East Wing gone; ballroom grift; ICE and National Guard hijinks; A.I. aiyeee!; Florida folk return; Late Night: NBA scandal, East Wing, beef prices, "cobots".
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—Kevin G. Barkes
White House East Wing demolished as Trump moves forward with ballroom construction, AP photos show.
How presidents have changed the White House — and how Trump’s ballroom is different.
Trump keeps attacking Americans. Why does he get away with it? Republicans can insult half the country without consequence. Democrats say “deplorables” once and never hear the end of it.
Trump’s weird claims about grocery prices are the most self-defeating of his lies.
The president can’t simply wave his hand and Jedi mind-trick consumers into believing the cost of groceries is falling, but he’s giving it a try.Mike Johnson flails after being faced with Trump’s shutdown comments. Johnson was caught by his own words Wednesday night after CNN’s Kaitlan Collins called out Republicans for some shutdown hypocrisy.
More military families turning to food banks as government shutdown wears on.
Trump ‘retired’ a database tracking the most expensive weather disasters. Now it’s back — and finding over $100B in losses.
ICE and National Guard hijinks:
Pelosi: California cops “may arrest” ICE agents if they violate California law. “While the President may enjoy absolute immunity courtesy of his rogue Supreme Court, those who operate under his orders do not. Our state and local authorities may arrest federal agents if they break California law — and if they are convicted, the President cannot pardon them.”
Pregnant women describe miscarrying and bleeding out while in ICE custody. The ACLU and other groups are pressing for ICE to identify and release all pregnant women in custody and to stop detaining anyone known to be pregnant, postpartum or nursing.
DC police detained man for protesting a National Guard patrol with Darth Vader’s “Imperial March”, lawsuit says.
Illinois is targeting immigration officials who try to hide their license plates. “Swapping out license plates or tampering with them to avoid or conceal detection is illegal, unsafe and will not be tolerated in Illinois,”
A.I.- yi - yi -yi:
StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson: Deepfakes and the War on Truth; cybercrime in the age of AI. Is there anything real left on the internet? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly explore deepfakes, scams, and cybercrime with the Director of Threat Research at Bitdefender, Bogdan Botezatu. (Video)
Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants routinely misrepresent news content 45% of the time, no matter which language, territory, or AI platform is tested. Well, at least it’s consistent.
Hundreds of public figures, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Virgin’s Richard Branson urge AI ‘superintelligence’ ban. Before becoming CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman wrote in a 2015 blog post that “development of superhuman machine intelligence (SMI) is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity.” So…
Meta cutting 600 AI jobs even as it continues to hire more for its superintelligence lab.
What is Sora slop for, exactly? “Sora is a ghoulish puppet show, and exploring it feels like wandering around an empty funfair.”
[KGB: And, personally, I no longer look at any videos on Facebook.]Let’s go full foil-hat conspiracy: The dead Internet theory is a conspiracy theory which asserts that since around 2016 the Internet has consisted mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content manipulated by algorithmic curation, as part of a coordinated and intentional effort to control the population and minimize organic human activity.
Florida!
‘Blow that f***** school up:’ Florida mom accused of threatening to bomb school.
‘This isn’t going to look good’: Florida man beat girlfriend to death because she gave his stuff away, police say. He also allegedly did an internet search that asked: “If I performed CPR over five hours ago, why isn’t it working” before going to meet with his parole officer.
Florida man claiming to be Trump employee threatens to kill police officer after hit-and-run arrest.
Florida man with ‘no drugs allowed on the premises’ sign on home arrested on drug trafficking charges.
Late Night:
Why is there a Late Night section? Because late night comedians, unfettered by institutional journalistic and corporate inhibitions, often provide observations and analysis that are more thorough and comprehensive than network or cable news. And the humor helps.
FBI charges NBA stars in gambling scheme and Trump touts ballroom post-East Wing demo | The Daily Show (Video)
White House blocks views of East Wing demolition | Beef price chaos | The cobots are coming - Stephen Colbert (Video)
Officials urge Trump to stop White House demolition amid shocking ballroom project: A Closer Look- Seth Meyers (Video)
Jimmy Kimmel is dark this week.
Keep scrolling down. Lots of interesting stuff in On This Day, Birthdays, and Deaths.
Quote of the Day:
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
--Stephen Covey (Wikipedia link)
(More Stephen Covey quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Today’s holidays:
40-Hour Work Week Day, Black Thursday, Food Day, Champagne Day, International Day of Diplomats, National Bologna Day, National Crazy Day, National Good & Plenty Day, National Pharmacy Buyer Day, Take Back Your Time Day, United Nations Day, World Development Information Day, World Polio Day, and World Tripe Day.
Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA.
(Not currently updating due to government shutdown.)
On This Day:
2018 – The world’s longest sea crossing, the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge, opened for public traffic.
2014 – The China National Space Administration launched an experimental lunar mission, Chang’e 5-T1, which looped behind the Moon and returned to Earth.
2008 – “Bloody Friday“ - Many of the world’s stock exchanges experienced the worst declines in their histories, with drops of around 10% in most indices.
2005 – Hurricane Wilma made landfall in Florida, resulting in 35 direct and 26 indirect fatalities and causing $20.6B USD in damage.
2003 –The Concorde supersonic airliner made its last commercial flight.
1998 – Deep Space 1 was launched to explore the asteroid belt and test new spacecraft technologies.
1975 – In Iceland, 90% of women took part in a national strike, refusing to work in protest of gender inequality.
1962 – James Brown recorded the breakthrough “Live at the Apollo” album.
1962 – The film “The Manchurian Candidate” was released. (Video)
1954 – US President Dwight D. Eisenhower pledged United States support to South Vietnam.
1951 – President Truman declared war with Germany was officially over.
1949 – The cornerstone of the United Nations Headquarters was laid.
1946 – A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket took the first photograph of Earth from outer space.
1945 – The United Nations Charter was ratified.
1931 – The George Washington Bridge opened to public traffic over the Hudson River.
1929 – “Black Thursday“ on the New York Stock Exchange.
1926 – Harry Houdini‘s performed for the last time at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit.
1921 – The body of the first American “Unknown Soldier” was selected.
1917 – World War I: Italy suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Caporetto on the Austro-Italian front.
1902 – Guatemala’s Santa María volcano begins to erupt, becoming the third-largest eruption of the 20th century.
1901 – On her 63rd birthday, Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
1861 – The first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States is completed.
(For comprehensive lists of the day’s historical events, check here, here, and here.)
Some Birthdays:
1989 – PewDiePie, Swedish YouTuber
1986 – Drake, Canadian rapper and actor
1980 – Zac Posen, American fashion designer
1980 – Monica, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1960 – BD Wong, American actor
1947 – Kevin Kline, American actor and singer
1940 – Martin Campbell, New Zealand director and producer
1939 – F. Murray Abraham, American actor
1932 – Stephen Covey, American author and educator (died 2012)
1930 – The Big Bopper, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1959)
1925 – Al Feldstein, American author and illustrator (died 2014)
1915 – Bob Kane, American author and illustrator, Batman creator (died 1998)
1904 – Moss Hart, American director and playwright (died 1961)
1903 – Melvin Purvis, American FBI agent (died 1960)
1838 – Annie Edson Taylor, American stuntwoman and educator, first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel. (died 1921)
(A more complete list of today’s birthdays.)
Some Deaths:
2024 – Jeri Taylor, American screenwriter (born 1938)
2022 – Leslie Jordan, American actor, writer, and singer (born 1955)
2017 – Fats Domino, American pianist and singer-songwriter (born 1928)
2017 – Robert Guillaume, American actor (born 1927)
2016 – Bobby Vee, American pop singer (born 1943)
2015 – Maureen O’Hara, Irish-American actress and singer (born 1920)
2014 – Marcia Strassman, American actress and singer (born 1948)
2010 – Mike Esposito, American author and illustrator (born 1927)
2005 – Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist (born 1913)
1997 – Don Messick, American voice actor (Scooby-Doo) and singer (born 1926)
1994 – Raul Julia, Puerto Rican-American actor and singer (born 1940)
1991 – Gene Roddenberry, American captain, screenwriter, and producer, created Star Trek (born 1921)
1972 – Jackie Robinson, American baseball player and sportscaster (born 1919)
1944 – Louis Renault, French engineer and businessman, co-founded the Renault Company (born 1877)
1935 – Dutch Schultz, American mob boss (born 1902)
1852 – Daniel Webster, American lawyer and politician (born 1782)
1601 – Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer and alchemist (born 1546)
1537 – Jane Seymour, English queen and wife of Henry VIII of England (born c. 1508)
(A more complete list of today’s deaths.)
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Couldn't agree more. This piece truely nails the hypocrisy and sheer absurdity we're seeing. It's disheartening how some things just keep happening.