Attribution: AI is rotting our brains by David Horsey
[David Horsey is a two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. After a long career at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and six years as a political commentator for The Los Angeles Times, Horsey is now based at The Seattle Times.]
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AI is rotting our brains
The big worry about artificial intelligence has been that it will take our jobs. Now, a bigger concern is that it will take our brains.
We are facing a future in which AI does all the hard work of thinking for us, thus rendering our brains lazy, unchallenged and enfeebled.
The AI brain drain has already been showing up in high schools and on college campuses where, rather than actually learning things, students are often letting AI write essays, take tests and solve equations for them. This phenomenon has turned teachers and professors into sleuths doing their best to deduce if an assignment was done by a kid in their class or a bot in that kid’s computer.
Cheating with AI has become so rampant that, rather than trusting their students to produce original thoughts on personal computers, many educators are returning to the old fashioned blue book where students have to physically write down their answers while sitting in the classroom. (One wonders how today’s generation of students manages to even use a pen or pencil, given that many of them never were taught cursive because obtuse school administrators fell for the hype that typing on a computer would forever be the superior method for academic communication.)
Making students prove they’ve actually learned something via traditional methods may work at a school with ivy-covered brick buildings, but online universities now face the impossible task of determining if those to whom they bestow degrees actually did any work at all. There are AI bots that can fulfill all requirements for an online course without a student doing anything harder than telling AI to write every paper and take every test for them.
Perversely, in years to come we may be better off having AI entities handle our finances, legal work, healthcare and any number of other tasks, even if it costs jobs. After all, how will we know if tomorrow’s human professionals did anything during their education besides tell a bot to do all their thinking for them?
alternate thread title:
cogitavimus ergo fuimus
Attribution: The Creation of AI by John Darkow, Columbia Missourian
a long read from today’s The Guardian Democracy v the machine: the birth of the digital age and the warnings that were ignored
Many hoped that the march of technology would usher in an egalitarian utopia – but some foresaw the threat it would pose to liberal society. Why did nobody listen?
By Jill Lepore
One of the stranger things about this dizzying, headlong moment in time is that it doesn’t have much of a past. Everything is about the future of this, the future of that: the future of work, the future of humanity, the future of the planet. It’s as if everyone is screaming (some ecstatically, most terror-stricken): robots are taking over the world! Meanwhile, you can’t put down your phone, unplug, delete your AI apps, tell Zoom to piss off; it feels as if you are racing toward something, and can’t stop, or look back, or think straight.
But of course this weird moment in history does have a past. It comes from somewhere. It wasn’t inevitable. Things could have turned out differently. They still can. And if you look back, one thing you’ll see is that a lot of people saw this all coming. They foresaw our present when it was still the future. They thought it might turn out fabulously, a computer utopia. And they worried it might turn out disastrously. Above all, they issued warning after warning about the rise of what I call the artificial state, the replacement of the liberal democratic nation-state, the consent of the governed, with the rule of people by machines. They warned of a future in which democratic deliberation would be replaced by prediction by calculation, the public sphere would be supplanted by data-driven commerce, and drones would take the place of the demos. Why didn’t anyone listen?
[long long read continues and concludes with this]
Douglas Adams, the author of the 1970s satirical science fiction series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, had a vision for the internet, too. In 1996, he founded a company called The Digital Village – appointing himself chief fantasist – with the idea of building a web platform, h2g2, that, echoing his series, would be an “online guide to Life, the Universe, and Everything”. In 2001, both Adams and Hauben died, the former of a heart attack and the latter, at the age of 29, after an accident. Their frameworks for free and equal access to an internet structured by public interest, not commercial interest, died with them.
But by then, the techno-libertarians had already won. In 1996, Bill Clinton signed the bipartisan Telecommunications Act, which delivered exactly what everyone from Newt Gingrich to John Perry Barlow wanted: an almost entirely unregulated internet. Four years later, Wired announced with characteristic, computopian swagger, “We are as a nation, better educated, more tolerant and better connected because of – not in spite of – the convergence of the internet and public life.” No such era of tolerance arrived.
Jul 6, 2026
We spend so much time proving we exist.
The REAL ID. The two-factor authentication. The facial recognition. The birth certificate you had to send away for. The utility bill that had to match the address that had to match the ID that had to match the system.
All of it just to say: I’m here. I’m still here. I’m me.
What happens when the system stops agreeing?
That question became Proof of Life — my new animated short set in New York City, 2045. A government clerk who spent nineteen years certifying other people’s existence wakes up to find the system has lost his file.
How this was made
Made with AI
Sounds or visuals were altered or fully generated. Learn more
Marion Michele
speaking of life and personhood in another sense
Aug 17, 2026 #lastweektonight
John Oliver discusses how some states in the U.S. that have given rights to fetuses, where the idea came from and where things could be headed next, and why calling someone a “piss lawyer” isn’t necessarily an insult! You’ll see.
My take on The Guardian article above — the danger isn’t AI making us stupid. It’s us using AI stupidly.
We didn’t stop thinking when calculators showed up. We didn’t forget how to write because spellcheck learned how to spell “bureaucracy.” And somehow civilization survived.
Same deal with AI.
If a student tells ChatGPT to write every paper and solve every equation, yeah, that kid isn’t learning much. But that’s not an AI brain drain. That’s just cheating with better software.
The real question is whether we teach people to think with AI instead of letting AI think instead of them.
Because handing your brain to a chatbot isn’t technological progress.
It’s just outsourcing your skull.
Craig, that first article was an op ed by David Horsey. The Guardian article is about IT vs democracy history as a whole.
Kinda disagree with you about “We didn’t stop thinking when [calculators/spellcheck/chatgpt] showed up” considering poor performance in math, reading and writing skills throughout the country.
IRAN DEAL DEAD: The 60-day window slammed shut with zero progress, leaving the US stuck in a quagmire and threatening to bomb Oman. Trump’s response? Change the subject to Korea.
Open Mic at 11am ET 👇
Ha, PatD, if I had used AI it would have known i was responding to Horsey, not the Guardian. Fair point about poor performance in math etc., but i disagree with his broad statement that technology makes us stupid; at least it’s giving us increasingly efficient ways to expose whether we ever learned how to think in the first place.
I think therefore I am…..I think.
MISSING EVIDENCE: Prompted by Vironics, a new commenter in our chat room, Katy breaks down the Nolan Wells case. A missing throat, shifting stories, and Mississippi’s finest investigative work. We drag Digital Diner into the true crime rabbit hole → Watch the discussion here.
just got it this morning, and already a coffee stain…
As dumbass might say, “Nobody’s ever seen anything like this before”
hilarious you wrote this with ai and then didn’t label it, you’re not that clever a writer, you’re just filling then discourse with unreadable slop
if AI had written that Anon it would have known I mislabeled the article I was responding to. But at least you concede my argument is clever. Thank you.
nobody under 18 is going to wrote anything ever again
internet is becoming unreadable and unsearchable
getting pissed on the head and told it’s raining
dude you didn’t write that stop lying damn
no integrity
thos is why we have trump, because people don’t have the integrity they claim they want that office holder to have, it’s all performative lies
and trump knows it and has known it- that’s his genius
now you’re just being a dick, anon
but not a liar
Well, I’m a bad mom. Little man’s meds ran out and pharmacy was closed by the time we realized it. So tried giving him night time cold medicine for kids, nada. Then melatonin… nope. So my child has been up for 24 hours strait. The joys of audhd!
AI recently helped me speedily debunk a maga canard that I knew was false and malicious. I wouldn’t have had time on my own to marshal all the facts and stop the conversation thread in its real-time tracks. Side benefit: I’m being stonewalled now.
being a dick works to that end if you don’t have a phone or computer handy
can confirm
https://www.techradar.com/pro/45-mq-9-reaper-drones-have-been-destroyed-in-the-iran-war-a-quarter-of-the-fleet-worth-usd1-3-billion-obliterated
Forty-five Reapers lost as Iran’s defenses expose a costly weakness
A single MQ-9 Reaper system can cost up to $30 million, pushing total losses past $1.3 billion.
The Washington Post notes approximately 45 of these unmanned aircraft were destroyed in the conflict – which represents about 25% of the fleet, which numbered approximately 185 units before fighting began.
The MQ-9 Reaper is a remotely operated aircraft built by General Atomics for surveillance and precision strike missions – it can remain airborne for approximately 24 hours and operate at altitudes reaching around 13,000 metres.
Its weapons include AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and Mark 82 guided bombs, allowing one aircraft to conduct reconnaissance and strikes.
The report comes as the US slowly realizes how Iran’s air defense network became the central challenge facing the Reaper throughout sustained operations near its territory.
https://nwlc.org/press-release/july-jobs-report-women-accounted-for-100-percent-of-the-labor-force-decline/
Overall, the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July. Women accounted for all of these losses, losing 32,000 jobs, while men gained 9,000 jobs.
*Were most of those new jobs mostly ICE Nazis?
*If the US has collectively deported, illegally incarcerated, and killed hundreds of thousands of folks, why the job losses? It seems like MAGAts should realize immigrants weren’t stealing there jobs.
*Raise your hand if you are doing more than one job at your current place of employment (or the last one, if retired). I’ll start; my department dropped from 12 to 2 over the years. Nobody got replaced; you get to do this now, too, at zero increase in salary. It happened across all departments, and some job vacancies were split between those left behind. When I raptured myself out of there, they could not find anyone to do what I did fit what they would pay. My job got split up between departments in the US and abroad. That means there is a manager who managed nobody, but coordinates all of the responsibilities of the department, in addition to doing many of them. No back-up if there’s an illness. Just scrambling for a job that pays a lot less than it should. I have no idea how it’s going because I was texted multiple times after I retired, and they knew I was on vacation, asking questions I had written down in an SOP I created; I answered them and then blocked their numbers. Where’s my consulting fee?
today’s meme…
Ai is ABSOLUTELY making everyone who uses it mentally weaker. Your mind is a muscle; use it or lose it.
Also, the fun, sparkly part of Ai is to distract you from its real uses; surveillance, monetization of your habits, and control.
The data centers are a land and water grab. As China has shown, it isn’t necessary to waste/destroy land or water. However, the billionaires will own the land and water rights…AND THAT’S THE POINT.
^gets it
the generative ai does serve a techlord purpose beyond distraction- it dehumanizes us all
I think it is irrelevant if it was Craig’s ideas or AI, I found Anon’s attack interesting in that he couldn’t address the points and went instead to an adhominem. A sure sign of the person admitting “I;ve lost this debate”
As to the average grade schooler doing worse in math? I doubt this. I suspect what you will find is they have moved the goal post.
The average third grader has a better understanding of math fundamentals than a HS grad when I was in third grade simply because it is being taught at that level now. He may never be able to spout additive or multiplicative tables from memory but then it isn’t a requirement for modern living. any more than multiplying Roman numerals is, One of the more useless things taught when I was in grade school. But learning how to do so did give me an appreciation of why some ideas end up in the trash bin of history.
Jack
eddie haskel
“ The average third grader has a better understanding of math fundamentals than a HS grad when I was in third grade”
made-up facts
you didn’t use ai though so good job sincerely
Not made up, just a good guess from historical facts. When I was in third grade they actually tried to teach mathematics in grade school for the first time. They called it “New Math” The whole nation rejected it and continued with the memorization of additive and multiplication tables only. You could easily graduate from HS and never encounter any math, arithmetic skills were as close as most graduates ever got.
Jack
Google to buy Spirit Airlines business data for $10 million
Google is acquiring internal business data from bankrupt Spirit Airlines for $10 million, saying it plans to use the data for product development and training its AI models.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/google-buy-spirit-airlines-business-data-10-million-2026-08-17/
The nuns did that to me too, Jack. I didn’t realize until grad school I would’ve been good at math if it had actually been taught to me.
Ironically, my grad school was a Catholic college. The nuns had learned a lot more by then.
people have posted examples of pre-WWII grade school textbooks and the material is college-level by today’s standards
meme #2…
HA!
Today in the Diner…
Donald Trump Poll Crash & Arizona SNAP Cuts
Donald Trump melts down over Kim Jong Un questions while Arizona faces devastating SNAP cuts and Bette Midler unleashes an AI video mockery.
Donald Trump is having a complete meltdown over basic press questions about Kim Jong Un, and his press conferences are getting more bizarre by the minute. From his creepy obsession with a lifeguard’s genetics to the absolute mystery of former White House staffer Natalie Harp standing nearby as a human zapper, the entire spectacle feels like basement-tier public access television. Meanwhile, Jon Ossoff is successfully getting under the skin of the MAGA crowd online, proving that sometimes you just need to lean into the fight.
Away from the daily circus, there are real consequences hitting local communities that the legacy media keeps missing. We are finally seeing the brutal local effects of the GOP tax bills, especially in Arizona where sweeping cuts to SNAP benefits are literally starving vulnerable people. Thankfully, The New York Times is doing the heavy lifting to expose how these big beautiful bills translate to empty grocery carts for grandmothers who are just trying to stretch oatmeal and hamburger meat.
We wrap things up with a cinematic history lesson from Andy Griffith and his classic film A Face in the Crowd. Patricia Neal leaving the microphone on to expose a manipulative fraud to his audience feels frighteningly relevant for today’s political climate. Throw in a wildly accurate AI spoof video shared by Bette Midler mocking Marco Rubio, and you have a perfect snapshot of where the political landscape sits right now.
Live Chat: https://trailmix.cc/chat
Website: https://trailmix.cc
Alerts: https://trailmix.cc/alerts
00:00 Intro
00:03 Donald Trump Presser Meltdown
03:20 Hispanic Men Polls Shift Away
05:35 ICE Agents Blatant Job Arrests
12:35 Dexter Shows Off 2013 Car
16:45 Pontiac Grand Am vs Foreign Cars
20:30 Nolan Wells True Crime Update
27:30 Donald Trump Genetics Obsession
30:10 Natalie Harp The White House Zapper
34:10 Jon Ossoff Triggers MAGA Crowd
37:40 Arizona SNAP Benefit Cuts Exposed
41:30 Bette Midler AI Mockery Video
49:30 Dennis Miller Changes Politics
56:30 Andy Griffith A Face In The Crowd
— Human directed and edited. Machine drafted (Gemini Pro).
TRUMP’S ARYAN GENETICS OBSESSION
🍽️ From today’s Digital Diner menu
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/rosie-o-donnell-hosts-jimmy-kimmel-live-slams-trump-1236836907/
On Monday night, O’Donnell kicked off her “Jimmy Kimmel Live” hosting duties…”If you thought the president hated ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ when it was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel? Buckle up, people! Buckle up.”
“I support [Kimmel] in what he’s doing with the First Amendment, and our ability as entertainers and citizens to speak out against our government that’s enshrined in the Founding Fathers’ writings about our government, so I think he’s fantastic,” O’Donnell said. “And I wish that Stephen Colbert had the same kind of support when it happened to him, because he shouldn’t be gone either.”
So it sounds like Hegseth wants to run for president.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/judge-blocks-trump-administration-moving-234035705.html
Judge blocks the Trump administration from moving FBI headquarters to DC office building
A U.S. judge on Monday blocked plans to move the FBI’s headquarters to a federal office building in Washington, finding that President Donald Trump’s administration illegally tossed out a previously approved plan to build a new facility nearby in Maryland.
The ruling is the latest development in a yearslong battle over where to house the main office for the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. A site in Greenbelt, Maryland, was picked during former President Joe Biden’s administration, but Trump appointees sought to reverse that decision last year in favor of repurposing the Ronald Reagan Building, a federal office complex a few blocks from the FBI’s existing headquarters.
The suit was brought by the state of Maryland and Prince George’s County.
“Maryland and Prince George’s County committed more than a decade of work to earn the FBI headquarters and pledged hundreds of millions of dollars,” Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement. “By blocking the Trump Administration’s unlawful attempt to move the FBI to the Reagan Building and divert the funds Congress set aside for this project, the Court has cleared the path back to Greenbelt.”
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, also a Democrat, said, “Now it is time to stop the games and get to work building the world-class FBI headquarters that our public servants deserve, where it belongs: in Prince George’s County, Maryland.”
i can certainly see the society that elected trump electing hegseth
a worrying candidacy
he’s already friends with all the techlords
trump could leave office without fear of accountability
That should be an interesting campaign.
Hegseth & his many bottles of liquid courage (and whatever else he may be zooming on) aren’t going to be as popular as he thinks.
Dragged into an illegal war, constant lying about the war’s progress, and calling starving and mentally-taxed sailors liars. He’s inept at his job. A promotion is not in order.
Plus, if Dumbass is kingmaker instead of king in 2028, is he gonna pick the guy who wants to cut bait in Iran? Nah.
Picking a black candidate for Florida governor today might not work out so well for MAGA Republicans. Recent history shows it doesn’t impress minorities, and it actually depresses GOP turnout. Consider it a rule: Racists nominating Blacks are still racists.
*Flock likes privacy so much that it doesn’t brand its buildings.
ps – Axon is the new Flock & Dumbass has bought into that company.
*Burden of proof on the innocent
Already got a comment to my Substack I expected, that Tim Scott disproves my point that MAGA blacks don’t win. Scott’s statewide electoral success predates MAGA. He won his Senate seat in a 2014 special election and reelection in 2016
*Joe Kent will be Tucker’s VP, or he would run directly against Hegseth if Tucker runs with mTg.
*Erika has the evidence. Why wouldn’t this stuff still be in evidence? Why didn’t they even take his phone?
Just found that guy/podcast. He looks familiar, though. Hopefully, podcasts like this make inroads into Rogan’s (who will be 60 next year) audience.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/15/us-to-tell-allies-they-must-pick-sides-in-ai-race-with-china-reuters.html
The U.S. is preparing to tell dozens of countries they must pick sides in the artificial intelligence race with China, warning they will be excluded from a U.S.-led AI coalition if they also sign up for Beijing’s competing framework, according to a U.S. official and an internal draft reviewed by Reuters.
Washington launched the Pax Silica initiative last year to secure supply chains for AI models, semiconductors and critical minerals, amid a fierce technology rivalry with Beijing.
About two dozen countries have joined, including Kazakhstan, a key potential source of critical minerals that has also joined China’s coalition, as well as close U.S. allies such as Japan, Australia and South Korea.
The draft letter, prepared by the State Department, is addressed to the 35 signatories of a U.S. “AI Opportunity Statement” signed in June, which includes members of the non-binding Pax Silica framework and other countries that have expressed a desire to align cooperation on AI with Washington.
By pressing countries to choose sides, the U.S. hopes to starve China of resources in a race to make the most sophisticated AI, which could be used for military or economic dominance.
In July, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a rival “World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization”, promoting his country’s open-weight technology as a challenge to U.S. influence over the fast-moving sector.
Kazakhstan is the only country so far known to have joined both initiatives, setting off alarm bells in Washington.
“To be part of everything is to be part of nothing. Signature of the Pax Silica Declaration is not merely a membership subscription, but a commitment,” the letter says, urging countries to “choose deliberately” on AI.
Hmmm, this initiative started last year & now they are pressing allies to pick sides. Sounds of desperation…like an Ai bubble getting so bloated it’s about to pop.
Ai says there are 4 black gop reps and 1 black senator, so 2% of gop representation
Just got hard numbers on today’s Florida mail–in ballots. Dems way up compared to past elections, Republicans down a quarter million . Lack of enthusiasm, or has Trump turned them off absentee ballots? (He cast by mail. btw) We’ll know when today’s same day numbers come out.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/18/us-icc-sanctions
US sanctions international criminal court president and prosecutor
Marco Rubio targets ICC’s Tomoko Akane and Abdoulaye Seye, who was investigating Israeli war crimes in Gaza
The US had previously sanctioned Karim Khan, an ICC prosecutor, who had successfully sought arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and for former defense minister Yoav Gallant, for war crimes during the Gaza war. Trump in 2025 sanctioned the court, stating in an executive order that it had “engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”.
The US has already designated at least 11 ICC officials for sanctions, stemming from cases that also include investigations into the actions of US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Neither the US nor Israel are member states of the ICC or recognise its jurisdiction.
Four human rights groups sued Trump last week for targeting the ICC. In the lawsuit, they said that the sanctions prevent victims of war crimes from seeking justice.
*So, when the government goes after you, just say you don’t recognize their jurisdiction. This isn’t about the perpetrators, it’s about the victims and their only way to get justice.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/aug/18/tupac-shakur-gang-killing-murder-trial-live
For Katie, David, and true crime crowd; Tupac Shakur murder trial.
“but then it isn’t a requirement for modern living”
Jack, only when the batteries are still charged and the grid still works.
BiD, I do like that Julian clearly labels his guesswork “Pure Spec”, doesn’t even pretend to present facts — hope his viewers get the point. Unvetted, hypothesis-driven discussions are the thing these days. Not all bad, but it is “Pure Speculation”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/18/trump-federal-data-deleted-altered
A database of federal law enforcement officer misconduct records. A survey measuring physical, sexual and emotional violence against children and youth. Real-time pollution readings collected by air quality monitors from US embassies around the world.
These are among the hundreds of federal datasets that the Trump administration has taken down or altered as part of its aggressive campaign to wipe all mentions of data findings that do not align with the administration’s priorities.
The tracker includes detailed information about deleted or altered datasets from more than 60 federal agencies that span the environment, labor, law enforcement and other topics. But datasets on health appear to be the most affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown, comprising about 40% of the total number of terminated or altered data collections tracked by dataindex.us.
One of the main changes to these health datasets is that they no longer collect information on queer and trans people – as part of Donald Trump’s executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”.
Multiple Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surveys, for example, have removed questions about respondents’ gender identity. These include the National HIV Surveillance System, the primary source of case data for HIV infections, the National Violent Death Reporting System, the CDC Diabetes Prevention Recognition Program, the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey and specific surveys evaluating Prep uptake among gay men and in communities of color.
In addition, there are at least four health datasets that are no longer being updated at all, including the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s (Samhsa) Drug Abuse Warning Network, a surveillance system that doctors and public health researchers used to track drug-related emergency room visits in near real-time to spot emerging overdose trends.
“These data are critical for identifying emerging epidemics and what parts of the population are most vulnerable to different types of health conditions,” said Thomas Babor, a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut who specializes in public health and addiction.
Government agencies aren’t required to notify the public when data collections are terminated, and some datasets have simply stopped updating because of a lack of staffing while others have been quietly pulled from federal websites with little notice. Some federal datasets also change or update on a regular basis, so it can be hard to figure out what is actually permanently deleted compared with a regular update.
“The question we’re trying to answer is: are certain datasets being taken away that have an impact on the American people?”
The dataindex.us tracker is not a complete list, and is probably still an undercount of all the deleted or altered datasets there are, said Ross. But the hope is the tracker is just a starting point.
I just jotted down some notes from a couple of Julian’s longer videos on the Kirk case. This is as close as I can get to fact-based claims that do raise questions about Tyler’s guilt.
So far Tyler’s attorneys haven’t said a word about any of this in preliminary hearings, and the case is probably a year away from trial. Plenty of time for lots of “Pure Spec”.
Ossoff strikes again. So who’s the real peewee, Dodo?
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/18/politics/jon-ossoff-trump-kelly
Ossoff gave off “kid vibes” when he first came on the scene, but the kid’s all grown up now, Dodo.
In the meantime, the Dodo has shriveled.
euphemistic
Got no answer? Attack the messenger. Watch Trump hit the panic button and scream “fake news” when pressed on North Korea. Peak Trumpian theater.
ooh ill bet there are rumors going around about king fucko and the concubine
My little corner of the AI Universe appears to be working for me. As long as I keep arguing with it, I keep it on its toes. And it on mine. Just stay out of the dangerous neighborhoods.
meme #3…
It’s still an “it.” *
* as it frequently reminds me
RR, love that meme. but did they leave one out: No sense of humor
The Blue Book, bane of grad assistants who had to read them.
The age old battle between lazy students and the professors hired to instill knowledge into those hungover heads. Technology can be exploited or harnessed, but reverting to proven primitive tools is, I prefer clay tablets and sticks, to demonstrate, or regurgitate, what was taught has been reliable to a certain level. The quantity of what humans have created is much larger now than what we faced sixty years ago.
I loved writing in those blue books.
Oops, Trump takes credit for the headline, but the article actually credits Biden for lower drug prices.
he does like YMCA, Lee Greenwood and that hitler book of his, mein kampf for dummies or whatever it is
Ballistics don’t match; FBI lied; crime scene destroyed/soil removed/cement pavers installed within days; the Widow Kirk got the necklace he was wearing; his tee-shirt is missing; there are photos allegedly from the SUV and it had what appeared to be a burned and shredded foam miner; Charlie’s phone was on his desk when Erika did a video shortly after the fireworks display (she pointed it out – why wasn’t it part of the evidence?); friends of BiBi had an intervention on Charlie’s views on Israel; Joe Kent said Charlie told him not to let Israel get us into a war with Iran.
Look, I didn’t even know who Charlie was until THEY offed him, and I was disgusted by him in the clips of his debates that were omnipresent after Sept 10th, but…what happened to all of the Charlie-the-martyr stuff? Same thing as Butler, the WHCD shooter, the DOGE boy’s staged carjacking pic, the imminent threat to the West coast via stolen drones…as soon as folks see through the BS, start saying Mossad/FBI/CIA, psyop/false flag…and the regime backs off the story & diverts attention.
Well, Poobah, after all these years, I still think you’re clever enough to write one pretty clever sentence.
WSJ’s daily take:
* Square bracket comments are mine. (You knew that)
Oh, and a second round of flooding hit us yesterday. Blew a new asphalt road patch out of the street and moved a 1.5 sq. ft. chunk of it 70 or so feet down the road in front of our office. Never seen that before.
politics or history
really is no mystery
only thing your gotta know is
everything is showbiz
But Tyler’s defense attorneys aren’t arguing a second shooter, altered ballistics, or an intelligence setup in any of their filings to get the case dismissed. Instead, they’re doing what standard defense teams do in capital cases—challenging the state’s DNA methodology and fighting to get the death penalty off the table. If they’ve got something concrete they’re keeping it a secret.
every article said “neck” and it wasn’t in the neck
impact wave in t-shirt never mentioned
10;00 PM. August 18 … tonight… Lawrence has Sherrod Brown on at least for a few minutes.
MS NOW.
I am interested in wherher something more sinister than one crazed gunman happened to Kirk because I had been following him closely for years since it became obvious his Turning Point phenomenon was replacing CPAC as the premier conservative driver. I saw him as a leading contender for the MAGA throne.
occam’s razor says they got the right guy so why clean up the scene so fast and why was all the reporting inaccurate the same way in every outlet
and where was the weapon when, don’t see it in crowd security footage
and how did he get a ladder to the roof uncontested
how did the shooter know the victim would be ideally positioned, did they have public speakers in that set-up before and did he know it?
Ai is ingesting all written data; it can also edit that data, as noted in the earlier article about the regime jacking with government data.
If you don’t have physical data, you’ll have nothing tangible. Will anyone be able to access your photos and videos? Will anyone else really care about them? It seems that clay tablets are more durable and accessible than new tech. Books are accessible but not durable; they are the middle ground. If you have older books, hang onto them.
I regularly back up my data to a thumb drive, mostly because I don’t trust myself to avoid avoid accidental deletion, or my cloud service to always be there.. So easy to do now.
https://www.jalopnik.com/2215173/flock-cameras-replaced-by-axon-difference/
Some municipalities are replacing Flock cameras with Axon, but is there a difference?
***
https://qz.com/trump-axon-stock-ice-taser-contract-062926
Trump made an Axon Enterprise stock purchase valued at between $1 million and $5 million. That was roughly two weeks before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement moved to solicit a five-year, $220 million Taser contract that procurement reviewers and policing experts described to CNBC as effectively written for Axon’s product line.
TRUMP’S DEMOGRAPHIC FREEFALL:
🍽️ From today’s Digital Diner menu
Here’s NBC’s preview for tonight’s Florida, Alaska primaries. Polls close at 7p ET.
One of my faves Mary Peltola on the ballot tonight. Wonder why she wants distance from Kamala? She did lose Alaska by 14 points.
https://www.mensjournal.com/news/why-jason-kelce-wants-the-country-to-donate-its-urine
Jason Kelce’s funny campaign: Donate pee to save water from AI data centers
Jason Kelce’s Garage Beer and Liquid Death are in a pissing contest, but for the good of the country.
The two brands joined forces to raise awareness about the immense water usage draining local resources as more and more AI data centers sprout across the country, triggering wide protests. It’s reported that AI data centers use up to five million gallons of water per day to cool down servers.
Kornacki is cranked up. First results in 15 minutes…
We want your pee – to cool Ai data centers. Brilliant ad.
One thing about Florida these days is they’re just about the fastest to report results, especially for the big states. Probably won’t be a long night.
There is something seriously wrong with this.
NEW THREAD — votes coming in
Trump’s fat ass would break the horse.
Trump to Nominate Heidi Overton, a Top Domestic Policy Aide, for F.D.A. Commissioner
Dr. Overton is a fierce opponent of abortion rights and a supporter of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/health/heidi-overton-fda.html?emc=edit_na_20260819&nl=breaking-news&segment_id=224986