Losses and Tiny Gains for a Declining Power

• Russia's 1.2M casualties in Ukraine dwarf all its conflicts since WW2

• Ukraine says more than 80% of enemy targets now destroyed by drones

China

• China H200 First Import Shipment

• Pretend to work: China's novel solution to youth unemployment

• China lags behind US at AI frontier but could quickly catch up, say experts

• Further China rumors

  Xi fears triggering a military mutiny and has imposed strict restrictions on the movement and travel of theater command officials and personnel living in the military's family compounds. There is heightened vigilance against coordination among mid- and high-level cadres related to this incident.

  Those in the know believe that the essence of the current conflict is not factional struggle. Whether to allow hereditary succession of power is the core issue.

• China's Four-Year Energy Spree Has Eclipsed US Power Grid

Health / Medicine

• DSM-5: The foundation of psychiatric diagnosis is about to get a makeover

• Health Insurers in Shock After Medicare Holds Line on 2027 Payments

• The surprisingly big health benefits of just a little exercise

• Asthma-related depression may be biologically distinct from primary depression

• Using rare sugars to address alcoholism

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• South Carolina tops Texas measles outbreak record–with no end in sight

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• As we breach 1.5°C, we must replace temperature limits with clean-energy targets

• UK joins European offshore windfarm plan

• Pillbugs Are Getting Top Dollar Online. Poachers Have Noticed

• Arctic driftwood proposal for durable carbon removal

• Climbers accidentally discovered evidence of an 80M year-old sea turtle stampede