“Fake It till You Make It,” Huh?

In any other line of work, the driving philosophy of tech startups would be better defined as fraud.

As we saw with Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, this is basically fraud premised on the idea with a sprinkling of fairy dust (or VC funding) you can actually make something that resembles an ongoing business.

The thing is, when you are dealing with meat space, things like diagnostic tests (Theranos) or military autonomous drones simply do not work.

When defense procurement wonks say that systems should be developed on the Silly-Con Valley model, they miss this. 

In this case, I am referring to Anduril, a company that is aggressively selling autonomous autonomous vehicles with little success.

The company founder, Palmer Luckey, made his money by creating VR goggles company Oculus (borrowing tech from another company) and then selling out to Facebook, who wanted the technology for their incredibly abortive foray into the, "Metaverse."

How this makes him qualified for anything beyond technology hype is beyond me, as the string of failures of his company projects show.  (Actually, I do know how this makes him qualified, he has been a Donald Trump supporter since at least 2016)

The Navy was attempting to launch and recover more than 30 drone boats from a combat ship off the coast of California in May when more than a dozen of the uncrewed vessels failed to carry out their missions. The boats had rejected their inputs and automatically idled as a fail-safe, making them “dead” in the water. 

The botched experiment quickly became a potential hazard to other vessels in the exercise. Military personnel scrambled overnight to clean up the mess, towing the boats to shore until 9 a.m. the next day. 

The drone boats were relying on autonomy software called Lattice, made by California-based Anduril Industries. The Navy said the exercise was handled safely, but the incident alarmed Navy personnel, who said in a routine follow-up report that company representatives had misguided the military. In comments that were unusual for such a report, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, four sailors warned of “continuous operational security violations, safety violations, and contracting performer misguidances (Anduril Industries).” If the software configuration wasn’t immediately corrected and vetted, they wrote, there would be “extreme risk to force and potential for loss of life.”

(emphasis mine)

BTW, this behavior is classic, "Fake it till you make it." 

Since its founding in 2017, Anduril Industries has become one of the hottest companies in a crowded field of defense-tech startups, promising to deliver hardware and software that will usher in a new era of autonomous warfare and equip the U.S. military with the speed that only a startup can offer. The privately held company was valued at more than $30 billion in its last funding round and has scored an impressive number of military contracts to build prototypes of everything from unmanned jet fighters to mixed-reality headsets to battlefield-management systems.

Yeah, this is gonna end well. 

………

The startup’s fast-moving approach comes with its share of setbacks—during closed military exercises, at private drone ranges and even on the battlefield in Ukraine.

In California, a mechanical issue damaged the engine in Anduril’s unmanned jet fighter Fury in a ground test over the summer ahead of a critical first flight for the Air Force. In August, a test involving its Anvil counterdrone system caused a 22-acre fire in Oregon. And in the exercises with unmanned boats over the summer off the coast of California, Anduril’s Lattice software struggled to command and control vessels. 

Anduril’s only real battlefield experience—in Ukraine—has been marred by problems as well, including vulnerability to enemy jamming, according to former employees and others familiar with the systems in Ukraine. Some front-line soldiers of Ukraine’s SBU security service, for instance, found that their Altius loitering drones crashed and failed to hit their targets. The drones were so problematic that they stopped using them in 2024 and haven’t fielded them since, according to people familiar with the matter.

That the Ukrainians were unwilling to continue to use the drones is telling.  They are grabbing onto any system that works at all, but Andruil's crap was below the level of their desparation. 

To quote Richard Feynmann, "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." 

As an FYI, Feynmann's quote comes from the last line of his report on the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.  He was commenting on how NASA (and the rest of the investigation board) was choosing public relations over the reality behind the accident.

Of Course He is Looking for a Pardon

This one does not involve Trump, at least not directly.  Rather I am talking about Benjamin Netanyahu demanding a pardon from Israeli President Isaac Herzog. (It should be noted that the Israeli Presidency is a largely ceremonial position)

Trump is lobbying for Netanyahu's pardon, but I do not think that will have much impact.

More importantly Netanyahu is guilty as hell:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel asked its president on Sunday to pardon him in his long-running corruption trial, a request that the president called “extraordinary” and that critics said would run counter to the rule of law.

Mr. Netanyahu’s unusual pre-emptive appeal to President Isaac Herzog, while his trial is still underway, came about two weeks after President Trump sent a letter to Mr. Herzog urging him to pardon the Israeli prime minister.

A statement by the Israeli president’s office said the request would have “significant implications,” and that he would “responsibly and sincerely consider” it after seeking expert opinions. 

I really hope that this means, "F^%$ No!" from Herzog, but trying to figure out what an Israeli politician will do is well beyond my meager abilities to predict what people will do. 

As to the specifics of the charges, which do not include his having Israeli taxpayers foot a $2,700.00 a year for ice cream, there are 3 basic charges:

• Pressuring ministries and the US government to benefit rich Israelis in exchange for $300,000.00 in personal gifts.
• Discussing a quid pro quo with a media mogul in where he would put forward legislation disfavoring a rival media conglomerate for favorable coverage.
• Executing a quid pro quo with another media mogul to not put forward legislation disfavoring him in exchange for favorable coverage.

Pardoning Netanyahu will have a corrosive effect on Israeli politics, and Israeli politics is not, and has never been, particularly healthy to begin with.

A Great Holiday Gift Choice

Penguin Random House released an Avatar: The Last Airbender picture book, My Cabbages!

It's intended to be for children aged 4 to 8 years old, but if you know an Avatar fan, they would appreciate it as well.

I am stoked about this.

Please, if there is, "My Cabbages guy," slash fic out there, do not not tell me.

I do not want to know. 

Not Good

Donald Trump has declared that Venezuelan airspace is closed.

Needless to say the government of Venezuela differs: 

The Venezuelan government has responded defiantly to the heightened pressure by the US government, including Donald Trump’s recent statements on Saturday that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela is to be closed in its entirety.

In a statement, the Venezuelan government said Trump’s comments are a “colonialist threat” against their sovereignty and violate international law. The government also said it demanded respect for its airspace and would not accept foreign orders or threats.

Trump on Saturday, in a Truth Social post said: “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.”

Due to Trump’s announcement, all migrant deportation flights were “unilaterally suspended”, the Venezuelan government added. Deportation flights to Venezuela have been a significant point of contention for the Trump administration, as it continues to engage in its mass deportation program.

"V" is the first letter of both Venezuela and Vietnam.

This will not end well. 

Headline of the Day

Why Elon Musk Needs Dungeons & Dragons to Be Racist

—The Atlantic on why Elon Musk completely lost his sh%$ on the current owner of D&D releasing a book that admitted that the early stuff was just a bit racist.

Elon Musk does not object to being called a racist, he objects to people being offended by racism.

The fall of Constantinople wiped the last living Roman civilization from the Earth. The city’s refugees fled west, helping spark the Renaissance; its legacy shaped the religious traditions of millions and the modern map of Europe and the Middle East. The fall also inspired a book, which inspired a game, which inspired the world’s richest man to lash out because his favorite role-playing game wasn’t as racist and sexist as it used to be.

Last November, on X, the billionaire tycoon Elon Musk told the toy company Hasbro to “burn in hell.” Hasbro owns the company Wizards of the Coast, which produces the game Dungeons & Dragons. Wizards had just released a book on the making of the game that was critical of some of its creators’ old material. “Nobody, and I mean nobody, gets to trash” the “geniuses who created Dungeons & Dragons,” Musk wrote. The book acknowledged that some earlier iterations of the game relied on racist and sexist stereotypes and included “a virtual catalog of insensitive and derogatory language.” After a designer at Wizards said that the company’s priority now was responding to “progressives and underrepresented groups who justly took offense” at those stereotypes, and not to “the ire of the grognards”—a reference to early fans such as Musk—Musk asked, “How much is Hasbro?,” suggesting that he might buy the company to impose his vision on it, as he’d done with Twitter.

………

D&D wouldn’t exist without J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, fantasy’s seminal 20th-century text, published in 1937. When Tolkien’s German publisher, to comply with Nazi racial laws, tried to determine whether the author was Jewish, Tolkien was outraged. A draft of his response reads: “If I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.” He expressed his disgust to his British publisher: “I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.”

Unfortunately, a “pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine” permeated the era in which The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings series that followed it, were written, an era in which many Westerners believed that “races” shared particular natures, characteristics, and capabilities. That genetic determinism seeped into the books. Although uncountable readers were inspired by the tales of its diminutive heroes defying stereotypes to save the world, some drew other conclusions. The books, and the ideas embedded in them, would go on to have a magnetic appeal to the political forces Tolkien had rejected.

Today, we can see their influence on right-wing populists in business and politics all over the world.The billionaire Peter Thiel named his software company, Palantir, after the crystal ball in The Lord of the Rings, while his AI company, Anduril, is named for the sword of the human hero Aragorn. Joe Lonsdale, an investor in Anduril and Palantir, founded a crypto-focused bank called Erebor, after the dwarfs’ mountain fortress. Vice President J. D. Vance named his venture-capital firm Narya, after Gandalf’s magic ring. Giorgia Meloni, the far-right prime minister of Italy, and defender of “Italianity” against what she sees as the dilution of immigration, is a Tolkien obsessive who sees in hobbits, dwarfs, and elves the “value of specificity.” When Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning adaptation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out in the 2000s, conservative writers embraced the films as a metaphor for George W. Bush’s war in Iraq.

………

If your identity was built around being a fan of a marginal pastime, de-geekification meant that suddenly, you weren’t as special anymore. Comic books, video games, fantasy and science fiction, role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons—they were all getting more popular, and trying to appeal to new audiences. Not everyone was happy with the changes that effort inspired.

Those who objected could be divided into two categories: people who found the simpler and more flexible game to be bland; and people who didn’t like the game getting “woke.” This is a slippery term, but it often boils down to things not being quite as racist or sexist as they used to be.

Racists don''t just want to be racism to be accepted, they demand that society continues to promulgate racism.

Not Good

The fact that I see the report of national guardsmen being shot in Washington, DC and my primary concern is that Trump will use this for his Reichstag moment.

Two West Virginia national guardsmen shot near the White House remained in critical condition on Wednesday in an attack that rattled the country’s capital.

The incident comes amid a controversial deployment of troops to Washington DC ordered by the Trump administration. FBI director Kash Patel, Washington mayor Muriel Bowser and other officials confirmed in a press conference that both the guardsmen were in the hospital and described the shooting as “targeted”.

Officials have identified a suspect, who is currently in custody, as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the United States in September 2021 under a Biden-era policy allowing Afghans to enter the country after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.

We seem to be spiraling into chaos. 

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The report actually came out yesterday, I thought that it would have been tomorrow.

In summary, initial claims are down, but continuing claims are up, so not much laying off, and even less hiring.

The net is still a downturn in employment:

Applications for US unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week to the lowest since mid-April, remaining relatively subdued amid economic uncertainty.

Initial claims decreased by 6,000 to 216,000 in the week ended Nov. 22. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 225,000 applications.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, edged up to 1.96 million in the previous week, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday. 

Additionally, this should be viewed in the context of the Trump administration using the government shutdown to suppress bad economic numbers:

Are Americans supposed to think that the Trump administration canceling the release of economics reports is somehow a good sign for the economy?

The Bureau of Economic Analysis announced Monday that it had officially canceled releasing the advance estimate on gross domestic product (GDP) for the third quarter of 2025. The Trump administration had previously delayed the release, which was initially slated for October 30, due to the government shutdown—but now it seems to have been abandoned altogether. 

Last week, the Labor Department called off releasing its monthly jobs report for October, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics scrapped its own report on inflation.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed the Democrats two weeks ago for such delays, saying the liberal party “may have permanently damaged the federal statistical system.” She hinted at further cancellations, saying that data from October “will be permanently impaired.”

The Trump administration’s decision to get stingy with publishing economic data comes amid concerns that President Donald Trump’s policies aren’t all that good for the economy. Trump’s mass deportation scheme is estimated to reduce the GDP by between 4.2 to 6.8 percent, according to the American Immigration Council. Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariffs are also expected to place a strain on GDP, according to the Tax Foundation. 

If Trump would like to argue against these assertions, then the government may want to start publishing some actual data.

It's pretty clear that the Trump administration 

Linkage, Thanksgiving Edition

Archaeologists discover how oldest American civilisation survived a climate catastrophe(The Guardian) They relocated in a systematic and organized way.

Makers slam Qualcomm for tightening the clamps on Arduino (The Register) Qualcomm being Qualcomm, which is to say that they are, "A  bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Wyden Blasts Kristi Noem for Abusing Subpoena Power to Unmask ICE Watcher (The Intercept) Of course she is.  They need to be jailed, all of them.

LLMs can be easily jailbroken using poetry (The Register) What about Vogon poetry?

You are likely to be eaten by the MIT license: Microsoft frees Zork source  (The Register) Text based games Zork I, II, and III have been released as open source.

How the FBI Became the Face of Deprofessionalization (Can We Still Govern?) One of the marks of a descent into authoritarianism is when state security forces stop doing their jobs well and focus on pleasing their political masters.

First revealed in spy photos, a Bronze Age city emerges from the steppe (Ars Technica) The 3500 year old Bronze Age city of Semiyarka in Kazakhstan. 

As God as My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly:

Another Win for the US Military

It looks like the Department of Defense is planning to kick boy scouts to the curb, because they are too, "Woke."

To quote not-Talleyrand, "This is worse than a crime, it is a mistake." 

The century-old partnership between the U.S. military and Scouting could be coming to an end.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is planning for the military to sever all ties with Scouting America, saying the group once known as the Boy Scouts is no longer a meritocracy and has become an organization designed to "attack boy-friendly spaces," according to documents reviewed by NPR.

In a draft memo to Congress, which sources shared with NPR but which has not yet been sent, Hegseth criticizes Scouting for being "genderless" and for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.

The military has provided support to the Scouts for more than 100 years, assistance that was formalized in 1937. But in one memo, Hegseth says, "The organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt no longer supports the future of American boys."

The proposal calls for the Pentagon to no longer provide medical and logistical aid to the National Jamboree, which brings in as many as 20,000 scouts to a remote site in West Virginia. It also states that the military will no longer allow Scout troops to meet at military installations in the U.S. and abroad, where many bases have active Scout programs.

I assume that Scouting America will try to teach their kids a lesson from this, because learning from misfortune is one of the things that they do.

My guess as to the lesson, "Don't let alcohol abuse rot your mind." 

All the Chinese Have to Do Is Wait for Us to Destroy Ourselves

It's gotten to the point that the US Navy cannot develop ships any larger than a dinghy. 

Case in the point the recently canceled Constellation-class Frigate Program.

They took an existing platform, the FREMM, which has over 20 ships in service and almost 60 planned for eventual service, and decided to load it up with every bell and whistle that they could think of, resulting in delays, immature technologies, and ballooning cost and weight.

So only the 2 which have been laid down will be built, and the rest have been canceled. 

The Navy is walking away from the Constellation-class frigate program to focus on new classes of warships the service can build faster, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan announced Tuesday on social media.

Under the terms negotiated with shipbuilder Fincantieri Marinette Marine, the Wisconsin shipyard will continue to build Constellation (FFG-62) and Congress (FFG-63) but will cancel the next four planned warships.

“We are reshaping how the Navy builds its fleet. Today, I can announce the first public action is a strategic shift away from the Constellation-class frigate program,” reads the statement from Phelan. “The Navy and our industry partners have reached a comprehensive framework that terminates, for the Navy’s convenience, the last four ships of the class, which have not begun construction.”

………

The Navy awarded the contract to build what would become the Constellation to Marinette in 2020 following about six years of deliberation after the Navy determined it would truncate the two classes of Littoral Combat Ships. Marinette previously built the Freedoms as a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin before competing for the frigate program on its own. The Navy decided that the competitors to base the warship on an existing parent design to speed up the design of the program. The Navy selected the FREMM multi-mission frigate, already operated by the French and Italian navies, as the parent via a Naval Sea Systems Command rapid requirements process.

However, once the complex design work commenced, the Navy and Marinette had to make vast changes to the design in order to meet stricter U.S. survivability standards. The delays resulted in an estimated three-year setback in the delivery of the first ship from 2026 to 2029 at a cost of about $1.5 billion.

The US Military Industrial Complex is a bigger threat to US security than the Soviet Union was at the height of the Cold War. 

So, It Turns Out That My Prius Was Totaled

Remember when I wrote about someone side-swiping my Prius on I-83? (Reminder, neither Nat nor I were injured in any way)

It turns out that it was totaled, needed (at least) replacement of the front bumper, radars, wheel, tire, suspension parts, the steering rack, and the engine sub-frame.

I got a check from my insurer, plus coverage of my deductible because the other driver was uninsured, and got another car.

It was a used 2026 Corolla. (138 miles, long story from salesman)

While I liked everything everything automotive about the Prius, I was still out some bucks for depreciation, and I found the car cramped and claustrophobic.  (For all the raving about the new look, it sacrificed a lot in the way of vision and space)

The Corolla is more comfortable, and while it does not get the same mileage as the current Prius, it does get about as much as my old 2004 Prius, with better back seat room, visibility, etc.

It's just more comfortable. 

The decision to make the Prius look like a Tesla in 2022 was IMHO the wrong move by Toyota. 

I Have Never Seen an Anvil with PTSD Before

That is one seriously f%$#ed up anvil.'

 

When Quoting the UCMJ is a Crime

The Trump administration is threatening to reactivate Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and prosecute him in a court martial for the video that he and 5 other members of Congress recorded noting that members of military are obligated not to obey illegal orders.

There are 2 problems with this:

• This appears to be official actions of members of Congress, which means that all 6 would be covered by Congressional immunity.
• They were announcing what the law was, specifically UCMJ section 92, which REQUIRES servicemen to disobey illegal orders.

It should be noted here that there is a presumption that orders are lawful, and the defense against requires that the order be, "Manifestly illegal," which is a pretty high bar.

Still, if a soldier obeys a manifestly illegal order, they have committed a crime, and anyone who tells them that is committing no crime at all.

When this is all over, IF this is all over, the whole lot of them need to be sent to ADX Florence.

Fail

In what is probably the least surprising of the year, Federal Judge Currie of the Eastern District of Virginia has dismissed all charges against James Comey and Letitia James. 

Given that appointment of beauty queen/insurance lawyer Lindsey Halligan, as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was a direct violation of the law, her indictments were null and void.  (And that's without considering how egregious her conduct was before the grand jury)

A federal judge on Monday tossed out separate criminal charges against the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey and New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, saying the loyalist prosecutor installed by President Trump to bring the cases was put into her job unlawfully.

The twin rulings, by Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, were the most significant setback yet to the president’s efforts to force the criminal justice system to punish his perceived foes. The case dismissals also served as a rebuke to Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had rushed to carry out Mr. Trump’s orders to appoint the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. 

This is a bigger deal for Comey, because he was indicted in the last day under the statute of limitations, which should mean that his case should be done. 

My take is not particularly well-informed though, I'm an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit! ⃰

The dismissal is without prejudice, so theoretically they can refile against James.

………

Judge Currie’s orders center on Mr. Trump’s unorthodox decision to appoint Ms. Halligan to her prosecutorial position in an interim capacity, replacing his previous pick, who was also serving in a temporary role. Within days after assuming her new post, Ms. Halligan rejected the advice of the career prosecutors in her new office and moved single-handedly to indict both Mr. Comey and Ms. James, two of the president’s most reviled targets.

In her rulings on Monday, Judge Currie said that it was unlawful to appoint two interim prosecutors in succession, and dismissed the charges against Mr. Comey and Ms. James without prejudice.

………

The manner in which the judge dismissed the Comey indictment could now lead to a legal fight over whether the government can try to refile the charges with another grand jury.

Mr. Comey was indicted just days before the five-year statute of limitations was set to run out on any charges stemming from his congressional testimony. His lawyers, and a magistrate judge, have said the statute has now expired, meaning charges could not be refiled. 

………

Other federal judges have already ruled that Mr. Trump’s Justice Department unlawfully used similar procedural maneuvers to put loyalists in place at three other U.S. attorney’s offices. Those include Alina Habba, who was put in charge of the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey; Sigal Chattah, who was named the acting U.S. attorney for Nevada; and Bilal Essayli, whom Mr. Trump put in the top job at the U.S. attorney’s office in the Central District of California.

I wonder how the corrupt 6 SCOTUS Justices will work around this.

I'm sure that they'll try, though. 

^*I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!

Clearly, Trump is Good for the Jews

In response to pressure from the Trump administration the US Coast Guard has announced that displaying nooses and swastikas will no longer be considered hate symbols.

Nothing says, "I'm not antisemitic," like being a Nazi:

The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika — an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and the deaths of more than 400,000 U.S. troops who died fighting in World War II — as a hate symbol, according to a new policy that takes effect next month.

Instead, the Coast Guard will classify the Nazi-era insignia as “potentially divisive” under its new guidelines. The policy, set to take effect Dec. 15, similarly downgrades the classification of nooses and the Confederate flag, though display of the latter remains banned, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

Certain historical displays or artwork where the Confederate flag is a minor element are still permissible, according to the policy.

Though the Coast Guard is not part of the Defense Department, the service has been reworking its policies to align with the Trump administration’s changing tolerances for hazing and harassment within the U.S. military. In September, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed a review and overhaul of those policies, calling the military’s existing standards “overly broad” and saying they jeopardize troops’ combat readiness.

Objectively pro-Nazi.

……… 

A Coast Guard official who had seen the new wording called the policy changes chilling.

“We don’t deserve the trust of the nation if we’re unclear about the divisiveness of swastikas,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal. 

Gee, you think? 

Rather unsurprisingly, after the Washington Post reported this story, the Coast Guard reversed their reversal of policy in less than 24 hours.

Exposure to the light of day killed the policy change.

To quote P.C. Hodgell, "That Which Can Be Destroyed By the Truth, Should Be."

Linkage

• Radio Signal Crushes Alien Theory About Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS (Gizmodo) Standard emissions from a profile.
• Silicon Valley startups turn to Chinese AI models amid performance and cost benefits (Digitimes Asia) That sound you hear is Sam Altman calling Trump to get a federal bailout.
• Archaeologists Discover an Ancient Wine Press Older Than the Pyramids (Gizmodo) Something is brewing in archeology.
• China Built the World’s Quickest EVs — Now It Wants to Slow Them Down (Autoblog) Too many ordinary drivers are causing accidents with their cars in performance mode.  They are requiring cars to start in restricted mode.
• The Scourge Of Wimpiness (Brian Beutler) The cowardice of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is the party's biggest liability.
• Colossal 92-foot-long dinosaur challenges the imagination (Earth.com) Tongnanlong zhimingi is big, REALLY big.
• Goofing on Meta's AI Crawler (Information Camouflage) Blogger observes that his server is being hammered by Facebook AI.  He creates a system to send the agent down a disinformation rabbit hole.  He releases instructions on how to do this on Apache server.
• The ‘supercenter’ effect: How massive, one-stop retailers fuel overconsumption − and waste (The Conversation) This was a conscious decision by the mega-markets.
• A lot of axolotls: the amphibian-themed banknote Mexicans don’t want to spend (The Guardian) Axolotls are so cute that no one wants to let go do the currency.
• Rising Home Insurance Premiums Are Eating Into Home Values in Disaster-Prone Areas (New York Times) This is a good thing.  Getting folks out of flood plains, wildfire prone areas, etc. benefits society.
• You Won’t Believe What Archaeologists Found Beneath This Lake in Kyrgyzstan (Gizmodo) It appears that the quality of the ruiins approach those of Pompeii.
• Summers Will Not Finish Semester of Teaching as Harvard Investigates Epstein Ties (The Harvard Crimson) The Crimson is doing the heavy lifting on the latest Larry Summers scandal.
• Raising taxes on the ultrarich: A necessary first step to restore faith in American democracy and the public sector (Economic Policy Institute) Higher taxes on the wealthy correlate closely to national well-being.

Do you remember Tobor The 8 Man? Someone with too much free time does a deep dive on what is arguably the first first cyborg Anime:

F%$# Me, I Support Trump on This One

More specifically, I support Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, who wants to include an explicit right to repair on all current and future defense procurement contracts for his branch.

On the other side of this dispute are lobbyists for defense contractors, who maintain that allowing solodiers sailors and marines to maintain their own equipment would, "Stifle innovation."

Nope, it's just corrupt rent seeking and does damage to our military:

So we’ve noted repeatedly how there’s a real push afoot to implement statewide “right to repair” laws that try to make it cheaper, easier, and environmentally friendlier for you to repair the technology you own. Unfortunately, while all fifty states have at least flirted with the idea, only Massachusetts, New York, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and Oregon, and Washington have actually passed laws.

And among those states, not one has actually enforced them despite a wide array of ongoing corporate offenses (though to be fair to states there is kind of a lot going on).

Back in June we mentioned how Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll had committed to including right-to-repair requirements in all existing and future Army contracts with manufacturers. Some very light language to this effect was to be included in the latest National Defense Authorization Act by Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Republican Tim Sheehy of Montana.

But despite the bipartisan popularity of right to repair reforms, companies aren’t keen on losing money via a government crackdown on their grift. The various policy and lobbying fronts for America’s defense contractors have been busy this fall trying to frame the modest reforms as an affront on innovation to scuttle the reforms as the House and Senate debate over bill versions:

………

Pretty typical military industrial complex graft. Which we could easily fix. If the U.S. wasn’t quite so grotesquely corrupt.  

 I need to remmeber that term, "Grossly corrupt."

I Am Not in the Epstein Emails

I did not expect to be, but I checked the link anyway.

You can too. 

Are you in the Epstein emails?

H/t PZ Meyers. 

No Backsies

So after "US Attorney" Lindsey Halligan admitted that she had never showed the full grand jury the indictment for James Comey, Trump's Department of Justice is claiming that they really did, with a full pinky swear.

Sure Jan 

The Justice Department reversed course Thursday, alleging a full grand jury did review the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. 

The change comes 24 hours after lead prosecutor Lindsey Halligan told a judge that all jurors were not privy to the final revised document displaying his charges.

Federal prosecutors filed a notice “correcting the record” Thursday in an effort to salvage their case against Comey by confirming all jurors reviewed their final revised document, which included two of the three counts jurors voted to uphold in Comey’s indictment. 

Asked directly by U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff whether the final indictment is a document that was “never shown” to the entire grand jury, Lemons said he wasn’t there but “yes, that is my understanding.”  

"Clerical inconsistency?"  Yeah, right.

Corruption Much?

Donald Trump has been systematically buying bonds from companies just before aid or major contracts from the US government.

Who does he think that he is, Nancy Pelosi? 

Trump bought up to $6 million worth of corporate bonds in Boeing, even as the Defense Department has awarded the company multi-billion dollar contracts, new financial disclosures reveal.

According to the documents, Trump bought between $1 million and $5 million worth of Boeing bonds on August 28. On September 19, he bought more Boeing bonds worth between $500,000 and $1 million. In total, Trump appears to have bought at least $185 million worth of corporate and municipal bonds since the start of his presidency.

Kedric Payne, Vice President of the Campaign Legal Center, told RS in a phone interview there is “absolutely” a conflict of interest in Trump’s purchase of Boeing, especially since it is “a government contractor that is connected to military actions that the president controls almost unilaterally.”

Trump also bought between $1 and $5 million worth of Intel bonds in August, a week after the Trump administration took a 10% stake in the company. “I love seeing their stock price go up, making the USA RICHER, AND RICHER,” Trump posted on Truth Social on August 25. Trump purchased Intel bonds on August 29. 

………

Upon entering office, Trump did not move his assets into a blind trust run by an independent trustee that could not be directed by the Trump family. Instead, he opted to hand over his business empire to his sons. The White House did, however, insist that the bond purchases were made by independent financial managers “using programs that replicate recognized indexes when making investments.” 

………

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has breathed a new life into Boeing. In March, Trump announced that Boeing would receive the coveted $20 billion development contract for the Air Force’s future F-47 fighter jet. The program is sure to be a cash cow for Boeing. Dan Grazier, a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center, told the Associated Press then that the $20 billion price tag is just seed money. “The total costs coming down the road will be hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said.

It seems to me that whoever succeeds Trump should have as their goal impoverishing him and his.

Simply jailing them would not teach the proper lessons. 

 

Of Course He Did

Ferociously corrupt Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has issued a stay preventing the ruling enjoining Texas' racist redistricting project.

Why am I not surprised?

The Supreme Court on Friday evening temporarily allowed Texas to use its newly redrawn, Republican-friendly congressional voting map for the 2026 midterm elections.

The decision blocked, for now, a lower-court ruling that had said Texas could not use the map. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who is assigned to handle emergency applications from that region of the country, issued the administrative stay, a temporary ruling meant to give the full court time to consider the issue.

The Texas attorney general earlier in the evening had filed an emergency application with the justices, asking them to allow the state to use the new map.

Justice Alito requested that the civil rights groups that had challenged the map respond to the attorney general’s request by Monday at 5 p.m., signaling the court would likely consider the issue speedily.

My guess is that SCOTUS will delay until the upcoming elections makes enforcing the lower court's order.  

I did predict this. 

This Makes Me Smile

Following a series of high profile conflicts with Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene has announced that she will resign from Congress in January, 

The exit of a bat-sh%$ insane politician from the public sphere, and the fact that this shaves down the already razor-thin Republican majority in the House.

Win-win.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s abrupt announcement on Friday that she planned to resign, blindsiding the House speaker and shocking Washington, will put a dent in Republicans’ already fragile majority, leaving them with a vacant seat at least into the spring.

But beyond the short-term practical impact, the sudden exit of Ms. Greene, the Georgia Republican who for years was one of the loudest MAGA voices in politics, has highlighted a deep well of discontent among far-right lawmakers at the core of President Trump’s coalition.

That dynamic could make it more difficult for Speaker Mike Johnson to corral his small and unruly conference, and threatens to divide the party going into crucial midterm elections in which the G.O.P. majority is at stake.

“Loyalty should be a two-way street, and we should be able to vote our conscience and represent our district’s interest because our job title is literally, ‘Representative,’” Ms. Greene wrote in a lengthy social media post on Friday.

I think that this is a f%$# you from Greene to Trump.

I cannot object to that. 

What Does He Know?

Venture capitalist and Literal vampire Peter Thiel just dumped all of his Nvidia holdings.

Either he is attempting some sort of stock manipulation ploy, or he has advance knowledge of some sort of improprieties in the AI financial ecosystem that will result in a major sell-off.

In either case, I expect to see a crash, and I expect Peter Thiel to make out like a raped ape:  

Peter Thiel’s hedge fund Thiel Macro LLC sold its stake in Nvidia Corp. during the third quarter, marking yet another retreat from investments in the world’s leading provider of artificial intelligence chips.

The fund offloaded its entire position of 537,742 shares in the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker — a holding that would have been worth about $100 million based on the closing price from Sept. 30. The Thiel Macro fund now counts Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and a reduced stake in Tesla Inc. as its main bets, according to a 13F filing.

Thiel’s move comes at a time of rising concerns about the AI exuberance that turned Nvidia into the world’s most valuable company. Hedge fund manager Michael Burry has emerged as perhaps the highest-profile critic, disclosing bearish wagers against both Nvidia and AI-powered software developer Palantir Technologies Inc. A series of circular, multibillion-dollar deals between AI chipmakers, startups, data center operators and others across the tech ecosystem have further stoked concerns that the industry is propping up itself.

Call me a cynic, but I'm inclined to believe that whatever he is doing, it is probably illegal.

Support Student Journalism

The Harvard Crimson has been all over Larry Summers relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and now we know that Summers was asking advice from Epstein on the best way to f%$# one of his subordinates.

The email exchanges between Summers and Epstein is nauseating. 

When former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers was pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman he described as a mentee, he sought guidance from a longtime associate: convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein.

In a sequence of texts and emails between November 2018 and July 5, 2019, Summers turned to Epstein for advice on his pursuit of the woman. Epstein was quick to chime in with assurance and suggestions, describing himself in one November 2018 message as Summers’ “wing man.”

………

Together, the messages show Summers — who served as Treasury Secretary under former United States President Bill Clinton — placing an extraordinary degree of trust in Epstein, asking him for help in navigating a relationship that blurred the boundaries of his professional and personal lives.

This ain't boundary blurring, it is sexual harassment.

Summers, who has been married since 2005, told Epstein he thought the woman was reluctant to leave him because she valued his professional connections. Epstein told him in one June 2019 text, “She is doomed to be with you.”

“Think for now I’m going nowhere with her except economics mentor,” Summers wrote in November 2018. “I think I’m right now in the seen very warmly in rear view mirror category.”

………

A spokesperson for Summers said that the woman described in the exchanges was never Summers’ student, but declined to comment further for this article.

So, he had power over professional career, but never was her instructor.  I guess that it makes OK, right?

Wrong. 

 

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!

We have 2 more credit union failures, so 8 credit unions this year, and 3 commercial banks.

Here are the credit union failures

7. 1st Choice Credit Union, Atlanta, GA  (This happened in October, but I missed it.)
8.  Copper & Glass Federal Credit Union, Glassport, PA

Here is the Full NCUA list, and the direct link for this year. 

The bank number is the same as all of last year, and credit union failures are 4 times what they were for last year.

I expect to see more of this. 

I Hear that he is a Supporter of Al-Gebra Too

It appears that there is outrage on the right because of the rumor that soon to be New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani will be requiring students in the public schools to learn Arabic Numerals. (Snopes link)

 As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know."

Who knew that Idiocracy was a documentary? 

Humanity is doomed. 

Yet Another Example of Fine British Automotive Engineering

Britain is rolling out a new armored fighting vehicle, the Ajax, and in a recent series of tests, noise levels were so loud that some troops participating in the exercise are still unfit for duty because of the noise levels. 

British soldiers who tested the new Ajax armoured fighting vehicle in the summer were so badly affected they can no longer be deployed overseas.

Around five soldiers were medically downgraded and at least two of those are still suffering to the extent they can no longer do their job properly, it is understood.

Ajax armoured fighting vehicles, of which there are six variants, are designed to find the enemy from five miles away, before infantry units and other assets deploy behind them. Using a range of cameras and sensors, the all-terrain vehicle is designed so its crew of three do not have to exit, remaining inside for a week if necessary.

Luke Pollard, the defence procurement minister, said last week that issues with the £10 million reconnaissance vehicles were “firmly in the past”. The £5.5 billion Ajax programme, which first began in 2010, has been delayed for years as trials were paused after hundreds of soldiers suffered hearing loss and other injuries.

………

The MoD commissioned Clive Sheldon KC to conduct a review into what went wrong with the Ajax programme. He found in 2023 that the failings that led to the programme going wrong were “systemic and institutional”. Warnings about the safety of the vehicle were played down or ignored, Sheldon found.

About ten soldiers who took part in a training exercise on Ajax vehicles in the summer, weeks before the vehicle was declared ready for operations, were sent to hospital for problems including serious headaches, loss of balance, motion issues and tinnitus, a defence source said.

The army refused to disclose whether the problems were ongoing but for at least two individuals health issues have persisted, The Times has been told.

………

When The Times visited General Dynamics last week, a meter on a mobile phone showed a reading of 90 decibels from a few metres away. Long or repeated exposure at sounds above 85 decibels can cause hearing loss, and employers must provide protection if that level is exceeded, according to the Health and Safety Executive.

Just as an FYI, the dB uses a logarithmic scale, so 90 dB is about 3 times the power of 85 dB. 

This level of sound is insane.

Who Would Not Want to Host a Violent War Criminal?

In an effort to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump, Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa offered to allow a US military base in the Latin American nation.

There was one issue though, the country's constitution forbids foreign bases on its soil.

So, the Noboa held an election to change the Ecuadorian Constitution and campaigned aggressively for the change.

Ecuadoran voters were not buying his bullsh%$:

President Daniel Noboa of Ecuador has spent months courting Washington. He has met with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago; formed an alliance with the Blackwater founder Erik Prince, a Trump supporter; and pressed to allow U.S. military bases in Ecuador.

But voters at home delivered Mr. Noboa a sharp rebuke.

They soundly rejected a national referendum on Sunday that he had backed, aimed at authorizing a foreign miliary presence in Ecuador. With more than 98 percent of ballots counted, 61 percent opposed the measure.

The vote comes as the region has been roiled by the intensifying U.S. military campaign against boats the Trump administration claims are smuggling drugs.

The American military has launched 21 strikes that have killed at least 83 people, though U.S. officials have yet to provide evidence that the boats were ferrying drugs. Many legal experts say the attacks violate international law.

Even if Trump were not assassinating random fishermen.,the history of the US, and US military bases in Latin America, the United States supported a coup in Honduras during the Obama administration, would make sensible people legitimately suspicions such development.

The history of US involvement in Latin America is not a pretty one. 

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So we are getting economic data again, and the weekly jobless report has returned, with 220,000 initial claims, down 8,000, but continuing claims rose by 28,000 to 1,974,000, a 4 year high.

We also (finally) have the September jobs report, where we saw decent job growth, but unemployment jumped as well.

On weekly claims data: 

Applications for US unemployment benefits fell last week to 220,000, indicating that employers are largely still holding onto current workers despite economic uncertainty.

Initial claims decreased by 8,000 in the week ended Nov. 15. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 227,000 applications.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, reached a new four-year high the previous week after increasing over the past month and half, according to Labor Department data released Thursday that included back data for the missed reports during a 43-day shutdown of the federal government.

As to the September data:

US job growth topped expectations in September but the unemployment rate continued its march higher, underscoring the lingering fragility of the labor market.

The Bureau of Statistic’s latest jobs report, long delayed due to the government shutdown, showed nonfarm payrolls rose 119,000 in the month after declining in August. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, rose to its highest level in nearly four years — reflecting both the positive dynamic of more Americans participating in the workforce and the gloomier reality of more people losing their jobs.

……… 

Job gains were narrow, fueled primarily by hiring in health care and leisure and hospitality. Other sectors, like manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, and business services, shed jobs. For many firms, the low-hire, low-fire environment has given way to a rash of layoff announcements, exacerbating Americans’ concerns about their job security. 

I'm calling recession. 

Headline of the Day

I tried Elon Musk's Wikipedia clone and boy is it racist 

SF Gate

I guess you can take the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ out of South Africa, but you cannot take the South Africa out of the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™.

Alibiing Hitler, Slavery, and (unsurprisingly) Elon Musk?  Hoocoodanode?

It Ain't Proust and Madeleine, ⃰ But It's Comfortable

I am eating a snack that I have not had in decades, peanut butter and Rice Chex.  (More specifically the Wegmans brand version of the cereal.)

It brought back memories of my mom, and when we would snack together on this at our kitchen table in Charlottesville, Virginia.

My mom died way too young. 

^*Marcel Proust, Rememberance of Things Past. He has the cookie as an adult, and it brought back memories of his time with his doeager unt as a child.

That's Gotta Hurt

A 3 judge panel in Texas has ruled that the Texas mid-decade redistricting was driven by race and hence unlawful.

Because of provisions of the Voting Rights Act, this can only be appealed to the Supreme Court, which with a non-corrupt court would mean that the 2026 elections in Texas would have to be held under the old districts, but given the nature of the court, and particularly the nature of Chief Justice John Roberts, (he's made it his life's work to prevent n*****s from voting) I'm not sure if there won't be some sort of highly irregular shadow docket bullsh%$ to ensure Republican political advantage.

Texas cannot use its new congressional map for the 2026 election and will instead need to stick with the lines passed in 2021, a three-judge panel ruled Tuesday.

The decision is a major blow for Republicans, in Texas and nationally, who pushed through this unusual mid-decade redistricting at the behest of President Donald Trump. They were hoping the new map would yield control of 30 of the state’s 38 congressional districts — up from the 25 they currently hold — and help protect the narrow GOP majority in the U.S. House.

“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics,” U.S. Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote in the ruling striking down the new lines. “To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.” 

This is a finding of fact, and (theoretically, at least) any appeal should only make decisions of matters of law. 

………

It was not immediately clear if the state still has a legal path to restoring the new map in time for 2026. Unlike most federal lawsuits, which are heard by a single district judge and then appealed to a circuit court, voting rights lawsuits are initially heard by two district judges and one circuit judge, and their ruling can only be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tuesday’s decision came from a three-judge panel made up of Brown — a former Texas Supreme Court justice who once clerked for Abbott — and U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama, a Barack Obama appointee. Judge Jerry Smith, who was appointed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by Ronald Reagan, cast a dissenting vote and was expected to soon issue his own opinion. 

The ruling comes 10 days into the monthlong period when candidates can sign up for the March primary.

………

The state had argued that the entire redistricting process was based on a partisan goal, which the U.S. Supreme Court has previously said courts cannot intervene to prevent. But the plaintiffs pointed to a letter sent from the U.S. Department of Justice directing Texas to redraw its maps to eradicate four majority non-white districts, arguing that was the original sin that cast a racially discriminatory pall over the whole process.

In Tuesday’s ruling, Brown said it was difficult to analyze the DOJ letter because it contained “so many factual, legal and typographical errors.” But the fact that state leaders had pointed to that letter repeatedly as the impetus for redistricting was enough, the judges said. 

Damn!  That is some serious shade that Judge Brown is throwing at the DoJ.

And in response, California redistricted to counter Texas.

Seems like a big loss for Team R. 

Every Accusation a Confession

Former MAGAt Arizona state legislator Austin Smith just pled guilty to election fraud for forging signatures on his election petitions.

Gee, why am I not surprised?

Former Republican state legislator Austin Smith pleaded guilty Monday to what he previously called “ludicrous” charges that he personally forged more than 100 signatures on his petitions for reelection last year.

The Republican from Surprise was a member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, which has a history of spreading false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election and pushed for election law changes in the state legislature.

“As a part of his guilty plea today, Smith admitted signing the name of a deceased woman on one of his candidate nomination petitions in March of 2024,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement. “He also admitted that he attempted to deceive the Secretary of State’s Office by knowingly filing petitions containing forged signatures of purported supporters of his nomination for the Republican primary for State Representative from LD 29.”

Seriously, how hard is it to get legitimate signatures for a nomination petition?  You would have to be a completely unlikable bastard to ……… Oh.  Yeah.  Right.

Smith pleaded guilty to one count of attempted fraudulent schemes and practices, an undesignated offense, and to one count of illegal signing of an election petition, a misdemeanor.

At the time he was indicted, Smith was strategic director of Turning Point Action, Turning Point USA’s advocacy arm. TPUSA is a far-right organization based in Phoenix that aims to mobilize young conservatives founded by Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed in September while speaking to a group of college students in Utah.

A Maricopa County grand jury indicted Smith on June 2 on four felony counts for presenting documents he knew were forged to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office and 10 misdemeanor counts for personally forging the names of electors on his reelection petitions.

Smith pleaded guilty to the reduced charges as part of a plea agreement that gives him the possibility of avoiding a felony conviction. In Arizona law, when a person without a criminal history is found guilty of a low-level felony, the judge can wait until that person’s probation is finished before designating the crime a felony or misdemeanor. Essentially, that means if Smith completes any probation he’s sentenced to without violations, his conviction could be classified a misdemeanor instead of a felony.

And that’s important, because felons in Arizona can’t vote or hold elected office unless their rights are restored by a judge.

If the judge has any sense, he won't reclassify.  This man is an affront to democracy, decency, and the Constitution of the United States of America. 

 

Stay Classy

I am referring, of course, to Donald Trump, who, on Air Force 1, responded to questions from a reporter by calling her "Piggy".

In the old days, politicians actually showed some wit when dealing with the press and insulting people.

Hell, even the Peter Capaldi character Malcolm Tucker is classier than this sh%$-heel.

Donald Trump, who has a history of making extremely personal attacks on female journalists, referred to a Bloomberg News correspondent as a “piggy” during a clash onboard Air Force One on Friday.

While the remark did not initially get much attention, it picked up some traction on Tuesday and has drawn backlash from fellow journalists, including some who have previously been attacked by Trump themselves.


Catherine Lucey, Bloomberg’s White House correspondent, had taken advantage of a press opportunity with the president – known as a gaggle – to ask a question about the unfolding Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the possibility of the House voting to release all of the files related to his case, which now appears likely.

As Lucey started to ask why Trump was behaving the way he was “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files”, Trump pointed at her and said: “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.”

And the religious right sees him as the epitome of virtue BECAUSE he is a racist dirt bag,. 

Worst timeline ever.

They Have Completed the Document Destruction

That's why Donald Trump has reversed himself and said that the Epstein files should be released.

It's either that, or someone has convinced him that he has lost this fight, but I am disinclined to believe that Trump has the capacity for introspection to do that. 

We Are Unbelievably Screwed

Big Tech borrowing for AI data centers:

2015-2024 average: $32B/year
Sept-Oct 2025 alone: $75B

> Meta borrowed $30B
> Oracle borrowed$18B
> $META also did $27B off-balance sheet with Blue Owl

AI companies now 14% of IG index

The "money-printing" tech companies are...… pic.twitter.com/IuhBU0LS4M

— junkbondinvestor (@junkbondinvest) November 5, 2025

BTW, IG Stands for "Investment Grade"


Nope, no bubble here

It is beginning to look a lot like large language model artificial intelligence will be this generation's subprime mortgage backed securities. 

With even the Wall Street Journal describing the current borrowing to build AI infrastructure as a frenzy, it seems that we are overdue for a rather profound reckoning.

This bubble is if anything worse than the real estate bubble, because they are investing in a rapidly depreciating asset.

If you spend a billion dollars on Nvidia chips, in 5 years those chips will be worth less than 5% of that. (Probably much less)

People are literally burning money to purchase burning infrastructure. 

Not long ago, Blue Owl Capital was an upstart investment firm that lent money to midsize U.S. companies such as Sara Lee Frozen Bakery.

These days, the firm is financing massive data centers costing tens of billions of dollars for the likes of Meta and Oracle—a sign of just how quickly Wall Street has become the enabler of America’s artificial-intelligence boom.

Fund managers such as Blue Owl amassed trillions of dollars of investing firepower and have been hunting for big deals where they can put that money to work. They found slim pickings for years until a perfect match appeared in AI, which has provided a bigger target than anything in history due to the vast sums tech companies need to ramp up computing power.

And here comes the money quote:

………

Last week’s selloff in tech-related stocks and bonds marked some of the most serious warning signs that the frenzy could be overdone. But any worries on Wall Street about a possible investment bubble have largely been trumped by the fear of being left behind.

Speaking of scary quotes:

………

Then, last month, Blue Owl raised about $30 billion to build an AI data center for Meta in Louisiana, putting in $3 billion of its clients’ money and borrowing the rest. The deal included a provision, considered extraordinary on Wall Street, giving Blue Owl’s equity investment a debtlike guarantee in case the partnership falls apart—showing the new financial wizardry bankers are conjuring to meet AI’s ravenous financial demand.

 (all emphasis mine)

We are so going to be bailing out these morons in a few years. 

Linkage

• Mathematical proof debunks the idea that the universe is a computer simulation (Phys.org) I could not care less about this, as an engineer, I need to operate as if we are in reality, but some of you might want to read this.
• Historians smell a rat over beaked plague doctor masks (The Times of London) (alternate link) To wuote Mason Williams, "Who needs truth if it is dull."
• The Zipper Is Getting Its First Major Upgrade in 100 Years (WIRED) They are removing the cloth strips, so the teeth directly clamp to the clothes.
• Tesla Sold a Million Fewer Cars Thanks to Musk's MAGA Turn, Per Report (Rolling Stone) Hmm.....Maybe it IS all about him. Unfortunately for him, he sucks.
• Private capital zombie firms will pile up in next decade, says EQT chief (Financial Times) (alternate link) Likely this would end up with a lost decade in the economy.
• Ex-EU Justice Chief Faces Laundering Probe (Euro Weekly News) This is why you need democratic accountability in the EU.  Corruption follows insulation of government from the voters.
• A COHORT THEORY OF DRUG-DEATH EPIDEMICS - How supply shocks create them and generational turnover ends them (Posting Alone) Basically, changes in the type or readily available drugs create a crisis that lasts a generation.  The following generation learns.
• Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani (Literary Hub) That f%$#ing paper.
• Here’s how orbital dynamics wizardry helped save NASA’s next Mars mission (Ars Technica) Fun with orbital dynamics.
• Scientists Just Remapped the Entire Roman Road System. All 300,000 km of it (ZMEScience) Massive update to the knowledge of their extensive road system.  Pretty much everything flows from 

A little bit of history aboyut how the Federalist Party attempted to use terrorism and lawfare to suppress dissent.  Sounds familiar.

Headline of the Day

A puppy and unlimited toilet paper? Legal experts say Ghislaine Maxwell’s alleged prison life is uncommon

—The Guardian

Uncommon?  You need to fire your copy editor.  They allowed a misspelling of, "Unbelivably Corrupt,," in the headline.

Even for the Grauniad, whose reputation for typographical error is legendary, this is egregiously wrong.

This is nakedly corrupt.  To call it anything else is journalistic malpractice. 

Things I Don't Expect from the New York Times

I was rather surprised that Michell Cottle, the Times national politics OP/ED writer said that, "Democrats Need a Wartime Consigliere. Hakeem Jeffries Isn’t One." 

To be clear, the Godfather reference is not a surprise, but the fact that she suggested that the Democrats need a fighter, and not a milquetoast advocate for the "Norms", surprised me.

On Monday, less than a week after the Democratic Party’s election romp, the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, should have been riding high. Instead, around lunchtime, he stood stoically behind the lectern in the bowels of the U.S. Capitol, as reporters grilled him about the group of Senate Democrats who had joined Republicans to wind down a government shutdown showdown that polls suggested Democrats were winning: Was Mr. Jeffries disappointed in these colleagues? Did he think Chuck Schumer should remain the Senate Democratic leader? Would the base’s fury over the deal hurt the party in next year’s midterms?

………

If anything, that was an understatement. Democratic voters are spoiling for a fight, and many think their party’s leadership does not have what it takes to “meet the moment,” as I keep hearing. Already, a bevy of progressive House hopefuls, many of them challenging Democratic incumbents in the midterm primaries, have vowed not to support Mr. Jeffries for leader if elected. In New York, a young, lefty city councilman is reportedly readying a run for Mr. Jeffries’s congressional seat.

………

“Hakeem Jeffries was chosen at a time when he was expected to be a peacetime leader, a coalition builder,” said Amanda Litman, the head of Run for Something, a group dedicated to getting young progressives into elected office. “He is not well suited to being a leader of the opposition — a wartime consigliere.”

………

He has the political pragmatism of his predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, but not her wicked street-fighting record, nor her gift for making the opposition’s, and especially Mr. Trump’s, head explode. To grip the imagination of his political allies and opponents, the minority leader needs to find a way to be less even-keeled — maybe even a bit of a jerk.

Gee, but what about civility?

Break Out the Brain Bleach

So we have Jeffry Epstein's brother Mark offered a clarification of an email between him and his notorious sibling. 

Specifically, he made comments involving Donald Trump and an unidentified 3rd party. 

Some people on the internet concluded that said rd party was a very prominent figure.

We are talking about perhaps the world's most 

I am going to provide a link where Mark Epstein clarified and denied that the 3rd party was not the very famous individual.

I am being circumspect because this is an internet myth, not a credible report, and because it squicks me out no end, not because of the rumored activities, but because of the mythical participants.

You may not want to click through, it is basically the world's most profoundly disturbing slash fiction.

From a purely social perspective though, this is an interesting insight into the creation of modern mythologies.

Snark of the Day

OH NO! Larry Summers and Bill Clinton might be hurt by the Epstein files? Threaten me with a good time already.

—Pharyngula

The inestimable PZ Meyers reflects my feelings on this matter, though I would like Tony Blair to be a part of this as well.

The Democrats have been releasing damning emails from the Epstein files, which is a good start. There’s nothing too surprising in them, though. We already knew Trump and Epstein were pals, we’ve always known that Trump was a nasty little sleazebag with a thing for underaged girls, and the right-wing side of the electorate has been able to ignore that all along, so I expect nothing to change. Also, the Republicans are playing the victim card and howling about it was all innocent banter and Trump didn’t do nothin’, anyhow.

Except that conservatives are hypocritically complaining about emails that expose the president for what he is, and simultaneously fishing through the emails that make Democrats look bad. I’m all for it! Expose all the dirtbags, no matter what side of the aisle they sit on.

I would actually argue that folks like Larry Summers, who are looking the other way in pursuit of money and power, are actually more corrosive to society than the pedophile collaborators with Epstein.

People like the former Harvard president are why people like Epstein could thrive. 

Sucks to be Him

And by him, I mean Emmanuel Macron, who has just had one of his signature achievements, the shafting of the average French worker through pension "reform" suspended by a vote of the French National Assembly.

I guess that his campaign to make bankers great again is not going well. 

Lawmakers in France's National Assembly on Wednesday approved a measure to suspend a controversial pension reform plan by 255 votes to 146.

The vote followed a major concession by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to the Socialist Party to avoid censure and thus ensure the government's survival.

French budget debates have taken on added weight since President Emmanuel Macron's snap election last year left him with a hung parliament, where fractious lawmakers toppled former Prime Minister Michel Barnier over last year's spending plans.

………

One of the biggest trade-offs was offering the Socialists – a pivotal swing bloc – a suspension of Macron's plan to raise the pension age to 64. 

The EU seems to be dedicated to sh%$#ing on ordinary working folk so as to benefit large financial institutions, and Macron is at the forefront of this.

Nice to see him lose. 

So Not Surprised

It appears, at least according to the headline, that the, "CEO of Palantir Says He Spends a Large Amount of Time Talking to Nazis."

Given that Palantir founder and literal vampire Peter Thiel spent some of his youth growing up in a Namibian Town controlled by South Africa where they literally greeted each other with Nazi salutes, this could just refer to his talking his boss, but he's referring to other Nazis, ones who proudly carry the label.

While you were busy wasting your time listening to podcasts and doomscrolling on your phone, one of America’s leading AI overlords was educating himself by talking to Nazis.

This was the startling admission made by Alex Karp, cofounder and CEO of the software company Palantir, a company that’s come under increasingly heavy scrutiny for its growing role as a provider of AI-powered surveillance technology to the military and government.

In an interview with podcaster Molly O’Shea published this week, Karp, who has Jewish heritage, was discussing German culture and his time in the country before going on a tangent about how outrageous it is that people online “laud the Nazis.” Then he fessed up to something even more eyebrow-raising.

“I spend a lot of time talking to Nazis,” Karp said, implying that this is an ongoing pastime of his. “Like, real Nazis,” he emphasized.

Karp explained that it was his way of “understanding what made them tick,” before making an ironic observation.

“Part of the crazy thing about people who laud the Nazis nowadays is there’s not a single Nazi that would ever have included them in their movement and would have shipped them off to the camps quicker maybe than they shipped me off to the camps!” he chuckled.

Proving that he does not understand Nazis.  They were pathetic losers.  Just look at Horst Wessel, or Goebbels, or Himmler, or Goering.

They were not only morally bankrupt, they were pathetic nerds living out a revenge porn fantasy.  (Something that they have in common with Ayn Rand's fans)

He's talking to Nazis because he wants to talk to Nazis.  That is all you need to know.