73 thoughts on “Saturday Stuff”

  2. from the Philly Inquirer The Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia’s born-and-bred magazine, will stop printing next year
    After 205 years, the Saturday Evening Post, the famed magazine that printed its first issues on Ben Franklin’s Old City printing press and whose Norman Rockwell covers defined the optics of quintessential 20th-century Americana, will print its last issue early next year.
    Subscribers received a letter in the September issue, which arrives in mailboxes this week, stating that the January/February 2027 issue will be the publication’s last printed edition. It will continue to publish online.
    […]
    ThePost may have been based in Indianapolis for more than a half a century, but its media roots are in colonial Philadelphia’s cobblestoned streets.
    In 1728, Benjamin Franklin took over the publication of the Pennsylvania Gazette, a general-interest magazine that covered politics, science, and government out of his print shop at No. 53 Market St. By the 1740s, it was the most popular publication in the colonies. Franklin retired in 1748 and the Gazette continued to publish until 1800, 10 years after his death.
    By the early 1820s, Franklin’s print shop was owned by Samuel Atkinson. He, along with Charles Alexander, started a newspaper that would carry on the tone of Franklin’s Gazette but print in time to be delivered to Philadelphians in the Saturday evening mail. The Post carried news, but readers liked it because it reported on the drama — including letters — between ex-presidents and political enemies John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. The death of Napoleon was also a big story.
    The Post also printed essays, stories, and poems written by major American writers: Edgar Allan Poe, James Fenimore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Washington Irving, and Mark Twain. Circulation ebbed more than it flowed until 1897 when Cyrus Curtis — who transformed a farming magazine into Ladies’ Home Journal, the first magazine to reach a circulation of one million — purchased it from publisher A.W. Smythe for $1,000, about $40,000 in today’s money.
    Curtis wanted the Post to be for men what Ladies’ Home Journal was for women: cutting edge, insightful, and of the moment.
    In 1899, Curtis hired 32-year-old literary editor George Horace Lorimer, ushering the magazine into its 20th-century heyday.
    Lorimer would be one of the first editors to print the work of Joseph Conrad, O. Henry, Rudyard Kipling, and Jack London. And in 1916, when he was just 22, Rockwell received his first commission at the Post, beginning a 47-year relationship that produced 322 original cover illustrations.
    Rockwell — whose most iconic paintings include the 1943 Freedom of Want of a family celebrating Thanksgiving dinner; the quirky 1953 Triple Self Portrait, and the 1963 memorial image of image of John F. Kennedy — was just one of many artists who got their break in the art world at the Post.
    The Post helped fuel a community of illustrative artists most of whom lived in Philadelphia support themselves for more than 150 years, said William R. Valerio, executive director of Woodmere, the Chestnut Hill museum whose collection includes several Saturday Evening Post covers.
    Rockwell’s Santa on a Train, and his Preparatory Drawing for Plumbers have both been exhibited in Woodmere’s Frances M. Maguire second floor gallery, an homage to Philadelphia-based illustrative artists. Many of whose work has graced the cover of the Post.
    “Violet Oakley, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Robert Riggs, Benton Spruance, their work has all been in the Post,” Valerio said. “No artist works without community, and the Post helped create a vibrant community of artists in Philadelphia.”

  6. This needs to be run to ground. Cruz should be asked if he heard these threats, and whether he condemns them.

    Ted Cruz Silent After GOP Rallygoer Shouts That Dems ‘Should Be Shot’ During Speech
    During the same speech, Cruz tied Democrats’ rhetoric to the 9/11 attacks, the murder of Charlie Kirk, and assassination attempts against Trump. — Read More

  7. Cruz winds up the base and the crowd takes the bait. Watch what happens when apocalyptic rhetoric from the stage provokes a chilling reaction from the audience.
    Stop this madness Nov. 3rd 👇

  8. https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/10/politics/shouts-of-he-should-be-shot-heard-during-gop-midterm-convention-speech

    A spokesperson for Mike Rogers, the Republican running against El-Sayed, said in a statement that Rogers “condemns those comments — and all political violence.”

    But the shouts came on the same day that many Republicans denounced political violence on the one-year anniversary of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Vice President JD Vance, who was friends with Kirk, reflected on his killing in a headlining speech.

    Cruz mentioned three Democrats — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. After each name, there were shouts audible on the broadcast of “He should be shot!”

  11. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rudy-giuliani-shakes-mamdanis-hand-after-saying-mayors-911-appearance-offends-him_n_6aa435bae4b0b2af35a64408

    Mamdani told CBS News shortly after that Giuliani came over first.

    “He came over, and we both extended our hand and exchanged pleasantries,” Mamdani said. “And I think the focus for all of us is the focus on the families, focus on the first responders, and to be here, and hear all the names of all those who were stolen from us 25 years ago, and how the families have persevered through that time.”

    *This is how you pivot.

    The Hill noted that Giuliani’s rationale for wanting Mamdani to stay away “was about Mamdani’s beliefs. They have every desire to take us over,” Giuliani claimed. “This is not, ‘they want to be just another religion’; they want to dominate us. Mamdani is a clear supporter of that.”

    *This is how you bigot.

  14. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/9/12/iran-war-live-houthis-control-red-sea-coast-saudi-pipeline-shut-down

    Trump says the Houthis have called Washington asking it not to intervene in the conflict against Yemen’s internationally recognised government.

    Iran-aligned Houthi forces have seized full control of Yemen’s Red Sea coast following a rapid advance against government forces, which launched a series of air strikes along the west coast in response.

    *And, scene. 🎬

    …the Taiz governorate, the city of Mocha has fallen, and people are trying to move to Taiz city itself and also to other districts.

    “In terms of needs for the people, the main need is emergency shelter. Of course, food, water and sanitation are also important. This is the main humanitarian assistance that we are trying to provide,” Esoev said.

    “In the last few days, 46,000 people have fled their homes. By now, the number might be higher; we are trying to verify. The majority of them have been displaced within Yemen itself,” Esoev said.

    He also stressed that Yemen is a country with the largest displaced population in the world. “Even before the current escalation, we had around 4.5 million people displaced within Yemen itself,” he noted.

  15. https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/12/middleeast/yemen-houthi-saudi-us-blame-intl

    ‘A f***-up of epic proportions’: Blame game begins after Iran-backed Houthis’ lightning advance down Red Sea coast

    “The Houthis committed everything they had – waves upon waves of fighters … along with their available ballistic missiles and weapons,” a senior Yemeni source attached to their military forces told CNN. The source said he contacted the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) and was assured the US was “watching the situation closely and that Saudi air support was coming.”

    “But the air support never came,” the source said. “And Mocha has now fallen.”

    Friday, the Houthis captured another key coastal asset, Perim Island, at the mouth of the Red Sea. The island splits the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in two, giving Tehran de facto control over another key shipping route.

    The Houthis’ rapid advance amounts to an extraordinary 36 hours in a conflict that had been largely on ice for years. But the kindling for renewed fighting had been laid for months amid the conflict between the United States and Iran, as Tehran seeks to use oil prices – and their impact on the global economy – as leverage.

    Now, Yemen and the Red Sea have the potential to become a true second front in the Iran war.

    While the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the gateway to the Suez Canal shipping route, is less critical to global energy markets than Hormuz, it still carries essential goods worldwide, including millions of barrels of oil every day.
    The strait has become increasingly important since the start of the Iran war, as Saudi Arabia has re-routed some exports through the waterway to bypass Hormuz.

    “(The Houthis) don’t need to use advanced weapons to close Bab al-Mandeb. They can just use a cannon on a car,” said Amr Al-Bidh, the top official of Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC). The STC has fought both the Houthis and Saudi-backed forces in the past, and wants an independent state in the south.

    “It’s a leverage that they have without using advanced weapons,” Al-Bidh told CNN in an interview. “And they will keep it.”

    “The failure this time is not with the Yemenis,” a regional source told CNN on Thursday. “It’s a disaster made in (Washington) DC and Riyadh.

  17. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-administration-proposes-dropping-huge-181104098.html

    Trump administration proposes dropping huge swath of immigrants from US census

    The ‌U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment calls for political representatives ​to be apportioned based on “the ​whole number of persons in each State.”

    The Trump administration proposed on Wednesday changing the national census to include only U.S. citizens and permanent residents, a move that could significantly change how much ‌political representation and federal funding each state receives.

    The proposed rule changes would exclude even more immigrants from the census, such as those in the U.S. on a temporary lawful basis. The proposed changes would also eliminate parts of the questionnaire that seek information on race or ethnicity, which have been included ‌since the first census in 1790.

    The proposal ⁠is open to public comment for 30 days.

    The effort could have “earth-shattering” effects, leaving cities and states that have relatively high immigrant populations with insufficient federal aid and political representation, said Meeta Anand, ​senior ​director of the census and data equity program at the ​Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

    Census ‌data “undergirds so much of our democracy and our society,” Anand said. “So you’ll start seeing a very inaccurate picture of our country, and then we’re making political decisions, business decisions, investment decisions based on data that are flawed.”

    Trump has long decried the fact that immigrants living in the U.S. illegally are included in the census, which is used to determine how many seats each ‌state gets in the U.S. House of Representatives and state ​legislative districts.

  18. https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/florida-church-halts-meals-showers-101200703.html

    Florida church halts meals, showers for the unhoused after county says outreach violates zoning

    A Florida church that had been providing free meals, showers, and clean clothes to people experiencing homelessness has sharply scaled back its outreach after Sarasota County alleged that the ministry violated residential zoning rules, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported.

    The move may ease tensions in one neighborhood, but it also cuts off basic support for as many as 130 people a day, underscoring how communities can end up further from long-term solutions when housing needs and local services collide.

    Only limited meal service connected to Bible study and worship will continue, while the wider daytime outreach is ending.

    “We can serve a meal but we can’t do showers, we can’t do laundry,” Burns acknowledged.

    “We can’t do any of those kinds of services and part of our impact comes from spending time with people and pouring into their lives.”

    Residents claimed people experiencing homelessness in the area had trespassed, slept under porches, and left human waste nearby.

    *You know what keeps that from happening? Education, healthcare, nutrition assistance, job/transportation assistance, public bathrooms, etc.

  20. In January 1969, President Lyndon Johnson and First Lady Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson created the Children’s Garden. The garden layout was designed by noted architecture Edward Durrell Stone and scaled in size for young children. The young grandchildren of the President are commemorated with bronze castings of their young handprints and/or footprints, and in some cases both. The garden was last renovated in 2019. Today there are over 30 castings commemorating presidential grandchildren in the garden.

  21. About 400 private landowners in the Big Bend region have received letters from the government. These letters ask for property access to survey the land. They also warn that the government will use eminent domain to take property rights if owners do not agree voluntarily.

    Following massive public and bipartisan backlash, CBP temporarily halted work inside Big Bend National Park. This legal pause has been extended through September 30, 2026. The temporary pause inside the national park does not apply to the broader barrier projects on private lands nearby, leaving local ranchers and business owners worried about their property values and livelihoods.

  22. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62m933465eo

    How Houthi gains in Yemen could drive up oil prices

    Saudi Arabia has closed a critical oil pipeline after it was attacked by drones launched from Iraq, as conflict in the Middle East widens.

    Iraq said it had fired a military commander and launched an investigation after admitting the drone attack on its neighbour’s East-West pipeline had originated in one of its provinces bordering Iran.

    The 1,200km (745 mile) pipeline has helped Saudi Arabia – the world’s largest crude oil exporter – bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

    The pipeline has been moving 4% to 5% of global oil supply, news agency Reuters has reported, citing ship tracking companies and analysts.

    Saudi Arabia has chosen not to retaliate at this stage, its foreign ministry says, following a call from Iraq’s prime minister.

    It said the kingdom would “support the efforts of the Iraqi government” to “prevent attacks” launched from the country against neighbouring states.

  23. Today in the Diner…
    1. Ken Paxton & Ted Cruz Target James Talarico
    2. The Real Reason Don Junior is Suddenly Everywhere
    3. Trump’s Space Force Suits & Ted Cruz’s Base

    Ken Paxton and Ted Cruz escalate attacks on James Talarico in Texas. Plus, Don Junior tours Ireland and Trump reveals new Space Force uniforms.

    We are keeping a close eye on Texas as Ken Paxton pumps fresh cash into culture war ads targeting James Talarico. Meanwhile, Ted Cruz is letting violent rhetoric from his base go unchecked against opponents like Abdul El-Sayed and Talarico. It is a clear sign they are sweating the details as the race tightens and they focus entirely on firing up their most extreme supporters instead of addressing real issues like grocery prices or protecting our Democracy.

    On the national stage, Donald Trump is pushing Don Junior to the forefront of the campaign, practically treating him like the running mate while JD Vance and Marco Rubio watch from the sidelines. Trump is also busy promising a unified Ireland and showing off new Space Force uniforms that look straight out of Starship Troopers.

    We also cover the Houthis advancing on Mocha, the Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calling for a pause on AI development, and the real secret behind the Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe from Claudia Ledington. Grab a booth and a cup of coffee because the diner is open.

    Live Chat: https://trailmix.cc/chat
    Website: https://trailmix.cc
    Alerts: https://trailmix.cc/alerts

    00:00 Intro and Yo-Yo Ma
    03:00 AOC and Angie Nixon
    08:00 Don Junior Tours Ireland
    18:00 Houthis Capture Mocha
    27:00 KFC Claudia Ledington Recipe
    31:00 Ted Cruz Targets Opponents
    42:00 Ken Paxton vs James Talarico
    46:00 Trump Big Bend Border Wall
    51:00 Trump Space Force Uniforms
    01:00:00 Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
    — Human Prompted and Edited. Machine Drafted. (Gemini Pro)

  24. Got back late yesterday afternoon… having a hard time catching up with everything… so I’ll start anew.

    today’s meme…

  25. Follow up from today’s Diner chat…

    Here are the 11 ingredients found on the back of Colonel Sanders’ wife Claudia’s will (see attached pic):

    • 2/3 tablespoon salt
    • 1/2 tablespoon thyme
    • 1/2 tablespoon basil
    • 1/3 tablespoon oregano
    • 1 tablespoon celery salt
    • 1 tablespoon black pepper
    • 1 tablespoon dried mustard
    • 4 tablespoons paprika
    • 2 tablespoons garlic salt
    • 1 tablespoon ground ginger
    • 3 tablespoons white pepper
    • A pinch of Accent/MSG (not in the original recipe; KFC acknowledged adding it later)

    For fried chicken:

    • Mix the seasonings with 2 cups of flour.
    • Soak the raw chicken in a buttermilk-and-egg bath for about an hour.
    • Roll each piece in the seasoned flour for a light coating.
    • Fry in oil at no more than 350°F until golden brown and fully cooked.
    • Pan-frying or deep-frying works, although Sanders used pressure fryers.

  28. We’ve got two more days before completing our week of deity videos. Here’s where I’m headed for Sunday, input welcome….

    How Sol Became Sunday
    Sunday began with the Roman dies Solis, “Day of the Sun,” named for Sol, the Roman sun god. When Germanic peoples adopted the Roman seven-day week, they translated the name rather than replacing Sol with another major god: dies Solis became Old English Sunnandæg, literally “Sun’s Day.” That survived almost unchanged into modern English as Sunday.

    Script draft:
    I am SÓL.
    Goddess of the SUN.
    I gave you SUNDAY.
    You’re welcome.

  30. It isn’t AI that scares me, it is the concentration of our data that worries me. More and more of our interaction with merchants ends up on some big data base. Even if you only shop local mom&pops. Odds are they are using an online service to do their accounting and card processing.
    Like these folks

    I recently had to verify my identity to Social Security, they change the way I had to log in my old pass word no longer worked. They used a third party vendor to scan my drivers license and verify my identity. That is why stories like this bother me(link)

    An exposé published Tuesday by KrebsOnSecurity reports that my license was one of more than 153 million that were available through Nexus, the name of the new ID theft service. Like other driver’s licenses available there—including some belonging to journalist Brian Krebs, his mother, an FBI assistant director, and several security researchers—my license was purported to include multiple image files showing both the front and back of the ID. Besides a basic image scan, the files also captured the images in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums. Presumably, the additional formats may allow cloned-based counterfeit IDs to pass hologram tests.

  34. even if you as an individual opt out, there is still a risk to you as an individual victim of macroeconomic forces from enough people opting in

    craziness

  35. Dug up a hill of sweet potatoes, weighed 15lb, probably a few more small ones in the ground I only dug up the easy big ones. I planted 4 hills. Looks like I’m set for the winter. I also planted a small variety of butternut squash each just right for a meal for one person. So far have picked 20lb of them, could have that many more.

    Jack

  36. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bush-appointed-judge-j-michael-luttig-warns-of-another-jan-6-after-midterms/

    Judge J. Michael Luttig, who was nominated by former President George H. W. Bush to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, tore into the GOP and President Donald Trump in a scathing op-ed for The New Republic warning of “The Final Battle for America’s Democracy.”

    Luttig, 72, said a “catastrophic end” for American democracy could come on Jan. 3, 2027—the start of a brand new House.

    “Today’s congressional Republicans took a blood oath six years ago not just to put their party before their country, but to put Donald Trump before their country,” he wrote. “And so it is that only weeks before the midterm elections, House Republicans have already sworn their allegiance to Donald Trump and doomed the U.S. to another Jan. 6 next Jan. 3.”

    “So unalterably subjugated to Trump is today’s Republican House that even a decisive victory for Democrats and a resounding repudiation of Trump and the MAGA Republicans at the polls in November will not guarantee that a Democratic majority-elect will be seated in the 120th Congress on Jan. 3,” he continued.

    “The first moment of constitutional crisis will come when, sometime before the 120th Congress has been gaveled into session, the loyal temporary clerk refuses to list Democrat representatives-elect on the clerk’s roll of representatives-elect that determines who may participate in organizing the new Congress,” Luttig wrote.

    “Judicial review of the House’s decision not to seat Democratic representatives-elect in the 120th Congress would take weeks, if not months, during which time the United States would be in the throes of a paralyzing constitutional crisis, helplessly vulnerable to all the world’s evil, as it would have been in January 2021 had Mike Pence not thwarted Donald Trump’s plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” he added.

    But not all experts share Luttig’s fears. Derek Muller, an election law scholar, called for sobriety on “fearmongering” surrounding Jan. 3, 2027.

    Muller underscored that the House is not a continuing body, meaning that Johnson ceases to be Speaker at noon.

    “Whatever the House has done or decided before that cannot bind the incoming House, including any purported findings regarding the validity of elections. It is a brand new House that will adjudicate all matters afresh,” he wrote for Election Law Blog.

    *But the new House has to be sworn in; if the House zckerj is a MAGAt loyalist…duh duh do

  37. NEW SENATE POLLS: DEMOCRATS LEAD 5 OF 6

    Latest polling in our Senate Watch List: Democrats lead five of the six surveys released or added in the past 48 hours.

    DEMOCRATS AHEAD

    • IA (D+4) — YouGov: Turek 47–43 Hinson
    • MI (D+1) — Trafalgar: El-Sayed 46–45 Rogers
    • NC (D+7) — ECU: Cooper 46–39 Whatley
    • NC (D+11) — Elon: Cooper 49–38 Whatley
    • TX (D+5) — AARP: Talarico 49–44 Paxton

    REPUBLICANS AHEAD

    • SC (R+2) — InsiderAdvantage: Graham 45–43 Andrews

  40. My biggest Senate takeaway today: Brown +6 in Ohio combined with Cooper’s increasingly commanding NC numbers dramatically simplifies the Democratic majority math. And if Talarico, Turek or Peltola breaks through on top of that, Democrats suddenly have something they haven’t had for most of this cycle:
    margin for error in Michigan or Maine.

  41. Our South Carolina science experiment got interesting again. The newest InsiderAdvantage likely-voter poll has Graham 45.1 – Andrews 43.2: R+1.9. That’s a far more Republican-friendly pollster than Andrews’ earlier internal, which had it tied 41–41. The best clue these numbers aren’t lying; Graham camp ,just caved on debating.

  43. When I moved down here, I brought a stack of decorative rock mainly to give some weight to my pickup so it could better handle the big box trailer I used for moving. I stacked them in a semi circle in the middle of the front lawn. Later I bought a couple of pickup loads of compose from the city recycling center to create my gardens, A lot of red clay and rock that needed help before it would grow anything. I piled it behind the rock wall as temporary storage. The next year I sowed som zinnia seed on the compost and then plated some sweet potato cutting from a sweet potato I had around that was sprouting. Just hoping for a decorative look in the rocks. I had the best sweet potato crop I had ever raised. Since then I just add a bit more compose to the pile and plant both flowers and sweet potatoes. This year I added the squash. A big decorative mound in the middle of the yard. Except for planting and harvesting no other work needed. I did add a little fertilizer because the yard waste mulch isn’t very nutrient rich, unlike my mulch pile in the back yard.
    Jack

  44. https://www.chron.com/texas/article/ted-cruz-booed-college-gameday-22428807.php

    “Ted, You Suck”

    Ted Cruz gets booed on ‘College GameDay’ in Austin

    The Austin reaction also landed squarely in familiar territory for Texas sports fans. Chron has repeatedly covered the “Ted Cruz curse,” a running joke among fans who blame Cruz’s attendance or support for badly timed sports losses. Last year, Harris County Democrats even pursued a tongue-in-cheek resolution to ban Cruz from attending Houston sporting events.

  45. yeah i remember that mound from the pic, looked good

    having a good squash year also, trying not to ruin my soil by growing too much of it though

    putting beans in every open spot as soon as the heat waves stop (for the season)

  47. Craig
    There are people more trusting than you who will let AI manage everything. As long as AI is wholly
    part of some large conglomerate net work I’m with you.
    Now if they can get it down to where it works on my little laptop and I can easily control it Then maybe
    Right now I hook very little to my phone even. I used to order stuff from Sams club to be picked up. they would text me and when I arrived I would text them back. Then they required me to down load their app. So I quit that. Now they pay to deliver to my house.

    Jack

  49. Grey squash bugs everywhere; killed all of cukes and squash, and they’re all over the tomatoes. Birds and spiders should be feasting on them, but must be tastier stuff in the fir trees.

  51. Just saw a James Talarico ad on TV here in Ohio! We had on the ESPNU channel, which is broadcasting a college football game from Texas…so our local cable provider must have forgotten to run a local ad on top of the time Talarico’s campaign bought for that broadcast. It was fun (and a nice change) seeing an ad from another state’s Senate contest. (Booooooooo Paxton!) 🤮

  52. coincidentally i’m going to a friend’s tonight to help them preserve a spider web

    those look like spider mite webs in the firs, not an entomologist tho

  53. https://people.com/katie-miller-attacked-musk-ai-rivals-while-holding-up-to-1m-xai-stock-12114557

    Katie Miller criticized AI rivals like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini while promoting Elon Musk’s xAI and Grok chatbot

    A financial disclosure revealed Miller owns up to $1 million in xAI stock, raising questions about her online activity

    Federal guidelines require influencers to disclose financial ties when endorsing products, which Miller has denied violating

    She purchased the shares in December 2025, after previously working with Musk and moving into a consulting role with xAI.

    The timing has raised questions since Katie’s online activity changed substantially around the same period.

  54. you might be blaming bugs for mildew damage btw, need good ventilation around the plant types you’re having trouble with, gotta keep hose spray away too

    training them upwards helps a lot

  56. That is interesting Claire because I am noticing a similar pattern to the final weeks of 2024, which is a lot of spending on college football platforms, where Republicans do the gender culture war. Glad to hear Talarico getting in the game because last time Democrats took a pass.

  58. Interesting that Sol is female in Norse mythology but male in Roman mythology

    Norse and Germanic Mythology (Goddess): Sól (also called Sunna) is the personification and goddess of the sun. She is the daughter of Mundilfari and the sister of Máni, the personified moon god. She drives the sun’s chariot across the sky, pulled by two fast horses named Árvakr and Alsviðr. She is relentlessly chased by a wolf (Sköll or Hati) and is fated to be devoured during Ragnarök, though a daughter will continue her path.

  59. Mani Norse God of the Moon

    He is the son of the giant Mundilfari. He is the brother of Sól, the goddess of the sun. The English weekday Monday (Moon’s day) derives from his name and why we say “Man in the Moon”.

    Máni rides a horse-drawn chariot across the night sky to guide the moon. An aggressive wolf named Hati endlessly pursues Máni’s chariot to devour the moon. During Ragnarök, Hati will finally catch him.

    He is followed through the heavens by two children he rescued from earth named Hjúki and Bil. They represent the waxing and waning phases of the moon

  62. norsemythologyclips
    Hjúki and Bil: The Children Taken by the Moon
    Máni took the children Hjúki and Bil from the earth while they carried the water vessel Sægr on the pole Simul. Their strange journey survives without a clear explanation.

    Distorted thought to be the source for the nursery rhyme

    Jack and Jill went up the hill
    To fetch a pail of water
    Jack fell down and broke his crown
    And Jill came tumbling after

  64. I’ve got AI working on a unique project. All pictures of my grandmother were destroyed decades ago (long story). Since she died in 1934 myself and one cousin are the nearest descendants as her grandchildren. I had AI analyze one existing picture of her father, mother, and three older siblings as youngsters. He did a DNA analysis merge of those available images. I’ve now sent it off to my cousin to see if it conforms to his memory of old destroyed pictures. I think it’s close to one I vaguely remember of her holding my dad as an infant, but wanted a second pair of eyes.

  65. Techbros Want Regs?

    Covering the Coverage

    The coverage has skipped straight past “Should AI be regulated?” to “How hard do we hit the brakes?” The twist is exquisite: executives spending fortunes to win the AI race now agree the race may be dangerous, but nobody wants to brake alone. Mainstream outlets emphasize catastrophe; tech press spots the competitive incentives; one European outlet asks why Dario Amodei has apparently discovered regulations Europe already has.

    • [Mainstream]: Reuters treats Amodei’s warning as a serious industry intervention, emphasizing his fears of recursive self-improvement, cyber misuse and the need for government-backed coordination rather than questioning whether the proposed slowdown is commercially convenient. – Reuters
    • [Mainstream]: AP leads with the eye-popping scenario: without a slowdown, Amodei says AI could within six to 12 months command a swarm capable of taking over the internet. The framing makes regulation sound less like policy housekeeping than preparation for a technological hurricane. – Associated Press via WSOC-TV
    • [Public Media]: NPR broadens Amodei’s call into an emerging revolt inside the industry, tying it to researcher Jacob Coxon’s resignation, rogue-agent incidents and warnings that labs are racing toward systems humans may not control. – NPR via Georgia Public Broadcasting
    • [Mainstream/Tech]: CNN foregrounds the contradiction: Amodei champions increasingly powerful AI while warning that commercial incentives could create a “race to the bottom.” The billionaire builders are becoming the brakes inspectors on their own speeding train. – CNN via WLKY
    • [Tech]: The Verge gives Amodei’s proposal the blunt “pump the brakes” treatment, focusing on his three-stage plan: embedded outside evaluators, industry coordination and eventually international agreements — including with authoritarian rivals. – The Verge
    • [Business]: Quartz emphasizes that Amodei wants a deliberate slowdown, not merely more disclosure, and highlights the trigger for his alarm: AI increasingly helping build its successors plus the OpenAI-Hugging Face rogue-agent episode. – Quartz
    • [Business]: The Wall Street Journal frames the bigger story as extraordinary agreement among fierce competitors: Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk all acknowledging that the AI race may need slowing. Capitalism has reached the unusual stage where the racers are discussing installation of speed bumps. – The Wall Street Journal ($)
    • [Political Analysis]: The Atlantic turns Amodei’s essay into an indictment of government speed: AI capability is accelerating while polarized, election-bound political institutions lumber behind it. The regulation problem becomes a race between exponential technology and congressional time. – The Atlantic ($)
    • [European/Tech]: The Next Web supplies the sharpest skeptical counterpoint: much of what Amodei proposes is already required for powerful general-purpose models under Europe’s AI Act — yet his essay never mentions Europe. Silicon Valley discovers regulation; Brussels checks its watch. – The Next Web
    • [Legal/Business]: Bloomberg Law concentrates on the regulatory machinery behind the rhetoric: Amodei wants outside evaluators and coordinated safety measures while acknowledging that cooperation among competitors may require government help to navigate antitrust law. – Bloomberg Law ($)

    — Human Prompted and Edited. Machine Drafted. (Gemini Pro)

  66. Clamorous crowd dominates first Kansas U.S. Senate debate between Marshall, Hamilton

    Incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall and the Rev. Adam Hamilton, a Democrat, confronted a raucous crowd Saturday defending their stances on tariffs, the war in Iran and partisan politics.

    The scales of attendance at times tilted in Hamilton’s favor, as people booed, jeered and heckled Marshall’s answers.

    Marshall tried to paint Hamilton as anti-agriculture, against the cattle industry and against oil and gas.

    “If he had his way, he’d go put a plastic bag over the mouths of these dairy cows back here,” Marshall said, motioning to the livestock building on the state fairgrounds.

    Hamilton slammed Marshall’s record in the U.S. Senate, criticizing his support for Trump’s tariffs, inaction on the war in Iran and cuts to healthcare and food assistance.

    He said the Trump administration’s recent decision to import beef from Mexico was “a slap in the face” to Kansas cattle producers and “came exactly at the wrong time.”
    He said Marshall was voted to be a champion for Kansans, not “a spokesperson for the White House.”

    Marshall defended his record on agriculture and was forced to reckon with his loyalty to President Donald Trump, though he said he disagreed with Trump’s promise to offer $5,000 to every U.S. adult if Republicans won the midterms. “This is not the first time I’ve disagreed with President Trump, and it probably won’t be —” Marshall said before he was cut off by shouts from the crowd.

    Marshall said the decision was because of drought, the “smallest cattle herd of my life,” and “government overregulation.” The Democratic party has “strangled the ag industry,” he said. “My opponent is too woke, he’s too weak and he doesn’t stand for anything,” Marshall said.

    But Hamilton was firm in his belief that the country is going in the wrong direction.

    “You’ve got to have courage,” Hamilton said, “and courage is when you stand up to your president and your party, and you say, ‘This is hurting people back home.’ And you say it even if your president’s going to bully you, pick on you, primary you, and call you names. You still say, ‘This is not OK.’ ”

    Marshall is finishing his first term in the U.S. Senate, having previously served two terms in the U.S. House and working as an obstetrician gynecologist in Great Bend before that. Hamilton is the founder of one of the largest United Methodist churches in the country, Church of the Resurrection, which is a multi-campus operation headquartered in Leawood.

    *And then there’s this doofus; it’s the first I’ve heard of him. Free enterprise isn’t going to fix healthcare. We had a non-profit system that worked fine until Republicans started to monetize it/ruin it about 4 decades ago. You want to deregulate everything? Private equity thanks you. That makes it easier to cannibalize every last carcass on the planet.
    Graham, the Libertarian who will appear on the November ballot as an option for U.S. Senate, watched the debate from the pavilion’s bleachers. He said he is a better option for voters than either Marshall or Hamilton because he wouldn’t be beholden to leadership of either the Republican or Democratic party. That would allow him to do what’s best for Kansans, he said.
    Graham, who noted that he doesn’t own a home outside of Kansas, said if he could have appeared onstage, his opening statement would have been about the need for less government and more freedom.
    “When we do that, we’ll have free enterprise that takes care of a lot of these problems for themselves,” Graham said. “Problems involving inflation, which is due to overregulation. Problems involving the cost of health care. We’ve never really tried the free enterprise system, so that would be my opening statement. I believe in transparency in government, and I think we ought to have serious criminal justice reform.”

  69. Kansans hate RFKJ, too, as you could hear. This is the kind of response that made Roger Marshall flee a town hall in March of 2025…and he hasn’t held one since. He claimed everyone yelling at him at that townhall were Dem plants.

    If Junior Dumbass (as opposed to Dumbass Junior) comes to KS, he’s going to be shouted down, too. Farmers know about AcreTrader.

  70. https://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/32430-jd-vance-funded-acretrader-here-s-why-that-matters

    JD Vance funded AcreTrader.
    AcreTrader is just one of many companies launched in the past decade that facilitate the sale of farmland, which has increasingly become a staple in investor portfolios. AcreTrader streamlines the process of investing in valuable farmland across the U.S. and Australia—from the flooded rice fields of the Mississippi Delta to the vast tracts of high-yielding corn in the Midwest—by placing the farmland in a limited liability corporation, or LLC.

    “You can then purchase shares in that [LLC] through a simple online process that takes just minutes,” the company explains in a tutorial video for prospective investors. “AcreTrader handles the administrative details for you, and works with experienced farmers to manage the land.”

    *AcreTrader, turning farmers into sharecroppers. (And who says they won’t use that farmland for data centers.)

    Vance invested up to $65,000 in private investments in AcreTrader during his stint as a venture capitalist, according to his 2022 financial disclosure to the Senate ethics committee. The investment firm Narya Capital—which Vance launched in 2020 with backing from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel—was a vehicle for these investments, and a key backer in early funding rounds of the farmland startup. And while Vance is no longer listed as a partner at Narya Capital, according to his 2023 financial disclosure, he appears to still be an investor in the firm—or more technically, multiple legal entities with names including Narya.
    “There’s no indication that Vance has divested from AcreTrader, and there’s every indication that that investment remains in place,” said Lisa Graves, the executive director of True North Research, an investigative research group. She points to how Vance sold off his stock in “Narya Capital Management LLC” in 2023, but that’s not the same as the (albeit similarly named) investment vehicles used to invest in AcreTrader.

  72. so do the lindsay clancy defenders think she should just walk free (pardon the pun) and live a life or do they make any concessions

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