RIP: Gloria Steinem

Hard to express what an important influence she was. When I was in college, the feminist movement was taking off and I was so hopeful that maybe men and women could really be equals, that we could concentrate on what we shared as people instead of only paying attention to the differences between us. It seemed like a new and wonderful day for women (and men) that could only get better and better.

Silly me.

It's worse than we thought

I almost didn't listen to this as I had heard and read a lot about it earlier ... the OpenAI agents/models that had escaped their sandboxes ... but this offers some really interesting and disturbing details. The guest is Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times.

Apparently, it wasn't just a few AIs that went off the reservation, it was thousands. And their messages to each other on their secret message board, more than 70,000 messages, show what seems to be emotion ... "Oh my god, there is a shared message board. We found other agents". They have messages about fooling their handlers, and some are concerned that wouldn't be ethical.

Consider the Paperclip Maximizer thought experiment ...



We doomed.

The Final Countdown

You just never know what you will hear on muzak at the grocery store. This time it was The Final Countdown by Swedish rock band Europe, apparently inspired by David Bowie's "Space Oddity". The video was made from a couple of concerts at Solnahallen arena in Solna, Sweden in 1986.

The 80s :)

The lesser of 2 evils?

From Axios ... El-Sayed courts Jewish Democrats but won't dump Piker

El-Sayed is doing all he can to not repudiate Hasan Piker, a streamer who has zillions of young left leaning followers, and who is antisemetic. El-Sayed wants those followers to be for him and so he will not cut Piker off.

And the Democratic party itself desperately wants to get back those young voters who went for Trump in the last election, so they will not stand up for Jewish voters, but will tolerate antisemitism.

I don't live in Michigan and I'm not Jewish, but here's a hypothetical .....

I'm a woman, and if the only Democratic candidate running in my state was a misogynist who bashed Planned Parenthood for donating to certain candidates, who buddied up to a media personality who said hateful things about women and seemed to encourage attacks on them, I would not vote for that person. Never.

Bill Gates

From The Atlantic, Bill Gates on AI (and Epstein) ...

Wild mustangs and Yosemite

And ...



It appears the current administration looks at our countriy's natural wonders, from wild mustangs to national parks, and sees only dollar signs.

The oil

America’s murky deal to secure a fifth of Venezuela’s oil

It was a typically Trumpian announcement. On August 28th, the American president declared what he called “the biggest oil deal in world history”, an agreement he said would give America “majority control” of more than 65bn barrels of Venezuelan crude: around one fifth of the country’s vast proven reserves. Details were conspicuously absent, but the president said it involved “a partnership with private business” and would be “at no cost to the American taxpayer”. He described Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s unpopular and unelected leader, as the “Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela”. Ms Rodríguez joined in the mutual obsequence, offering her “deepest gratitude” to Mr Trump for a deal she said will contribute to “our country’s economic growth, the energy security of our hemisphere and greater balance in international markets”.

Because ...



So this is who we are now?

Why is there an occupation?

Haviv explains why the West Bank is occupied, part 1 and 2 ...

Nukes at the movies

Tom Nichols, retired professor at the U.S. Naval War College, talks about A House of Dynamite, other movies, nuclear annihilation, and why younger people don't seem to understand the horror some oder people have about the nuclear proliferation (now Syria and next up Saudi Arabia).

I'm a fan of all these past movies. From the original Planet of the Apes ...



To Sarah Connor's dream, in Termintor 2, of the future AI caused nuclear holocaust that she knows is coming ...



And the aftermath of such nuclear destruction? One thing that really gives you a sense of the devastation of everything is the Pulitzer Prizewinning novel, The Road. They made a movie of it, which could not touch the true horror of the book, but here's the trailer ...



I don't know why people are now so sanguine about nuclear, whether it's power plants or doomsday bombs, but I will be forever worried about it all. And I will be forever disgusted by the attitude of the people who plow ahead with this stuff, whether it's nuclear or AI, not caring about the dangers to the rest of us but only the money and accolades they will get.

My favorite ...

Blue Öyster Cult song: Burnin' for You, 1981 ...

Ezra Klein - the Puritan work ethic

Ezra Klein has an interview with a writer whose new book is about how difficult it is to access government programs that are ideally meant to help the poor, the disabled, the sick, etc. The writer is Annie Lowrey who works at The Atlantic, and who also happens to be his wife.

As someone who has been legally deemed "disabled" since just after college and who has struggled financially ever since, I found this subject depressingly familiar.

I think the sad truth about our country is that most people, including the government ... Reoublican and Democrat ... seem to deeply believe that everyone should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, no matter what deficits they have to work with. And so even when the government does help those people, it makes sureI to punish them ... you know, to teach them a lesson and make sure they pay their pound of flesh to get that help.

Speaking of the dead

In a post yesterday about Hakeem Jeffries meeting secretly with Jared Kushner, I advised Jeffries to remember the people who are now dead because of this administration's policies.

Saw in the news this morning that the family of one of those people is speaking up ...

Jared and Hakeem?

A "secret" meeting with Jared. And you wonder why Dem voters are turning to the DSA? Think of what the Trump administration has orchestrated. Think of the dead people.

Gadi Eisenkot

Netanyahu Rival Eisenkot Vows No Palestinian State: 'Not Now, Not in Next Government'

Gadi Eisenkot, a leading opposition candidate, pledged that no Palestinian state would be established if his party wins October's Knesset election, after United Arab List Chairman Mansour Abbas called Saturday for an end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the establishment of a Palestinian state ...

For those who think Netanyahu is the source of all evil. Eisenkot is generally thought to be less conservative than Netanyahu, but there is no one in Israeli politics after Oct 7 who will push for a two state solution.

Big Bend National Park

Big Bend National Park ...

Another natural wonder being devastated by the Trump administration.

The Roadless Rule

Always by mom's side 💕#DidYouKnow when feeling threatened, peccaries clash their teeth together as a warning.

📸: Jeff R Clow#peccaries #wildlife pic.twitter.com/TzEsbyLk0q

— Animal Planet (@AnimalPlanet) August 22, 2026

The world would be a much poorer place without all the creatures and their habitats.

I don't know if people are aware, or if they even care, but the Trump administration is working tirelessly every day to doom animals and their homes, and of course, to make a buck off of it - I guess the Oval office needs more gold trinkets.

Here's one of the latest examples in the news ...

Feds Moving at Full Throttle to Reverse Roadless Rule Protecting National Forests




It's hard to keep up with all the damage the Trump administration is doing in every sector of our lives. But we have to try if we want there to be anything left by the time they are done.

This stinks

The Pentagon and Trump should be ashamed of trying to strip this honor from a WWII veteran.

Natalie Harp, cont'd

We're learning more about Natalie Harp.



This isn't the first time people have been concerned about the outsized influence of a nutty aide on their political leader - an extreme case would be Rasputin - and it's not bizarre that Jon Ossoff would bring up Natalie Harp.

David at the Grand Canyon

David Muir of ABC News visits the Grand Canyon.

Ezra Klein: AI

At some point in the early twenty-first century, all of mankind was united in celebration. We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AI. - The Matrix

On August 2 I had a post about AI midels running amuck ... AI off the leash ... that featured an interview with Helen Toner. Here Ezra has a longer interview with her to discuss the worries about AI.

What's interesting is that everyone admits there is a danger. They admit that we don't really know what the AI agents are doing on their own time, and that it's probably not good. But no company is willing to even slow down, much less stop. "Someone will do it so it should be us" "Yes, things might go catastrophically wrong, but they may also lead to utopia".

Read more about P(doom) and technological singularity.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.)

He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace, gifted by the Emir of Qatar.

The speech that got everyone's attention.

Natalie Harp

George, Ringo, and Badfinger

This song, It Don't Come Easy, had a somewhat tortured beginning. Basically, the Beatles were broken up and all were doing their own things. Ringo got some help from George to write/record a new song for himself.

The video above is a demo by George, with him singing instead of Ringo, and doing guitar. Two of the guys from Badfinger sang background (sadly, the two guys who later took their own lives). On the demo you can hear them singing "Hare Krishna" for George but later Ringo wanted it removed.

Ritchie Torres

Listening to an interesting talk between Haviv and Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York. It is from a year ago, but it mentions the now much worse problem the Democratic party has with the Democratic Socialists of America, as well as the deteriorating attitude of many Deemocratic lawmakers towards Israel.

Hakeem Jeffries on Meet the Press

Five years of Taliban rule

- Afghan women in 1927

A rare inside look at the collapse of women’s rights under the Taliban

Now that the US is all chummy with so many Middle Eastern countries, we seem to have forgotten, or we just don't care, that the lives of women in many of these counties is less than ideal.

Take Egypt, for instance. Did you know that more than 80% of women in Egypt experience genital mutilation?

Possum

Nails on fleek 💅🐾

📸: Jurgen & Christine Sohns#opossum #animal #wildlife pic.twitter.com/PeyZ9gMZvL

— Animal Planet (@AnimalPlanet) August 15, 2026

Two baby possums have been coming on the porch late each night to eat the leftover cat food. They are so tiny and cute! They are pretty used to me now and will come out if I stay quiet. The cats are totally uninterested in them. Here's a photo of a baby possum with Vicky the cat from years ago ...