“A chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence startup xAI appeared to be suffering from a glitch Wednesday when it repeatedly brought up white genocide in South Africa in response to user queries about unrelated topics on X.”
“How Pope Leo Will Approach Climate Change Is Unclear, but the Vibe Is Positive”.
“MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s pace of play rules have been a nearly unqualified success, the World Baseball Classic has become must-see theater under his watch and he’s making real progress toward eliminating television blackouts. But when it comes down to it, he has one job. Nothing else matters if fans don’t believe what they’re seeing on the field is real. And with Tuesday’s decision to reinstate Pete Rose, the hit king who was banned from the sport for betting on baseball as manager of the Cincinnati Reds, Manfred has ensured that his legacy as commissioner will be one of failure.”
“Sesame Street has a new streaming home. Netflix has picked up the children’s series, which will make its debut on the streamer later this year with an all-new, reimagined 56th season — plus 90 hours of previous episodes — available to audiences worldwide.”
“I had an abortion in the third trimester; I don’t expect every American to have the same understanding that I do. However, I do believe that I am in line with most Americans when we agree that we do not want the state to punish people for having them.”
“International criminal groups are stealing as much as a trillion dollars a year from U.S. government programs but the Department of Government Efficiency has done little to address the problem”.
Absolutely ridiculous. An utter travesty.
“House Republicans pushed President Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax-and-spending bill past a key hurdle late Sunday night, but the last-minute grappling has them colliding with a stark reality: The plan won’t reduce federal budget deficits and would make America’s fiscal hole deeper.”
“NASA celebrated this employee’s story of resilience, then tried to scrub it from the internet. Then fired her.”
“If we have policy adjustments that disqualify people from the SNAP program, or if we have a recession and unemployment goes up, or if we have a series of natural disasters, there are any number of things that can work to increase demand, and the food banks just aren’t ready.”
“Of course a president openly filling his pockets with direct (albeit thinly veiled) payoffs from people with business before the government is an attack on the republic. Of course the president pardoning political allies for crimes is an attack on the republic. Of course disappearing people off the streets and sending them to foreign prison camps is an attack on the republic. Of course violating basic constitutional rules about spending government money; defying court orders; denying habeas rights; intimidating media outlets and universities and law firms; and on and on are all attacks on the republic.”
“Notice the clear tilt. Trump is acknowledging that Putin, not Zelensky, is the one resisting a ceasefire—yet if Russia stays on that course, the U.S. won’t step up its support for Ukraine; instead, Trump will simply pull out. Trump has said (and some analysts agree, though others do not) that without firm U.S. support, Russia will win the war. That seems fine with the American president.”
This is why appeasement doesn’t work. Don’t be a chump.
RIP, George Wendt, actor and comedian who was a six-time Emmy nominee as Norm on Cheers.
Letting caregivers get sick seems like a bad idea.
“What if Jesus was Chaotic Good?”
“We’re Focused on the Wrong A.I. Problem in Journalism”.
“A group of Quakers are marching more than 300 miles from New York City to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate against the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.”
“NFL films scrapped plans for a season of the documentary show “Hard Knocks” focused on former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick over escalating conflicts with Belichick’s girlfriend Jordon Hudson”.
RIP, Kathleen Hughes, 1950s starlet best known for her iconic scream in It Came From Outer Space.
RIP, Jim Irsay, longtime owner of the Indianapolis Colts.
“HGTV Is Quietly Ditching Renovation Shows — It’s Starting to Look a Lot Like MTV”.
“A civil RICO case against the racketeer in chief should be part of any effort to save this country from Trump’s dictatorial aspirations, which are coming closer to reality every day.”
“Once again, the Freedom Caucus blinked. They are too cowardly to live up to their ideals if it means standing up to Trump, who traveled to Capitol Hill to browbeat the Freedom Caucus holdouts and rally the entire Republican Conference.”
“The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History”.
Have these idiots ever even heard of Bruce Springsteen?
“In a sense the exception of the Federal Reserve is not only a small gift, a marginal limit on the destruction, but an additional gift of giving the lie to the whole enterprise. This remains a renegade and corrupt Supreme Court majority making up its own Constitution as it goes and most times, if not every time, enabling arbitrary and untrammeled presidential dictatorship.”
Wishing Billy Joel all the best.
A graphic on the ugly, cruel budget that ruins America. $300 billion cut from SNAP food assistance for the poor, $800+ billion cut from Medicaid and ACA healthcare for the neediest among us. For what? Well that would be $1.1 trillion in tax cuts for the top 2%, i.e. incomes over $500k per annum. Yep, tax cuts for the wealthy.
Those are the headline numbers, not including all of the essential scientists and other critical experts and workgroups dismissed for idiotic political reasons, not saving any notable amount but costing America our world leadership in many areas. We may never catch up, much less be anywhere near greatness again.
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This horrible bill isn’t the law yet, but if you think the Senate is going to fix it you are just plain wrong. They are making it worse, inserting provisions to make life for trans adults harder to begin with, and they have effectively killed the filibuster by ignoring the rulings of the Senate Parliamentarian on what may be included in the bill. This bill guts NASA, NOAA, NSF and NIH, agencies that provide millions of dollars in grants to Houston institutions like the University of Houston, Rice, Baylor College of Medicine and the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. So now our STEM graduates who worked so hard and had so much hope will be bagging fries and mopping floors instead of getting their first laboratory jobs. All thanks to cowardly GOP reps like Dan Crenshaw and Troy Nehls, who voted for this disaster of a bill.
None of this had to happen. It is all due to a whim of Trump’s, his tax cuts from his first term were set to expire. The restored tax revenue would have provided funding for all of the mentioned agencies and helped to reduce the deficit, but Trump hates science and working people so he had to step in and ruin everything. iHe cannot get this done without Cornyn and Cruz voting for it, and Crenshaw and Nehls voting for it again.
Call them up and let them know what you think. Cornyn 202 2242934, Cruz 202 2245922. If you live in Crenshaw’s or Nehl’s district, call them. Killing off America’s space science and biomedical science leadership just to please a massive jerk like Trump? Unthinkable, but it is happening right now.