Creepy AI, empty ports, and word salad
It's National Crêpe Suzette Day!
KGB Report provides observations by and for the vaguely disenchanted. You’ll get a smile or two, maybe something outrageous, but always deep background about today’s date: information, essential and otherwise, for the day ahead.
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Knee Deep in the Hoopla
The Trump/Musk firehose of folly continues, and it’s impossible to review all but the most egregious outrages here. The Associated Press, NBC, Aljazeera, and The Guardian are my picks for keeping up to date. Check out one or two, take a look, and come back here when you’ve had enough.
Trump's rant about dolls and strollers exposes MAGA's hypocrisy on economy, health care: A Closer Look (Video)
Trump on upholding the Constitution: "I don't know" | The Daily Show (Video)
Don’t look at stock markets. Look at the ports. A drop in maritime traffic suggests that the worst is yet to come. (Gift Article)
Cognitive decline? Trump spews a word salad to explain Alcatraz idea. Obviously this is a well-conceived plan by a very stable genius.
The opposite of déjà vu is jamais vu, and it's even more weird.
Zuckerberg’s new Meta AI app gets personal in a very creepy way. Mark Zuckerberg has a new way to invade your privacy: a creepier version of ChatGPT. It remembers everything, even what you might not want it to.
A woman who disappeared from Wisconsin more than six decades ago has been found safe.
Shirt of the day (click on image)
KGB Quote of the Day:
"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant."
--Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (Wikipedia link)
(More Maximilien Robespierre quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Among other things, today is- in no particular order of importance-
KGB REPORT STUFF! (Click on link) On This Day:
1527 – Spanish and German troops sacked Rome; the end of the Italian Renaissance.
1835 – James Gordon Bennett, Sr. published the first issue of the New York Herald.
1837 - US blacksmith John Deere invented the first steel plow in Grand Detour, Illinois.
1840 – The Penny Black postage stamp became valid for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1851- Linus Yale Jr. patented the Yale cylinder lock.
1882 – The United States Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.
1889 – The Eiffel Tower officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.
1910 – George V became King of Great Britain, Ireland, and many overseas territories, on the death of his father, Edward VII.
1915 – Babe Ruth, then a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, hit his first major league home run.
1935 – New Deal: Under the authority of the newly-enacted Federal Emergency Relief Administration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 7034 to create the Works Progress Administration.
1937 – Hindenburg disaster: The German zeppelin Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. (Video)
1940 – John Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.
1941 – At California's March Field, Bob Hope performed his first USO show. (Video)
1942 – World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese.
1949 – EDSAC, the first practical electronic digital stored-program computer, ran its first operation. (Video)
1954 – Roger Bannister became the first person to run the mile in under four minutes. (Video)
1955 - West Germany joined NATO.
1957 - Last original episode of "I Love Lucy" broadcast on CBS-TV. (Video)
1957 - Pulitzer Prize for Biography awarded to John F. Kennedy for "Profiles in Courage".
1960 - Civil Rights Act of 1960 was enacted.
1968 - Columbia Records released "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison", the first live album by American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, recorded in January, 1968. (Video)
1983 – The Hitler Diaries were revealed as a hoax after being examined by new experts.
1987 - American televangelist Jim Bakker dismissed as Assemblies of God minister after revelations of an alleged rape of a church secretary and misuse of church funds to buy her silence.
1994 – Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand officiated at the opening of the Channel Tunnel. (Video)
1994 - Paula Jones accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.
1998 – Steve Jobs unveiled the first iMac. (Video)
2004 – The final episode of the television sitcom Friends was aired. (Video)
2010 – In just 36 minutes, the Dow-Jones average plunged nearly 1,000 points in what is known as the 2010 Flash Crash.
2023 – The coronation of Charles III and Camilla as King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms is held in Westminster Abbey, London.
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Check out the KGB Quotation Database: over 52,500 searchable quotations!
Quotes by or about persons born on this date (Click on link after name for quotes):
1856 – Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst (d. 1939)
1915 – Orson Welles, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1985) (Video: Orson Welles on The Dick Cavett Show (1970))
1915 – Theodore H. White, American historian, journalist, and author (d. 1986)
Other birthdays:
1868 – Gaston Leroux, French journalist and author (d. 1927)
1895 – Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor (d. 1926)
1903 – Toots Shor, American businessman, founded Toots Shor's Restaurant (d. 1977)
1913 – Stewart Granger, English-American actor (d. 1993)
1931 – Willie Mays, American baseball player and coach (d. 2024) (Video: “The Catch”)
1945 – Bob Seger, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Video)
1953 – Tony Blair, British politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1955 – Tom Bergeron, American television host
1961 – George Clooney, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
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