Linkage

• Kalshi loses again as judges rule prediction markets must obey gambling laws (Ars Technica) They keep losing because the fact is that the predictions markets are just bookies.
• REMIND ME TO NEVER F%$# WITH CANADA (I F%$#ing Love Australia) An fascinating, if somewhat profane on how Canada's retaliatory tariffs are targeting swing elections with almost surgical precision. (%$# mine)
• Texas city demands $2M for public records on Flock usage (Ars Technica) At this point, I have to believe that Flock is directing these larcenous reproduction costs.
• Two New Birds Louder Than Jackhammers Just Dropped (404 Media) 120 dB, which is ear-splitting.
• Ancient Negev Wine Was a Global Hit. Can Israeli Winemakers - and Scientists - Bring It Back? (Haaretz) The wine might be recreated, but I'm dubious about it's commercial potential.  Taste, and technology, particularly refrigeration, have transformed wine.
• Nazi Germany had no hope of making an atomic bomb, uranium cubes reveal (AAAS) Heisenberg's claims to have sabotaged the Nazi bomb effort are, and were always, complete bullsh%$.
• Undersea Archaeologists Recover the Only Known Ring Engraved With the Lighthouse of Alexandria (Gizmodo) A signet ring, likely functioning as something similar to a notary stamp, recovered from a submerged city.  I smell a Hollywood blockbuster.
• Ken Paxton’s Travel Security Detail Cost Taxpayers Millions (ProPublica) It seems that Paxton was misusing state travel as well.
• 184 cuneiform tablets discovered in Hittite royal archive (Heritage Daily) No specifics yet on the contents, they are likely mostly things like shipping manifests and tax records, which are generally boring to the layman, and catnip to professional archeologists.

It flew well, but was too weird to produce and deploy:

Meanwhile, In the Middle East

We are seeing more Houthi strikes on the Riyadh and Dammam airports.

It appears that we are in a tit-for-tat exchange between the House of Saud and the Houthis, and the Saudis have lot more to lose here. 

Massive Self Own

Trump has announced an agreement between the Ukraine and Russia to stop strikes on each other's infrastructure.

Zelenskyy has stated that he was unaware of any such deal, and the the recent Russian drone strikes imply the same from Moscow.

Donald Trump has announced an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, apparently without consulting Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said the deal to stop long-range attacks was “news to me”.

In a social media post, the US president claimed the two sides had reached an agreement. “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” he wrote on Truth Social.

He offered no further details. Zelenskyy said he was surprised by the announcement but would agree to it if Vladimir Putin did the same. “If President Trump negotiated it with Putin – please tell us when the ceasefire begins. We are ready and we will accept it,” the Ukrainian president told the Axios website.

Earlier, Zelenskyy rebuffed Trump’s demand made on Saturday that Kyiv stop bombing Russian oil refineries. Zelenskyy said Moscow had to first halt its own “brutal” attacks on his country’s energy infrastructure.

………

There was no sign that the Kremlin was observing Trump’s ceasefire. According to Zelenskyy, Russian drones took to the sky “throughout the day” on Sunday. There were also “unfortunately” several airstrikes, he said, including on energy infrastructure.

The Ukrainian president said the Russians hit thermal power station No 5 in the eastern city of Kharkiv – the latest of more than 200 strikes this week against electricity generation and transmission facilities in Ukraine. There were another 17 hits on gas and oil facilities, he added.

The fast-moving row between Washington and Kyiv began on Friday when Trump announced he was lifting sanctions on Russian diesel exports. He said the move would reduce global and domestic fuel prices before next month’s US midterm elections.

I'm not sure how much of this is a ploy to drive fuel prices down before the midterm elections, and how much is Donald Trump losing touch with reality.

It does not really matter. 

Does My Brother Have a Tardis?

A 19th Century Japanese Depiction of an American

[image or embed]

— pmamtraveller.bsky.social (@pmamtraveller.bsky.social) October 10, 2026 at 6:26 PM

Seriously, This is My Brother, the Hairy Giant

He is also historically accurate Jesus

First in a historical simulation of the appearance of Jesus, and now in a Japanese drawing of an American around the time of Commodore Perry.

I would note that he does have a PhD in physics, so if anyone in my family had the ability to construct a time machine, it would be him.

As I understand his PhD, which is not at all, this means that the secret of time travel would involve spin physics, and not collision physics, since that was his focus. 

I'm not sure what the whole, "Spin vs collision physics," means, exactly, I possess neither the ability nor inclination to understand the difference.  (I do know that the latter involves constructing multibillion dollar particle accelerators)

The more I think about it though, the more sense this makes.  I have never seen Stephen and either Commodore Perry or Jesus in the same place at the same time. 

It's all a bit suspect, isn't it?

It is canon that the exposure to the time vortex can convert a human into a Time Lord, so perhaps someone should get a hair sample. It should be pretty easy, he is responsible for about 60% of the bigfoot sightings in the Pacific Northwest. 

It would explain a lot. 

Stephen Saroff, Timelord      o o  The Bear who Swims      
                              (_)_____o      
                           ~~~~(______)~~~~~~~~~~
                               oo    oo

Old Tools

In Abric Romaní Spain, a cache of hard to preserve Neanderthal wooden have been found.

Given the ephemeral nature of wood, this is remarkable.

The Stone Age owes its name to tools that survived to our time. The material early humans worked with most, though, was probably wood because it is so much easier to process. Unfortunately, we know very little about Paleolithic woodwork because wood rots relatively quickly. But at Abric Romaní, a rock shelter in Capellades, west of Barcelona, mineral-rich water coated wooden Neanderthal tools in a limestone-like crust. When wood rotted away, it left behind hollow molds that faithfully reflect its shape.

In a recent Science Advances study, a team of Spanish archaeologists has cataloged 597 wooden remains from Neanderthal living areas dating from 62,000 to 40,000 years ago. They found spears, digging sticks, bark trays, parts of shelters, and a club unlike anything seen before, suggesting Neanderthals were likely much more than just Homo sapiens’ dumber cousins.

………

The spears mostly give us information about how Neanderthals hunted. The findings at Abric Romaní are different because the finds come from a place where Neanderthals lived, slept, cooked, and made tools over the course of some 20,000 years.

“We have a sample of wooden tools for different subsistence activities, not only hunting,” says M. Gema Chacón, an archaeologist at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA) and co-author of the study. Because wood turns up in level after level, it shows that woodworking was routine for Neanderthals rather than an occasional one-off. 

………

The shelter sits at the foot of a cliff of travertine, a limestone laid down by calcium-rich spring water. As that water dripped across the shelter floor, calcium carbonate settled on anything lying around—logs, leaves, pine cones, and Neanderthal tools. Sealed inside the crust, the wood slowly decomposed, leaving hollow molds. These are perfect negatives of the original objects, sometimes so detailed that the outlines of wood cells are visible under a microscope. 

………

Four shallow trays made of juniper bark, the largest 55 by 20 centimeters, were found near hearths. They may have been used to carry food or scoop embers, much like the bark dishes called coolamons used by Aboriginal Australians. Crossed poles over a thick hearth may be the remains of a tripod, possibly for processing food. A branchless pole more than five meters long was found in the innermost part of the shelter. 

………

The choice of materials suggests Neanderthals knew their wood. Scots pine is easy to work and dries quickly, so tools were cheap to make and replace. Juniper’s fibrous bark suited the trays. Firewood tended to be dry wood, while tools were made from fresh wood. “When they went to look for wood, it was like when they went to look for stone; they knew exactly what they wanted to make,” says Chacón. “This implies not only planning, but a bit of complexity in the brain to organize your activities.”

………

Science Advances, 2026. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeh2287

This is cool.

I Protest This Cultural Appropriation

Wish that this had a translated caption

How dare a Japanese theater create a reinterpretation of a Sci-Fi classic movie that was itself ripped off from a classic Akira Kurasawa movie. 

FWIW, I think that the entire cultural appropriation thing is complete bullsh%$, and my protest is entirely ironic, but I would argue that this is a complete mind-F%$#, even if the story is 7 years old.

The Star Wars franchise is about to breach the artistic final frontier with a one-off performance of a kabuki adaptation starring one of Japan’s most revered stage actors.

The classical Japanese theatre, which combines highly stylised movement and unusual vocalisation, will swap samurai swords for lightsabers and replace feudal warriors with the forces of light and darkness.

Star Wars Kabuki-Rennosuke and the Three Light Sabers, which are being staged in Tokyo, will combine plots from each of the franchise’s latest trilogy, substituting plots drawn from the days of feudal clan rivalry with drama from a galaxy far, far away.

Ichikawa Ebizo XI, Japan’s pre-eminent kabuki actor, will take to the stage as Kylo Ren, the conflicted son of Han Solo and Princess Leia, in front of 50 winners of an online lottery.

………

Thursday’s performance, which will take place weeks before the nine-part Star Wars saga draws to a close with the release of The Rise of Skywalker, is the latest attempt by kabuki to shake off its stuffy image and open it up to a wider audience.

Traditionalists, though, are unlikely to object to the Star Wars theme, given the films’ popularity in Japan and the Japanese themes and that have helped shape the franchise throughout its 42-year-history.

George Lucas was influenced by the venerated Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and his first Star Wars movie, A New Hope, was loosely based on Kurosawa’s 1958 film The Hidden Fortress.

This both impresses and confuses me.

Tru Dat

When Defector says that, "A blue wave won’t mean sh%$ if the chumps get their way," (%$# mine) they are noting that if the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) remains in firm control of the House and Senate Democratic Caucuses, then any opportunity created from the recapture of Congress will be squandered.

Feckless cowards do not make things better.

You might have heard there’s an election coming soon. Given that this is The Most Important Election Of Our Lifetimes, No. 536, the campaign industrial complex has rested a 1,000-pound boulder atop the SPAM button in an attempt to curry favor with you, the voter. This is why I, a Marylander, am bombarded with campaign ads/flyers/robocalls 48 hours a day, including TV ads for Senate candidates in states nowhere near mine, Ohio and Texas in particular. It’s also why Donald Trump has used taxpayer money to buy up national airtime for an ad that features him walking menacingly toward the camera, like you’re about to be his next victim. Thank you, Mister President!

You’ll notice that much of this long-distance haranguing is being waged by the Republican Party, almost certainly because their current polling nationwide is abysmal. If those numbers hold—although you and I know better than to trust polls—the GOP stands on the brink of losing both houses of Congress, plus a number of crucial state elections. That’s why they’re flooding the airwaves with a steady stream of dogs%$#. These are tactics of desperation.

All of this is somewhat heartening to me, the screechy liberal. The idea of President F%$# head finally getting a firm check on his power is enough to make me almost kinda sorta think things here in the U.S. can actually get better. But if this blue wave materializes—I am in no way predicting that will happen, please do not tell people that I predicted anything—I already know that the path to progress will be impeded by the same coterie of gutless motherf%$#ers I’ve been having to deal with as long as I’ve been a registered voter.

When asked if impeachment was a top priority, Jeffries said “of course not” during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” “I’ve made clear from the very beginning that our top priority is going to be to drive down the high cost of living.”

So nothing about restoring the rule of law or challenging the current expansive view of the executive, just posturing over prices.

And now onto Chuck Schumer:

………

Schumer is the senator who took more donations from private equity than any other. He's the guy whose asshole kid is a lobbyist for Amazon. He's the frog that continually insists the water he’s sitting in isn’t coming to a boil. Schumer has presided over every catastrophic decision Democrats have made in the Trump era, and is one of the primary reasons that Trump has won the presidency. Twice. This man is a f%$#ing loser. He’s paid to be a loser, and he’s only interested in sharing leadership duties with fellow genteel scum like Jeffries: people hard-wired to let Republicans get the best of them time and time again.

I am so f%$#ing sick of these chumps. I’m sick of every victory notched by the Democrats being a fleeting one. Right now, Donald Trump is an historically unpopular president, and he has made the party he rules over equally despised. During Trump's second term in office, he has destroyed this nation’s preventive healthcare infrastructure, wiped out entire fields of scientific research, unleashed a fascist police force on American cities, started an insane war, murdered dozens of people in cold blood, desecrated the national park system, f%$#ed up the Reflecting Pool, and literally torn down the White House itself. Every oval that Americans fill in on the D side of a ballot this fall is them saying “F%$# Donald Trump” as loudly and clearly as possible. And Hakeem Jeffries wants to check his swing if he dares to utter it himself? Sit on a gavel, you f%$#ing clown.

And finally the conclusion:

………

They’ll probably lose that 2028 election. You know why? Because they don’t CARE if they lose. They never have, and even Donald Trump’s ongoing looting of this nation isn’t going to compel them to start. This is what happens when a two-party system becomes too big to fail. Reach the penthouse of the Democratic Party and you’ll never go hungry again. Even if you lose an election, you’ll just end up with a better paying job working for the same machine. So I don’t have to wonder why Schumer has managed to endure, despite gladly acting as a doormat for our most evil public officials. As that fucker sees it, being a chump is his job. He’s certainly not interested in making things better for you and me. If Democrats like him wielded power on behalf of regular people for once, they'd be expected to continue doing so, and that would be bad for both their bank accounts and their minimal work ethic. As such, here I find myself again having to vote blue all the way down the ballot, again hoping that it will yield tangible results when everything tell me otherwise.

The geriatric leadership of the Democratic Party must be overthrown.

Factio democratica instauratio (Nulla est institut factionis democratica) delenda est. 

End Stage AI Capitalism

Is anyone surprised that OpenAI is lying about its revenue numbers? (alternate link)

Sam Altman lying?  Say it ain't so!

OpenAI’s annualised revenue is about $20bn less than the company had signalled, according to financial documents shared with investors, a massive gap likely to damp optimism about the growth of AI demand. 

The company has recently told investors its revenues were approaching $50bn on an annualised basis at the end of September, far short of the $70bn reported by the FT and other media outlets late last month based on information that was provided to investors.

The metric, along with the equivalent figure for OpenAI’s rival Anthropic, is the most important indicator of overall demand for AI and underpins vast infrastructure spending and the growth of public equity markets. 

………

The discrepancy arose from attempts by OpenAI’s investors to produce a direct comparison with Anthropic’s annualised revenues, said a person familiar with the matter. The pair calculate the figure in different ways, with Anthropic including the revenue from sales via cloud partners such as Amazon’s AWS and Google Cloud, while OpenAI does not.

However, the new investor presentation shows close to $30bn annualised revenues in July.

As a private company, OpenAI is not required to regularly disclose its financials publicly. It declined to comment.  

………

But the gap against investors’ expectations will exacerbate concerns over the trajectory of large, private AI companies whose prospects are central to the US stock market and have helped fuel strong growth in the US economy.  

It's ironic that we as taxpayers will be bailing out this rat-f%$#ery.

Headline of the Day

Gambling Addiction Group in Shambles After It Turns Out It's Funded by Kalshi

—Futurism, on how the National Council on Problem Gambling f%$#ed itself.

This is unbelievably stupid.

Ever since the Supreme Court overturned a nationwide sports betting ban in 2018, gambling has taken off in the United States. Enabled by popular apps, the practice has become a common fixture in daily life amid an inescapable barrage of advertisements urging users to start gambling away their hard-earned cash.

The rise of prediction platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, which allow users to bet on the outcomes of practically any type of event, has accelerated the trend even further, triggering what experts are warning is a massive increase in gambling addiction.

And now, it turns out that even the National Council on Problem Gambling, the largest nonprofit in the US designed to address gambling addiction, quietly struck a deal to accept donations from Kalshi — a revelation that’s thrown the group into chaos, as Barron’s reports.

An April board meeting about a major donation required attendees to sign a non-disclosure agreement, setting a concerning precedent for the nonprofit. At the meeting, NCPG executive director Heather Maurer, who had assumed her role just three months prior, announced that Kalshi was poised to donate $2 million — the second largest donation in the nonprofit’s history.

Understandably, the news that one of the biggest suspected contributors to gambling addiction was looking to fund a nonprofit that’s trying to address the problem was met with plenty of skepticism. The deal, which Maurer had finalized behind the board’s back, “landed like a bombshell in the gambling addiction advocacy community,” per Barron’s.

Taking a donation from a prediction market is like a “national council on teenage sex abuse taking money from Jeffrey Epstein,” longtime NCPG member Marc Lefkowitz told the publication.

(emphasis mine)

To quote not Tallyrand, "It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake." 

The "Civilized" World

So it looks like Donald Trump and SecDef Pete Hegseth want to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan by firing squad.

Honestly, the level of depravity here is beyond anything I could have imagined.

President Trump loves a public spectacle. After 14 years on reality television, he has brought one show after another to his presidency — a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, the biggest fireworks display ever, even a cage match on the White House’s South Lawn.

Now his administration is planning another unprecedented public exhibition, but one with a macabre twist: livestreaming a firing squad execution.

For the first time, Americans would be invited to watch on their cellphones, laptops and other screens as a convicted murderer is put to death. Never before has an official execution been broadcast live in the United States, turning what in theory is supposed to be the solemn application of justice into an event for an audience of potentially millions.

Under the plan announced this week, those who click online on Dec. 3 would see Nidal Malik Hasan, who gunned down 13 fellow Army soldiers and injured 32 others at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, shot by rifle-bearing soldiers at the same base on the same day of the week at the same time of day that he opened fire. No limits on who would be allowed to watch were described, even though an Army manual restricts witnesses to an execution.

………

The idea seemed to shock even some of his colleagues in the administration. Vice President JD Vance cast doubt that it would be livestreamed, telling reporters that “I don’t know that that’s going to happen” and adding that he would not watch if it does. But Mr. Trump said he signed off on it. “Did I approve?” he said. “Absolutely I did.”

………

Even some supporters of capital punishment flinched at the idea of livestreaming Mr. Hasan’s execution, calling it medieval and barbaric. “Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting,” said Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.”

When Tom f%$#ing Tillis is taking the moral high ground, something is profoundly wrong. 

As Anna Russel Would Say, "I'm Not Making This Up, You Know."

When he was deposed in a federal corruption investigation, Texas Attorney General and Senate candidate Ken Paxton that a stock transfer was an effort by one of his donors was in order to please God.

Either he is completely delusional. or completely without integrity. (Probably both)

Ken Paxton sat for hours in a federal building in Fort Worth as government lawyers grilled him under oath about his growing wealth and questionable investing history.

At the time, in December 2014, Mr. Paxton was a fast-rising Republican star. He had just been elected the next attorney general of Texas. But outside of public view, he was under scrutiny as part of a federal investigation into possible fraud.

The deposition in the case, obtained by The New York Times, was one of the earliest episodes in what would become a decade-long pattern for Mr. Paxton: accusations of corruption and other illegal conduct repeatedly emerged, only to be resolved without a conviction.

………

The 2014 deposition was part of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Servergy Inc., a technology start-up based in McKinney, Texas, which is part of the district that Mr. Paxton represented as a state lawmaker. The start-up’s founder, William Mapp III, known as Bill, was accused of making false claims to investors.

The S.E.C.’s lawyers wanted to know whether Mr. Paxton hid that he had received compensation for recruiting investors for the company.

………

Mr. Paxton’s recounting of the Servergy transaction began at a Dairy Queen in McKinney. In the deposition, he said he intended to invest $100,000 in Servergy and met Mr. Mapp there to give him a check. Mr. Mapp turned down the money, Mr. Paxton said, and instead gifted him 100,000 shares of stock.

Mr. Paxton attributed Mr. Mapp’s generosity to his religious beliefs.

“I said, Well, who do I make the check out to?” Mr. Paxton told the government lawyers, according to the deposition. “He said, I can’t take your money. God doesn’t want me to take your money.”

The value of the shares eventually grew to $200,000, according to Mr. Mapp’s emails to Mr. Paxton that were described in the deposition.

(emphasis mine)

How did he not go the jail for this? 

 

When Bad People Do Good Things

I know that these actions are driven by a hatred of brown people, but the H-1B and L-1A programs are rife with abuse and serve to depress wages in the United States, so the recent actions by the Trump administration cracking down on the program leave me with mixed emotions.  (Archive.is link)

The Trump administration accused Microsoft Corp., Adobe Inc. and a half-dozen other companies of abusing a US worker visa program and suspended them indefinitely from a longstanding immigration initiative that’s served as a crucial talent pipeline for Silicon Valley and Wall Street.

The suspensions, announced Thursday by Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, also targeted information technology services giants Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., Infosys Ltd. Tata, Wipro Ltd., HCL Technologies Ltd. and Capgemini SE. Those firms, either based in India or with large operations there, are often called outsourcers for their role offering contract IT work to other businesses.

At a briefing in Washington, Sonderling said there were multiple federal investigations under way into the use of a system that allows US employers to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency. Vance singled out Microsoft, the world’s third most-valuable company, for what he characterized as exploitation of the program.

Yeah, right, the Trump administration is cracking down on corporate malfeasance.

And I'm the direct descendant of Genghis Khan and I am destined to rule the world. 

………

Silicon Valley’s reliance on foreign workers has long been a flashpoint in the debate over immigration. Since Trump’s return to office last year, the administration has seized on those concerns and pressed tech giants to do more to train and hire US workers.

As part of that effort, Trump has moved to make it harder for companies to use H-1B visas to attract foreign talent, targeting a major source of workers for the industry. The changes have included proposals for $100,000 filing fees for most candidates and tightening the rules of how the H-1B visas are awarded in an annual lottery, giving priority to companies offering the highest salaries.  

………

The moves announced by Vance and Sonderling take aim at the Permanent Labor Certification Program, or PERM, which allows companies to sponsor a foreigner who has been working the US under the H-1B and other visa holders to become a legal permanent resident, the first step to becoming a US citizen. 

This is really about keeping people like Usha Vance from becoming permanent residents. 

The H-1B program is a deeply flawed and deeply corrupt program, but the only members of our polity interested in addressing it are doing so for the basest of reasons. 

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And once again, it appears that the low-hire/how-fire job market is continuing.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, pointing to continued labor market stability despite a sharp slowdown in job growth in September.
Weekly jobless claims have now remained near 57-year lows for four ​straight weeks, the report from the Labor Department showed on Thursday, amid historically low layoffs.

………

"It's still a 'low-hire, low-fire' job market," said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. "That's great for anyone who has a job and wants to keep it, but it's ​tough for job seekers."

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 197,000 for the week ended October 3, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast ​200,000 claims for the latest week.

Claims have held below the 200,000 mark since the second week of September. California and Illinois were the only states to report ⁠an increase in unadjusted applications in excess of 1,000. The four-week moving average of claims, viewed as a better gauge of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 2,500 to 198,000 last ​week, the lowest level since early October 2022.

Stocks on Wall Street were trading lower. The dollar slipped against a basket of currencies.

Low initial claims make rate hikes more likely, so the stock market sees a not so bad unemployment report as bad news for stocks. 

………

The claims report showed the number of people receiving unemployment ‌benefits after ⁠an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, increased 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.716 million during the week ended September 26. The so-called continued claims had dropped to a 3-1/2-year low in the prior week.

Some economists argued that the still-low level of continued claims was masking a gradual labor market weakening as a group of unemployed people, including recent college graduates, were ineligible for benefits because of limited or no work history.

Some long-term unemployed people may have exhausted their eligibility, which is limited to 26 weeks in most states.

The median duration of unemployment was 11.5 weeks in September, near a 4-1/2-year high. The unemployment rate was at ​4.2% last month.

I'm not sure where this is going, but I'm a pessimist about all of this. 

This Explains a Lot

I've always wondered why modern architecture is so profoundly ugly, whether it be anything by Frank Gehry or things like the Edinburgh Poop Emoji building. 

It turns out that they are trained to admire ugliness.

Hoocoodanod?

There is a strange thing about modern architecture that becomes obvious the moment you ask ordinary people what they actually like.

Show people an old street in Paris beside a new development and many will choose the old one. Ask tourists where they want to spend an afternoon and they crowd into the historic centers of Rome or Prague; meanwhile some of the buildings celebrated most enthusiastically by architects struggle to inspire anything like the same affection.

You can dismiss this as nostalgia.

The problem is that researchers have actually tested it.

A 2026 study involving almost 3,000 people in Norway and Greece showed participants pairs of traditional and contemporary buildings. Traditional buildings were preferred across every comparison and the result was statistically significant in seven of the eight national tests; even contemporary buildings that won or received nominations for architectural awards lost to their traditional counterparts.

This is not a surprise.  The culture of architecture is a Petri dish for toxic narcissists.

………

Leon Battista Alberti, writing in the fifteenth century, tried to name what people keep recognizing even when they lack the vocabulary of a critic:

Beauty is that reasoned harmony of all the parts within a body, so that nothing may be added, taken away, or altered, but for the worse. It is a great and holy matter. All which we desire to add unto any thing, to make it more beautiful, is called ornament. Beauty is some inherent property, to be suffused all through the body of that which may be called beautiful; whereas ornament, rather than being inherent, has the character of something attached or additional.

That is not a demand for palaces. It is a demand for wholeness. People walking a street are often judging whether a building feels complete, not whether it is historically “correct.”

When one masturbates in public, it is generally not perceived as completeness.

………

Researchers in 1989 compared the reactions of architects and non-architects to residential architecture. The two groups responded differently to architectural styles while the study also found differences between the physical characteristics associated with professional “high” architecture and more popular residential design.

That makes intuitive sense.

Spend years studying architecture and you learn to look for things most people never think about. An architect may become interested in novelty or construction while somebody walking past the building might simply ask whether it looks beautiful.

Neither person is pretending.

They have learned to see different things.

The problem begins when one of those groups gets much more influence over what everybody else has to look at. 

The term is, "Inmates running the asylum." 

Deep Thought

I wish I lived in a place where you get a pre-filled out tax form every year, like Sweden.

Hell, I'd go jogging naked in December in Stockholm to make that work. 

Filling out taxes is a f%$ing drag, 

I Am Amused

It appears that Fox News has canceled Karl Rove for his criticism of Trump and MAGA.

So, the rat-f%$#er of his generation has been rat-f%$#ed by his descendants.

Good. 

Fox News political analyst Karl Rove has not appeared on his network’s weekday programming for the last three weeks, even as the midterm elections loom. Rove’s absence coincides with his newsmaking public statements warning about extremism within the Republican Party — and his denunciation by President Donald Trump.

While Rove appeared alongside Fox senior political analyst Juan Williams on the October 4 edition of Fox News Sunday (which airs on Fox broadcast stations and reairs later in the day on Fox News), he last appeared on a Fox weekday program on September 14, when anchor Martha MacCallum interviewed him on The Story.

Rove’s absence at a time when his analysis would theoretically be most useful is notable. He averaged seven weekday Fox appearances per month from March through August, and that interview on The Story was his 5th of September, according to a Media Matters review of our database.

………

Rove’s disappearance from Fox's weekday airwaves overlaps with his increasingly strident criticism of extremist elements in the GOP, which has drawn attention from other news outlets.

Two days after Rove’s most recent Fox weekday appearance, The Wall Street Journal published a column in which the veteran Republican strategist and former top aide to President George W. Bush called out the “raw, uncut bigotry” of Texas GOP candidate Bo French, vowed to “vote for only the second Democrat in my life” rather than support French’s campaign, and warned that “the GOP has a growing number of Bo Frenches—and not only in Texas.”

Rove doubled down during a September 26 appearance at the Texas Tribune Festival and drew more headlines for his lament that the Republican Party is “being infiltrated by people like Bo French” and the white nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes, who he described as “a Nazi.”

Rove has been using racism as a political tool his entire career.

I have no sympathy for him. 

History Rhyming

And this does not include the Commercial Real Estate clusterf%$# Just as people, particularly those who tried to make their fortune through Airbnb, started to move back to adjustable rate mortgages, we see that home prices are falling in major real estate markets across the US.

Not a fan of remakes, particularly when the original, the 2008-10 real estate crash sucked to begin with.

Listing prices are would-be-nice-to-get asking prices that sellers put on their wish-list but might not get. When sellers cut the price, the new price becomes the listing price. When sellers pull the home off the market because it didn’t sell, that price vanishes from the listing prices. When they put it back on the market at a lower price, that new price becomes the listing price. So listing prices show what sellers are struggling with. Those listing prices have been sinking in Florida, Texas, and California for the past few years. Transaction prices have also fallen or plunged in many markets in these states. But listing prices are now suddenly sinking in New York, where transaction prices had held up.

In Florida, the statewide median listing price in September has dropped by 13% from the peak for September in 2022, and by 3.5% year-over-year, to $409,950, the lowest since November 2021 (red in the chart).

………

Actual transaction prices of single-family homes in many markets in Florida have dropped sharply from the peaks in 2022 or 2024, including in: Lee County (Cape Coral, Fort Myers) -18%, Sarasota County -17%, Collier County (Naples) -12%, St. Petersburg -10%, Tampa -6%, Jacksonville & Orlando -5%.

Transaction prices of condos in many markets in Florida have plunged from their peaks in prior years, including in Cape Coral -34%, St. Petersburg -30%, Fort Myers -27%, Sarasota County -24%, Tampa -22%, Jacksonville -21%, Orlando -18%, etc. – and in four of them, transaction prices have plunged below their 2006 Housing Bubble peaks.

In California, the median listing price in September has declined by 6% from the peak for September in 2024, and by 3.1% year-over-year, to $725,000, the lowest September since, and the same as, September 2022 (red in the chart).

………

In Texas, the median listing price in September has declined by 9% from the September high in 2022, and by 2.5% year-over-year, to $355,765, the lowest September since 2021 (red in the chart).

On a square-foot basis, the median listing price has dropped by 4% from September 2022, and by 2.1% year-over-year, to $181 per square foot.

………

In New York State, the median listing price suddenly plunged in recent months, and by 6.8% year-over-year, to $605,000, the lowest September since 2023, after having flatlined at record levels over the prior two years.

Home prices in the big markets in New York had risen at a modest pace in recent years, while prices in many markets in Florida, Texas, California, and many other states had been falling. New York State was one of the forces that propped up the national median price and other national price indices, and kept them rising in the 1% to 2% range year-over-year. The entire Chicago area was another big factor. Those are huge housing markets that move the needle.

Not this sh%$ again.

Pedophile Hypocrite Dies at 84

Dennis "Denny" Hastert. 

I imagine that he is sitting next to Jim Bakker at the current orientation and training session in Hell.

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day

I, too, think we should invent books.

— David Moscrop (@David_Moscrop) October 5, 2026

Truer than taxes is this.

Alternatives to Google

Link is here.

The list, absent the usual suspects:

• Marginalia, a web site and crawler that focuses on text heavy and hand written web sites.
• Million Short, allows you to search the nth search results, whether this be 10, 100, or 100,000.
• BASE, the Bielefeld Academic Search Engine, geared toward academic research. 

Go read the full list. 

People Really Hate AI

Even Apple fanboi are desperate to get AI off of their iPhone.

Apple’s attempt to integrate AI into its various operating systems hasn’t been entirely well received, nor has the decision to make Apple Intelligence increasingly difficult to disable completely. Thankfully, the open source community has come to the rescue.

A recently released open source tool called RemoveMacAI does pretty much exactly what it says on the GitHub-hosted tin: Aggressively rips Apple Intelligence out of macOS, disabling most of its AI features and removing downloaded models following the launch of macOS 27 last month.

Siri AI? Gone. ChatGPT and other AI extensions? Eliminated. Genmoji, random boxes offering to jazz up your writing, summaries of notifications and app content, and automatic photo clean-up? Never to be seen again.

More importantly, RemoveMacAI can claw back the storage occupied by Apple’s AI models - potentially over 12 GB, depending on the Mac. You might just get confused and think it’s 2025 again.

The impetus for RemoveMacAI, its creator Om Lahorey said in a LinkedIn post, is the fact that Apple made it practically impossible to remove Apple Intelligence features in macOS 27.

“The settings are spread across about a dozen places, some of them only under Screen Time,” Lahorey wrote over the weekend. “Even with every one turned off, the models stay on disk. I wanted it gone in one step, so I wrote RemoveMacAI.”

Unsurprisingly, Lahorey’s tool blew up on Hacker News, with plenty of people happy for an easy way to get rid of Apple AI tools. As of writing, the repo has over 1,500 stars, so it's clearly struck a nerve with frustrated macOS users.

They hate it, they really hate it!

Spucky Spagnolo?

For those of you who don't know, Spucky was a Revere boy who achieved significant success in the Patriarca crime family, at one point being the active head of that organization.

Anthony “Spucky” Spagnolo has died at age 84, a rather significant accomplishment for someone in his line of work.

Normally, I would not make note of this, but a mobster making it to age 84 is impressive, and his name.

Spucky Spagnolo is a truly epic name. 

 

Oswald Mosley and Adolph Hitler are Fighting

My bad, I mean Jacob Rees-Mogg and Tucker Carlson.

To quote Declan Patrick MacManus, "I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.

The former Tory minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has found himself defending Britain’s decision to fight against Adolf Hitler after inviting the US rightwinger and Vladimir Putin sympathiser Tucker Carlson into his home for an interview.

During the encounter, Carlson repeatedly suggested the west was to blame for inviting aggression from Russia and said of the prospect that Britain could have lost to Hitler: “Who cares?”

Rees-Mogg, who lost his parliamentary seat in 2024, appears to have agreed to host Carlson’s podcast show after carving out a post-politics career as a commentator.

………

During the interview, Rees-Mogg said he was very surprised that Carlson was “verging on defending Hitler”, adding: “I think this is not really what you want to be doing.”

Carlson replied: “Yeah, I guess I’m just a secret Nazi. I’m actually not a secret Nazi … and hardly a public Nazi.”

………

The interview has raised eyebrows in the US as well as Britain, with the Republican Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, posting on X: “When it seemed impossible for Toxic Tucker to descend deeper into the sewer here he goes opining that UK should have let Nazis take over. Forget that Hitler murdered 11 million people? I thought Tucker was against killing? He needs help. Serious help.” 

 When Mike f%$#ing Huckabee has the moral high ground, something is amiss.

Also, Reese-Mogg is Mosley.

It's a Runoff in Brazil

Bolsonaro 47.03% — da Silva 45.16%, so I am not particularly sanguine about the prospect of sanity when the runoff happens in 3 weeks.

I also wonder how much the US State Security Apparatus is rat-f%$#ing the vote.

Bombs Away

Blue Owl Capital is restricting redemptions on 2 of its private credit funds.

They are seeing increased requests for investors to get their money back.

Blue Owl has the money to accommodate these requests, but it would require them to sell off some of their loan portfolio at under 100¢ on the dollar, both because of increasing concerns about the business future (or lack thereof) of AI companies to whom they have lent money and because the loans carry interest rates far lower than what is available now, because of the Fed rate hikes.

The anodyne term for this is, "Price discovery," and that is antithetical to the, "Extend and pretend," game that they are currently playing.

It's beginning to look a lot like 2008.

Redemption requests for two of Blue Owl Capital’s private-credit funds remained well above the typical 5% cap, even as requests on one of the funds fell for the second quarter in a row.

Blue Owl Credit Income Corp. said it saw estimated third-quarter redemption requests representing 16.8% of shares, or $3.1 billion. That compares with 18.8% in the second quarter and 21.9% in the first quarter.

The tech-focused fund, Blue Owl Technology Income Corp., saw estimated redemption requests represent 39% of shares, or $1.1 billion, up from 38.1% in the second quarter but down from 40.4% in the first quarter.

………

Private-credit funds like Blue Owl’s have seen a rise in redemption requests over the past year, as investors grew concerned about credit health and the funds’ exposure to software.

Both the Blue Owl funds said they would redeem only 5% of the redemption requests, the standard across the industry.

Yeah, right, "Standard across the industry."

A Toxic Mix

What do you get when you define healthcare, the Trump administration, and artificial intelligence?

You get a clusterf%$# of ineluctable evil.

In January, the Trump administration rolled out a pilot program that uses artificial intelligence to authorize or deny certain types of care for patients with Medicare—a federal healthcare program for seniors that previously hasn’t required doctors to get any such pre-approval, called prior authorization.

Not long after, media outlets began relaying the disastrous outcomes: technical difficulties, long delays in decisions and care, puzzling denials, frustrated doctors, and patients suffering in pain. Those reports were largely confirmed earlier this month when the Electronic Frontier Foundation released a tranche of federal documents about the program, called WISeR, that the group obtained amid litigation. The documents included feedback from healthcare providers, including one who called the program “a disgrace to the human race” and reported seeing patients crying in pain as they waited for care.

Amid the worrying reports, lawmakers have been trying to get answers and shut the program down. Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office determined in May that Trump officials did not follow proper procedure in setting up the program, calling its legality into question. Still, it appears to be moving ahead unabated, with plans to expand in the years to come.

I'm thinking that this is not sabotage.  I think that it is a deliberate attempt to sabotage the most popular government healthcare system in the United States to scare people off of alternatives like single payer,

It's Bank Failure Friday!!! (On Saturday)

We have the 6th commercial bank failure of the year. Nano Bancof Irvine, CA, following years long allegations of misconduct.

Here is the  Full FDIC list. 

Yes, I'm a week (+1 day) late on this.

Oh the Poor Delicate Snowflakes

The AP has issued an update to their stylebook saying that Reporters clarifying that artificial intelligence should not be described as having feelings or consciousness, and the AI chuds are having major butt-hurt over this.

In the midst of heated discussions on AI safety and consciousness, the Associated Press Stylebook has reminded everyone of where it stands on the whole “anthropomorphism” debate.

“Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics,” it wrote Wednesday in a post on X. “This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects.”

This didn’t go over well in the world of AI experts and adherents, whose nerves, shall we say, were collectively struck by what they characterized as a “completely insane” declaration.

One of the arguments presented by the tech bros is that, "An AP movie review can tell us Optimus Prime mourns and loves, but readers need protecting from the computer understands."

They are both morally and intellectually bankrupt. 

Crap! Cue the Fanbois.

NASA has pulled their former research SR-71A from display with the intent of reactivating the aircraft.

While I am sure that something interesting is happening here, I expect to be inundated by endless social media posts and videos from uninformed aviation geeks.

Mike Relja, a retiree in his late 70s, received an unexpected job offer from NASA about a month ago.

The assignment: Help put a former NASA-operated Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird back in the air after a nearly 27-year hiatus.

Relja, an ex-U.S. Air Force and NASA test engineer for the SR-71A, could not believe his ears. David Ash, a former U.S. Navy and Joby test pilot who was hired in June as a special projects director for NASA, asked Relja to provide his expertise for a secret effort to return a long-retired and neglected Blackbird to flight.

“I told the guy, ‘You know, I’m too old to be doing this,’” Relja recalls to Aviation Week. “‘I wish you well. I’d like to see you make it. It would be interesting. But I just don’t think you can get there from here.’”

It appears NASA is going to try.

At some point early this year—certainly before May 17 and perhaps even before April, according to commercial satellite imagery acquired by Aviation Week—agency employees removed the SR-71A with Tail No. 844 from a display pole near the corners of Lilly and Walker Avenues at the Armstrong Flight Research Center on Edwards AFB, California.

I appreciate that NASA might have a need for the aircraft, my guess is launching of scramjet test vehicles, why couldn't they have they kept it a secret?

 

Remember When Flock Promised That It Would Not Add Facial Recognition?

Not so much.

A third party firm is offering facial recognition from Flock data.

I have no doubt that they are paying a kick-back to Flock for access to their data.

As Flock continues to be the center of a nationwide conversation about automatic license plate reading cameras, the company has said that it doesn’t, and won’t, do facial recognition: “We will not add facial recognition to our devices,” Flock CEO Garrett Langley said in a recent video. But other, third-party companies are telling cops that they are willing to add facial recognition to data gathered by Flock cameras in order to “close that gap.”

A company called VIDIZMO is advertising the capability to export footage from FlockOS to its own platforms that do facial recognition, behavior prediction, and racial and gender analysis on live camera feeds. VIDIZMO is a several decades-old video analysis and database company that has started offering facial recognition technology to cops within the last six months. In a May email to Johnson City, Tennessee, deputy police chief Michael Adams, a salesperson from VIDIZMO wrote that the company’s product could do facial recognition on both Flock and Axon data in “one searchable platform.”

“Flock Safety generates plate reads and clips continuously. Your investigators use that data on active cases. But that Flock data does not connect automatically to your Axon evidence system,” the salesperson wrote. “VIDIZMO Intelligence Hub closes that gap. It brings Flock Safety data, Axon body worn camera footage, and any other evidence source into one searchable platform. Investigators search across all of it simultaneously — by face, vehicle, or object in seconds.” The email was obtained using a public records request by DeFlock Johnson City and was shared with 404 Media. The Johnson City PD told 404 Media in a statement that it did not take a call with the company.

Gee, Flock lied.  What a surprise? 

First Friday of the Month

Unemployment rate

And the monthly jobs report is not great. 

Non farm payroll rose well under then natural growth rate of the workforce, and the unemployment rate rose by 0.1% to 4.2% while workforce participation rose marginally. 

The U.S. added just 29,000 jobs in September, a sign that the labor market may not be able to deliver the sizable gains that it did in the past—but doesn’t need to in order to keep the unemployment rate low.

The numbers

The jobs number, reported Friday by the Labor Department, fell far short of analysts’ expectations for an increase of 84,000 jobs. The unemployment rate edged up to 4.2%. That was higher than 4.1% the previous month but still at a historically low level that indicates the labor market remains generally healthy.

Monthly employment numbers can be volatile, so investors and policymakers tend to focus on the unemployment rate. 

Low hire, low fire

The 29,000 number will seem low to anyone who remembers the job gains that routinely topped 200,000 in the years before the pandemic—much less the massive job gains that came when the economy reopened from Covid-19.

But the economy doesn’t need to generate as many jobs as it used to just to keep the labor market steady. The population is aging, and an immigration clampdown has reduced growth in the supply of workers. 

In a positive sign, what is called the labor-force participation rate—the share of people working or looking for work—inched up slightly. “That all speaks to continued strength in the labor market,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide.

The job market remains in a low-hire, low-fire era that provides stability but can be frustrating for Americans used to more opportunity. That dynamic has made it harder for newcomers to break into the job market, or for those who have been laid off or seeking new jobs to find new roles.

And some of the other bits.

………

Stock investors cheered the report, with stocks up across a broad range of sectors. Investors also dialed back their expectations for a rate increase this month.

Still, the report lands amid a broad selloff in the bond market, and Treasury yields rose. They hit their highest level in 24 years earlier this week before retreating, while mortgage rates have surged above 7%. 

So, a bad jobs report is good news at the big casino on Wall Street.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

……… 

Jobs numbers for both July and August were revised down. Employers shed 10,000 jobs in July, down from a previous estimate of a gain of 21,000. August’s job gain was revised to 133,000, from 162,000. Combined, revisions trimmed 60,000 jobs from the previously estimated tally for July and August.

 So the numbers are even worse than they initially appear.

Headline of the Day

Pete Hegseth’s Big Speech Was Weirdest Village People Cover We’ve Ever Heard 

—Wonkette

I got nothing to add to this.

Support Your Local Police

A news organization has gotten a $2.5 million dollar bill from the Eugene, Oregon police department for a copy of records of just one rogue cop.

Can you say, "Blatantly illegal attempt to subvert the state Freedom of Information Act?

Good, I knew you could.

How much does it cost to get more information about a cop who punched someone in the face?

If you guessed anything lower than $2.5 million, you’d be wrong — at least according to the city of Eugene, Oregon.

In August, the local news outlet Double Sided Media filed a public records request for records about police officer Justin Peckels, which focused on potential misconduct between 2018 and 2026. Peckels has been the subject of community complaints, including for punching a resident in the face during a traffic stop, making the records vital for oversight and their release clearly in the public interest.

The city’s response is beyond belief. In its response to the request on Monday, the Eugene Police Department claimed searching for records and processing the request would take at least 44,816 hours of staff time and cost approximately $2,484,599.04. (A separate request by the outlet for similar records concerning a former police officer, Eric Klinko, was met with a comparatively modest estimate of $195,869.52, for a grand total of nearly $2.7 million for both requests.)

Needless to say, the Eugene PD needs to be given a metaphorical anti-corruption proctology exam with a metaphorical telephone pole.

He Never Fails to Disappoint

Once again, we have Gavin Newsom doing something reprehensible.

This time, it is vetoing a bill making secretly taping people with "pervert glasses" a crime.

I guess he wants campaign donations from Mark Zuckerberg for his Presidential campaign.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has used his veto authority to send a bill passed by the state’s legislature back to lawmakers, which would have made it unlawful to secretly record people with wearable recording devices.

Newsom said in a letter to lawmakers on Wednesday that he declined to sign the draft law, California Senate Bill 1130, on grounds that it defines wearable recording devices as “too broadly or imprecisely” and that this could lead to confusion and unintended consequences. Newsom added that the proposed bill also includes protections that already exist in California’s law.

The bill would have made California the first state to regulate the use of smart glasses, as countries like Norway seek to potentially ban the technology. Had California’s law passed, violators could face fines or prison time, while wearable makers that did not comply with the rules would have also faced fines.

They Are Re-Litigating This?

Seriously, why is the Trump administration attempting to rehabilitate Richard M. Nixon?

We live in the worst timeline ever.

For nearly two years, the Justice Department has made it a priority to investigate people who previously investigated President Trump. Now it is reaching back in history to consider whether prosecutors mistreated an earlier Republican president: Richard Nixon.

The department is reviewing whether the special prosecutor’s office that investigated the famed Watergate break-in committed misconduct, according to people familiar with the matter, more than half a century after that scandal led to Nixon’s resignation.

Geoff Shepard, a former Nixon aide turned Watergate historian and revisionist, recently gave a two-hour presentation at Justice Department headquarters that laid out his theory that the deep state took Nixon down. The title of his 78-page slide deck: “Watergate As Lawfare.”

The review comes at a moment of renewed interest in the Nixon legacy. Republicans see in the combative former president, who was loathed by the press and besieged by investigations, a historical analogue for Trump. During remarks at the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., this summer, Vice President JD Vance made the comparison explicit.

F%$# Gerald Ford for pardoning that Cox Sacker Nixon. 

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, both initial and continuing unemployment claims fell, with initial claims hitting a 3 month low of 197,000.

New applications for US unemployment benefits drifted close to 57-year lows last week and layoffs decreased in September, suggesting labor market stability persisted even as employers remained cautious about boosting hiring.

The report from the Labor Department on Thursday joined a raft ​of other data, including robust consumer spending in August, in painting a rosy picture of the economy despite rising headwinds from the US-Israeli war with Iran, which has driven diesel prices to record ‌highs. Economists said robust corporate profits growth and resilient domestic demand were shielding workers from layoffs, for now.

………

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 197,000 for the week ended September 26, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 200,000 claims for the latest week.

Claims have held ​below the 200,000 level for three straight weeks and are near levels last seen in 1969. Some economists said historically low layoffs, if sustained, could raise questions about the labor market overheating, with monetary policy implications.

………

A separate report from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed layoffs announced by US-based employers dropped 18% to 43,281 in September. They were down 20% from a year ago ​and fell 43% in the third quarter. Employers are, however, in no rush to increase headcount.

Hiring plans increased by 90,787 last month. While that was sharply up from 12,325 in August, hiring intentions were down 23% from a year ago, and ​the tally was the lowest for any September since 2011. Challenger, Gray & Christmas said a surge in seasonal hiring typically seen starting in September was absent, adding that "companies are in a wait-and-see period."

………

But August's market-friendly inflation readings are unlikely to be sustained. An Institute for Supply Management survey on Thursday showed ​inflation pressures building up at the factory gate in September, with no commodities reported to have seen price declines. The survey's measure of input prices jumped to 77.9 last month from 71.1 in August.

Meanwhile, inflation and interest rate data are not looking good. 

US stocks recovered from early losses to close slightly higher on Thursday, with the ​S&P 500 bouncing from a two-week low as a global bond selloff reversed course after sending US Treasury yields to multi-decade highs.

Stocks were under pressure in ‌early trading as economic data kept pointing to a solid economy with persistent price pressures that stoked fears that inflation could ultimately force the Federal Reserve to become more aggressive with rate hikes. 

………

Treasury yields extended gains, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury note hit a 24-year high, after closing out September ​with its biggest quarterly gain since 1994, and pushed equities lower after the Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing PMI dipped ⁠to 54.5 last month from 54.6 in August and showed a jump in input prices, raising inflation worries.

………

But yields turned lower as buyers stepped in, ​and further declined after Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson suggested the central bank may be patient before hiking rates again, following a 25 basis point hike in September.

The two-year US ​Treasury yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Fed, dropped about 10 basis points and was poised for its biggest daily drop since August 2025.

………

Oil prices also kept stoking inflation worries. Brent crude settled up more than $4 a barrel after China suspended fuel exports, threatening to further tighten markets. The jump in crude prices helped boost the S&P 500 energy index, opens new tab 1.9% as the best performing of the 11 major S&P sectors. 

Damned if I know what the hell is going on here.

Self-Regulation is to Regulation as Self-Importance is to Importance

That's pretty much all that needs to be said about the voluntary AI self regulation "Accord" that was signed in the White House today.

OK, maybe one more thing, said accord misspelled  the words, :"United States." as, "UniteS States."

D'oh!

The agreement means nothing. 

 

Not Good

The consumer confidence number is out, and it has hit a 12 year low.

The rising cost of living has manifested itself in higher prices at the pump and supermarket as well as mortgage rates. Diesel prices are at a record high. Economists say the war has created an uncertain business environment and hindered employers' ability to hire more workers.

"The economy is stagnant for the typical American household, which has been caused by the erratic public policy environment that makes it tough for businesses and households to plan for the future," said Kyle Moore, chief economist at The Century Foundation.

The Conference Board said its ​consumer confidence index plummeted 6.7 points this month to 81.9, the lowest level since April 2014. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index at 89.2. The deterioration in confidence was across political party affiliation, age and income ​groups.

The consumer confidence index fell by 6.7 points to 81.9, much weaker than economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast. Consumers’ also had a tepid assessment of current labor market conditions and said they were worried about higher interest rates in the year ahead.

Obviously, one month does not a trend make, but this is not good news. 

FAIL

Sarah Huckabee Sanders ran an ad about how taxpayers should not be funding lazy assholes who spend their days gaming and eating junk food.

The ad is controversial among the MAGAts, because the leeches are white guys in the campaign spot.

The usual suspect snowflakes are offended, because as we all know, white guys are never welfare queens. 

AmIright? 

The MAGA world is turning on one of its own.

Pro-Trump, far-right influencers attacked Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, who served as President Trump’s press secretary from 2017 to 2019, after she posted a campaign ad promoting her state’s work requirements for many Medicaid recipients.

In the ad, which Ms. Sanders posted on social media on Monday morning, an unkempt, young white man named Brad mashes the buttons of his video game controller. He throws cheese balls and potato chips into his mouth, often missing.

“Brad has turned relaxing into a full-time profession,” Ms. Sanders tells the camera. “But you, you actually work hard. You pay taxes to cover welfare for guys like Brad, who just choose not to work. That’s why I launched a welfare-to-work requirement.”

I know, this seems a totally anodyne Republican political commercial, but there is much butt-hurt.

………

The ad instantly drew blowback from the kinds of once-fringe figures that the Republican Party brought into the fold under Mr. Trump. Critics almost exclusively expressed anger that the protagonist was a white man. Several of them demanded that Ms. Sanders take down the ad, issue an apology and fire the staff members who helped produce the TV spot, accusing her of engaging in “anti-white racism.”

Jack Posobiec, a right-wing commentator best known for fueling the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory about a child abuse ring at a Washington restaurant, called the ad “Antiwhite” and criticized Ms. Sanders for airing it in the run-up to the midterm election, suggesting it would alienate white voters.

………

Will Chamberlain, a conservative lawyer and influencer who worked on Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, accused Ms. Sanders of “anti-white racism.” In a video posted on social media on Monday, he said the ad was “how you end a national political career before it even begins.”

Also joining in the criticism were Matt Walsh, a right-wing podcaster and prominent Trump supporter; Mike Cernovich, a Trump defender and far-right commentator; and Caleb Pascoe, a lobbyist for the American Principles Project, a social conservative advocacy group.

Won't someone think of the children?

Bookies Have Always Been Used for Money Laundering

This applies to bookies masquerading as futures as well.

Case in point, Polymarket and Kalshi being to facilitate things like credit card fraud. 

Criminal solidarity, I guess.

Gambling addicts aren’t the only ones being taken for a ride by prediction markets.

As gambling platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi become have more popular than ever before, financial criminals are also using prediction markets to unleash fraud and graft on an unprecedented scale.

According to the Wall Street Journal, this phenomenon was identified as far back as February, when a payment processing company contracted by Polymarket flagged a massive rise in bets made with stolen debit cards.

Essentially, fraudsters began by plugging stolen financial information into the prediction market to make wagers. If they won, the perpetrators would then withdraw the funds, syphoning them into alternative payment methods under their control.

As the WSJ reports, criminals tried to make off with at least $10 million using this method — causing the third-party payment processor to reject over 80 percent of its incoming transactions as fraudulent, which is vastly over the industry norm of around 1 percent.

Following what has arguably become the business model of the day, the WSJ revealed that Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan essentially told his horrified compliance team to keep raking in the cash and deal with the consequences when they come — if they ever come at all, that is.

How about frog marching senior management out of their offices in handcuffs?