Tuesday Afternoon

The Moody Blues at La Taverne de l'Olympia in Paris, 1970.

Also 1970 and the same song, but here it was one of sixteen songs they played at the Isle of Wight Festival in the UK ...

Two interviews

On This Week with George Stephanopoulos there were two interesting interviews. One was with Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton, a Methodist theologian and minister ...



And there was also an interview with President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy ...

Mathpocalypse

Star Trek NG, The Royale, Captain Picard and Commander discuss Fermat's Last Theorem.

OpenAI Just Carpet-Bombed Mathematics

In the growing chorus of mathematicians revolting against AI companies, Hugo Duminil-Copin, who in 2022 received the Fields Medal, math’s highest honor, has perhaps put mathematicians’ concerns most vividly. In an essay published just before OpenAI announced last month that it had solved one of seven grand mathematical challenges known as the Millennium Prize Problems, he wrote that AI proofs “nuke the mathematical landscape, making it increasingly difficult to inhabit after each blast.”

Public executions

Firing squad execution to be livestreamed, Pentagon says

Ah, yes. Nothing's so much fun as a public execution. Bring the whole family, make a picnic lunch. Just like the good old days when medieval towns executed people in the public aquare as entertainment. And education - how else can the local despot make sure everyone gets the message? And it makes all the viewers complicit ... we all killed the prisoner, right? Now we're like Saudi Arabia and Iran and North Korea and ISIS. It's so cool, right?

Brought to you by Trump

OpenAI Insider

Ezra interviews David Robinson, who recently resigned from OpenAI because he thought their practices were unsafe. Some of what he said about how the new AI agents/models are being grown and the speed at which this is happening was really disturbing. Sounds more and more, to me at least, like we are really dealing with an emergent kind of being rather than a piece of software.

Remembering October 7

There's a lot of information out there about the October 7 attack by Hamas/Gaza on Israel. Some is concerned with how different elements of the Israeli government/military failed to anticipate the attack.

For me, the important thing is not about whether the attack could have been prevented, it is about the facts of the attack that did happen. Who participated in the attack and what did they do? Who were the victims and what happened to them?

There is much to be found on this because the perpetrators often filmed their own crimes using body cameras, mobile phones, and vehicle cameras, and posted the films online at places like Telegram and Facebook (Israel/Palestine: Videos of Hamas-Led Attacks Verified), and the IDF made a compilation film of some of that footage which was shown to journalists, diplomats, and others (Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre).

Let's remember some of the victims ...













Of course there are so many more but this is all I can do. There is no justifying this stuff, and shame on those who try to.

Remembering October 7

I recall seing these videos of the people in Gaza celebrating the attack on Israel, and striking the Israeli hostages, some of them dead and half naked like Shani Louk, who were paraded through the streets. No one seems to remember this now.

When they came back, countless hostages survivors said Hamas had to shield them from the mob of "civilians" who wanted to tear them limb from limb. Look what they did to the hostages who arrived dead: https://t.co/qAwhiyPRAC

— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) October 7, 2026

Remembering October 7th

It's been three years since the October 7th terror attacks where 1,200 people were killed and another 251 were taken hostage into Gaza. NBC News' Raf Sanchez was in Israel covering the events that would cause a major shift in the Middle East.

Gavin Newsom

My governor on Trump's deranged invitation to Iran to nuke Los Angeles and San Diego ...

An American president is talking about Los Angeles and San Diego being “taken out.” Where the hell is Congress? This is dangerous. The time to stand up is NOW. https://t.co/1PVG6PHb7m

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) October 6, 2026

Madness

In speech tonight, Trump suggests Iran should strike L.A. and San Diego with nuclear weapons, saying "it's a small price to pay". The crowd of Republicans cheers.

I'd Love to Change the World

I'd Love to Change the World by Ten Years After, 1971.

Memorial day

Israel marks October 7 anniversary as national memorial day

Israel is observing a national memorial day on Monday for those killed in the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks and the soldiers who died in the Gaza war, Israeli media reported.







The baby and his brother and mother were killed by their captors.

Saint Francis: 800 years

Plane hijacking

Palestinians pioneered airplane hijackings as a global form of terrorism.

October 7 inspired millions more to globalize the intifada: pic.twitter.com/YUCmOf2IbF

— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) October 1, 2026

I recall the plane hijackings of the 70s. I was often flying back then. My family's flight to Europe in July of 1976 took place just after one of the most notorious hijackings - -that of Air France flight 139 on June 27, 1976 ...

Entebbe raid ...

[T]he hijacking of an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris by members of the PFLP-EO [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations] and the German Revolutionary Cells, who diverted the aircraft to Entebbe International Airport with the backing of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

Following the 27 June hijacking, the captors took the 248 passengers hostage with the objective of compelling the release of imprisoned Palestinian militants and international prisoners ...

It was during the rescue of these hostages by Israeli forces that PM Netanyahu's brother was killed.

Ezra Klein and Bill Gates

A really interesting in depth interview with Bill Gates on AI.

NAZA

The Times of Israel's military correspondent reviews the film NAZA.

By now you may have heard of the documentary film NAZA. It's made by two Israeli journalists who were sponsored by The Guardian (UK), and it purports to show that the Israeli army used AI to help evaluate the number of civilian deaths that might be caused by certain air strikes in Gaza targeting terrorists. It showed at the Venice film festival where it got a 25 minute standing ovation.

It should be mentioned that none of the claims made in the movie have been substantiated, and none of the soldiers making claims is identified. Also, the movie was released just before elections in Israel, probably in order to influence them.

All modern armed forces use AI. As for calculating and limiting civilian deaths through this use of AI - it's a good thing, not a bad thing. In fact, our own miliatry has, under Hegseth, actually shut down the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR) office and the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence (Top Commanders Told Hegseth Not to Cut Civilian Protection Program, Poll Showed. He Did It Anyway.). So, if nothing else, Israel's military is more concerned about limiting civilian deaths than our own military now is.

I think this film is another example of the almost rabid hatred of Israel that seems to now grip Europe and the US. The recent concert debacle with Macklemore and Ed Sheeran is an example of this. My own political party seems happy to take advantage of this hate in order to win more votes.

Bill Gates

Bill Gates interview with Kristen Welker of Meet the Press.

Gates believes we need government intervention to create safety systems for AI and he wants to talk to Trump about this, but given the fact that Trump and his family are financially invested in AI growth, I think Gates' advice will just be ignored.

Trump and sons invest heavily in AI economy as he resists calls for slowdown

Trump reveals millions of dollars' worth of share deals in big tech and AI

As White House shields the AI gold rush, Trump family and other allies strike it rich – with few guardrails

Pope Leo in France

Interesting that so many have shown up to see him. The Catholic church in France is both relatively small and very conservative, and there is that French SSPX group that rejects Vatican II, so kind of suprising to see how popular Pope Leo is. Good for him :)

Abdul El-Sayed

Ezra interviews Abdul El-Sayed.

The red carpet

Trump rolls out the red carpet for Xi, as he did for Putin in Alaska on August 15, 2025 ...

Ask Haviv anything

I saw this tonight, one of Haviv Rettig Gur's videos in the series "Ask Haviv Anything".

What struck me was the other person in the video, the one asking the question - Ayman Mohyeldin. I've seen him many times on MSNBC/MSNOW where he has a show. He always seemed like a reasonable person but this question he asks Haviv is so contrived and hostile that I doubt he honestly wants an answer.