2026-05-26

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• Garden Grove chemical tank cools, risk of catastrophic explosion eliminated

  The exact temperature had previously been unknown because the tank’s gauge could not measure temperatures above 100 degrees, raising concerns about a massive explosion as crews monitored the situation. In Monday’s update, officials said crews were able to get a reading on the tank’s temperature, which had dropped to 93 degrees.

  • Overheated chemical tank in southern California 'will fail', EPA chief says

Horseshit

• Why birth rates are falling everywhere all at once

• Are smartphones to blame for declining birth rates?

• How one of the Bay Area's most boring towns became the center of streaming

• Wellness Peptide Craze

• Almost always look on the bright side of life

• Cosmic Voids May Contain the Universe's Best Secrets

• A fundamental principle of aeronautical engineering has been overturned

• Greek swimmer only athlete to beat world record at controversial Enhanced Games

• Scientists discover why gold doesn't 'rust'

• Additive ban could change New York's pizza and bagels, some say for the better

• Why did T. rex have tiny arms? Scientists now think they know why

• My body, my choice: What Will It Take to Get Young People to Stop Tanning (Again)?

• U.S. neutrino megaproject takes shape in abandoned gold mine

• Why do anxious people lean left?

• Teen Takeovers Expose a Culture Running Out of Adult Supervision.

• Japanese security guard finds fame as designer of duct tape signs

• How to Be Old

• Drone breaks world speed record with 453 MPH in test run

• What I Learned About Loss While Skateboarding at Costco

• She Can Mentally Time Travel. Why Did Everyone Think She Was Lying?

Epstein

• Thomas Massie Promises to Expose More Names from Epstein Files

  • He's already come close to libel with that...

• Epstein reporter says they were ‘permanently injured’ after alleged ‘pulsed energy’ attack

  “They attack you at your most vulnerable and trusting, in your home, in bed, and do not kill right away. They plant pain and illness that can take years, months, weeks, days to kill, and do it in a manner intended to gaslight the target into doubting their own experience, as the pulsed energy can hit one person and not the others.”

celebrity gossip

• Michael Phelps on finding purpose beyond the pool

Obit

• Japan's 'God' of Convenience Stores Dies at 93

  • Founder of 7/11 Japan, Toshifumi Suzuki, has died at age 93

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Altered photos of Biden, Trump with Xi spread online

Musk

• SpaceX's Starship V3–still a work in progress–mostly successful on first flight

• SpaceX's IPO Filing Shows Elon's Twitter 'Business Genius' Was a Fantasy

• Driving Behind A Tesla

  we could see in the distance a school bus approaching from the opposite direction. Several hundred yards ahead, it stopped. Its red lights began flashing. A “STOP” sign swung out on its driver’s side toward our lane of traffic. Its door opened. There was plenty of time for cars going our direction to stop. A couple of little kids came out the door. And then the Tesla blew by at full speed! Oops. I guess they haven’t programmed the school bus thing into the operating system just yet. Fortunately the kids weren’t trying to cross the highway at that moment.

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Robotaxis need to be tested in real traffic

• Blind Waymo Users Revel in the Joy of Riding Alone

Robot uprising / Humanoid Helpers

• Unitree Develops Production-Ready Mech Suit

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Pope Apologizes for Slavery

• Consciousness might be a fundamental feature of reality, like gravity

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Monumental Proof Settles Geometric Langlands Conjecture

• Why young academics are leaving academia

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Star Citizen tops $1B crowdfunding milestone

  • 'Star Citizen' Hits $1B in Lifetime Funding

• IMAX Is for Sale

• Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd

• Software supply-chain attacks are no longer rare events

• Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

• OnlyFans owner in talks to sell to investor group at about $8B value

• California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

• Epic reveals first Unreal Engine 6 game, and it's not Fortnite

• Salesforce's Recent History of Overhyped Promo Videos

• Cox Media fined after bragging it spied on users through their phones

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Linus Torvalds to 'start being more hardnosed' about 'pointless pull requests'

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Astronauts won't be the ones building the moon's first permanent base

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Pope Leo's 'Magnifica humanitas': AI must serve humanity not concentrate power

  • Remaining Human in the Age of Algorithms

  • Pope Leo Compares AI Threat to Biblical 'Tower of Babel'

  • Pope Leo Warns of Risks from A.I. In 42,300-Word Encyclical

  • Silicon Valley takes its AI pitch to the pope

  • Pope Says AI Should Be Disarmed to Avoid Dominating Humanity

  • Pope Leo warns AI revolution driven by 'idolatry of profit'

  • Silicon Valley takes its AI pitch to the pope

  • Pope Leo XIV says AI must serve humanity, not the powerful few

  • Pope Leo: opaque AI run by few firms risks "New Forms of Dehumanization"

  • Pope Leo's Unsettling Vision of the AI Future

  • Pope Leo denounces 'culture of power' driving rise of AI

  • Anthropic Cofounder Chris Olah's Remarks on Pope Leo XIV's "Magnifica Humanitas"

  • Pope Leo says AI must be 'disarmed' in first major teaching

  • Pope Leo, Anthropic co-founder call for church-tech ethics partnership

  • Pope Leo quoted Gandalf in Encyclical

  • Pope calls for robust regulation of AI in manifesto re: the future of humanity

  • Pope Leo says AI could warp humanity

  • Citing Gandalf, Pope Leo says we must "disarm" AI

• How AI Talks People Out of Conspiracy Theories–and What We Can Learn from That

• The AI Era Is Creating a Bug Hunting Arms Race

• AI guardrails stripped from Meta and Google models in minutes

• Mark Zuckerberg's Right-Hand Man Who's Unleashing AI at Meta

• Too Much Work to Do? Have Your Digital Twin Handle It

• Greetings, Class of 2026 Have You Heard About AI? Wait, Why Are You Booing?

• Kevin O'Leary wants AI data centre in Utah. Some residents aren't happy

• Final Fantasy Creator Call AI-Generated Final Fantasy 6 Remake Video 'Amazing'

• Google has seriously leaned into AI enshittification lately

• Microsoft pulls plug on plans for 244-acre data center in Caledonia

• Anthropic's Olah says AI must be guided from outside Big Tech

• Ubers COO says its getting harder to justify the money spent on AI tokenmaxxing

• I'm the CEO of Goldman Sachs. The AI Job Apocalypse Is Overblown

• Google is cannibalizing the web to feed AI

• Artificial Intelligence Floods Court Dockets with Home-Brewed Lawsuits

• Big university system is embracing AI. Students/faculty aren't all on board

• The IPO wave will enshrine the AI gods' control over the future

• Anthropic to release Mythos-class models to the public

• On God and LLMs

• The terrifying rise of schoolboys making AI girlfriends

• LLMs require curated context for reliable political fact-checking

• Chatbot Has a Long Memory. That Isn't Always a Good Thing

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Stablecoins Are Private Money. That's Why They're a Risk to the Economy

• New Jersey judges rule man can't cash $59000 in gaming chips from defunct casino

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Franchising has made Americans rich

• Everlane Finalizes Sale to Shein

• From Meta to SpaceX: how dual-class shares keep founders in control

• Chipotle rival Guzman y Gomez Mexican Kitchen closes all US restaurants

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• US's big bet on quantum computing may not be legal

Left Angst

• 'It's called winning': Why a tech industry super PAC is running ads about ICE

• D. Trump Jr. and Eric Trump Running Felony Fraud Scheme Prosecutable in New York

• The Genius of Spencer Pratt's Campaign

  the majority of liberal voters, if you are being honest about the psychology, are not primarily voting for outcomes. They are voting for association. They vote for someone they want to be associated with.

  The Democratic Party has understood for decades that a significant portion of their coalition is not asking “will this person make my life better?” They are asking “is this person someone I want to be associated with?” They want someone cool. Someone they can reference in conversation without embarrassment. Someone the room approves of. The policy details are downstream of that approval.

  Remember what the nurses and doctors were doing on the front lines? They were making choreographed TikTok dance videos while body bags were being rolled out in the background. This resonates with Liberals in the same way.

• Trump admin policy shutting US disease researchers out of WHO virus response talks

  The Trump administration issued the directive stopping individuals at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from communicating with the WHO. The federal health subagency was led for decades by Dr. Anthony Fauci and oversaw developing treatments for public health emergencies including HIV/AIDs and Covid-19. The prohibition has been in place during an outbreak of hantavirus that some Americans have been exposed to. The communication limits were relaxed slightly in the past week as another virus outbreak — an unfolding Ebola epidemic centered in the Democratic Republic of Congo — intensified.

• Bruce Springsteen’s Lecture Tour

  The Boss opened with his cover of “War,” made famous by Edwin Starr in 1970. That was pretty exciting because although Starr’s version reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, I don’t think I’d heard Mr. Springsteen play it before. He added to the song a little speech about Mr. Trump’s attack on Iran. Fine, I thought. He’s gotten it out of his system. But it turned out to be merely the first of four political speeches Mr. Springsteen delivered that night. For the last one, he unspooled his thoughts like a talk-radio host. The problem is that Mr. Springsteen writes political diatribes about as well as I play guitar. He added nothing to the discourse. He simply repeated talking points we’ve all heard many times. He was like the guy at the Thanksgiving table who brings up politics when you ask him to pass the stuffing.

• Staggering dip in US tourism is a troubling sign for the future

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Aurora Avenue neighbors revolt, blocking off street access after yet another shooting.

  Residents along Seattle’s North Aurora corridor stopped waiting on City Hall. They hauled in large industrial steel planters and blocked off three residential side streets at N. 97th, 98th, and 102nd Streets near where they meet Aurora Avenue N. Neighbors said a representative from the mayor’s office and the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) came out to push back. They were waved off. We’re honestly not thinking long term right now,” one neighbor said, asking not to be identified out of fear of retribution from pimps and dealers operating along the Aurora Avenue corridor.

• American journalist charged with serving as unregistered agent for China

  Thomas Pauken II allegedly prepared confidential reports that his Chinese handler told him were being conveyed to Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to an affidavit FBI Special Agent Timothy Healy submitted in federal court. Pauken also took a lie detector test at the request of his Chinese contact and provided a cell phone and laptop to another individual in the U.S. who was seeking a job in the Trump administration, Healy wrote.

World

• Army runs secret wargames under central London

• EasyJet flight diverts to Rome over power bank in luggage

• The EU's Big Tech law was meant to move fast. It hasn't

• EU bringing in Digital IDs for citizens: What are they? How will it affect you?

• European social media newbies step forward as users drift from X

• Riz Ahmed says UK spies tried to recruit him on three occasions

• Their Phones Were Stolen in London. Then the Threats Started

• Meta urges Labour to burden Apple with age checks

• Canada losing top talent as workers head to the U.S.

• What is 'pink-slime' journalism and has it infiltrated Australian media?

• Sweden now considered a smoke free country

Iran / Houthi

• How the Iran War Could Threaten Global Internet Access

• Iran President orders restoration of internet access after 87-day blackout

  • Iran's president orders reopening of international internet access

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Commercial satellite supplying Intel to Ukraine cornered by Russian spacecraft

• The Stunt Pilot Hunting Russian Drones

• Russia strikes Kyiv with drones and hypersonic missile, in photos

China

• Successful Launch Spurs China Toward Crucial First for Moon Landing

• China launches 'human artificial embryos' into space: off-world reproduction?

Health / Medicine

• One-and-Done Heart Disease Prevention? Scientists Show It May Be Possible

• Marathons and ultramarathons may be linked to colon cancer

• The promise of weight-loss drugs keeps growing

• AI scans 400k Reddit posts and finds hidden Ozempic side effects

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Hantavirus is gaining ground in the US, startling researchers: ‘Widespread and complex virus’

  Researchers found that a significant portion of rodent populations in the Pacific Northwest — specifically the Palouse region of Washington and Idaho — were carrying the Sin Nombre virus (SNV). The findings indicate that not only is the virus more widespread than initially realized, but it could also increase exposure risk in surrounding agricultural communities.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Ravens Don't Follow Wolves, They Predict Their Patterns

• Europe Braces for Record-Breaking Late May Heatwave

• UK records its highest ever May temperature

• Rising seas will swallow New Orleans. People need to start relocating now

• Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

• Scientists find new deep-sea octopus

• Gray whale mortality along Pacific Northwest are at an increasing pace

• Our Warming Planet Is a Petri Dish for New and Deadly Microbes