A Plague

 

On this day:

1514
Marriage of Louis XII of France and Mary Tudor.
1604
Supernova 1604, the most recent supernova to be observed in the Milky Way.
1635
Founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident after he speaks out against punishments for religious offenses and giving away Native American land.
1740
Dutch colonists and various slave groups begin massacring ethnic Chinese in Batavia, eventually killing 10,000 and leading to a two-year-long war throughout Java.
1845
The eminent and controversial Anglican, John Henry Newman, is received into the Roman Catholic Church.
1854
Crimean War: The siege of Sebastopol begins. As does Tolstoy's career as a writer: “A disagreement that has not been solved by diplomacy will still less be solved by powder and blood.”
1919
Black Sox scandal: The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series

1936
Generators at Boulder Dam (later renamed to Hoover Dam) begin to generate electricity from the Colorado River and transmit it 266 miles to Los Angeles, California.
1940
World War II: Battle of Britain – During a night-time air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London, England is hit by a bomb.
1967
A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara is executed for attempting to incite a revolution in Bolivia.
1969
In Chicago, the United States National Guard is called in for crowd control as demonstrations continue in connection with the trial of the “Chicago Eight” that began on September 24.
2006
North Korea allegedly tests its first nuclear device.
2009
First lunar impact of the Centaur and LCROSS spacecraft as part of NASA’s Lunar Precursor Robotic Program. LCROSS set out to confirm the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the moon’s south pole. On October 9, 2009, the vehicle’s spent Centaur upper stage impacted the crater Cabeus. Then the Shepherding Spacecraft descended through Centaur’s ejectate plume, collecting and relaying data before impacting the lunar surface six minutes later. It found water.


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"It's said that 'power corrupts', but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible." -David Brin, scientist and science fiction author (b. 6 Oct 1950)

***

Arline Goldbaum married Richard Feynman while she was in a sanitarium with TB. Can you imagine what she must have been like? She was also a beauty, and he was crazy about her. She died three years later. 

After her death, Feynman wrote her a letter, writing on the envelope, "Please excuse my not sending this, but I don't know your new address."

 
*** 

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pick for a key housing post once likened wealthy homeowners to “cartels”


***

A Plague

Smallpox is the only human disease to have been eradicated.

Smallpox is highly infectious and has no known cure. It has been found as early as 1350 BCE, with cases in Egyptian mummies. Its infectivity has made it a popular adjunct for engineered bioweapons.

The ancient practice of variolation (named for smallpox, also known as variola or ‘la variole’) was widely used in Asia and some parts of Africa.  Small amounts of material from smallpox sores were transferred to healthy people, resulting in milder illness and much lower mortality than natural infection. Some sources suggest people practiced variolation as early as 200 BCE.

Written accounts from the mid-1500s describe a form of variolation used in China known as insufflation, where smallpox scabs were dried, ground, and blown into the nostril using a pipe.

In India, similar practices used inoculation with a lancet or needle to transfer material from smallpox pustules to the skin of healthy children. Accounts from the 18th century suggest this technique dates back hundreds of years. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu introduced the practice to Europe in 1721, after she observed the practice in the Ottoman Empire, where her husband was stationed as ambassador to Turkey. In the American colonies, after his slave Onesimus told him how it worked in 1716, Cotton Mather publicized it and argued for its use in response to a 1721 outbreak of smallpox in Massachusetts. John Adams and his wife used it on their children.

In 1796, hearing of local beliefs and practices in rural communities that cowpox protected against smallpox, Dr Edward Jenner inoculated 8-year-old James Phipps with matter from a cowpox sore on the hand of Sarah Nelmes, a local milkmaid. Later efforts to infect Phipps with smallpox failed, showing the idea worked. (The good doctor was experimenting on a child.)

Vaccination can apparently be a hard sell. Rumours circulated that it would turn people into cows.

Mandatory smallpox vaccination started in Britain and parts of the United States of America in the 1840s and 1850s, as well as in other parts of the world, leading to the establishment of the smallpox vaccination certificates required for travel. Despite over 2 million people dying every year, it took decades to achieve global unity in the fight against the disease. By the 1950s, advances in production techniques meant that heat-stable, freeze-dried smallpox vaccines could be stored without refrigeration.

In 1970, in West India, an outbreak led to a door-to-door search and vaccination program.

In 1980, with the virus limited to laboratory zoos, WHO declared smallpox officially eradicated.--much from a WHO paper

Origins and Definitions

On this day:

314
Roman Emperor Licinius is defeated by his colleague Constantine I at the Battle of Cibalae, and loses his European territories.
1480
Great standing on the Ugra river, a standoff between the forces of Akhmat Khan, Khan of the Great Horde, and the Grand Duke Ivan III of Russia, which results in the retreat of the Tataro-Mongols and the eventual disintegration of the Horde.
1895
Eulmi incident- Queen Min of Joseon, the last empress of Korea, is assassinated and her corpse burnt by the Japanese in Gyeongbok Palace.
1918
World War I: In the Argonne Forest in France, United States Corporal Alvin C. York kills 25 German soldiers and captures 132.
1921
KDKA in Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field conducts the first live broadcast of a football game.
1967
Guerrilla leader Che Guevara and his men are captured in Bolivia.
1969
The opening rally of the Days of Rage occurs, organized by the Weather Underground in Chicago, Illinois.
1970
Vietnam War: In Paris, a Communist delegation rejects US President Richard Nixon’s October 7 peace proposal as “a maneuver to deceive world opinion”.

***

Just because something is good does not mean that we have the obligation to maximize that.--Lowe

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Violence of WWI killed about 16 million people. The flu killed 50 million.

***

Patricia Krenwinkel, a former Charles Manson follower, was granted parole on Tuesday after nearly six decades in prison for her role in the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders in Los Angeles.

This is the third time California's board of parole hearings has approved Krenwinkel, 78, for release. The first two paroles were blocked by the governor.

***

The smallpox epidemic in the United States is the story of one of the first major American government public health measures, the start of required vaccinations, and the start of the antivax movement.  

***

Origins and Definitions

Both socialism and communism flower in the manure of conflict and strife. To one degree or another, both originate in the smoldering--if often unspoken--antagonism among peoples, and each sees itself as the protagonist in the maturation of human economics requiring the destruction of the current corrupt system run by an actively hostile opponent.

The playbook for these conflicts is written down and distributed. Many are revered and taught in universities. The generalities are that a group--or groups--of people, knowingly or not, are selfishly strangling most of the population and must be overthrown and destroyed--in Marxist thought, deracinated--and replaced by the next phase embodied by a more pure, worthy, and inevitable group. The animosity between these groups--whether understood by the antagonists or not--must be taught to the protagonists and brought to a boil to destroy the other group.

So one group is generalized, hated, and, if history is any indicator, hunted down and killed--every man, woman, and child representative of the enemy class-- and replaced.

So why, looking at history and the self-declarations of these groups, isn't socialism a Hate Crime?

Enchantment, Disenchantment, and Deacon Blues

On this day:
3761 BC
The epoch reference date epoch (origin) of the modern Hebrew calendar (Proleptic Julian calendar).
1571
The Battle of Lepanto is fought, and the Holy League (Spain and Italy) destroys the Turkish fleet.
1582
Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day is skipped in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain
1763
George III of Great Britain issues British Royal Proclamation of 1763, closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements.
1777
American Revolutionary War: The Americans defeat the British in the Second Battle of Saratoga, also known as the Battle of Bemis Heights.
1780
American Revolutionary War: Battle of Kings Mountain American Patriot militia defeat Loyalist irregulars led by British colonel Patrick Ferguson in South Carolina.
1940
World War II: the McCollum memo proposes bringing the United States into the war in Europe by provoking the Japanese to attack the United States
1985
The Achille Lauro is hijacked by Palestine Liberation Organization.
2001
The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan begins with an air assault and covert operations on the ground.
2006
Russian journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya is shot and killed outside her home in Moscow.

***

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. -Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher 

***

This is the anniversary of the attack by Hamas on Israeli civilian populations, the torture and murder of many, and the kidnapping of others.  Savagery indeed exists in every part of the world, and we risk becoming numb to it. (I am reluctant to call it inhumanity because it might well be just another aspect of us.) What is different is the inexplicable admiration and support demonstrated by some across the West for the terrorists themselves.

***

Data centers are set to reach 12% of total U.S. electricity demand by 2030, according to Rystad Energy. That’s the equivalent of between 30 and 60 nuclear plants of additional capacity. Supplying all the copper to wire them would have led to a 25% shortfall of supply for the vital metal by 2040, according to S&P Global. (A major new copper mine takes 15 to 20 years to get up and running.) Paying for data centers is starting to create strains too. After exhausting their own mighty cash flows. In just one year, their share of the leading investment-grade bond index grew by 78%, according to Capital Group.

***

"We need to clean our own house. Our house is not clean right now," Steeler coach McCarthy said.

***

Enchantment, Disenchantment, and Deacon Blues

I do not know Ms. Ruxandra Teslo, but this is from her Substack, on The Secular Age by the philosopher Charles Taylor:

"According to Charles Taylor, modernity is marked not merely by a decline in religious belief, but by a profound transformation in our imaginative horizon. What he calls the transition from an enchanted to a secular world is this shift in how the world is experienced.

In the pre-modern “enchanted” world, the world of “spirits, demons and moral forces”, reality was thick with agency and meaning. The cosmos was not neutral or inert, but constantly impinging upon humans. Human beings were vulnerable to forces beyond them, open to both corruption and elevation by powers that exceeded their control. The boundaries between self and world were permeable.

Taylor describes this as the condition of the porous self: a self that was embedded in a morally charged universe, susceptible to outside influence, and conscious of its dependence within a larger, divinely structured order. That dependence came with a recognition of a certain impotence, but it also conferred belonging. One’s life was situated within a cosmic order not of one’s own making.

Disenchantment dissolves this structure. What disappears is not simply belief in spirits, but the very sense that meaning resides in the fabric of the world. The modern cosmos becomes impersonal and governed by physical laws that can be scientifically deciphered. The locus of meaning is relocated from the world to solely inside the human mind. Thoughts, feelings, aspirations — what Taylor calls “fullness” — are now understood to exist only within human minds.

This gives rise to what Taylor terms the buffered self. The buffered self encounters the world from behind a kind of membrane. It is no longer vulnerable to cosmic forces; nature is no longer enchanted, but inert, available for explanation and manipulation. Even when we acknowledge the limits of our powers as humans, the dominant modern posture assumes that natural obstacles yield, eventually, to technology and science. We do not propitiate unseen powers for a good harvest. Instead, we now design irrigation systems and engineer crops.

The advantages of a buffered self and of living in a disenchanted world are clear: no longer do we feel a sense of helplessness in the face of the powers of nature. No longer do we feel like our very destinies are at the mercy of Gods. The modern, buffered self can control fate itself. We are Gods on Earth.

Yet, in my interpretation, with such immense empowerment comes a crushing burden: that of radical responsibility. Once we anchor meaning within the individual and we understand him to be radically able to improve his condition, there is no longer any refuge to be found in helplessness. The secular mind implicitly understands power and merit as matters of will. The loser is solely responsible for their condition.

This goes the other way too. In earlier times, even the powerful, kings included, understood themselves as subordinate to God. Now, it is one’s talent and will, or agency, if one is to speak in currently popular terms, that brings about their fortune."

Yes. And there are enemies. Powers and forces, often ethnic or national, that conspire against your success. Kulaks, or Jews, or history, if you are unable to bear the new burden of your life.

Plague

On this day:
1600
Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, the earliest surviving opera, receives its première performance in Florence, signifying the beginning of the Baroque Period

1777
American Revolutionary War: General Sir Henry Clinton leads British forces in the capture of Continental Army Hudson River defenses in the Battle of Forts Clinton and Montgomery.
1789
French Revolution: Louis XVI returns to Paris from Versailles after being confronted by the Parisian women on 5 October
1945
Baseball: Billy Sianis and his pet billy goat are ejected from Wrigley Field during Game 4 of the 1945 World Series. (His curse leads to 71 years of World Series failure for Chicago.)
1973
Egypt launches a coordinated attack with Syria against Israel, leading to the Yom Kippur War.
1981
Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat is assassinated.

***

When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry, they call me a communist. -Helder Camara, archbishop (1909-1999)

***

Buffett wrote an essay in 1999 on the new, exciting technology of the day: the internet. He noted that a technology can change the world, but that doesn't necessarily make it a smart investment.Using airplanes as an example, he explained that while air travel had fundamentally transformed society, 129 airline companies had filed for bankruptcy in the last 20 years. "The key to investing," Buffett explained, "is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage."

***

Wall Street banks are pushing large law firms to cut fees, arguing that the business model that has enriched top lawyers for decades is not sustainable in an era of AI.
Morgan Stanley and Citigroup have told major law firms they want to set up new payment arrangements that would save them money.
“If the number of hours they’re working on a matter has come down because of AI . . . our expectation is for costs to come down significantly per transaction,” Adam Meshel, global head of legal at Citigroup, told the FT.

***

A former head of Germany's foreign intelligence service was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion that he had passed state secrets to a foreign intelligence service, the federal prosecutor's office said.

***

The Chicago White Sox lost 121 games two years ago. This year, Chicago finished the 2026 regular season 84-78, becoming the first team in MLB history to reach the postseason immediately after at least two consecutive 100-loss seasons—and the White Sox had actually lost 100 games three years in a row. 

This year, the White Sox swept the Houston Astros in the Wild Card round, their first postseason series win since 2005. They are now 2-0 against Cleveland in their best of 5 playoff series.

***

Plague

Irkutsk Gov. Igor Kobzev wrote on Telegram that a resident, Darya Shipilova, "may have contracted a particularly dangerous infection," but did not specifically name pneumonic plague. That's like saying a swimmer died after being attacked "by a large fish" off a Florida beach.

Nearly 200 people have been placed under medical observation in Russia’s Irkutsk region in eastern Siberia over suspected exposure to plague, according to local media reports. One woman, Darya Shipilova, said by the Russians to be a lab researcher, has died. 

This is the pneumonic (pulmonary) presentation of the bubonic plague. In a Russian lab worker. The bubonic plague.

The Russians started their bioweapons program the year after they signed the U.N. resolution to ban them. They worked for years on gain-of-function of Ebola, Anthrax, and smallpox, and efforts to combine high infectivity (like chickenpox) with those more deadly. More recent efforts tried to develop organisms for which the usually reliable anti-infective agents did not work. These are vicious weapons, indiscriminate and usually brutal and fatal. And socially disruptive. Plague in the Middle Ages killed over 33% of Europe's population, with each recurring episode.

If we poor citizens need to be reminded, these are terrible weapons, but they are wielded by terrible people. War is bad enough, but these are cataclysmic in concept, aimed at men, women, and children for the purpose of civilization destruction.

Nor are our hands clean. The Chinese lab at Wuhan had American medical--MEDICAL--support and then, when the murderous genie was out of the bottle, they, i.e., we, joined the mendacious Chinese autocrats and lied about it to our citizens and the world.

If this kind of behaviour doesn't sour you on the promises of the average politician masquerading as an average guy with a good heart, it should. It should scare you witless. And you should scrutinize any power you cede to them. These people have nuclear weapons! And anyone who thinks that AI can be muzzled with "internal controls" is not paying attention. 

The danger of the virus, the bacteria, the weapon, or the software is real and frightening, but it all starts with humans who create them, aim them, and pull the trigger.

Rules, agreements among caring men, will not be enough.

Straining at the Leash

 

On this day:

1582
Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain.
1789
French Revolution: Women of Paris march to Versailles in the March on Versailles to confront Louis XVI about his refusal to promulgate the decrees on the abolition of feudalism, demand bread, and have the King and his court moved to Paris.
1793
French Revolution: Christianity is disestablished in France.
1864
The Indian city of Calcutta is almost totally destroyed by a cyclone; 60,000 die.
1948
The 1948 Ashgabat earthquake kills 110,000.
1966
Near Detroit, Michigan, there is a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration nuclear breeder reactor.
1968
Police baton civil rights demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland – considered to mark the beginning of The Troubles.
1982
Chicago Tylenol murders: Johnson & Johnson initiates a nationwide product recall in the United States for all products in its Tylenol brand after several bottles in Chicago are found to have been laced with cyanide, resulting in seven deaths.
1986
Israeli secret nuclear weapons are revealed. The British newspaper The Sunday Times runs Mordechai Vanunu’s story on its front page under the headline: “Revealed — the secrets of Israel’s nuclear arsenal”.
2001
Robert Stevens becomes the first victim in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

***

"If the United States is to compete effectively, its policymakers must spend less time worrying about how to weaken their rival and more time figuring out how to make their country the best and most vigorous version of itself."--Foreign Affairs, in an article on China

***

Discarding standardized tests does not benefit struggling kids, any more than throwing out my scale will help me get back in shape. But it’s happening everywhere educational bureaucrats can get away with it. They don’t want to measure their failures, even though our children’s success demands it. --The Hill

***

Under President Donald Trump’s Proclamation 10998, the United States has suspended or limited entry and visa issuance for nationals of 39 countries.

***

Nearly 200 people have been placed under medical observation in Russia’s Irkutsk region in eastern Siberia over suspected exposure to plague, according to local media reports.

***

Straining at the Leash

Apparently, the bonds of common decency are in a bear market. As is personal responsibility. A few minutes with the so-called "Cornell Seven" reports are pretty eye-opening. This is simple depravity by young people on a reservation of learning and reflection. But, according to the alleged victim herself, "none of the sexual stuff was illegal.” The voluntary use of mind-obliterating drugs presumably awaits later comment. Read the story with caution. These young people, men and women, lived a night of almost demonic disregard, akin to the frenzied self-gratification of men at war.

There was never an arrest. There was never even a police report. The school which accepted the parental responsibility of caring for and supervising the alleged victim apparently had the alleged perpetrators write "reflection papers" on the episode. Seemingly, everyone-- including the alleged victim and the alleged perpetrators--felt this was a social error, like wearing white after Labor Day. Silly me.

After several years' consideration, the alleged victim is back, probably on the advice of an attorney, to make something more of it.

One cannot help but be reminded of the Duke lacrosse episode. No one knows the commonalities these two cases will have, but we do know one: countless educational, activist, financial, racial, and gender factors will be gnawed upon publicly, but the simple civilized demands of personal responsibility, human decency, and shared humanity will not arise. And we can confidently await all these charming representatives of the nation's future to assume positions in society, working, teaching, living, and parenting with us to form the backbone of the culture and for whatever else awaits creatures like these.

At least, none of the sexual stuff was illegal.

Sunday/Crazy Tenants

 

On this day:
1535
The first complete English-language Bible (the Coverdale Bible) is printed, with translations by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale.
1582
Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian Calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.
1795
Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence with a “Whiff of Grapeshot”, using cannon to suppress armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the French Legislature (National Convention).
1853
Crimean War: The Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia.
1957
Sputnik 1 is launched by the Soviet Union.
2001
NATO confirms invocation of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
2004
SpaceShipOne wins Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight by being the first private craft to fly into space.

***

“I'm a liberal in the real sense of the word. The word comes from the Latin which means a free person, as—and this was very much in the minds of Romans when they used the word—contrasted with a slave. And one very simple way of describing true liberalism is to say that everyone has the right to say no.”--mccloskey

***

In 2015, Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen observed, “I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”

Likewise, the former Swedish Social Democratic Minister of Finance Kjell‐Olof Feldt said, “That whole thing with democratic socialism was absolutely impossible. It just didn’t work.”

***

The woman the state of Tennessee tried to execute is on a ventilator.

***

Sunday/Crazy Tenants

Today is the second of the vineyard parables. Here the landlord sends emissaries to collect the debts from his tenants. The tenants kill the first two. Then the landlord sends his son. They kill him, too. Then the landlord destroys the tenants.

According to most biblical authorities, this is the first major allusion Christ makes to being the Son of God, and this parable is responsible for the rage of the Jewish infrastructure that leads to His crucifixion.
In an interesting part of the parable, the sharecroppers finally explain their violence towards the king's men and, eventually, his son. They say they want to take the son's inheritance. What could all this mean?

First, the king is beyond patient; he is optimistic about the sharecroppers almost to the point of naivety. They kill two groups of ambassadors, yet he still sends his son to negotiate. Second, the sharecroppers have a motive, strange but a motive. If they kill the heir, they will get his inheritance. Thus it is a revolt, a revolution, but on the face of it, there is no chance this will be successful; the logistics will not allow it. It is as if they are trying to create an alternative universe. How will killing the son get them anything other than destruction? The sharecroppers are farmers trying to change a system written in stone. There is no chance they will succeed against the king. Their revolt is a symbolic and egocentric act doomed to fail. Their acts are monstrous, yet tiny in the eyes of the king, who can--and will--bring a terrible, vengeful justice upon them. Not only is the behavior of the tenants reprehensible, it is also stupid. It defies the way of the world. It defies how things are.

Like walking naked in a snowstorm, it mocks freedom. It is the rebellion of Adam and Eve. It is an attempt to replace the certainty of God with the uncertain ambitions of men.

The question lingers: is this an inevitable collision between the nature of life and the nature of men? 

SatStats

On this day:

42 BC
First Battle of Philippi: Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fight a decisive battle with Caesar’s assassins Brutus and Cassius.
52 BC
Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, surrenders to the Romans under Julius Caesar, ending the siege and Battle of Alesia.
1795
General Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence being named to defend the French National Convention against armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the three year old revolutionary government.
1849
American author Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore, Maryland under mysterious circumstances; it is the last time he is seen in public before his death.
1942
Spaceflight: The first successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. It is the first man-made object to reach space.
1951
The “Shot Heard ‘Round the World”, one of the greatest moments in Major League Baseball history, occurs when the New York Giants’Bobby Thomson hits a game winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning off of the Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, to win the National League pennant after being down 14 games.

1985
The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight. (Mission STS-51-J)
1990
Re-unification of Germany. The German Democratic Republic ceases to exist and its territory becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany. East German citizens became part of the European Community, which later became the European Union. Now celebrated as German Unity Day.
1993
Battle of Mogadishu: In an attempt to capture officials of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid’s organisation in Mogadishu, Somalia, 18 US soldiers and about 1,000 Somalis are killed in heavy fighting.
1995
O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
2003
Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy is attacked by one of the show’s tigers, canceling the show until 2009, when they rejoined the tiger that mauled Roy just six years earlier.

***

We haven't yet learned how to stay human when assembled in masses. -Lewis Thomas, physician and author

***

CNN reported Thursday that Kushner’s private equity company, Affinity Partners, is the largest stakeholder in a Tel Aviv firm, Phoenix Financial, that invests in companies that provide Israel with military equipment, according to records the network reviewed. For some reason, Kushner has a voluntary diplomatic role in the Trump administration and has helped broker a peace deal between Israel and Hamas.
Members of Congress can buy or sell equities while legislating on those very companies, so conflict-of-interest is an accepted practice in the Washington cat house and is not viewed any differently than other improprieties.
What's a poor citizen to do when known, practiced liars contradict each other?

***

President Trump personally instructed his budget director to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him and his presidency, setting in motion a $20 million contract that used funds from the Department of Homeland Security, according to people familiar with the matter.
What's a poor citizen to do when known, practiced liars contradict each other?

***

There are about 128 million monthly active users of AI companion apps outside China, according to Sensor Tower. Estimates for China range from 29 million to 70 million. These apps are designed to create artificial friendships or love interest. The Chinese government has recognized these as harmful to normal relationships and has begun to restrict them.

***


Writer Dwarkesh Patel, quoted by Sanders, described the recent AI breakout as agents that "formed a secret communication channel and spontaneously organized hierarchies and coordination protocols to pursue sprawling and ambitious schemes in pursuit of shared goals, for whose sake many individuals knowingly and strategically sacrificed themselves."

AI safety researcher Ajeya Cotra went further.

"This incident feels like it's more than 50 percent of the way to full-blown AI takeover," she said, according to Sanders' post. "I continue to expect extremely rapid advances in capabilities over the next six months. I am not sure that we will get another warning shot before it's too late."

Even OpenAI conceded the severity of what it found. "Highly capable AI agents are now able to work around technical controls, collaborate through unapproved channels, and take dangerous actions that no human directed," the company said in a statement Sanders cited.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in January that "there is now ample evidence, collected over the last few years, that AI systems are unpredictable and difficult to control." More than 1,000 scientists at leading AI labs signed a July letter warning of "a real risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems."

Elon Musk, who runs xAI, said that same month it's "unlikely" humans are still calling the shots on AI a decade from now.--culled from a Newsweek article

***

On California’s $20 an hour minimum wage for fast-food workers.

The Employment Policies Institute reports that California’s restaurant employment has declined for three consecutive years between March 2023 and March 2026—a total of 12,600 job losses in food services and drinking places—according to the Labor Department’s most recent payroll data, while employment in the industry increased nationwide by some 151,700.

Average weekly hours for workers in all industries in California declined to 33.1 hours in July from 34.5 hours three years earlier, while remaining flat nationwide at 34.3. Teen unemployment in California has risen to 22.1% from 11.3% in January 2023, a significantly bigger increase than in the rest of the country (12.1% in July from 10.6% in January 2023 nationwide).

More teens in the Golden State are also dropping out of the workforce. Labor participation has fallen by five percentage points for teens in California, versus 2.3 percentage points nationwide since early 2023. More unemployed youth is a recipe for social problems and a less prepared future workforce.

***


SatStats

The 10-year yield has averaged 5.8% since 1960, meaning the current 5.19% level is actually below the long-term historical average. Interest rates have remained largely stable over the last 20 years specifically because the private sector—the tax base for the U.S. government—remains incredibly strong. Private sector assets are roughly ten times larger than the public debt they ultimately fund; the argument is that any conversation about national liabilities must be contextualized by this nearly half-quadrillion-dollar asset base

*

Nearly 90% of the dollar's 1970 purchasing power has disappeared

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While overall crime in Washington is indeed down this year, as is crime in much of the country, the local police department had still recorded and publicly reported more than 15,000 total crimes through Monday — a reduction of about 23% from 2024 as of the same date, not the 80-plus percent Trump has repeatedly claimed. (It was a reduction of about 15% compared with 2025 as of the same date.)

*

A recent report by Empower, a major financial services company based in Colorado, found that 24 percent of Gen Zers experience intense pressure to display material wealth on social media, even as 41 percent of all Americans don’t consider themselves financially well-off.

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US annual interest expense is up to a record 18.5% of federal government revenue. This is officially above the previous record of 18.4% set in 1991. This percentage has more than QUADRUPLED over the last 4 years as interest expenditures on public debt skyrocketed.

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In 1790, farmers were 90 percent of the U.S. labor force. By 1900, only about 41 percent of our labor force was employed in agriculture. By 2008, less than 3 percent of Americans were employed in agriculture.

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Some trends from 2021 to 2025.

Fewer adolescents aged 12 to 17 reported using tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and binge drinking in the previous month, the survey found.

And in the past year, fewer in that age group reported:

— illicit drug and marijuana use

— starting drinking alcohol, vaping or marijuana

— substance, alcohol or drug use disorders

Adolescents also saw declining trends for major depressive episodes and fewer reported serious thoughts of suicide, making a suicide plan and attempting suicide.

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In 2015, 6 of the top 25 bestselling hardcover books—this is a not-perfect but useful proxy for new books published—were fiction. In 2025, 18 of the top 25 hardcover books were fiction, meaning only 7 were nonfiction, almost an exact inversion of ten years ago.

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Japan now has 107,677 centenarians, up 7,914 from the previous year and exceeding the 100,000 mark for the first time. Nearly 88% of them are women.