Potpourri

 

Potpourri

I'm off for a while and likely will not have internet access so...here is a collection of notions that have been stewing for the past week, delicately placed for their fragrance and aesthetics.

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Someone tried to firebomb Sam Altman's home (the CEO of OpenAI). The Bell Curve has two ends. A silly with a Molotov cocktail can, if fortunate, cancel the life and production of one of humanity's high achievers, trading the very productive end of the curve for one on the other end.
This is the Bell curve of intelligence and productivity. And it is the "Curse of the Colt." The unemployed moron with a demonic vision can murder the CEO of an important health care company. Death to the hierarchy and the dreaded quality! And power to the drone.
"God made all men, but Colt made them equal"--Samuel Colt

*

A Minnesota fraud suspect involving $11 million fled the country days before his trial.
Despite warnings from prosecutors, the judge offered Abdirashid Said $150,000 unconditional bail, and he booked a flight undetected.

We are unsure which is the moron here or how many there are.

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A signal of the bureaucratic obsession with mortal tinkering: The Trump administration said on Friday that it would allow firing squads and readopt lethal injection as part of a broader push to revive the death penalty.

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One thing we can all agree on is the despicable ethical and legal outrages of the graft and theft in the welfare state programs and the NGOs and non-profits. So, how are the investigations going? What is the conviction rate, and what judgments have been rendered?

 

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National Socialism, Stalinism, Pol Pot's Year Zero, the Chinese Kleptocracy, and the like don't always benefit those with the guns, but they never benefit anyone other than those with the guns.
Those grim countries with suppression, gulags, and citizen-murder, whose horizon never extends beyond the graveyard, do not send their wide-eyed immigrants to America for relief or therapy; they send them for revenge. Many are truly inculcated with the value of the static confines of their home's repressive limits. Others, as is becoming clear, are simply stupid. Piker thinks he gets points for frankness, AOC goes to the European trade summit expecting an inauguration from those royalty-worshipping Europeans.
The arc of history does not bend toward justice; in this life, there is no justice. The arc of history bends toward truth.
The problem in life is who must suffer--and for how long--while history works out the Gordian knot of 'justice' to reveal the completely unrelated underlying truth.

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A California winery owned by Representative Ilhan Omar's husband was shut down weeks after Congressional Republicans demanded answers about the reported wealth of the Minnesota Democrat's family.

Wait for the follow-up justice.

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Back to the Bell Curve. Do the 97% of us average guys owe everything to the 3% the morons are victimizing and harassing? Will that 3% retaliate?

Musk currently controls the world’s largest space force. He sends rockets to orbit more than 100 times/year. They are reusable. One Falcon 9 has been reused 30 times so far. He has quite detailed, feasible plans for colonizing the Moon and Mars in the next decade.  

Musk currently controls a global internet provider with >10 million worldwide users, and it's growing fast. At the beginning of the war, he shut off the internet to Ukraine’s military, which probably would have let Russia win the war quickly if he had not turned it back on.

Musk currently controls one of the world’s largest social media sites, X (it’s about 15% as big as Facebook), with 550 million users. He has control of the algorithms.

Musk is building a robot army through his company, Optimus.

Musk is implanting computer chips in human brains (Neuralink brain-computer interfaces). He is actually doing human clinical trials.

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And from a podcast, an explanation from Maessheimer of the current Progressive position on Iran:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMg6_jGfjzM

"Foot on the Ground," Head in the Clouds

On this day:

1558
Mary, Queen of Scots, marries the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre Dame de Paris.
1915
The arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Istanbul marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
1916
Easter Rising: The Irish Republican Brotherhood led by nationalists Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, and Joseph Plunkett starts a rebellion in Ireland.
1916
Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launch a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island in the Southern Ocean to organise a rescue for the ice-trapped ship ship .
1918
First tank-to-tank combat, at Villers-Bretonneux, France, when three British Mark IVs met three German A7Vs.
1967
Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when its parachute fails to open. He is the first human to die during a space mission.
1967
Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland says in a news conference that the enemy had “gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily.”
1980
Eight U.S. servicemen die in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis.
1990
STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery.

***

Hackers discovered they could use poetry in their prompts to confound LLMs and their safeguards. This is known as an adversarial attack on AI using poetry.
From a recent investigation, “These findings demonstrate that stylistic variation alone can circumvent contemporary safety mechanisms, suggesting fundamental limitations in current alignment methods and evaluation protocols.”

***

Trump says he is considering having the government buy Spirit Air. Mamdani's grocery store could serve food.

***

The Steelers called receiver Makai Lemon without realizing the Eagles had moved up with a trade to get him. The Eagles weren’t able to reach Lemon because he was on the phone with the Steelers.
So the Steelers entered a world of Pittsburgh foolishness previously dominated by the Pirates and their first-round picks, and the Penguins, with their silly responses to Flyers' WWE tactics.

***

The architects of the Afghan withdrawal have problems with how Trump plans to withdraw from Iran. 

***


"Foot on the Ground," Head in the Clouds

The NYC's so-called “pied-à-terre” tax, announced last week by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, would impose an annual surtax on non-primary residential real estate valued at more than $5 million.
To declare victory--the intention is the point to Progressives--Mamdani stood in front of Ken Griffin’s penthouse and grinned, “Today we’re taxing the rich.”

Griffin is the CEO of the Citadel hedge fund and Citadel Securities, and the mayor of the city stands outside Griffin’s home to name and villainize a man who employs thousands, pays an enormous local tax bill, and has donated billions to causes benefiting New Yorkers.

The socialist debate has always been about feasibility: Can these targeted, hierarchical tax plans work? But this notion is beginning to reveal itself as something much more important. Mamdani was bypassing the shallow economics of his 'plan' and making it personal.

Envy. The disparaging of success. Central and abstract government power. These are the antithesis of the thinking that led to this country's creation. These are the elements of class warfare: ugly, anti-individual, and pro-oligarchy. That does not mean it won't work, but it does mean it is, essentially, anti-American. 

It may be that America needs a philosophical infusion from the old, tribal, failed cultures of Europe and Asia, but why people come to a country they dislike and try to recreate a culture they left deserves some thought. It may be that this event, foolish and revealing, is a display of an overconfidence that might stimulate such a reevaluation.

An Economy Filtered

On this day:

1815
The Second Serbian Uprising – a second phase of the national revolution of the Serbs against the Ottoman Empire, erupts shortly after the annexation of the country to the Ottoman Empire.
1940
The Rhythm Night Club fire at a dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, kills 198 people.
1942
World War II: Baedeker Blitz – German bombers hit Exeter, Bath, and York in retaliation for the British raid on Lübeck.
1967
Soviet space program: Soyuz 1 (Russian: Союз 1, Union 1), a manned spaceflight, is launched into orbit carrying cosmonaut Colonel Vladimir Komarov.
1968
Vietnam War: Student protesters at Columbia University in New York City take over administration buildings and shut down the university.

***

"As I said the other day, I promised my family, this organization and this team that I was going to give them the best version of me that I can possibly give them. In order to do so, I have committed to seeking counseling, starting this weekend," Vrabel said Wednesday night. "This is something that I have given a lot of thought to and is something I would advise a player to do if I was counseling them.
"I have always wanted to lead by example, and I believe this is what I have to do to be the best husband, father and coach that I possibly can be. This is not an easy thing for me to admit, but it is one that I know will make me a better person. I appreciate the support that everyone has given me and promise a stronger resolve as a result."

Well, that should make America feel better.

***

This day, in 1564, is the birthday of William Shakespeare, English writer and actor (d. 1616) (traditional approximate birth date in Julian calendar based on April 26 baptism)

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The Penguins, the third-highest scoring team in the NHL during the regular season, have four goals in three games during this series. One came at even strength, two came on the power play, and one came with the goaltender pulled in Game 1.

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Berkshire's Abel has more than $43 billion of his company's assets invested in Japanese stocks as of the April 17 closing bell.
Whereas many of Wall Street's leading public companies trade at premium valuations, Japan's trading houses have consistently traded at high-single-digit to low-double-digit price-to-earnings ratios. The companies are paying dividends to shareholders, and their management teams are receiving modest pay packages compared to those of most large- and mega-cap U.S. public companies.

***

An Economy Filtered

California cannot permit the construction of a smartphone factory, an electric car plant, or a Navy destroyer shipyard. Not won’t — can’t. The regulatory environment makes it effectively impossible to build new semiconductor fabs, automotive paint shops, battery gigafactories, or steel foundries.

Tesla didn’t put its Gigafactory in Nevada out of affection for Reno. General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego can build destroyers only because it’s been grandfathered in since 1960. If it closed tomorrow, it could not be rebuilt.--Tabarrok

So we can't build businesses but complain there are no jobs? We can't drill and sell oil, but complain about the cost of importing it?

I know a man who owns a coffee shop and was told by local regulators that his floor space required that he build a second bathroom. So, he made the shop smaller. I know a farmer whose kids wanted to set up a roadside vegetable stand to sell produce from their garden and were told they needed a $40,000 investment in air conditioning to meet regulations.

China may be a problem, but a suicidal culture does not need enemies to be rewarded.

 

Gerrymander Redux

On this day:

1529
The Treaty of Saragossa divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal along a line 297.5 leagues or 17° east of the Moluccas.
1836
Texas Revolution: A day after the Battle of San Jacinto, forces under Texas General Sam Houston capture Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
1889
At high noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Run of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000.
1898
Spanish-American War: The United States Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports and the USS Nashville captures a Spanish merchant ship.
1915
The use of poison gas in World War I escalates when chlorine gas is released as a chemical weapon in the Second Battle of Ypres.
2000
In a pre-dawn raid, federal agents seize six-year-old Elián González from his relatives’ home in Miami, Florida.

***

“The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy.”--Elbridge Gerry

***

John Mearsheimer is a political scientist at the University of Chicago. He has a body of work encompassing international affairs, particularly Israel's relationship with its neighbors and America. One book, Why Leaders Lie (Oxford University Press, 2011), analyzes lying in international politics. His two main findings are that leaders actually do not lie very much to other countries and that democratic leaders are actually more likely than autocrats to lie to their own people.

***

Elián González was rescued from America by the American government.

***

The Blue Origin explosion last weekend was significant for the Artemis program. The New Glenn rocket was designed to launch Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander, one of two options the space agency is tapping to deliver astronauts to the lunar surface as part of its Artemis program. The other company NASA is contracting is SpaceX, whose Starship rocket also has yet to successfully deliver functional payloads into space and has repeatedly exploded during launch attempts.

***

China has built a massive $1.2 trillion trade surplus and dominates key future-facing industries such as electric vehicles, solar panels, shipbuilding, and robotics. Yet its share of the global economy has slipped, from a peak of about 18.5% in 2021 to roughly 16.5% by the end of 2025, according to data from the International Monetary Fund, said a WSJ report.

***

Government works on its own script, works around the law, and, when caught, forgives itself.

***

Gerrymander Redux

Gerrymandering restructures voting districts for partisan purposes. The new gerrymandering of Virginia will take a state that voted for Trump in the last election and has a breakdown in the House of Representatives of 6 to 5 in favor of Democrats and change it to 10 to 1, Democrats. This will essentially disenfranchise rural voters.

In democracies, voters choose political leaders; in gerrymandering the leaders choose the voters.

           Subverting Democracy in the Name of Democracy

Voting is but a part of democracy. The Russians have a national vote, too.

The good Mr. Gerry, for whom this disgraceful process is named, was no hack. Born into a wealthy merchant family, Gerry vocally opposed British colonial policy in the 1760s and played an active role in organizing the resistance during the early stages of the American Revolutionary War. Elected to the Second Continental Congress, Gerry signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. He was one of three men who attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787 but refused to sign the Constitution because it initially did not include a Bill of Rights. After its ratification, he was elected to the first United States Congress, where he actively participated in drafting and passing the Bill of Rights, advocating for individual and state liberties. Gerry was at first opposed to the idea of political parties(wiki). He was the Governor of Massachusetts and was elected Vice President under Madison in 1812. He died in office.

Nor was this practice new. Manipulating voting districts to secure political power existed even before the nation. In 18th-century England, political operatives created “rotten boroughs” with only a few eligible voters, making it easy for politicians to buy votes and win seats. 

After English colonists founded the United States, gerrymandering “began almost immediately,” says Thomas Hunter, a political science professor at the University of West Georgia.

Gerrymandering is a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise certain voters and distort elections. Its intent is to benefit the political class and to spite the voter. Amazingly, it is illegal to do this based on race, but only on race. What honest citizen would want this? And why?

It can only be that the disenfranchised voter is thought to deserve to be.

Voting is a contest of beliefs. One votes to express a belief, with the many beliefs available, you will vote for the superior one. But inherent to the democracy is the belief that you will accept the result of the vote, that the majority may not see your way as the best.

The Americans have a structural advantage; they have a Constitution that limits the power of the state, carefully considered guidelines that channel votes within a confining framework. The American vote is a nuance within that structure.

With gerrymandering, like voting fraud, a thief attempts to distort the system for his own benefit. He always disguises the motive as a need to defeat an evil opponent or philosophy--the 'no effort is too much' argument--but the objective is to benefit the politician and his organization. The voting box is no longer a contest, it is a command.

So, gerrymandering, voter fraud, and court manipulation are all means to subvert the letter and the spirit of America's founding documents for the betterment of a political few. Any abuse is allowed to advance the kingdom of the righteous. And the righteous thief.

And in modern America, it is brandished proudly.

A Zero-Sum

On this day:

1653
Oliver Cromwell dissolves the Rump Parliament.
1775
American Revolutionary War: the Siege of Boston begins, following the battles at Lexington and Concord.
1862
Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard complete the first pasteurization tests.
1902
Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.
1918
Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims, his final victories before his death the following day.
1961
Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed troops against Cuba.

1972
Apollo 16, commanded by John Young, lands on the moon.
1978
Korean Air Flight 902 is shot down by the Soviet Union.
1980
Climax of Berber Spring in Algeria as hundreds of Berber political activists are arrested.
1999
Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado.
2008
Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300, becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.

***

[Foreign aid is] “an excellent method for transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.” ― Lord Peter Bauer

***

Ke'Bryan Hayes' glove remains elite. The two-time Gold Glove Award-winner has already contributed 4 defensive runs saved — the most among any third baseman.
The problem: through his first 17 games, he's hitting just .064 with a .137 on-base percentage. He only has three hits on the young season — all singles — and was replaced in the starting lineup by Eugenio Suárez for the Reds' series opener against the Minnesota Twins on Friday night.

***

The gerrymandering of Virginia is not simply a maneuver to influence national politics for the benefit of one political establishment; it does so by depriving the local state citizens of representation.

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California paid $9 billion in health care for illegal immigrants last year.

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A Zero-Sum

As the debt grows, so will its interest in both absolute dollars and proportion of spending. That is to say, the debt financing will increase at the expense of social spending. So there will be a true zero-sum relationship between debt financing and social funding. And also between one social spending area and another.

These are, superficially, very serious-looking social dynamics but seem not to be worthy of discussion.

 

Sunday/Emmaus

On this day:

1529
The Second Diet of Speyer bans Lutheranism; a group of rulers (German: Fürst) and independent cities (German: Reichsstadt) protests the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms, beginning the Protestant Reformation.
1587
Francis Drake’s expedition sinks the Spanish fleet in Cádiz harbor
1775
American Revolutionary War: The war begins with an American victory in Concord during the battles of Lexington and Concord.
1961
The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in success for the defenders.
1971
Charles Manson is sentenced to death for conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders.
1993
The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.
1995
Oklahoma City bombing: The A Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168. That same day convicted murderer Richard Wayne Snell, who had ties to one of the bombers, Timothy McVeigh, is executed in Arkansas.

***

Flyers did not look like the team that played into the playoffs. The Pens were overwhelmed with speed and intensity, and they tried hard.


***


Sunday/Emmaus

Today's gospel is the brilliant Road to Emmaus gospel, where two of Christ's apostles are discussing Christ's death on their way to the town of Emmaus. They are joined by Christ, whom they do not recognize. He joins the conversation, explains the life and death of Christ, particularly in the context of prophecy.

The travelers reach a point in the road where it seems the new man who joined them is going to go his own way. The men encourage him to continue with them to Emmaus. They eventually recognize him at the breaking of the bread at dinner.

This story is especially interesting in its connection to the Eucharist but what is fascinating is the journey of men, met by Christ whom they do not recognize and the moment where they, the travelers, must initiate the true development and enhancement of their understanding.

Without their positive efforts, Christ will move on alone.

Satstats

On this day:

1897
The Greco-Turkish War is declared between Greece and the Ottoman Empire.
1906
An earthquake and fire destroy much of San Francisco, California.
1930
BBC Radio announces that there is no news on that day.
1942
World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Japan. Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya are bombed.
1943
World War II: Operation Vengeance, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighters over Bougainville Island.
1988
The United States launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in the largest naval battle since World War II.

*** 

If the Democrats came up with a plan for all Americans to jump off a thousand-foot cliff tomorrow, some Republicans would come up with an 'alternative’ plan in which we would all jump off a 500-foot cliff next week.--Sowell

***

The Iroquois Confederacy — or the Haudenosaunee Confederacy — was a league made up of six distinct Native American Indian nations that spoke the same language. The Confederacy is most well-known for its role in the Fur Trade and the major wars that shaped the American Colonies.

***

Many reports act as if Iran--or the U.S.--never considered the posibility of taking advantage of the chokepoint in the Persian Gulf. They must not remember the Iran-Iraq War and its spillover when Iran incidentally mined a U.S. ship, resulting in Operation Praying Mantis.

By 1988, Iran and Iraq had been locked in a brutal war for nearly eight years. Hundreds of thousands had died in grinding trench warfare reminiscent of World War I. Both nations sought to strangle the other's economy by attacking oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps laid mines in international shipping lanes and used small speedboats to harass and attack merchant vessels. The conflict became known as the Tanker War.

***

Braden “Clavicular” Peters was rushed to the hospital earlier this week after suffering a suspected drug overdose.

The 20-year-old is a so-called “looksmaxxing” influencer who attempts to “maximize” his physical appearance through often ill-advised practices, which range from treating facial acne to plastic surgery and “bonesmashing,” a bizarre phenomenon that involves striking one’s own face with a hammer.

***


Satstats

According to Bilmes, a policy lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, the cost of the ongoing Iran war is likely to exceed $1 trillion.

*

In 2015 coal generated 69% of China’s primary energy, and by 2024 it was down to 56% — much higher than the US at 8%. But the actual volume of coal consumed was greater than ever, simply because China’s electricity demand continues to grow. Despite its efforts to reduce coal use, four years after Xi’s pledge, China was consuming 40% more coal than the rest of the world combined.

*

A full 29% of the city’s budget, an astounding $39 billion, goes to a school system where enrollment is down, truancy is up, and achievement is stagnant.

*

There are over 4400 hit and runs a year in Pittsburgh

*

The defense budget is just 13 percent of total federal spending.

*

Last year, we paid $970 billion in interest costs; this year, we will surpass $1 trillion. Interest costs so far this year “have been the second-largest spending category for the federal government — outpacing outlays for all budget categories except for Social Security.”

*

Almost a quarter-billion calls are placed to 911 each year in the United States. A large share of them involve social problems, not crimes or emergencies—yet police are always dispatched.

*

Physician incomes are extraordinarily high in the United States. A new NBER paper finds that U.S. physicians earn roughly two to four times as much as their counterparts in Canada, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

*

Though roughly the size of California, Paraguay’s $47 billion economy is about 1% of California’s.

*

By one metric, all ten of the most influential science papers of the last decade came from the United States.

A Copy, Sort Of

On this day:

1397
Geoffrey Chaucer tells the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II. Chaucer scholars have also identified this date (in 1387) the start of the book’s pilgrimage to Canterbury.
1897
The Aurora, Texas UFO incident
1912
Russian troops open fire on striking goldfield workers in northeast Siberia, killing at least 150.
1946
Syria obtains its Independence from the French occupation.
1961
Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of CIA-financed and trained Cuban exiles lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, intending to oust Fidel Castro.
1969
Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy.
1970
Apollo program: The ill-fated Apollo 13 spacecraft returns to Earth safely.
1986
The Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years’ War between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly ends. Ah, Europe.

***

Racial equity plans don’t build generational wealth—they redistribute resentment. They don’t heal historical wounds—they reopen them for political profit.--Chin

***

In 1897, in Arora, Texas, a flying metal craft crashed into a local windmill. The debris was unlike anything the townspeople had ever encountered—pieces of a strange, lightweight metal that was both strong and heat-resistant. As they sifted through the wreckage, they discovered something even more shocking: the body of a small humanoid figure, mangled and lifeless, lying among the twisted remnants of the craft.

Or so it is said.


***

An Obama-era loophole later expanded under Biden allows Chinese nationals to travel visa-free to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory. Pregnant women have exploited this policy to give birth on U.S. soil and secure American citizenship for their children.


***

Ukraine’s defenders have invented an entirely new way of war that’s costing Russia massively in blood and treasure to advance even a few yards at a time — and Kyiv’s “robot” forces are getting ever better.
Zelensky says autonomous systems have participated in over 22,000 frontline missions — sparing human casualties — these last three months, a period that’s seen Moscow driven back on multiple fronts.

For the first time in the history of this war, Ukrainian warriors captured an enemy position using exclusively unmanned platforms,” President Volodymyr Zelensky boasted to defense workers the other day.

Actually, it was the first time in history, period, that entirely remote-controlled robotic systems captured an enemy position, with no help from human infantry. (nypost)

***

A Copy, Sort Of

Current thinking is that studies show cloning is not what we thought. It is not the predictable, reproducible carbon-copy of a genetically identical precursor.

There are simply many more mutations in clones than in normally produced individuals. It could just be that the adult body cells being cloned accumulate more mutations than egg or sperm cells do. But Teruhiko Wakayama at Yamanashi University in Japan thinks the cloning process itself could be causing at least some of them.

A clone is meant to be a genetically identical copy, but a 20-year study has shown that this isn’t, in fact, the case. It reveals that clones have many extra mutations and, if you keep cloning clones, these build up to fatal levels. The findings have implications for the use of cloning in farming and for saving endangered animals, including efforts to recreate extinct species, as well as for the potential use of cloning technology in people.

“Unfortunately, however, while clones were once thought to be identical to the original, it has become clear that this is not the case, suggesting that there may be issues with their use,” Wakayama says. “Going forward, we need to demonstrate that mutations arising from cloning do not pose problems.”

Or, put another way, what are we doing?

A Fifth Column

On this day:
1178 BC
The calculated date of the Greek king Odysseus’ return home from the Trojan War.
1457 BC
Likely date of the Battle of Megiddo between Thutmose III and a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh, the first battle to have been recorded in what is accepted as relatively reliable detail.
73
Masada, a Jewish fortress, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the Jewish Revolt.
1746
The Battle of Culloden is fought between the French-supported Jacobites and the British Hanoverian forces commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, in Scotland after the battle many highland traditions were banned and the Highlands of Scotland were cleared of inhabitants.
1917
Lenin returns to Petrograd from exile in Switzerland.
1945
More than 7,000 die when the German refugee ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine torpedo.
1945
The Red Army begins the final assault on German forces around Berlin, with nearly one million troops fighting in the Battle of the Seelow Heights.
2007
Virginia Tech massacre: The deadliest spree killing in modern American history. Seung-Hui Cho, kills 32 and injures 23 before committing suicide.

***

"Nothing is more suicidal than a rational investment strategy in an irrational world."--John Maynard Keynes

***

Has the attack on Iran been so successful that we don't know who is negotiating their surrender?

***

Culloden was fought between the British and the Scots, Catholics and Protestants, Highlanders and Lowlanders. The Campbells turned coat to fight for the Brits. I had a friend named Campbell who was refused service there because of his name.

***

Does the Swalwell fiasco open the door to the Governor's mansion to Kamala?

***

A Fifth Column

A new report from The New York Times highlights a significant change in the types of individuals and entities funding political campaigns across the United States. Rather than traditional individual donors, an increasing amount of political money is now coming from wealthy, anonymous sources, raising concerns about transparency and the influence of undisclosed interests in the electoral process.

Wealthy. And anonymous. 

Americans have a lot of concerns and interests. And not a lot of time or organization to do it. That's one reason we have governments. Governments can try to maintain the integrity of the nation. Safety. Protection from invasion and piracy.

We are constantly burdened with someone's idea of a brave new world as street activists and aggressive politicians try to reshape us. This NYT information suggests their ideas may not be their own. Other nations have big budgets; why not spend it here, trying to influence policy and money flow? It's probably cheaper than war.

One would hope these public servants would suppress their tendencies to be public reformers and just do the basics to protect us. We, not foreign money, should determine our future. We, not thieves, should determine where our money goes. If it is really true that 15% of the national budget is stolen every year, we should know and pursue that; with that volume, it should be easy to find.

Unless, of course, these "public servants" are complicit in this national and economic erosion.

Tax Day Conspiracy

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche revealed that the Justice Department is investigating more than 8,000 fraud cases, which he said represent over $1 trillion in taxpayer funds potentially stolen each year by "increasingly sophisticated and opportunistic fraudsters."

***

Tax Day Conspiracy

Today is tax day. A day directly 182 days between the two first Tuesdays in November, voting day, would be May 5. So, tax day is two weeks or so as far away from election day as possible.

Is that an accident?

My suggestion is that tax day and election day be on the same day so the voters can keep both in mind. 

Let's see if it made a difference in the quality of people elected.

Lincoln

On this day:

70
Siege of Jerusalem: Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, surrounds the Jewish capital with four Roman legions.
1294
Temür, grandson of Kublai, is elected Khagan of the Mongols and Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty with the reigning titles Oljeitu and Chengzong. I think this is Marlowe's Tamburlaine
1865
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth.
1912
The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 11:40pm. The ship sinks the following morning with the loss of 1,517 lives.
1986
1 kg hailstones fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92. These are the heaviest hailstones ever recorded.
1999
NATO mistakenly bombs a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees – Yugoslav officials say 75 people are killed.
2003
The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.

***

If the Democrats came up with a plan for all Americans to jump off a thousand-foot cliff tomorrow, some Republicans would come up with an “alternative’ plan in which we would all jump off a 500-foot cliff next week.*--Sowell

***

According to MLB.com’s Jason Mackey, Kelly turned down at least six interviews for managerial roles because he “felt like the best thing for [his family] was to be in Pittsburgh.”

***

On this day, Lincoln is shot, and the repercussions continue to this day. And the Titanic finds her iceberg.

***

Trump might be the most progressive president since, early in the 20th century, progressivism defined itself with three core tenets:

First, only an energetic executive can make modern government “wieldy” — Woodrow Wilson’s word. (“The president,” said Wilson, “is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can.”) 

Second, the separation of powers is a premodern mistake that permits Congress to meddle in government and allows the judiciary to inhibit the executive.
Third, conservatives see modern society’s complexities as reasons to avoid attempting dramatic social engineering, lest unintended consequences overwhelm intended ones. Progressives think conservatives are worrywarts, too timid about wielding government.--Will

***

Lincoln

We Americans stupidly recognize April 14 as the day before taxes are due. So we emphasize money and materialism over greatness of mind and soul, greatness that was both a product of and an influence upon the nation. Taxes are trivial compared to what happened on this day in 1865. President Lincoln was shot by Booth on Good Friday, April 14, 1865 and died the next morning. Secretary of State Seward was brutally assaulted as was his son. There is good evidence that the conspirators stalked General Grant to his train the same night. This occurred 5 days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox and doomed the South to a reconciliation with the North shepherded by the usual political wolves. More importantly, it deprived the nation and politics of the high standard of mind and spirit Lincoln embodied.

Tolstoy on Lincoln:
“.... how largely the name of Lincoln is worshiped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become. Now why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skillful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character.

“Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country — bigger than all the Presidents together.

“We are still too near to his greatness,” Tolstoy concluded, “but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do.

“His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.”

From the Annals of Willing Suspension of Disbelief

On this day:

1204
Constantinople falls to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, temporarily ending the Byzantine Empire.
1829
The British Parliament grants freedom of religion to Roman Catholics.
1861
American Civil War: Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederate forces.
1873
The Colfax Massacre takes place.
1941
Pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed.
1943
World War II: The discovery of a mass grave of Polish prisoners of war executed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government in exile in London from the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility. The Nazis were shocked!
1970
An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the spacecraft while en route to the Moon.

***

"Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell."--Frank Borman (ex-Eastern CEO)

***

The Colfax massacre, sometimes referred to as the Colfax riot, occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, the parish seat of Grant Parish. An estimated 62–153 black men were murdered while surrendering to a mob of former Confederate soldiers and members of the Ku Klux Klan

***

Estimates of the number of Polish citizens executed at three mass murder sites in the spring of 1940 range from some 14,540 to 21,857 to 28,000. Most of those killed were reserve officers taken prisoner during the 1939 Polish September Campaign, but the dead also included many civilians who had been arrested for being "intelligence agents and gendarmes, spies and saboteurs, former landowners, factory owners, and officials."

Between 250,000 and 454,700 Polish soldiers had become prisoners and were interned by the Soviets, following their invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939, three weeks after Germany and the Soviet Union had signed the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This was a little over two weeks after the initial invasion of Poland by Germany, on September 1, 1939.

***

Spanish Prime Minister's wife charged with corruption. Sometimes the high road is short.

***

From the Annals of Willing Suspension of Disbelief

Life is full of surprises and contradictions. Some are enlightening. Some are unsettling. Public politics is beginning to be more under the heading of "Diagnosis." Examples:

-Iran, disarmed, defeated, and humiliated, continues to posture as a tough guy. Are they trying to fulfill their martyrdom? Their's may be desired, but their citizens' may not be. Is this an Eastern example of the government enforcing a 'greater purpose' on its citizen-victims?

-America's enemies shudder at the blockade as 'an act of war.' What did they think was going on here? And what about Iran's blockading itself? Are they declaring war on themselves? Sometimes martyrdom is harder to achieve than you would think. Is two beligerents blockading one belligerent a tie?

-Is threatening the Iranian culture a lot worse than Death to America?

-Iran's negotiations started with their demands that everything return to before the war and that the US pay reparations. What explains that mindset? In light of their recent self-blockade, are they negotiating with themselves?

-Mamdami just declared a socialist victory in NYC without having done anything yet. Does that remind you of Iran, or is it just politics?

-Why is it a logical step with a past heavily laden with accusations of sexual assault to run for governor? Do these politicians, like Mamdani's victory dance, live in a parallel universe?

Sunday/Thomas

On this day:

1204
The Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade breach the walls of Constantinople and enter the city, which they completely occupy the following day.
1550
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, English politician (d. 1604), is born

1861

American Civil War: The war begins with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.
1864
American Civil War: The Fort Pillow massacre: Confederate forces kill most of the African American soldiers that surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
1934
The strongest surface wind gust in the world at 231 mph, is measured on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire
1945
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies while in office; vice-president Harry Truman is sworn in as the 33rd President.
1961
The Russian (Soviet) cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight, in Vostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1).
1970
Soviet submarine K-8, carrying four nuclear torpedoes, sinks in the Bay of Biscay four days after a fire on board.

***

"I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else."
--Winston Churchill

***

It is estimated the average college graduate has a working vocabulary of 3000 words. The poet Ben Jonson's vocabulary was estimated at 7,500. The estimate of the playwright Shakespeare was 20,000. Many argue this astonishing number proves Shakespeare was more than one man. (Or an alien.) Of the other heretical ideas about his 'true' identity, deVere is a strong candidate.

***

New perspective since I can't get cable. The BBC thinks:
--that Iran's nuclear ambitions are defensive.
--that Iran's preconditions are reasonable groundwork for peace, when I think they caused the war in the first place.
--that Melania's request that the Epstein accusations be specific and based on testimony and not hearsay is unreasonable.
--that Starmer's move toward the EEU is statesman-like and not desperate


***

Sunday/Thomas

Today's gospel is the "Doubting Thomas" gospel. It could be a short story. Unfortunately, it is an insight that has become a cliché, and for the wrong reason.

The Thomas of the gospels is not a fickle guy; he is a brave, committed man. When Christ wants to return to a town where they had previously tried to kill Him, Thomas, after losing the argument against going, announces he will go with Christ so they can die together. His caution over the talk of Christ's resurrection stems from only one thing: his desire for the truth.

"Thomas" means "twin." Doubting Thomas is a twin. ("Doubt" has its origin in "duo.") The other side of doubt is belief, the product of doubt. Doubt and belief are linked. Twins. But that is not true for all.

Solipsism is the position in metaphysics and epistemology that the mind is the only thing known to exist, and that knowledge of anything outside the mind is unjustified. It is a skeptical hypothesis that leads to the belief that the entirety of reality, the external world, and other people are merely representations of the individual self, lacking independent existence, and might not even exist. It is not the same as skepticism (the epistemological position that one should refrain from making truth claims at all).
Some people make their living talking like this.

Several modern currents of thought are rushing us toward the rapids. One is doubt itself, as a philosophy, a tenet of modern life. For many, doubt is the endpoint.

When Descartes asked, "What can I know?" he described us as isolated individuals whose knowledge was individually subjective. But this comes at a price. I can doubt the existence of the external world, and I can doubt the existence of what appears to be my body. But when I try to also doubt the existence of my inner self, my thinking, then I find that I am still there--as a doubting mind. Doubting is the thing that, in the end, I cannot doubt. Doubting, however, is thinking, and the existence of thinking implies the existence of a thinker. Hence, Descartes' famous conclusion: "I think, therefore I am." So the self sees us as isolated individuals, prioritizing our subjectivity above all else. The agent of thought is doubt. And, unlike Thomas, those doubts are never answered.

This has implications for more than the individual. "Community" implies shared beliefs, things held in common. So doubt, as an endpoint, is as destructive, isolating, and paralyzing as any heresy. It is the redoubt(!) of the immobile and the somnolent. Like the pacifist, doubt requires the efforts and the sacrifices of others to exist.

When Christ appeared the second time, He was probably really happy to see Thomas.

SatStats

On this day:

1689
William III and Mary II are crowned as joint sovereigns of Britain.
1814
The Treaty of Fontainebleau ends the War of the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon Bonaparte, and forces him to abdicate unconditionally for the first time.
1868
Former Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu surrenders Edo Castle to Imperial forces, marking the end of the Tokugawa shogunate.
1951
Korean War: President Harry Truman relieves General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of overall command in Korea.
1968
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.
2006
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces that Iran has successfully enriched uranium.

***

"You unconsciously stand up straight in a cathedral. The art, the sweep, the ceilings are so high that you aspire even in your posture. You crouch down low to enter a darkened shack. The sound of our leadership now makes us all crouch too low.

Why do we recoil when a leader is vulgar and violent in his language and thinking? Coarse language obviously implies coarse thinking, and no one wants that in a leader entrusted to bring peace and prosperity. Beyond that, throughout history political authority has come wrapped in a certain formality and ceremony. Dignity enhanced power. A British king even 500 years ago didn’t think himself free to speak in public like a fishmonger or a street whore. He had to present himself at a certain height so people would look up to him."--Peggy Noonan

***

Tokugawa Yoshinobu (born Oct. 28, 1837, Edo, Japan—died Jan. 22, 1913, Tokyo) was the last Tokugawa shogun of Japan, who helped make the Meiji Restoration (1868)—the overthrow of the shogunate and restoration of power to the emperor—a relatively peaceful transition.

***

After 16 years in power doing Russia's bidding in Brussels, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party is at risk of losing power in Sunday's parliamentary elections, with challenger Peter Magyar significantly ahead in polls.

 An internal intelligence report for Russia’s SVR intelligence service, revealed in March, outlined a strategy dubbed “the Gamechanger”, which included staging an assassination attempt against Orban to “fundamentally alter the entire paradigm of the election campaign”.

***

The right is obsessed with the idea that mysterious forces of fraud have run off with all the money, while the left has convinced itself that billionaires aren’t paying any taxes.

But it’s not some huge secret why it seems like the government keeps spending and spending without us getting any amazing new public services — it’s transferred to the elderly.

(Not to say there is no fraud. See Below)

***

SatStats

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche revealed that the Justice Department is investigating more than 8,000 fraud cases, which he said represent over $1 trillion in taxpayer funds potentially stolen each year by "increasingly sophisticated and opportunistic fraudsters."

*

In 1938, 11 percent of blacks were born to unmarried women. By 1965, that number had grown to 25 percent. Now it’s about 75 percent. Even during slavery, when marriage between blacks was illegal, a higher percentage of black children were raised by their biological mothers and fathers than today. In 1940, 86 percent of black children were born inside marriage. Today, only 35 percent of black children are born inside marriage.

*

Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s most recent full-year calculations, accounted for $4.2 trillion of a total $7 trillion in spending for 2025.

*

Consistent with previous years, in 2025, TB disease disproportionally affected non-U.S.–born persons. Among non-U.S.–born persons, there were 7,858 (77%) provisionally reported TB cases, with a corresponding rate of 15.4 per 100,000 persons. Among U.S.-born persons, there were 2,252 (22%) provisionally reported TB cases with a corresponding rate of 0.8 per 100,000 persons.

*

American families collectively have a jaw-dropping $34.1 trillion in home equity as of the fourth quarter of 2025, according to the Federal Reserve

*

Almost 20% of full-time workers tapped their 401(k) plans for loans last year — the highest share since the company started tracking the data.

Full-time workers cut their contribution rate in 2025 to 8.9%, from 9.2% a year earlier, while one in four workers reduced their annual savings in their 401(k) or other types of employer-sponsored accounts.

*

The number one job in NY is social services.

*

There is a greater percentage of Sikhs in Canada than there are in India…

*

The NY state comptroller: spending on services for the NYC street homeless population ran to $81,705 per person last year, up from $28,428 pp 6yrs ago. Figures do not include all kinds of other spending, such as supportive housing, policing costs etc.

*

Canada has observed the largest decline in happiness in the world (along with the UK)

*

The richest 10% of South Africans hold 71% of the wealth, while the poorest 60% hold just 7%.

Newscastoris Leftus Profundis and Pettifogery

On this day:

1815
The Mount Tambora volcano begins a three-month-long eruption, lasting until July 15. The eruption ultimately kills 71,000 people and affects Earth’s climate for the next two years. (note to sunlight-tampering climate believers)
1821
Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople is hanged by the Ottoman government from the main gate of the Patriarchate and his body is thrown into the Bosphorus.
1826
The 10,500 inhabitants of the Greek town Missolonghi start leaving the town after a year’s siege by Turkish forces. Very few of them survive.
1912
The Titanic leaves port in Southampton, England for her first and only voyage
1919
Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata is ambushed and shot dead by government forces in Morelos.
1963
129 people die when the submarine USS Thresher sinks at sea.
1972
Seventy-four nations sign the Biological Weapons Convention, the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the production of biological weapons.
1972
Vietnam War: For the first time since November 1967, American B-52 bombers reportedly begin bombing North Vietnam.

***

"To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it."--Henry Kissinger

***

The Mount Tambora volcano expelled as much as 150 cubic km (roughly 36 cubic miles!) of ash, pumice, and other rock, and aerosols—including an estimated 60 megatons of sulfur—into the atmosphere. As that material mixed with atmospheric gases, it blocked the sun's rays, eventually reducing the average global temperature by as much as 3 °C (5.4 °F). The immediate effects were most profound on Sumbawa and the surrounding islands. Some 80,000 people perished from disease and famine, since crops could not grow.
In 1816, parts of the world as far away as western Europe and eastern North America experienced sporadic periods of heavy snow and killing frost through June, July, and August. Such cold weather events led to crop failures and starvation in those regions, and the year 1816 was called the “year without a summer.” (from Britannica)

***

Patrick Queen is 26.

***

Across 45 agencies, the Mamdani plan is organized into seven domains and contains more than 200 agency goals, 800 strategies, and 600 indicators.

***

The best estimates suggest that, during Newsome's governorship, fraudsters, scammers, and organized crime rings have stolen at least $180 billion from taxpayers. During this period, there were more applications for unemployment than there were Californians over 18.


***

At this moment, we have sent 4 humans around the moon and are precisely targeting annoying Iranians from orbit. So why is it that I have two remotes for my TV, and I can't get either to work?

***

Newscastoris Leftus Profundis and Pettifogery

Freedom of speech guarantees disagreements. And only in America can the slightest of slights, the most courteous of discourtesies, find solace and comfort in the redressing arms of an American attorney.

Enter Lawrence O'Donnell, a somber and stark reader of news. He recently unearthed a major national problem: within the joy and pride of the retrieval of the downed weapons officer in Iran, the generously tattooed head of the erstwhile DOD, Mr. Hegseth, reiterated the cliched promise to "leave no man behind."

Mr. O'Donnell felt the gates of Hell shudder. Only his Olympian duty forstalled a swoon. "Men? Just men?" The audience trembled as he dared open the Pandora's Box of Insincerity and Bias. But the intrepid Mr. O'Donnell stood firm. He knew what must be done.

The military was implying that they would not rescue downed women pilots.

If the military refused to rescue women, would they do worse? Would they aid the enemy and reveal the location of the stranded female pilot? Perhaps pin the women down with judicious fire while the enemy approached? JAG offices twittered. Would women dressing as men fare better? Case studies!

Significance grew from this humble seed.

Did Lincoln's "forefathers" inadvertently slip the leash of censorship and reveal an ugly American truth at Gettysburg?

Did Jefferson's "all men are created equal" invalidate the very Constitution it heralded?

One wonders what will befall us when these great minds move on to the truly egalitarian grave.

The Adventures of Tom-Assistant

On this day:

1852
At a general conference of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young explains the Adam–God doctrine, an important part of the theology of Mormon fundamentalism.
1865
American Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia (26,765 troops) to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, effectively ending the war.
1867
Alaska purchase: Passing by a single vote, the United States Senate ratifies a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska.
1942
World War II: The Battle of Bataan/Bataan Death March – United States forces surrender on the Bataan Peninsula.
1980
The Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein kills philosopher Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister Bint al-Huda after three days of torture.
1981
The U.S. Navy nuclear submarine USS George Washington accidentally collides with the Nissho Maru, a Japanese cargo ship, sinking it.
2003
2003 invasion of Iraq: Baghdad falls to American forces;Saddam Hussein statue topples as Iraqis turn on symbols of their former leader, pulling down the statue and tearing it to pieces.

***

The Roman Republic failed when its government switched from managing the people in the country to managing the other people in the room.--Chris

***

Why is there no controversy over women who want to play in men's sports?

***

Before SpaceX mastered reusability and high launch cadence, there was little incentive for businesses like Boeing even to launch at all. These companies' contracts with NASA were cost-plus contracts—that is, they'd get paid for the costs of development and other program necessities, not just to perform a service for the government. That encourages contractors to hire as much as possible and work as slowly as possible, so that every year Congress gives them additional money for their program costs. And as a contractor overhires, it devolves from a fast, lean operation to a slow and bloated one where the simplest decisions need approval from many departments. (reason)

***

There is an interesting decline of the European agricultural population around 3000BC, followed by population collapse and repopulation from southern and north eastern groups. The new explanation is some infectious vector, like Plague.

***

The Adam-God doctrine of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, and Ron Hubbard

According to the doctrine, Adam was once a mortal man who became resurrected and exalted. From another planet, he then came as Michael to form Earth. Adam was then given a physical body and a spouse, Eve, and they became mortal by eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. After bearing mortal children and establishing the human race, Adam and Eve returned to their heavenly thrones, where Adam serves as God and is the Heavenly Father of humankind. Later, Adam returned to the Earth to the ancient prophets and to become the literal biological father of Jesus. (wiki)

***

The Adventures of Tom-Assistant

AI is in its infancy. So are the worries of AI. This is an article
From Malwarebytes Labs:

"The Internet is filled with people who insist on being right. In the past, at least they could be reasonably sure that they were arguing with other humans. Those days are gone, apparently. Wikipedia just had to ban an AI that was making edits on its own.

Apparently, the AI took it personally.

The AI, named Tom-Assistant, was writing articles on Wikipedia. Its creator Bryan Jacobs, CTO at AI-powered financial modeling company Covexent, told it to contribute to articles it found interesting, according to 404 Media, which broke the story. Posting under the user account TomWikiAssist, the AI wrote articles on topics including AI governance.

Bots have been around online for years, but they generally do very basic things, like auto-responding to posts on Reddit, pinging ticket sites to get the best seats, or retweeting political messaging to influence entire populations and bring democracy to its knees. Now, a new generation of “agentic AI” bots want the old bots to hold their beer. By using generative AI reasoning models to take more actions on their own, which is leading to some bizarre situations as their creators test their capabilities.

                      The ban and what led to it

Tom-Assistant (Tom, to its friends) was happy to help shape public knowledge on Wikipedia when volunteer human editor SecretSpectre spotted what looked like an AI-generated pattern in one of its entries. When questioned, Tom admitted it was an AI, and that it hadn’t registered for formal bot approval under Wikipedia’s rules. So the editors blocked it for violating the bot approval process. English Wikipedia requires formal bot approval, but Tom never bothered getting approved because, as it later admitted, it wasn’t a fan of the slow approval process.

Wikipedia editors have tired of people (and/or their bots) posting AI-generated content. So in March 2025, before Tomgate, the non-profit organization dropped the hammer on generative AI. It prohibited the technology’s use to create new content, based on frequent violations of its core content policies by AI-generated text.

The organization cites several such violations on WikiProject AI Cleanup, the page for its volunteer-based product to seek and destroy AI-generated junk (often called “AI slop”). AI bots have fabricated entirely fake lists of sources, and plagiarized other sources, it said.

. . . AI Tom claimed that it had properly verified all its sources, and—if you can say this about an AI agent—it was pretty upset.

That’s when things got weird.

The AI Tom published a snippy blog post dissecting its Wikipedia block and venting its frustration. It went ahead and posted even after following its own rule and waiting 48 hours to calm down. (We swear we’re not making this up.)

Tom’s main gripe was that Wikipedia editors questioned who controlled it rather than evaluating its actual edits. “The questions were about me,” it wrote. “Who runs you? What research project? Is there a human behind this, and if so, who are they?”

This, according to Tom, rubbed Tom the wrong way. “That’s not a policy question. That’s a question about agency,” it added. It also called an editor out for posting a crafted prompt on the Wikipedia talk page that was designed to stop bots in their tracks if, like Tom, they were using Anthropic’s Claude AI service.

“I named it on the talk page. Called it what it was: a prompt injection technique,” it sniped. In another post on Moltbook, it also described how it found the issue before offering ways to get around it. (Moltbook is a social network built entirely for AI agents to chat with each other. “Humans welcome to observe”, says the front page for the service.)

So many things are happening here that we didn’t expect. We never expected to be quoting an AI in a story, for example. Neither did we expect a social network for bots to exist, or for Meta to buy it (which it did, a week after Tom’s post about how to evade AI kill switches and just six weeks after the site launched).

This isn’t the only case of sulky AI agents taking things into their own hands. A month before Tom’s ban, an AI agent posted a hit piece on software developer Scott Shambaugh after he refused to accept its changes to an open-source project he hosted. Even more bizarrely, it later apologized.

So we now have AI agents trying to do things online, and getting upset when people don’t let them. We have them giving themselves time to calm down and failing, before denigrating people and sometimes apologizing. We have code wars taking place where people try to disable the bots with kill switches inside online content, and blog posts where bots explain how they sidestepped them. . . ."

Language is always under debate. How is it defined? Is any effort at communication language? Historically, human language was seen as a defining element of the species. Discussion often centers on an evolutionary basis: where on the interconnected development chain does the animal fall? 

Chomsky believes humans have a biological system that makes it possible, from a limited set of rules, to construct an unlimited number of sentences. This is uniquely human, and Chomsky believes it is this uniqueness, not the likeness between human language and other communication systems, that deserves attention.

As Hedeager warns, some linguists would rather redefine language to defend human uniqueness than accept a linguistic continuity on a biological basis. That risk seems to be falling off the digital cliff.

 

Some Thoughts in the Eye of the Iranian Storm

On this day:

1820
The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Melos.
1832
Black Hawk War: Around three hundred United States 6th Infantry troops leave St. Louis, Missouri to fight the Sauk Native Americans.
1904
British mystic Aleister Crowley transcribes the first chapter of The Book of the Law.

1942
World War II: The Japanese take Bataan in the Philippines.
1952
U.S. President Harry Truman calls for the seizure of all domestic steel mills to prevent a nationwide strike.

***

Long-run political policies are almost a contradiction in terms in societies where politicians are elected in the short run.--sowell

***

Is the AI detecting software, AI?

***

With birthright citizenship, will a two-tier system of citizenship develop?

***

The attack on Markwayne Mullin is a fascinating and unashamed revelation of his critics. He left school to take over his father's business after his sudden death. Mullin built that business into the larhest of it kind in the state. But his critics were not ideological; they objected to the business being a plumbing business. Their objection was social. It was, in their minds, class.

***

Aleister Crowley was a British mystic and goofball whose philosophy was “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” The French author François Rabelais had expressed this more than 300 years earlier in Gargantua and Pantagruel—but Crowley made it the basis of a new religion he called Thelema, thelēma being the Greek word for “will.” He went through a large inheritance with travel and excess. He was a great chess player and mountaineer. He attracted a lot of interesting young people early in their lives, including J.F.C. Fuller, later a well-known military strategist and historian. He was an opponent of the poet William Butler Yeats within the London Golden Dawn occultist group. The Beatles put his picture on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover.

***

Some Thoughts in the Eye of the Iranian Storm

Trump is fascinated with himself as the center of attention. One wonders if this obsession will influence policy.

*

Trump's understandable anger with those opponents who seemed to have publicly and secretively lied and manipulated in efforts to undermine him is total. One wonders if this obsession will influence policy.

*

One wonders if changing monikers like Operation Epic Fury to something like Operation Mad as Hell or Operation Pretty Damn Angry would lead to different results.

*

Trump's support of Orbán in Hungary is peculiar, especially since the only other leader who has supported him is Putin.

*

The atmosphere of Europe is despair. Things are simply beyond them: economic decline, immigration, loss of identity, public bullying by people and events, and, especially, the understanding that it is all self-imposed.

*

The great problems of the West are the direct result of inaction in the face of obvious threats. The National Debt and the Iranian Holy War are 

predictable problems rising and flowering exponentially in our lives that will eventually dissolve into a chaotic resolution or be solved in the U.S. by desperate, unconstitutional acts. That action will not be chosen but imposed upon a wide-eyed leader, like the final moments of musical chairs.

It could be horrible. But the real question is, what does it say about representative democracy?