‘Jews, Episcopalians, Unitarians, Satanists and other people of faith say the laws infringe on their religious rights….’ (POLITICO)

‘…Language-generating AI models could make it easier to create dangerous germs….’ (Vox)

‘Throughout its nearly 50-year career, the Kronos Quartet has been known for a dual commitment, both to contemporary music and to helping train young musical ensembles. But for a long time, there was a practical tension between those two goals.

“The quartet does a lot of teaching and coaching when they’re on tour and at home,” said Janet Cowperthwaite, the ensemble’s longtime executive director. “We’d be setting up these sessions, and we’d ask if the young group had something contemporary they could work on together. And they’d go, ‘well … ’ ”

What was needed, clearly, was a body of new music for budding string quartets to train on — scores as readily available as the old standbys by Haydn and Dvorák, but responsive to the needs of a 21st century ensemble.

That’s where “50 for the Future” came in….’ (Datebook)

“Little bitch…”

‘According to Daily Beast, the two power hungry lawmakers are competing to impeach President Biden, and Greene blew up when she discovered that “Boebert leveraged a procedural tool to force a vote on her own impeachment resolution within days—undercutting Greene, who had offered her own resolution, but not with the procedural advantages of forcing a vote.”…’ (Boing Boing)

‘Two years ago, Brendan, an ex-leader of a white nationalist group, experienced a significant shift in his radical views after participating in a University of Chicago study involving MDMA (also known as ecstasy or molly). Harriet de Wit, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the university, conducted the experiment to explore MDMA’s role in enhancing the enjoyment of social touch. She was unaware that a white supremacist had participated in her study until after it concluded.

Previously, Brendan had been a member of a notorious Midwest white nationalist group. Before the study, he lost his job when his affiliation was exposed by a Chicago-based antifascist group. Even his siblings and friends who weren’t involved in white nationalism distanced themselves from him. However, an intensely personal experience during the study prompted Brendan to rethink his supremacist beliefs, leading him to stress the value of love and connection….’ (Boing Boing)

The New York Times asked 17 columnists to choose a piece of culture that best captures America. One columnist chose the 1956 horror movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” as a metaphor for America’s toxic transformation, where many have fallen prey to ideas, slogans, conspiracy theories, lies and emotions, leading to a collapse of individuality that goes against the very trait the country was founded on. The fear of invasion in the movie is a recurring theme in American life, with Covid and social media being cited as modern-day invaders threatening to subsume people’s identities. (Maureen Dowd in The New York Times)

(Far better than the remakes, except for Jerry Garcia having a cameo in the 1978 version.)

‘The second half of Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning was added in 1962 to provide greater detail of Logotherapy, in which patients must hear difficult things in contrast to psychoanalysts provoking telling difficult things. It’s less introspective and more focused on our place in the world:

“Logotherapy defocuses all the vicious-circle formations and feedback mechanisms which play such a great role in the development of neuroses. Thus the typical self-centeredness of the neurotic is broken up instead of being continually fostered and reinforced . . . the patient is actually confronted with and reoriented toward the meaning of his life. . . . Striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man. That is why I speak of a will to meaning in contrast to the pleasure principle on which Freudian psychoanalysis is centered, as well as in contrast to the will to power on which Adlerian psychology, using the term ‘striving for superiority,’ is focused”…’ (3 Quarks Daily)

‘Midsummer is one of the four solar holidays and is considered the turning point at which summer reaches its height and the sun shines longest. Among the Wiccan sabbats, Midsummer is preceded by Beltane, and followed by Lammas or Lughnasadh. Some Wiccan traditions call the festival Litha, a name occurring in Bede’s The Reckoning of Time (De Temporum Ratione, eighth century), which preserves a list of the (then-obsolete) Anglo-Saxon names for the month of the early Germanic calendar. Ærra Liða (first or preceding Liða) roughly corresponds to June in the Gregorian calendar, and Æfterra Liða (following Liða) to July. Bede writes that “Litha means gentle or navigable, because in both these months the calm breezes are gentle and they were wont to sail upon the smooth sea”.[31] Modern Druids celebrate this festival as Alban Hefin. The sun in its greatest strength is greeted and celebrated on this holiday. While it is the time of greatest strength of the solar current, it also marks a turning point, for the sun also begins its time of decline as the wheel of the year turns. Arguably the most important festival of the Druid traditions, due to the great focus on the sun and its light as a symbol of divine inspiration. Druid groups frequently celebrate this event at Stonehenge.[32]…’ (Wheel of the Year – Wikipedia)

A new dialect of English is taking shape in South Florida, shaped by sustained contact between Spanish and English speakers, particularly when speakers translated directly from Spanish…. (Inverse)

‘Public health and law enforcement agencies around the U.S. are scrambling to blunt the impact of xylazine, a deadly new threat to Americans who use street drugs.

That effort is complicated — some critics say crippled — by the fact that no one’s sure who’s mixing the dangerous chemical into fentanyl, methamphetamines and other street drugs. It’s also unclear why they’re doing it.

“Why has it gone national? I don’t know why. Tough question out of the gate,” said Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, a researcher at the University of North Carolina who tests street drugs collected around the country.

Xylazine, or “tranq,” is a horse tranquilizer used by the veterinary industry. Dasgupta says the mystery around it points to a wider public health problem: State and federal agencies lack the capacity to identify and track new drug threats in real time….’ (NPR)

‘As hate groups edge toward the political mainstream, experts say they’re employing new tactics and taking on new forms. In June, the Southern Poverty Law Center added 12 conservative “parents’ rights” groups to its list of extremist and anti-government organizations. SPLC’s Susan Corke joins John Yang to discuss why the center added organizations like Moms for Liberty to their list….’ (John Yang and Kalsha Young on PBS News Weekend)

‘The bright, red star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion has shown some unexpected behavior. In late 2019 and 2020, it became fainter than we had ever seen it — at least in records going back more than a century. Briefly, it became fainter (just about) than Bellatrix, the third brightest star of Orion. This event became known as the “great dimming.”

But Betelgeuse has since become bright again. For a few days this year, it was the brightest star in Orion — brighter than we have ever seen it. Both events led to speculation about whether its demise in the form of an explosion was imminent. But is there any evidence to support this idea? And how would such an explosion affect us here on Earth?…’ (Inverse)

Social Media Reacts to Release of trump Jr.’s Derogatory Emails About Black New Yorkers and other minorities

‘Suspicions regarding donald trump Jr., the eldest son of the 45th president of the United States, seem to have been confirmed after a series of racist and derogatory emails were released in a lawsuit involving one of his friends.

The emails are from a lawsuit between trump Jr.’s friend Gentry Beach, a man who served as one of trump’s groomsmen in his wedding, and Beach’s former boss, Paul Touradji, the founder of Touradji Capital Management.

In them there are off-color jokes about hunting Jews, shooting Mexicans, and the influx of African-American families in predominantly white sections of Manhattan….’ (Atlanta Black Star)

‘This is the bizarre mystery of an abandoned Boeing 737, which remains planted in the middle of a field in Bali – and to this day, no one knows how it got there.

Situated in a limestone quarry near the Raya Nusa Dua Selatan Highway, it is only a short journey from the popular Pandawa beach.

As is often the case with the bizarre and unexplained, plenty of theories have circulated as to how the plane got there….’ (Unilad)

‘Psilocybin is on the cusp of becoming legally available in Oregon—but not as a medical treatment….’ (WIRED)

‘US intelligence officer David Charles Grusch recently made headlines as a whistleblower after making public claims that the Pentagon has been hiding known evidence of non-human technology. Grusch expanded on these claims in a recent interview with NewsNation, in which he suggested — among other things — that the Vatican may also be in on this whole conspiracy regarding intelligent technology from non-sources. In fact, the Pope’s involvement even pre-dates the Roswell incident!…’ (Boing Boing)

‘Now, a new study in the journal Science Advances from researchers at the University of Melbourne and the University of Cambridge — Elizabeth Bowman, David Coghill, Carsten Murawski, and Peter Bossaerts — finds that far from making users smarter, smart drugs seem to actually undermine cognitive performance.

The authors tested the effects of three drugs — methylphenidate (more commonly known through one of its brand names, Ritalin), modafinil, and dextroamphetamine* (brand name Dexedrine, among others) — on a cognitive task designed to more closely mimic the complexities of real-world problems than past stimulant studies.

Far from simply concluding that smart drugs offer little benefit, the researchers found that the drugs actually seemed to leave users worse off. While study subjects worked harder while on the drugs compared to placebo, the “quality of effort,” or productivity, actually declined. The upshot is that smart drugs led users to spend more effort working while being less productive — not exactly a picture of cognitive enhancement….’ (Vox)

* one of the two active components of popular ADHD stimulant Adderall -ed.

‘The earth has about 36 billion acres of dry land. Who owns those acres? Madison Trust Company put together a list of who owns the most land of anyone on earth. You may have your own little acre, or part of one, but that’s nothing compared to what the British royal family owns- 6,600,000,000 acres! That puts them at the top of the biggest landowners on earth. And we thought the British Empire was a thing of the past.

What’s really impressive is that, of the top 19 landowners, only one is an individual person. That is Gina Rinehart of Australia, who personally owns 23,969,000 acres, putting her at #4 on the list. The next individual landowner is at #20. The rest are families, corporations, or communities. An awful lot of them are in Australia, which is a big country with a small population concentrated in the eastern cities.

Did you guess the #2 landowner in the world? It is the Catholic Church. You might feel better about #3, which is the Inuit People of Nunavut, who own 87,500,000 acres in Northern Canada. You can see the list in both infographic and text form, plus more information about what they are using their land for, in this post….’ (Neatorama)

‘Watch video from the legendary singer-songwriter’s historic conert at the scenic Washington state venue….’ (JamBase)

‘Newly announced modifications to the autocorrect feature used on iPhones will better understand a word’s context in a text message, saving users some blushes….’ (The New York Times)

‘Today, for the first time in history, thanks to artificial intelligence, it is possible for anybody to make counterfeit people who can pass for real in many of the new digital environments we have created. These counterfeit people are the most dangerous artifacts in human history, capable of destroying not just economies but human freedom itself. Before it’s too late (it may well be too late already) we must outlaw both the creation of counterfeit people and the ‘passing along’ of counterfeit people. The penalties for either offense should be extremely severe, given that civilization itself is at risk….’ (3 Quarks Daily)

‘Chris Christie attacked rival Donald Trump last night in a 90-minute town hall on CNN, branding the twice-convicted former game show host as a loser. And a loser. And a loser. And it might be the only time the former New Jersey governor has ever told the honest-to-goodness truth.

“He hasn’t won a damn thing since 2016. Three-time loser,” the former 2016 loser said in front of a live audience.

“2018 we lost the House. 2020 we lost the White House. We lost the United State Senate a couple of weeks later in 2021,” he reminded his voters. “And in 2022 we lost two more governorships, another Senate seat, and barely took the House of Representatives when Joe Biden had the most incompetent first two years I’ve ever seen in my life.”…’ (Boing Boing)

The video is here.

‘Malaria kills half a million people a year in Africa. We can prevent that — if we act fast enough….’ (Vox)

‘A list of ideas, in no particular order and from different fields, that help explain how the world works…’ (Morgan Housel via Collab Fund)

‘I’ve been compiling lists of “unpopular ideas,” things that seem weird or bad to most people (at least, to most educated urbanites in the United States, which is the demographic I know best).

Even though I disagree with many of these ideas, I nevertheless think it’s valuable to practice engaging with ideas that seem weird or bad, for two reasons: First, because such ideas might occasionally be true, and it’s worth sifting through some duds to find a gem.

And second, because I think our imaginations tend to be too constrained by conventional “common sense,” and that many ideas we accept as true today were counterintuitive to past generations. Considering weird ideas helps de-anchor us from the status quo, and that’s valuable independently of whether those particular ideas are true or not.

… [Some people have missed this disclaimer in the past, so I’m going to say again that I’m not endorsing these ideas, merely collecting them, and I disagree with many of them.]…’ ( Julia Galef)

‘The war began in the early morning hours with a massive bombardment — China’s version of “shock and awe.” Chinese planes and rockets swiftly destroyed most of Taiwan’s navy and air force as the People’s Liberation army and navy mounted a massive amphibious assault across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait. Having taken seriously President Joe Biden’s pledge to defend the island, Beijing also struck pre-emptively at U.S. and allied air bases and ships in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. managed to even the odds for a time by deploying more sophisticated submarines as well as B-21 and B-2 stealth bombers to get inside China’s air defense zones, but Washington ran out of key munitions in a matter of days and saw its network access severed. The United States and its main ally, Japan, lost thousands of servicemembers, dozens of ships, and hundreds of aircraft. Taiwan’s economy was devastated. And as a protracted siege ensued, the U.S. was much slower to rebuild, taking years to replace ships as it reckoned with how shriveled its industrial base had become compared to China’s….’ (POLITICO)

Wildfire smoke reminded people about climate change. How soon will they forget?

‘Extreme weather and climate-linked disasters don’t always lead to changes in public opinion…’ (Vox)

The future of Canada’s wildfires, explained by a Canadian fire scientist

‘The smoke is clearing from New York and other East Coast cities, but Canada’s wildfires are set to get worse…’ (Vox)

If you can’t breathe well, neither can your pet

‘…While pet parents and animals in the US are a safe distance from the flames themselves, the threat of air pollution cannot be underestimated. In humans, air pollution can cause dizziness, coughing, headaches, and in more severe cases and vulnerable groups, heart and lung problems. Air pollution is also a silent killer: It’s responsible for nearly 250,000 premature deaths in the US and 6.7 million premature deaths globally each year….’ (Vox)

Dirty air can be deadly. Here’s how to protect yourself.

’The Air Quality Index can warn you about wildfire smoke and pollution in your area. Here’s a step-by-step guide…’ (Vox)

‘DID THE WEST ANTARCTIC ICE Sheet completely collapse during the latest interglacial period, about 125,000 years ago? It’s an important question for climate scientists, but geology was giving them no answers. So they turned to genetics instead.

Enter Turquet’s octopus (Pareledone turqueti), a cephalopod with a four-million-year pedigree that makes its home in the icy waters around Antarctica. Recent DNA analysis shows that two distinct populations of this species, one in the Weddell Sea and the other in the Ross Sea, mated about 125,000 years ago.

This could only have happened if the massive ice sheet that now separates those populations wasn’t there at the time. So yes, it did collapse. And that’s bad news, because it increases the likelihood that it will happen again….’ (Atlas Obscura)

‘Loath as I am to give the vile Tucker Carlson even scintilla of extra attention, it’s pretty important that the Right’s darling pundit opened up his new show on Twitter with rank anti-Semitism.

In a lengthy defense of his hero Vladimir Putin, he called the Jewish president of Ukraine “sweaty and rat-like, … a persecutor of Christians, a friend of Blackrock.”…’ (Boing Boing)

A miscellaneous cluster of AI links from today’s Morning News:

• “One way of thinking about a program like ChatGPT is that it’s much better at assessing vibes than it is at reproducing facts.” / Read Max
• See also: A writer asks ChatGPT to control his life, which it then destroys in short order. / Motherboard
• Ted Chiang: Instead of “artificial intelligence,” we should call it “applied statistics,” because it isn’t intelligent at all. / Financial Times
• Watch: ELIZA, a chatbot written in 1966, has a conversation with ChatGPT, triggering a flurry of “as an AI language model” responses. / YouTube
• Adobe’s new AI generative fill tool is fun for memes but bad at art. / Inside My Head, Hyperallergic

‘…you might be a sulker. You’ve probably had to deal with someone else’s sulk, too. But what is sulking, exactly? Why do we do it? And why does it have such a bad reputation?…’ (Aeon Essays)

‘According to the guy in this video, Indium is the only element in the universe that is both safe enough and soft enough to chew on like bubblegum.

He explains that it has a consistency similar to refrigerated milk duds, but its is tasteless. Indium is also soft enough to write with like a pencil.

A piece of chewing gum and writing utensil all in one- what more could one ask for in life?… ‘ ( Boing Boing)

‘A 43-year-old gun shop owner in Georgia is shutting down his store, saying he can no longer sell weapons in good conscience. He says both the Nashville elementary school mass shooting in March and the Atlanta hospital mass shooting in May were the “final straws.”

And after someone came into his gun shop six weeks ago wanting to buy 4,000 rounds, he told NBC News he knew he was making the right decision. “I just can’t,” he said….’  Boing Boing)

‘A flat, rounded shell. A tail that’s folded under the body. This is what a crab looks like, and apparently what peak performance might look like — at least according to evolution. A crab-like body plan has evolved at least five separate times among decapod crustaceans, a group that includes crabs, lobsters and shrimp. In fact, it’s happened so often that there’s a name for it: carcinization….’  3 Quarks Daily)