2026-02-01

Horseshit

• She was a broke teenager stranded in a town. Then two nuns saved the day

• Ancient Greek statues were painted

• Red Dwarfs Are Too Dim to Generate Complex Life

• Mass grave in Jordan sheds new light on world's earliest recorded pandemic

• Two Memphis leaders question whether snow was man-made

Epstein

• Epstein Notes Suggested Bill Gates Engaged in Extramarital Sex

• Elon Musk to Epstein: "What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?"

  • Elon Musk asked Epstein when 'wildest party' on his island will be

  • Epstein files: Musk planned to visit sex offender's island, host him at SpaceX

  • Exposed Musk Now Insists Epstein Files Don't Matter

• 4chan founder created /pol/ board after meeting with Epstein

  • Indirectly answering the question of "How did 4chan avoid the government hammer that similar sites were hit with?"

Obit

• Demond Wilson, Lamont on Sanford and Son, Dies at 79

• Michael Beck, 65, Dies; First to Report Symptoms of 'Havana Syndrome'

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Wikipedia Faces a Generational Disconnect Crisis

Musk

• Starlink updates privacy policy to allow consumer data to train AI

  • Musk's Starlink updates privacy policy to allow consumer data to train AI

• Tesla's Model S, Soon to Be History, Changed the Auto Industry

• Tesla throws in the towel on car sales | The Verge

  To be sure, Tesla still makes and sells cars, but based on Musk’s comments and actions, it feels like Tesla is a car company in name only. In 2025, Tesla brought in $94.8 billion in revenue, $69.5 billion — or 73 percent — of which was from car sales. Its automotive revenues have been in free fall, down 10 percent year over year, while its other revenue streams — energy generation and storage; and services and other revenue — are on the upswing.

• Musk's SpaceX applies to launch 1M satellites into orbit

  • SpaceX files plans for million-satellite orbital data center constellation

  • SpaceX seeks FCC nod for 1M solar-powered satellite data centers for AI

• Elon Musk's SpaceX and xAI Are Planning a Megamerger of Rockets and AI

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

• Waymo Seeking About $16B Near $110B Valuation

• Waymo Test Vehicle Crashes Into Parked Cars in L.A.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• CERN accepts $1B in private cash towards Future Circular Collider

• School Is Worse for Children Than Social Media

  For instance: did you know that daily social media use increases the likelihood a child will commit suicide by 12-18%? Or that teenagers are far more likely to visit the ER for psychiatric problems if they have an Instagram account? Or that a child’s amount of social media use, past a certain threshold, correlates exponentially with poorer sleep, lower reported wellbeing, and more severe mental health symptoms? If that was all true for social media— and again, none of it is — you and I both would agree that people under 16 or so should not have access to platforms like Instagram or Snapchat. Imagine allowing your child to enter any system that would make them 12-18% more likely to kill themselves. That would be insane. You wouldn’t let your kid anywhere near that system, and the public would protest until it was eliminated once for all. Great. So let’s get rid of school.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Amazon is rolling out Alexa+ to all users. But not everyone wants it

• The TV industry concedes that the future may not be in 8K

• Bob Iger to Step Down as Disney CEO Before End of 2026

• YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other Browsers

• SanDisk laughs all the way to the bank as memory price hike drives $3B revenue

• Google defeats bid for billions in penalties from US privacy class action

• Nvidia has gone all-in on the video cards you don't want.

• The Last of the Dolby Digital Plus "E-AC3" Patents Might Now Be Expired

• US reportedly investigate claims that Meta can read encrypted WhatsApp messages

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Bezos’ Rocket Firm Blue Origin to Halt Space Tourism Flights - Bloomberg

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Apple 'runs on Anthropic,' says Mark Gurman

• Nvidia's plan to invest up to $100B in OpenAI has stalled

  • Nvidia Halts Plan to Invest $100B in OpenAI, WSJ Says

• Apple Almost Chose Anthropic Before Google Gemini

• People are swayed by AI-generated videos even when they know they're fake

• AI agents now have their own Reddit-style social network, and it's getting weird

• Don't be fooled. AI bosses are regular capitalists

• AI: the US is headed for mass unemployment

• Anthropic grabs $111M office in downtown San Francisco for expansion

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Crypto wallets received a record $158B in illicit funds last year

• Bitcoin Looks Set for Longest Monthly Losing Streak Since 2018

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Sell America is the new trade on Wall Street

• Microsoft stock plunges as Wall Street questions AI investments

• Layoffs are piling up, heightening worker anxiety

• Parent company of Johnny Rockets, Fatburger files for bankruptcy

• Silver and gold hit record highs – then crashed

• 'Finally, a renter's market': L.A. rent prices drop to four-year low - Los Angeles Times

• Amazon Layoffs Hit 1,400 in Seattle as Local Tech Jobs Wither

• Pinterest laying off 15% of workforce as part of AI push; stock plummets

• AI Debt Spree Is Fueling a Credit Trading Frenzy

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• GOP lawmaker moves to block welfare recipients from sending money overseas: ‘Abuse ends now’. Violators of the legislation would be subject to a civil fine of up to $100,000.

• If Gabbard is on scene, it means that the FBI has found a foreign/counterintelligence nexus to the investigation into the 2020 election in Georgia

  To get a search warrant, a Federal Magistrate—one with no ties to Trump, and in fact a resume filled with Legal Aid and Public Defense—found probable cause that evidence of a crime existed in the narrow scope of what was being requested via search warrant. Considering how not-narrow of scope that warrant actually turned out to be, and Gabbard's involvement, we can deduce several things. First, that there is already a substantial case that some serious crime occurred and that this is not anywhere near the first evidence they've collected. Getting such a warrant from such a Magistrate would be essentially impossible otherwise; we can't even get a similarly situated Magistrate to provide the pro forma signature on a Complaint related to Don Lemon committing several felonies on public video, with numerous admissions and confessions. Let's not pretend here. Second, that the foreign nexus has probably already been getting plugged away at with the foreign-oriented intelligence apparatus for some time. It is probable, I'd hazard a guess, that a FISA warrant or two have been employed.

• Hawaii Deepfake Election Law Is Unconstitutional, Court Says

• New York Congestion Pricing's Unexpected Winners: Suburban Drivers

• Matt Mahan, mayor of San Jose, announces run for governor of California

Trump

• Trump Officials Move to Double Number of H-2B Guest Visas This Year

Left Angst

• ICE claim that a man shattered his skull running into wall triggers tension

• America First Risks Becoming America Alone

• ICE Expands Power of Agents to Arrest People Without Warrants

• Court Filings: ICE App Identifies Protesters; Global Entry, PreCheck Get Revoked

• Companies reap $22B from Trump's immigration crackdown

• Don Lemon Released Without Bond over Minnesota Protest Charge

• Politicians Are Calling the Protests in Minnesota an Insurgency

• TrumpRx delayed as senators question if it's a giant scam with Big Pharma

• Marc Andreessen Bet Big on Trump. It's Paying Off for Silicon Valley

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• U.S. Military Tells Key Middle East Ally to Prepare for Attack on Iran

World

• Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

• This cute AI-generated schoolgirl is a growing far-right meme

• French MPs demand explanation over tech firm's contract to help ICE in US

• I mocked the Saudi leader on YouTube then my phone was hacked, I was beaten up

• What makes Finland the happiest place on Earth

• Finland to end "uncontrolled human experiment" with ban on youth social media

• Over Creamy Chicken, Europe's Leaders Try to Reduce Dependence on Trump

• Berlin: Record harvest sparks mass giveaway of free potatoes

• Poland's Economy Set to Enter Global Top Following Another Strong Year

• 'It's ridiculous': publicans bemused by rise of single-file queues to get served

Iran / Houthi

• Guest Post from an Iranian

  I’m in awe of the courage of this individual and the millions of other Iranians who’ve risked or, tragically, sacrificed their lives these past few weeks, to stand for something about as unequivocally good and against something about as unequivocally evil as has ever existed on earth. I’m enraged at the relative indifference of the world, and of the US in particular, to these brave Iranians’ plight. There’s still time for the US to fulfill its promise to the protesters and do the right thing—something that I’ll support even if it endangers my friends and family living in Israel.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia is using Starlink to make its killer drones fly farther

• Russia's Oil Revenue, the Lifeblood of Its War Machine, Is Plummeting

China

• China edges up with 3 of top chipmaking gear suppliers

• Beijing Weaponized the West’s Own Wiretap Infrastructure to Execute the Greatest Intelligence Coup Since Cambridge Five

  On January 26, 2026, The Telegraph disclosed that Chinese hackers had penetrated right into the heart of Downing Street, compromising mobile communications of senior officials across the Johnson, Truss, and Sunak administrations. The story was buried on page seven, treated as a technology curiosity. It was, in fact, a solvency event for the Western intelligence alliance. Not because phones were hacked, which happens, but because of how they were hacked: by weaponizing the very surveillance infrastructure that Western governments mandated for their own intelligence agencies. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act in the United States and the Investigatory Powers Act in the United Kingdom require telecommunications carriers to build backdoors into their networks for court-ordered wiretapping. Chinese state hackers found those backdoors. And walked through them. The intelligence value is almost impossible to overstate. For approximately four years, operators linked to the MSS’s Chengdu bureau had the capability to see not just who British officials were calling, but whom the FBI was investigating, which Chinese operatives were under surveillance, what the United States knew about Beijing’s activities, and when counterintelligence was getting close. They could geolocate millions of individuals. They could record phone calls at will. They compromised the surveillance of their own surveillers, achieving the counterintelligence equivalent of reading the other side’s playbook while the game was in progress.

• China's genius plan to win the AI race is paying off

Health / Medicine

• Men's heart attack risk climbs by mid-30s, years before women

• It’s freezing cold and you’ve lost power. Here’s what emergency doctors want you to do.

• Microdosing for Depression Appears to Work as Placebo

• How does the measles vaccine protect against other infectious diseases?

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• NASA Analysis Shows La Niña Limited Sea Level Rise in 2025

• Microplastics found in rural woodland at higher levels than in city centers

• Roadkill is a surprising and untapped source for scientists.