‘Up from Conservatism advocates repeal of Civil Rights Act, investigations into ‘gay lifestyle’ and defunding childcare…’ (The Guardian))

‘The most important reason a second trump term would be far more dangerous than his first is that if he does win this year, trump will have triumphed with the electorate’s full knowledge that he has been criminally charged with 88 felonies and convicted of 34 of them (so far); that he has promised to “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family”; that he intends to “totally obliterate the deep state” by gutting civil service protections for the 50,000 most important jobs in the federal work force, a central tenet of what he calls his “retribution” agenda….’ (Thomas Edsall in The New York Times)

‘America’s leaders — from both parties — have long been guided by what’s often called the neoliberal consensus: the idea that “barrier-free international markets, rapidly advancing communications technology and automation, decreased regulation and empowered citizen-consumers would be the keys to prosperity, happiness and strong democracy,” as Mr. Murphy put it. More simply, it’s a shared assumption that what’s good for markets is good for society.

This assumption shapes our politics so deeply that it’s almost invisible. But the idea that modern life is a story of constant economic and technological progress steadily making the world a better place has stopped lining up with how Americans feel. You can look at statistics about suicide, depression, overdoses and declining life expectancy. You can point to the fact that roughly 70 percent of wild animals on Earth have disappeared since 1970 or examine the astonishingly pervasive sense of loneliness that now seems to color so many American lives. But no statistics really capture the feeling, shared by growing numbers of Americans, that the world is just getting worse….’ (James Pogue in The New York Times)

‘A week after falsely claiming Kamala Harris’ campaign used AI to inflate crowd sizes, trump is now posting AI-generated photos of Taylor Swift fans endorsing him….’ (WIRED)

‘The US Defense Department’s grand strategy for protecting Taiwan from a massive Chinese military offensive involves flooding the zone with thousands of drones….’ (WIRED)

‘Rounding up migrants. Lists of “friendly” sheriffs. Debating political assassinations. Internal messages reveal AP3’s journey from Jan. 6 through the tumultuous lead-up to the 2024 election. One member predicts: “It’ll be decided at the ammo box.”…

…A portrait emerges of a group alternating between focused action and self-destructive chaos and facing a schism over whether political engagement can still address our nation’s problems — or whether violence is the only option. It can be hard to discern the line between bluster and imminent threat in the messages, a perennial struggle for FBI agents who monitor paramilitary groups. But some senior AP3 members grew so alarmed that they quit, scared by the number of people, even high-level leaders, advocating acts of terror…’ (ProPublica)

‘President donald trump has hurled numerous insults at Democrats, the news media and even those in his own party.

But the president has also been on the receiving end, including from people who work in his administration.

“Fear: trump in the White House,” by Bob Woodward, is the latest book to detail chaos in the president’s immediate orbit. Excerpts were published Tuesday and immediately brought to mind several disparaging comments that trump’s staff is reported to have made about the commander in chief…’ (POLITICO)

Roughly a third of all Americans experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. These ailments include general anxiety disorder, severe phobias, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. They’re often treated with mental health therapy or medications.

For instance, benzodiazepines are a class of anti-anxiety drugs that are generally effective and well-tolerated; however, they come with problematic drawbacks. They can be addictive, interact dangerously with certain other drugs, and often trigger wide-ranging side effects such as drowsiness, confusion, headache, nausea, and tremors.

These drugs work by enhancing the activity of receptors that respond to an inhibitory neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). GABA reduces the excitability of neurons throughout the nervous system, essentially slowing down most bodily processes. This global deceleration also triggers the benzodiazepines’ calming effect. Familiar brand names of the drug include Valium, Xanax, Ativan, and Klonopin.

The NINDS team wondered if there was a better, more precise way to treat anxiety — one that wouldn’t trigger body-wide side effects. So, they stressed out mice until the animals developed clear signs of chronic anxiety when compared to their healthy, unstressed companions. For example, they were less willing to explore new areas, engaged in more repetitive behaviors, and avoided social interactions.

It was almost as if the researchers found an off-switch for anxiety in the mouse brain.

The researchers then searched for differences between the brains of anxious and unstressed mice. They noticed that levels of two neurotransmitter proteins, Neuroligin2 and GABA, were markedly decreased in the anxious mice. Already aware of GABA’s ability to lessen anxiety, they focused on Neuroligin2. With further probing, the researchers determined that chronic stress enhances the activity of a protein called Src kinase, triggering a cascade of effects called a signaling pathway that results in less circulating Neuroligin2. They wondered, Would suppressing Src kinase’s activity help alleviate the rodents’ anxiety?

To find out, Pandey, Lu, and their colleagues injected the anxious mice with an Src-inhibiting therapeutic called PP2 once daily for seven days. The effects were astounding. With less Src activity, its corresponding signaling pathway slowed to a standstill, resulting in higher Neuroligin2. Outwardly, the animals’ anxious behaviors disappeared. Moreover, there were no noticeable adverse effects. It was almost as if the researchers found an off-switch for anxiety in the mouse brain….’ (Big Think)

‘A fisher in Cambodia has caught what scientists say is the world’s largest recorded freshwater fish, a giant stingray.

Captured on June 13, the stingray measured almost four metres (13 feet) from snout to tail and weighed slightly less than 300kg (660lbs), according to a statement on Monday by Wonders of the Mekong, a joint Cambodian-US research project….’ (Al Jazeera)

‘The “Last Week Tonight” host said donald trump’s running mate “continues to underwhelm” before tossing to a clip of what he described as the “worst possible answer” to a “pretty easy question.”

“You have been criticized as being a little too serious, a little angry sometimes. What makes you smile? What makes you happy?” asked Fox 2 Detroit’s Charlie Langton on Wednesday.

“Well, I smile at a lot of things including bogus questions from the media, man,” replied Vance as he proceeded to laugh.

He continued, “I mean, look, I think if you watch, if you watch a full speech that I give, I actually, I’m having a good time out here and I’m enjoying this. But, look, sometimes you got to take the good with the bad. And right now, I am angry about what Kamala Harris has done to this country and done to the American southern border.”

Oliver had a question of his own for Vance after seeing the clip.
“Is he alright?” Oliver asked….’ (HuffPost Entertainment)

‘In just 4 minutes, you can see all the majesty of Everest…’ (The Manual)

From Everest Base Camp (17598′) to the summit (29032′). Making the unimaginable imaginable apparently with an off-the-shelf DJI Mavic 3 Pro drone.

‘The office of JD Vance, Donald Trump’s pick for Vice President, has declined to deny that an old photo shows Vance in women’s clothing….’ (Queerty)

More on JD Vance:

Trump’s Millennial VP Pick Left a Facebook Pic Up of Himself Passed Out Drunk in College (Futurism.com) 

‘Stephen Hawking famously said sending messages from Earth into deep space could get human civilization destroyed: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

Hawking’s words have often been used to discourage the practice of METI, which is Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence. But how many “malicious” alien civilizations are there? And what are the chances any message we sent into our own galaxy would be received by an evil alien civilization? There is precious little research on this topic, and very few scientists have even posited a guess.

A new thought experiment attempts to at least venture a guess in hopes that other scientists will begin to take METI more seriously, and will try to determine how dangerous it actually is to try to contact alien civilizations.

According to this paper, which the author admits has “some limitations,” there are roughly four “malicious extraterrestrial civilizations” in the Milky Way, and we could likely send out 18,000 interstellar messages to different exoplanets in our galaxy and the probability of ensuring our own destruction would still be about the same as Earth being hit by a “global catastrophe asteroid.”…’ (VICE)

‘A list of ideas, in no particular order and from different fields, that help explain how the world works…’

(Morgan Housel)

Makes You Think

‘A few lines I came across recently that got me thinking…’

(Morgan Housel)

Morgan Housel is a partner at Collaborative Fund (“Our mission is to identify and support companies that live at the intersection of for-profit & for-good.”) and author of the book The Psychology of Money.

‘With trump venting that Kamala Harris’s success shows he’s being cheated, a prominent Never Trumper explains why we need to start thinking now about another coup attempt….’ (The N)ew Republic)

‘If there’s been one dominant message in 21st-century American artistic culture, it’s that you have permission — permission to consume nothing but superhero movies, Barbie, pop music by a recent Disney Channel star; permission to never eat your cultural vegetables; permission to never expand your cultural palate or stretch your attention span.

This permission may seem freeing. But when paired with ruthless, profit-maximizing market forces, it’s contributed to the death of grown-up entertainment….’ (Freddie deBoer, New York Times)

‘Two theoretical physicists specializing in complex systems conclude that global deforestation due to human activities is on track to trigger the “irreversible collapse” of human civilization within the next two to four decades. 
If we continue destroying and degrading the world’s forests, Earth will no longer be able to sustain a large human population, according to a peer-reviewed paper published this May in Nature Scientific Reports. They say that if the rate of deforestation continues, “all the forests would disappear approximately in 100–200 years.”…’ (VICE)

‘“We perceive the world as a memory,” the authors of a recent paper wrote. “In other words, technically, we are not consciously perceiving anything directly.”…’ (VICE)

Can’t hide it, bud, no matter how ridiculously vain you are.

‘Once President Joe Biden stepped out of the 2024 presidential race, former President Donald Trump became the oldest presidential nominee in the history of the United States. With a title like that, one might think that Trump believes age is just a number. In reality, though, the second-time presidential hopeful has often poked fun at Biden for his age over the years; even though the President is only three years Trump’s senior. It doesn’t take a hair and makeup expert to know that between his signature combover and unwavering penchant for bronzer, Trump often tries to make himself look younger than he is. Unfortunately, a recent photo of the former president at a campaign rally proves that you can’t hide your age with wispy hair alone.

On August 3, at the Georgia State University Convocation Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Trump hit the rally stage to pump up the audience about his 2024 campaign. Yet, his infamously strange hairstyle wasn’t looking its best. A photo from the event revealed his typically concealed receding hairline as well as his bright white roots. Trump’s 70s have surely been his worst hair decade, so we can’t say we’re surprised to see the signs of aging that are hiding beneath his sparse locks and makeup….’ (The List)

‘Former President trump has been in a foul mood the past few weeks and has repeatedly called Vice President Harris a “bitch” in private, the N.Y. Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report.

Why it matters: Axios has written extensively about this as the girls vs. boys election, with Democrats crushing the women’s vote. trump advisers privately concede his misogynistic language is deeply problematic, and something they worry he will unload in a public debate to his detriment….’ (Axios)

‘Across the Northern Hemisphere, August will see beautiful displays of meteors. Here’s everything you need to know to enjoy them….’ (WIRED)

‘The deeper you go, the less sense it makes….

donald trump’s “late, great Hannibal Lecter” routine may be his most breathtaking incoherent rant. Yes, he has claimed that magnets don’t work underwater, and musing about whether he’d rather die by shark or electrocution is a regular part of his stump speech. But trump’s tirade about the fictional serial killer stands apart for several reasons. First, it is exceptionally weird. Second, it is profoundly wrong on multiple levels. And third, trump thinks it’s so smart and funny that he will not stop repeating it.

 

Critics say the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs “teeters on the edge between psychological study and all-out horror.” The same is true of the presidential tirade it inspired. On a basic level, we know the awful truth about what trump is doing: He’s demonizing migrants. But since the Republican National Convention, people have been dropping wild theories about why trump is going about that nefarious goal by heaping praise on a make-believe cannibal…

‘ (New York)

‘At the Republican National Convention, trump made a brief, scripted, obviously disingenuous call for “unity,” and much of the media treated it as a major “pivot” to a more moderate, inclusive candidate. This anticipated pivot has been a joke for eight years, but the media keeps falling for it.

Yet on Friday, trump made a statement of his Fascist, authoritarian intent if elected, saying that if he gets into office, his supporters “won’t have to vote anymore,” and the media mostly yawned. Whether it’s because they just think this is “trump being trump,” or you have to take what he says “seriously but not literally,” or if you call him on it he’ll just backtrack, this didn’t get a tiny fraction of the attention it deserves….

While he’s never actually made even a modicum of a “pivot” to moderation, he has, in fact, led an insurrection in an attempt to stay in office despite losing an election. Since then, he and his team have been systematically laying the legal and logistical groundwork to ensure that the strategies that failed in 2021 will succeed in 2029. There is every reason to believe that he is deadly serious and that if he gets into the White House, no fair election will ever get him or his MAGA cultists out…’ (Boing Boing)

‘In a reversal from the president’s longstanding resistance to changes to the high court, Biden said on Wednesday that Supreme Court reform would be among his top priorities for the remainder of his term in office. Biden announced Sunday that he would not seek re-election after mounting pressure from Democratic Party officials who asked him to step aside after his widely panned debate performance in June.

The president is expected to propose setting term limits for justices on the Supreme Court, which would require a constitutional amendment, and establishing an enforceable code of ethics, which could be enacted by Congress, Politico reported.

Biden is also likely to voice support for a constitutional amendment that would limit immunity for presidents and certain other officeholders after the court ruled in July that presidents cannot be prosecuted for “official acts” during their time in office. The court’s ruling stemmed from a case concerning former president trump….’ (Fox News)

(The New York Times). As I said below, I think of this as a selfless act in defense of democracy. trump was no ‘hero’ simply because he stood up on a podium and got his ear grazed by a would-be assassin’s bullet (would not have been a “hero” even if it had been on target!) but this is an act of heroism by a great man.

Reading the coverage so far, it is not clear how definitive the endorsement of Harris is. Possibilities swirl about. I read James Carville’s scheme for regional mini-primaries with interest. Flights of fancy like drafting Michelle Obama or Hilary Clinton (although not herself much younger than Biden) should not be dismissed. I don’t think we should rule out an open convention simply because it would be “chaotic.” After all, the will of the people is supposed to be — as long as it results in defeating the despotic, egotistical and imbecilic multiply-convicted felon and serial rapist put up by the shell of the Republican Party. 

‘Astronomers and stargazers eagerly await a once-in-a-lifetime event that can occur at any moment now. They expect to see a star explode by September, and it will be visible from Earth, so we can all watch.

T Coronae Borealis, also called the Blaze star, is a binary star system about 3,000 light years away and consists of one white dwarf and one red giant. The white dwarf accretes hydrogen from the red giant. When enough accumulates, it triggers a thermonuclear explosion, causing the star to become significantly brighter in the night sky for a short time.

Astronomers expect the explosion to occur before September 2024, and during its peak, you should be able to see it without a telescope for several days and over a week with one. It will take place in the constellation Corona Borealis, which is between the constellations Hercules and Boötes, and it can be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the location before the event so it will be easier to find when it does….’ (GeekSided)

‘The past week has seen an outpouring of hate from the far right over the wife of Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance. The unremarkable fact that Vance is married to Usha Vance, a woman of Indian heritage, has become a fixation for white nationalists online.

Following Monday’s announcement of Vance as Trump’s running mate, white nationalist “groyper” Nick Fuentes seemed to enter a meltdown on his broadcast, saying, “What kind of man marries somebody that isn’t a Christian? What kind of man marries somebody named Usha? Clearly, he doesn’t value his racial identity, his heritage. Clearly, he doesn’t value his religion. He doesn’t marry a woman that professes Jesus Christ? What does that say about him?”

Jaden McNeil, another white nationalist activist, posted a picture of Vance, his wife, and their newborn with the caption, “I’m sure this guy is going to be great on immigration.” Other prominent far-right accounts have similarly bemoaned Vance’s multiracial family, with replies awash in bigotry. “There is an obvious Indian coup taking place in the US right before our eyes,” whined far-right conspiracy theorist Stew Peters.

Considering the flagrant racism of the far right, this reaction may not shock, but it certainly appalls. It’s a reminder that there are factions of Trump’s base that view diversity in their party, and the country, with horror. (Recall Ann Coulter telling Vivek Ramaswamy that she would not vote for him because he is Indian.)…’ (The New Republic)

‘Do you wonder why so many people seem unfazed by trump’s dictator aspirations? As reported in The New Republic, a recent Pew Research Center study reveals that nearly a third of Americans have no objection to military rule or an authoritarian leader.

How did we end up in this bizarre reality where people are lining up to have their freedoms taken away? Experts say it’s about feeling safe and cozy in a world that’s changing too fast for their liking. Joe Pierre, a UCSF professor, explains that when people feel threatened, “Authoritarianism and a ‘strongman’ leader who’s willing to trample over civil rights can sound like a very appealing solution.”…’ (Boing Boing)

‘Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland is sounding the alarm on an extensive “Deep State target list” that donald trump’s self-proclaimed “secretary of retribution” has compiled.

Hoping to enlist “constitutional” sheriffs to arrest anti-trumpers — including journalists, politicians, former U.S. Capitol Police employees, and their families — MAGA’s retired Army Reserve Ivan Raiklin has created a list of 350 people to target, according to Raw Story. And he envisions “live-streamed swatting raids” as part of the process.

“This is a deadly serious report,” Raskin told Raw Story. “A retired U.S. military officer has drawn up a ‘Deep State target list’ of public officials he considers traitors, along with our family members and staff. His hit list is a vigilante death warrant for hundreds of Americans and a clear and present danger to the survival of American democracy and freedom.”…’ (Boing Boing)

‘There’s always the possibility that something will compel social media platforms to take some responsibility and actually do something to protect the public from misinformation. But in the meantime, please listen to that faint buzzing noise you now hear almost constantly. It’s your bullshit meter, it’s working harder than ever — and your health could depend on whether you’re paying attention….’ (Vox)

“There are … ways in which Biden and his allies can stop his bad night from turning into curtains for his political career”,  writes POLITICO,  and offers pointers as to what to watch to see if he can pull it off. Watch the polls but know that they might over start his nosedive. Will the media cover evidence of competence and bounce back as definitively as evidence of concern? Will down-ballot Democrats embrace or distance themselves from him? Will third-party movements attract more interest? How quickly can attention refocus on the elephant in the room, the twice-impeached felon, misogynist, sociopath and pathological narcissist running against him?

More has been written about the implications of Biden’s disastrous debate performance Thursday night than can be borne. It would be difficult to add any original punditry, especially as someone who is not a sophisticated political commentator. However, there is one observation that bears making. To turn concerns about Biden’s aging, and fumbling on stage, into the unquestioned conclusion that he is too old to govern reflects the very undemocratic assumption that he governs alone. I think it is really only as great a concern as it is being made out to be if your mindset is receptive to autocracy, whether you know it or not. Yes, trump must be stopped because he would surely be an autocratic dictator, but that is not inherent to the Presidency, which in democratic rule is really less important than the current fervor would make it out to be. Even trump knew that, dismissing alarm during his first stand for the presidency about his lack of governing experience with the assertion should not be a concern because of the people with whom he would surround himself. (We should remember the accumulated evidence that he was not bright enough or patient enough to understand the briefings he was given throughout his reign.)

In 1977, I watched a searing and soul-searching German film called Our Hitler. This was notable not so much for its 442-minute running time as for its unflinching inquiry into the role in his rise played by the German people’s receptivity to, or even yearning for, autocracy. His personality style and propaganda machinery deftly played on that foundation to solidify his power. There will always be Hitlerian figures. There will always be trumps. Quite simply, we must be careful what we are unconsciously wishing for. 

‘The question at the center of the spat may seem abstract: How should the court use “history and tradition” to decide modern-day legal issues? But the answer may determine how the court resolves some of the biggest cases set to be released in the coming days, particularly its latest foray into the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
If the court adheres to a strict history-centric approach, as Thomas favors, it will likely strike down a federal law denying firearms to people under domestic violence restraining orders.

But Barrett recently foreshadowed that she is distancing herself from that approach. If she breaks with Thomas in the gun case, known as United States v. Rahimi, and if she can persuade at least one other conservative justice to join her, they could align with the court’s three liberals to uphold the gun control law….’ (POLITICO)

Perhaps a glimmer of hope that a rift will emerge and widen, since the power of the Court has been a major source of despair. And can we be encouraged by the suggestion that, despite trump’s effort to stack the decks, he wouldn’t have the capacity to grasp such nuanced but ultimately impactful differences? Law of unintended consequences indeed!

‘1. Keep reminding the public that “he is now a convicted felon, he is an adjudicated rapist, [and] he attempted to overthrow the Constitution of the United States,” said Conway, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project. “And he’s just down right nuts,” he added. And now that donald trump, whose latest trial just ended, is on the loose during the thick of his election run, we will be seeing more and more of his nuttiness, which Conway says is a good thing. People need to see it. And speaking of his mental condition [cut to his next piece of advice]…

2. “You’ve got to actually say it. We have not had a full national conversation about this man’s psychological condition. … He’s literally nuts. … He’s a narcissistic sociopath. He has narcissistic personality disorder, and…that needs to be talked about openly. It needs to be pointed out when he is doing things that meet those criteria,” Conway said. Why? Because “it drives him nuts when people do that,” and this creates a vicious cycle where trump acts nuts, the media points it out, and that triggers the MAGA maniac to act even nuttier. And so on and so forth.

3. “The other thing I would recommend to liberals is don’t get mad,” he said. “The people who support trump like it when liberals get mad. That’s why they like trump.” Instead, Conway advises the media to repeatedly “make fun of him. You can make fun of him and mock him … laugh at him. Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate the seriousness of what would happen to this country.”

And what might that be, you ask? “We are going to have civil disorder like you’ve never seen” if trump wins.

And if Biden wins, Conway says, there are still going to be around 60–80 million people who voted for trump, and “we still have to live with those people and we’re going to have to deprogram them at some point.”…’ (Boing Boing)

‘Florida governor Ron DeSantis, seeking to prevent public expressions of the LGBTQ+ Pride flag colors, has mandated only red, white and blue lights on the state’s bridges. Such decisions were previously left to local governments, but they kept putting up the devil’s rainbows during Pride Month….’ (Boing Boing)

‘Rep. Jamie Raskin is one of my favorite people in public life. He’s smart, brave and profoundly decent and honorable. He’s dedicated to the rule of law and democracy itself. How dedicated? He buried his 25-year-old son on January 5, 2021. The next day he came to work to certify the election results.

I’m too old and cynical to have heroes but if I did have one, he’d be it.

Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, was interviewed by Dahlia Lithwick, reprinted in Slate Magazine — this is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the dangers the Supreme Court poses to democracy and some potential fixes that might save the us from the Court and the Court from itself.

First, he lays out the problems:

“[The Supreme Court is] the only federal court in the land that does not have a binding ethics code. And it shows.

If you don’t have an ethics code, you get people flying on junkets with their billionaire buddies all over the world and taking, you know, huge cash payments for a motor coach, a house, private school tuition. Why not? You only make, what? $325,000 a year.”

Disgusting. Truly outrageous. Makes my blood boil. How is this allowed to happen?

“I never thought I would live to see the day where justices have their own billionaire sugar daddies who give them houses and automobiles and private school tuitions. My friend Dar Williams sings a song where she says: “It’s a long road from law to justice.”

…to my mind, we’ve gotta organize the people in America. That’s where the power comes from. And we will, if and when we win back the House and the Senate and the White House. We will look at the Supreme Court and figure out what can be done about that extremely corrupted and contaminated body.”

Okay, so what solutions is he proposing?

“The Constitution does not fix the numerical composition of the Supreme Court, and it has changed nine or 10 different times over the course of our history. We have 13 federal circuits. We’ve got nine justices. Five of those justices are from New York. We’ve got one for each borough. We have entire federal circuits that don’t have a single justice. How about we start to talk about having 13 justices on the Supreme Court, one from each circuit, 18-year terms—they still get life tenure because they can go and be on the district bench or the circuit bench. Each president gets two appointments to the court. Obviously, the Senate still has to advise and consent, but it will remove some of the toxicity and the poison from the nominations if we know that each president will get two. We can deal with this problem, but the current Supreme Court is just a scandal.”

I’m not sure how possible any of these options are in the real world, but we should be adopting all of them immediately or else the six radicals on the Court are going to set this country back decades if not centuries….’ (Boing Boing)

‘Earth to media: The criminal prosecutions of trump are legitimate. The “revenge” he’s promising would be wholly illegitimate. Time to make that a whole lot clearer…

During just this week, two of donald trump’s friendliest interviewers handed him big prime-time opportunities to unequivocally renounce any intention to retaliate against Democrats for his criminal conviction by a jury of his peers in Manhattan. Both times, trump demurred….’ (The New Republic)

‘Former US President and presumptive Republican presidential nominee donald trump reportedly suggested he would have bombed Beijing and Moscow if they invaded Taiwan and Ukraine under his presidency.

According to the Washington Post, trump made the comment during an unspecified leg of his nationwide fundraising tour, a statement which reportedly shocked some of his donors….’ (Kyiv P ost)

‘Following years of research, a team of biologists, government officials and marine industry representatives have released their findings on just why one particular Orcinus orca group has developed this destructive streak. And it turns out, orcas – especially the kids and teens – just want to have fun. The report reveals that a combination of free time, curiosity and natural playfulness has led to young orcas adopting this ‘trend’ of boat-bumping, which is not at all surprising for a species that has been known to adopt odd, isolated behaviors from time to time….’ (New Atlas)

‘He’s more delusional than I thought’:

‘If donald trump came to the Libertarian National Convention to make peace on Saturday, it could hardly have gone worse.

Within minutes of beginning speaking — and after enduring sustained jeering and boos — the former president turned on the third party, mocking its poor electoral record in presidential elections even as he appealed to them for their endorsement.

“What’s the purpose of the Libertarian Party of getting 3 percent?” trump asked the crowd, which proceeded to pelt him with jeers. “You should nominate trump for president only if you want to win.”
The libertarians in attendance didn’t want to hear it, as hecklers chucked insults at trump all night. “Liar,” they called him. “Panderer,” they shouted. “You crushed our rights,” they belted….’ (POLITICO)

The New York Post reflects on the changing influences on where we locate ourselves geographically, using one year’s net gain or loss in numbers of Gen Z’ers. Apparently North Dakota is becoming very popular.  Certainly, factors like rural charm and affordability play a role, but apparently so does how boring it is. 

 (Boing Boing)

‘“Do you think if the former president is found guilty, do you worry about what the response of that might be?” Cooper asked.

“No, I think it’s … I continue to worry about threats against individual poll workers and council people, I’m not worried about an uprising of violence on donald trump’s behalf. I don’t think you’ve seen the crowds anywhere he’s gone,” Comey said. “I think a message was sent after Jan. 6 that your life will be ruined if you engage in that kind of behavior, and his crowd are not jihadis looking to die for the orange god. They are people who are attached to him as a cult leader in a way and entertainment figure, but they’re not going to lay themselves down for him.”…’ (The Wrap)

‘Former President donald trump was up all night ranting on Truth Social — including a new version of his wild assassination fantasy that featured President Joe Biden’s FBI gunning for trump’s Secret Service detail.

Right-wing hysteria has reached a fever pitch over a false claim that the FBI raid on trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort was actually an assassination attempt.

The basis for the claim is standard language in the raid’s operation order that said agents “may use deadly force only when necessary, that is, when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) claims she was the one who told trump about the non-existent danger trump faced when the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago while he wasn’t there, and which trump is now fundraising on. But the scenario has captured imaginations across the MAGAsphere — including trump’s….’ (MediaIte)

‘The ex-president’s stories of his own victimization make violence by his supporters far more likely….’ (The Atlantic)

‘Four-times-indicted former president donald trump’s terrifying plans to assume dictatorial powers (and try for a third term), deploy the military against civil protesters, create a massive police state to carry out mass deportations and use federal power to exact revenge on his opponents should be enough to convince voters that his election would be a disaster for the United States domestically. However, returning him to the position of commander in chief and “leader of the free world” is just as scary on a global front. Don’t take it from me; just listen to two former senior Republican national security experts.

Former national security adviser John Bolton recently told Jordan Klepper of “The Daily Show” that his former boss “doesn’t understand alliances.” Bolton opined that Ronald Reagan would be “appalled” by the MAGA Republican Party, and added that trump has a “fascination with authoritarian leaders.” Bolton also concurred with former secretary of state Rex Tillerson’s description of trump as a “f—ing moron,” though Bolton refrained from using the expletive. (Klepper taunted Bolton for, after all that, saying he would vote for neither President Biden or trump. “Great. So, in the race between a current president and a former president, it looks like the winner will be the Russian president.”)

Bolton has previously said of trump: “He’s fundamentally ignorant, and he really doesn’t care about the facts. He thinks international relations are about personal relations, which is a line and approach that I can tell you, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are eagerly looking forward to.” trump’s ignorance and overweening narcissism make him easy pickings for manipulative dictators. (trump came to regard North Korea’s Kim Jong Un as a friend because he sent “love letters.” He turned over foreign signals intelligence to Russians in the Oval Office.) He is, in other words, a patsy for strongmen whose object is to weaken the United States.

trump declared that he would invite Putin to invade NATO countries that didn’t contribute sufficiently to the alliance’s collective defense. (He continues to misunderstand how NATO forces are funded.) His well-known hostility toward European allies and threats to ditch NATO should indicate to any voter concerned about national security that trump’s return to office would spell disaster for international peace and stability….’ (The Washington Post

‘Conservative residents in eastern Oregon have been ready to part ways with their liberal neighbors to the west, looking to secede from the state and join Idaho.

Conflicting views on crime and social policies have created a large divide between the bigger cities and rural areas, sparking efforts to secede.

Americans still say real estate is the best long-term investment
If the counties are successful in seceding, Oregon’s border would shift 200 miles west, according to the measure….’ (NewsNation)

‘At the core of what defines us as humans is the concept of theory of mind: the ability to track other people’s mental states. The recent development of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT has led to intense debate about the possibility that these models exhibit behaviour that is indistinguishable from human behaviour in theory of mind tasks. Here we compare human and LLM performance on a comprehensive battery of measurements that aim to measure different theory of mind abilities, from understanding false beliefs to interpreting indirect requests and recognizing irony and faux pas. We tested two families of LLMs (GPT and LLaMA2) repeatedly against these measures and compared their performance with those from a sample of 1,907 human participants. Across the battery of theory of mind tests, we found that GPT-4 models performed at, or even sometimes above, human levels at identifying indirect requests, false beliefs and misdirection, but struggled with detecting faux pas. Faux pas, however, was the only test where LLaMA2 outperformed humans. Follow-up manipulations of the belief likelihood revealed that the superiority of LLaMA2 was illusory, possibly reflecting a bias towards attributing ignorance. By contrast, the poor performance of GPT originated from a hyperconservative approach towards committing to conclusions rather than from a genuine failure of inference. These findings not only demonstrate that LLMs exhibit behaviour that is consistent with the outputs of mentalistic inference in humans but also highlight the importance of systematic testing to ensure a non-superficial comparison between human and artificial intelligences….’ (Nature Human Behaviour

‘A study was published in Nature examining communication among chimpanzees. It found that chimps use “words,” and can combine the words into “syntactic-like structures,” the beginnings of phrases / sentences.

“Chimpanzees produce ‘alarm-huus’ when surprised and ‘waa-barks’ when potentially recruiting conspecifics during aggression or hunting. Anecdotal data suggested chimpanzees combine these calls specifically when encountering snakes. Using snake presentations, we confirm call combinations are produced when individuals encounter snakes and find that more individuals join the caller after hearing the combination.

So chimps have a “word” for surprise/danger and a “word” for come quickly, and when they combine them when seeing a snake, they are forming a proto-sentence with the approximate meaning of “Holy crap, get over here!”…’

— via Boing Boing

‘VP picks are usually overhyped. But trump’s will really matter….’ (Vox

Review of The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture by Tricia Romano (PublicAffairs, 2024)

‘The Village Voice was the “loud, open mouth” of New York. Could its equivalent exist today?…’ (Jacobin)

‘TikTok has spawned a curious new way of understanding ordinary life: villain arcs, main character energy and seasons….’ (The New York Times)

‘We aren’t going to stop using apostrophes. But it would help to understand that we could, with no harm to anyone….’ (John McWhorter in The New York Times)

‘”Albert Einstein was right,” reports CNN. “There is an area at the edge of black holes where matter can no longer stay in orbit and instead falls in, as predicted by his theory of gravity.”

The proof came by combining NASA’s earth-orbiting NuSTAR telescope with the NICER telescope on the International Space Station to detect X-rays:
A team of astronomers has for the first time observed this area — called the “plunging region” — in a black hole about 10,000 light-years from Earth. “We’ve been ignoring this region, because we didn’t have the data,” said research scientist Andrew Mummery, lead author of the study published Thursday in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. “But now that we do, we couldn’t explain it any other way.”

Mummery — also a Fellow in Oxford’s physics department — told CNN, “We went out searching for this one specifically — that was always the plan. We’ve argued about whether we’d ever be able to find it for a really long time. People said it would be impossible, so confirming it’s there is really exciting.”

Mummery described the plunging region as “like the edge of a waterfall.”
Unlike the event horizon, which is closer to the center of the black hole and doesn’t let anything escape, including light and radiation, in the “plunging region” light can still escape, but matter is doomed by the powerful gravitational pull, Mummery explained. The study’s findings could help astronomers better understand the formation and evolution of black holes. “We can really learn about them by studying this region, because it’s right at the edge, so it gives us the most information,” Mummery said…

According to Christopher Reynolds, a professor of astronomy at the University of Maryland, College Park, finding actual evidence for the “plunging region” is an important step that will let scientists significantly refine models for how matter behaves around a black hole. “For example, it can be used to measure the rotation rate of the black hole,” said Reynolds, who was not involved in the study….’ (Slashdot)

‘If you’re tossing and turning at night due to heartburn, sleep apnea, or other health issues, your sleeping position could be the culprit – or the solution.

According to Lifehacker, for heartburn sufferers, “lying on your left side means that food and digestive juices have an easier time staying inside the stomach where they’re supposed to be. If you have GERD or you get heartburn easily, sleeping on your right side can make it more likely for stomach acid to end up in the esophagus, making your heartburn worse.” So the left side may reduce nightly acid reflux.

However, the right side could benefit heart function and breathing. When you “sleep on your right side, the mediastinum keeps the heart in place. But when you lie on your left side, your heart sags and rotates slightly. For this reason, it’s thought that the heart beats more efficiently when you’re lying on your right side than on your left. This in turn may help you breathe more easily if you have sleep apnea.”…’ (Boing Boing)

‘Recent protests have not yet reached the scale of the major student protests of the late 1960s against the Vietnam War or the 1980s against South African apartheid. But on campus, they may be “the largest student movement so far” of the 21st century…’ (Vox)

‘He’ll almost certainly never truly be punished by the legal system for his myriad crimes so we have to take our small victories where we can get them….’ (Boing Boing)

Related:

The Joy of Making trump Listen to Mean Tweets About Himself

The vicious, thin-skinned ex-president was forced to endure readings of social media posts by prospective jurors that mercilessly mocked him. It was great. (Daily Beast)

‘Unbound and unhinged, ex-president vilifies immigrants before devolving into bizarre riffs, including calling himself ‘total genius’…’ (The Guardian)

‘trump lost moderate and liberal voters to Haley by a wide margin, according to exit polls. And, according to AP VoteCast, a bit over 1 in 5 GOP primary voters said they would not vote for trump in November if he was the party’s nominee….’ (POLITICO)

‘Social-media testimonials claim that improving your “gut health” not only helps with stomach issues such as bloating and pain but also leads to benefits beyond the gastrointestinal system (easing problems including, but not limited to, itching, puffy face, slow-growing hair, low energy, acne, weight gain, and anxiety). You can now find a staggering range of products claiming to support digestive health: Joining traditionally gut-friendly fermented foods such as yogurt and sauerkraut are “probiotic” or “prebiotic” teas, cookies, gummies, supplements, powders, and even sodas…

Maintaining the health of the gastrointestinal tract, like the health of any body part, is always a good idea. But expecting certain foods and products to overhaul gut health is unrealistic, as is believing that they will guarantee greater overall well-being…’ (The Atlantic)

There is no clear definition of a healthy gut microbiome, and surely what balances the gut will differ from person to person. To sell a product because it promotes ‘gut health’ is to sell snake oil. “A lot of probiotics are unlikely to contain viable bacteria, and probably very few of them are really making it through to the colon,” Columbia gastroenterologist Daniel Freedberg said. Never mind the claimed causal relationship between gut health and overall health or mental health.

‘If we can learn to speak their language, what should we say?…’ (The Atlantic)

‘Without clear guidance from the Court, House Democrats suggest that they might not certify a trump win on January 6….’ (The Atlantic)

‘Last week, OpenAI released Sora, a generative AI model that produces videos based on a simple prompt. It’s not available to the public yet, but CEO Sam Altman showed off its capabilities by taking requests on X, formerly known as Twitter. Users replied with short prompts: “a monkey playing chess in a park,” or “a bicycle race on ocean with different animals as athletes.” It’s uncanny, mesmerizing, weird, beautiful — and prompting the usual cycle of commentary.

Some people are making strong claims about Sora’s negative effects, expecting a “wave of disinformation” — but while I (and experts) think future powerful AI systems pose really serious risks, claims that a specific model will bring the disinformation wave upon us have not held up so far.

Others are pointing at Sora’s many flaws as representing fundamental limitations of the technology — which was a mistake when people did it with image generator models and which, I suspect, will be a mistake again. As my colleague A.W. Ohlheiser pointed out, “just as DALL-E and ChatGPT improved over time, so could Sora.”…’ (Vox)

‘The 18th annual Santa Monica Film Festival, which held in-person screenings on Saturday, February 3 and which is running online screenings through February 28, chose to feature and then give awards to some dangerous right-wing conspiracy theories masquerading as “documentary” films.

The festival awarded “Best Documentary Feature” to The Great Awakening, the third film in anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Mikki Willis’ Plandemic series….

The films in the Plandemic series continue to be circulated online, and have been seen millions of times. They have also been thoroughly debunked…

Next, the film We Will Not Be Silenced won the film festival’s award for “Best International Documentary.” The film festival’s Instagram describes the film, which was directed by Brian Rose and Luis Solarat…

Rose continues to platform reptilian conspiracy theorist David Icke and spread antisemitic conspiracy theories and disinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines….

Finally, “Shot Dead” is another “documentary” that was screened at the film festival, although it didn’t win anything. This film, a “We the Patriots USA Original Production” features parents who believe their children were killed by COVID-19 vaccines…

Can someone please go check on the Santa Monica Film Festival and make sure they’re alright? Because these films that they’ve platformed are so full of dangerous disinformation and conspiracy theorizing, it’s a stretch—at best—to call them documentaries. It seems clear that the Santa Monica Film Festival is fully red-pilled now. I sure hope other film festivals don’t follow suit.

For more analysis of the film festival, check out Conspirituality Podcast’s episode, “Plandemic Takes the Promenade.”‘ (Boing Boing)

‘Speaking to the Black Conservatives Federation, adjudicated rapist donald J. trump gave an off-the-rails demonstration of his racism.

So many times, donald trump says things that would end any other politician’s career for good. Here, the Orange Menace claims Black people like him because he is a criminal. …trump spends this speech just saying all the Republican “quiet parts” out loud. This is crazy offensive and, once again, should invalidate him from holding any office….’ (Boing Boing)

‘In this speech,  tired and struggling real estate fraud donald trump, is speaking to evangelicals and can not pronounce the word evangelical the same way twice. He made up polling numbers, told stories about baby murder, and elevated his January 6th insurrectionist mob to spirited patriots. Promises to close the Department of Education also went over big to folks who love banning books….’ (Boing Boing)

(YouTube)

‘…It’s a quasar – the bright core of a galaxy that is powered by a gargantuan black hole some 17 billion times the mass of our Sun. Known as J0529-4351, the object’s power was confirmed in observations by the Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Scientists, reporting in the journal Nature Astronomy, say the black hole has a voracious appetite, consuming the mass equivalent to one Sun every day.

J0529-4351 was actually recorded in data many years ago but its true glory has only just been recognised.

“We have discovered an object which has previously not been recognised for what it is; it’s been staring into our eyes for many years because it’s been glowing at its brightness for longer than humankind has probably existed. But we’ve now recognised it, not as being one of the many foreground stars in our Milky Way but as a very distant object,” Christian Wolf, from the Australian National University (ANU), told BBC News.

The term quasar is used by astronomers to describe a particular type of AGN, or Active Galactic Nucleus. It’s the very energetic core of a galaxy which is being powered by an immense black hole that’s pulling matter towards itself at a prodigious rate. As this material is accelerated around the hole, it is torn apart and emits a huge amount of light, so much so that even an object as distant as J0529-4351 is still visible to us. This quasar’s emission has taken a staggering 12 billion years to reach the detectors at the VLT.

Everything about the object is astonishing.
The scientists involved say the energy emitted makes the quasar over 500 trillion times more luminous than the Sun….’ (BBC)

‘There is a Venus/Mars conjunction happening in the sky and you can see it basically any morning for the next 3 mornings. (It’s only a true conjunction on Friday 23 Australia time, but it’s probably easier to see the day before/after, the Thursday and Saturday. That’s Weds & Friday for most of the world.) Anyway this is mainly an excuse to tell you some great facts I’ve been hoarding about Venus. But first: conjunction details. It’s neat because Venus and Mars are both bright, so it’s an astronomical event you can see with the naked eye even with bad light pollution. It’s best seen 30-60 minutes before sunrise (between “astronomical twilight” and “nautical twilight” if your weather app gives you those times). Look for Venus in the east (it’s the brightest ‘star’ in the sky) and then see Mars next to it, smaller and redder. If you have a lot of obstacles on your horizon, you’ll want to look closer to sunrise, when Venus and Mars are higher in the sky – but not so close to sunrise that the sky’s too bright to see stars…’ ((The Whippet )