Stéphane Dalbera: Grace Hopper a.k.a. The Final Boss of Technological Fix Fantasy
The creation of the legendary Rear Admiral Grace Hopper’s COBOL shattered many technological solutionist dreams built on the “just do it” mentality, as it came to be seen as a relic of a bygone era.
It’s undoubtedly the final boss of numerous illusions, with fortunes poured into efforts to defeat it worldwide, yet yielding dismal results.
And now, the inimitable Musk takes center stage, embarking on the audacious mission of migrating one of the U.S. government’s most complex applications in a matter of months.
In the hierarchy of delusional fantasies, this is likely only a notch below the idea of nuking Mars for terraforming.
[Rear Admiral Grace Hopper has largely been “DEI’d” from defense.gov, but there are still a few remaining pages for her.]
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News Nation: Democrats ramp up town halls in GOP districts
House Democrats are ramping up their aggressive strategy of conducting town halls in Republican-held districts, vying to exploit the GOP’s advised moratorium on the events to make inroads with frustrated voters, pick up battleground seats, and flip control of the House in next year’s midterms.A number of Democrats who ventured this month into GOP territory said they liked what they saw: anxious voters who are up in arms over both President Trump’s dismantling of the federal government and the reluctance of the majority Republicans to provide a check on executive power.
Encouraged by their experiences, Democrats say they not only intend to return to those battleground districts, they’re also eyeing plans to broaden their range in the weeks and months to come. The Democrats’ campaign arms, in some cases, are helping to coordinate the effort.
(more…)NY Times: A Competitive Race for Mike Waltz’s Seat Rattles Republicans
Democrats are hoping to do better in Florida’s Sixth District than they did in November, when President Trump won it by 30 points.
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Robert Reich: Sunday Thought
The past week has been another horror show, and I share your anxiety and sleeplessness.But the past week also reveals the utter incompetence of Trump and his regime.
Even The Wall Street Journal criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for trying to dismiss “Signalgate” as a hoax, calls Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff “out of his depth in dealing with world crises,” and condemns the administration for thinking “it can bully its way through anything by shouting Fake News.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) instructs the administration to “own it and fix it.”
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Wired: Far-Right Influencers Are Hosting a $10K-per-Person Matchmaking Weekend to Repopulate the Earth
The Natal Conference, which costs up to $10,000 to attend, features multiple matchmaking strategy sessions and onsite ministers so attendees can get married, WIRED has learned.
Organizers behind a pronatalist conference with far-right ties in Austin, Texas, this weekend have set up matchmaking events for attendees that include the option of getting married onsite as part of their greater effort to repopulate the world, WIRED has learned.
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Timothy Snyder: Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow
Key selections from On Tyranny, for viewing and sharing
Here is my best guidance for action, rendered beautifully by the great John Lithgow. I first published these lessons more than eight years ago, in late 2016. They open the twenty chapters of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Millions of you, around the world, have put these lessons to good use; it has been humbling to learn how from courageous and creative dissenters, protestors, and oppositionists. I am delighted to have this special chance now to share the lessons again. I was honored when John, a wise advocate for civil discourse and civic engagement, volunteered to read them aloud.Above is his film. Below is the text, excerpted from the book. Do share this.
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Bulwark: When ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Actually Means the Opposite
As part of a ‘painful period’ of cuts, Trump and RFK Jr. plan on dismantling the agency that focuses on substance abuse.
ONE OF THE BIGGEST ADVANCES in public health from the last few years is one that you’ve probably never heard about—and one that now may be in jeopardy thanks to the Trump administration.I’m talking about a dramatic turnaround in America’s opioid crisis, the epidemic that began in the late 1990s with an explosion in the use of addictive prescription painkillers, and then got even worse with a surge in the use of heroin and its synthetic alternative, fentanyl. The effects have left families, communities, and in some cases whole regions of the country reeling, and more than 700,000 Americans dead from overdoses.
But recently the death rate from overdoses has started to fall. In the latest twelve-month period that the official data captures, the decline has been particularly steep: 24 percent.
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BBC: Republicans calls for probe of Trump officials’ Signal chat grow
Republican calls to investigate a group chat in which White House national security officials shared sensitive military information have intensified, with Oklahoma Senator James Lankford saying an inquiry would be “entirely appropriate”.
Lankford stopped short of calling on officials to resign when speaking to CNN on Sunday, but joined other Republicans who have broken with US President Donald Trump over the chat.
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BBC Mundo: “Paga por tus desperdicios”: cómo Corea del Sur logra reciclar el 97% de sus residuos de alimentos
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Politico: Education Department halts final payouts of federal pandemic relief funds
The Education Department halted the final payouts of federal Covid relief aid to state governments and school districts on Friday, in an abrupt reversal of a Biden administration initiative that let local officials request extended deadlines to spend billions of dollars.
A department spokesperson could not specify how much money might be at stake late Friday. But the move echoes a decision earlier this week by President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services to pull back Covid relief funds to states for addressing mental health.
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NY Times: What Ocasio-Cortez Wants for the Democrats
It might surprise some people that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, American politics’ most dynamic progressive icon, wishes Democrats would stop thinking “that the power struggle within the party is between progressives and moderates,” as she told me recently.“Whether it’s advisers or the consultant class, they are losing elections because of it,” she said.
Instead, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez believes her party can come together around fighting for the little guy and gal, a core value she insists does not belong to any particular ideological camp — or at least shouldn’t. “I believe economic populism is the path forward,” she said, a message she has taken on the road recently with Senator Bernie Sanders, at joint rallies on his Fighting Oligarchy tour that are the closest thing to an organized, energized bounce-back effort within the Democratic Party since Republicans won full control of Washington in November.
Can Democrats become the party of the working class again? Can economic populism unite progressives and moderates? Can a Democrat win in a swing district or state on a populist platform? Ms. Ocasio-Cortez thinks so. But whether she’s right or not, the important thing for Democrats at this early stage of the Trump-wilderness period is that she is putting big ideas and arguments on the table. There’s not enough of that in the party right now.
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NY Times: Key Takeaways From America’s Secret Military Partnership With Ukraine
An investigation by The New York Times has revealed that America was woven into the war far more than previously known.
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Ars Technica: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado
Indiana University quietly removes profile of tenured professor and refuses to say why.
(more…)Indiana Daily Student: FBI searches two homes belonging to IU Luddy professor and library analyst
United States Disappeared Tracker
