MrG's Blog & Notes

* This is an archive of my own blog and online notes, with weekly entries collected by month. The current week in stand-alone format is available here. Feel free to CONTACT ME if so inclined.

[MON 07 JUL 25] THE WEEK THAT WAS 27

DAYLOG MON 30 JUN 25: As discussed in an article by one Nicholas Bagley, a legal analytical, in THE ATLANTIC ("The Supreme Court Put Nationwide Injunctions to the Torch" 28 June 25), there's been a big fuss over SCOTUS shooting down "nationwide injunctions" by the Federal judiciary, meaning that a Federal subordinate court can issue a judgement that not only covers the plaintiffs, but everyone else as well. SCOTUS has now judged they can only cover the plaintiffs.

OK, some background. Injunctions by the Federal judiciary covering nonparties along with plaintiffs are not new, but they were unusual until recently. Broad injunctions started to become more common in the 1960s, with a clear tick upward from the Obama Administration.

Nationwide injunctions were consistently invoked against the Biden Administration's executive actions, for example blocking student debt relief and online content moderation efforts. The judgements were typically handed down by lower Federal courts in Texas controlled by far-Right judges -- such courts being selected by plaintiffs through "forum shopping". Not surprisingly, given Donald Trump's willingness to push the rules as far as possible, nationwide injunctions have been common on his watch, until now.

The bottom line is that nationwide injunctions were, historically, not the norm. They became one, granting SCOTUS-level authority to Federal judges low on the totem pole. The only problem with SCOTUS curtailing the practice is that they didn't do it on Biden's watch.

The difficulty with the SCOTUS decision is that, as noted, Trump recklessly assaults well-established rights -- in this case, trying to rewrite the 14th Amendment's clause saying, without qualification, that anyone born in the USA is an American citizen, period. That's an obstacle to the Trump Gangsters.

However, general relief hasn't been completely eliminated. In some cases, granting relief to the plaintiffs automatically shuts down the infringement for everyone. It is also possible to file a class action suit, at least with a number of qualifications, and SCOTUS saying a class-wide injunction can be secured at the outset of proceedings.

Similarly, plaintiffs can have "associational standing", meaning everyone in a (national) association is covered -- and also, national injunctions are still available under the "Administrative Procedures Act (APA)", though that's too much to talk about here. In any case, the Trump attack on birthright citizenship is so blatantly unconstitutional that it is very unlikely to fly under any circumstances.

DAYLOG TUE 01 JUL 25: The NO KINGS protests in the USA in June were highly successful, with roughly 5 million people taking part -- that being presumably a record for a US national protest. Of course, the question remains of whether nonviolent protests actually accomplish anything.

I discussed that here back in April, with a recent article in THE NEW YORK TIMES ("Only Nonviolence Will Beat Trump" by Omar Wasow & Robb Willer, 17 June 2025) underlining that premise: nonviolent resistance isn't guaranteed to work, but violent resistance is worse off. Violent resistance turns off the public, with a violent resistance movement inevitably being much smaller than a nonviolent resistance movement. State violence against a nonviolent movement enhances public support, as well as inspiring sympathy within the government.

On the other side of the coin, public demonstrations that turn violent reduce public support. It gets tricky, because it's hard to ensure no violence in a big public demonstration, all the more so because the opposition may attack the demonstrators -- but it helps if the movement leadership publicly emphasizes nonviolence, and repudiates violent actors.

* Changing topics, an article from FUTURISM ("Something Hilarious Happens When Potential Customers See That a Product Has AI Features", 1 July 2025), a WALL STREET JOURNAL article reported on a survey that shows customers are turned off by products promoted as having with "AI" features.

That makes total sense, since a lot of artificial intelligence tech is oversold, not working anywhere near as well as promoted. Add to that, consumers also realize that the "AI" features being played up may not be really AI. Dogan Gursoy of Washington State University, one of the authors of the survey, says: "Consumers simply see fewer compelling benefits ... the specific advantages of AI must be obvious and worthwhile to justify the investment."

The survey showed that the majority of consumers didn't care one way or another, but more of the rest said they disliked "AI" than said they liked it. Apparently, "AI" wasn't a problem in previous years; people are just getting fed up.

DAYLOG WED 02 JUL 25: During June, the "Austrian World Summit (AWS)" on climate change was held in Vienna -- the AWS being the creation of Arnold Schwarzenegger, once governor of California among other significant things, and held annually since 2017.

Climate change is a forbidden topic to the US government these days, but as Arnold told the AWS: "Stop whining. Whining doesn't change anything. Whining doesn't build anything. ... I know that sometimes politicians in Washington DC or many other capitals of the world won't always agree with everything that we do and that we believe in. ... The world will always have problems and leaders who don't agree with us, or are just terrible leaders. We have seen it over and over again throughout history, but sometimes problems need to be solved by the people."

Arnold pointed to useful actions such as municipalities buying electric city buses, businesses working to reduce carbon emissions, and schools installing rooftop solar panels. During George W. Bush's administration, the Environmental Protection Agency objected to California's strict emission standards. Arnold said: "We sued the government. We took the fight from court to court to court." California won.

Arnold concluded: "You don't need to be the president to be a hero. You just need to care and get off your butts and get to work."

* That was good to hear, because for the moment the Trump Gang is on a rampage, taking an axe to responsible government. It's discouraging but no surprise, and belaboring it is wearying: it's not news, everyone with at least half a brain knows what's going on.

Yeah, we're stuck with it for the time being, but Trump will not last forever -- or even that much longer, since he's in obvious physical and mental decline, starting out from a low level. To be sure, the Republicans are backing Trump, but Trump voters don't really like the GOP, and the GOP will not last much longer than he does. American fascism is on the road to ruin, it's just a question of when the fall happens. In the meantime, we lay the groundwork for what comes after it.

DAYLOG THU 03 JUL 25: Trump's "Big Ugly Bill" is going down to the wire in the House of Representatives, with Hakeem Jeffries conducting a marathon speech to try to delay the vote. It will be a miracle if it doesn't pass.

The bill, as everyone who is paying attention knows, kicks 17 million Americans off Medicaid (killing a fair number of them by doing so), chokes off solar energy funding, turns bullying ICE into a gruesome giant, and racks up the deficit. It's all very discouraging.

It is not pleasant to be scared and creeped out by the Trump Gangsters every day, as I currently am. The interesting thing is: it's not going away, but I'm getting used to it. Conditions have driven a change in my own mindset -- which was partly coming due to age to begin with, but was accelerated by the arrival of Trump 2.0. It renders down to the question that comes up every now and then: What am I doing with my life?

That question turns out to have a very good answer: I'm focused on what can be done to get rid of the Trump Gangsters, and get the USA back on the good road. Works for me -- I can only do little things, but there are tens of millions of Americans doing the same.

As I've said before, the Trump Gangsters are very scary, but also very inept and dimwitted. I'm not thinking they're as big and bad as they pretend to be, and doubt they have any staying power. They're reliant on a demented criminal and a fading demographic. The Dems had worries about young guys for Trump, thinking that the Dems needed to get an equivalent to Joe Rogan, who supposedly had a lot of clout with young men. That appears to have been an illusion. "Tim Onion" -- Ben Collins of THE ONION -- commented on BlueSky: "The people I actually know, in real life, who listen to Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson are 45 and think they're 22, which explains a lot of things." Rogan, not incidentally, is 57.

Yeah, what we're dealing with now will come to an end, very possibly a decisive end. We can take them down. In the meantime, we keep on pushing.

DAYLOG FRI 04 JUL 25: Trump's "Big Ugly Bill" passed, as expected -- the only news in the event being that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries set a record for a House filibuster, talking for 9 hours. Jeffries wanted to push back on the public buzz that the Dems weren't tough enough in standing up to Trump and the Republicans. To be sure, he was only delaying the inevitable -- but these days, the Dems can't afford to pass up any chance to make "good trouble".

Also to be sure, the faction on BlueSky that sees their first priority as taking shots at Dems for not stopping GOP crimes kept on shooting, but that's to be expected. Who these people actually are, I do not know, but it's clear they're not really on our side.

In any case, we're stuck with the bad for some number of years. In the meantime, other countries are issuing travel advisories, telling their people not to go to the USA. I'll say the same: Don't come here, it's not a good idea. Tourism to the USA appears to be tanking. Things will be fixed here, but not soon.

[MON 14 JUL 25] THE WEEK THAT WAS 28

DAYLOG MON 07 JUL 25: Elon Musk has been distressed that his Grok chatbot, used on Xitter, is too "woke" -- too often giving legit answers on subjects such as climate change, trans rights, voter fraud, and so on. Of course, the Musk Rat had to fix that.

Apparently the fix is in now, since Grok is spewing antisemitic rhetoric, for example saying Hollywood is dominated by "da Jooz" and spreads "anti-White" propaganda. I won't detail what, lest BlueSky think I'm a troll and boot me out. Alas for the Musk Rat, Grok is still giving good answers, for example saying there is no such thing as "white genocide". It should not be too hard to get Grok to contradict its nonsensical replies by asking just the right questions.

Where does this go? I don't know. It would seem that deliberately brain-damaging a chatbot would not be a winner -- but there's the ugly possibility of Grok-generated trash corrupting other chatbots. Eh, more likely they'll get improved filters instead.

* In the meantime, the Musk Rat is indignant over Trump's Big Ugly Bill, it seems because it skyrockets the budget deficit and bashes renewable energy. The Musk Rat has announced the formation of an "America Party" in response. And where will that go? Again, I don't know, but it doesn't sound like a winner either. Trump is denouncing it, but of course he would. Incidentally, the Musk Rat calls himself a "centrist" in this context. He really doesn't have a clue.

* In late-breaking news, an alliance of six medical associations has filed suit in Federal court against Robert F. Kennedy JR and his HHS, the suit claiming RFK-Q's anti-vaccine actions at HHS are scientific nonsense and dangerous to public health.

Yet again, it's hard to know where this goes; we just don't have precedent. I had been thinking state public health agencies (& AGs) would step up -- but this is better, the medical associations are non-political. More lawsuits coming? We'll see.

DAYLOG TUE 08 JUL 25: Somebody tipped me off to an essay on Substack by one "Lady Libertie" ("The Black Pill Society Is Coming for Your Comments Section", 18 June 2025), describing the sneaky style of trolling now found on social media. In online places like Substack & BlueSky, crude far-Right trolling doesn't work well, so the push is to instead distribute "black pills" of gloom, defeatism, and despair.

The BP society has a number of different players. There are obvious bots who endlessly spam comments such as: "protests don't accomplish anything" -- or: "it's too late to do anything about it". Bots are recognizable because they don't pay attention to replies. Along with the bots, we get trolls who seem to be real humans, though it's hard to say in the age of AI trollbots. Some do engage but plays devil's advocate, doing everything to sow confusion and create arguments. Other trolls play at being resistance fighters, but conclude: GAME OVER. Still others pretend to be on the Left, but spend all their time attacking Dems -- suggesting they're not really on our side. There are also fake anarchists playing the same game.

What to say in reply? If one must reply, call them out, hit them with the facts, tell them the game is not close to over. Better to not engage -- but on the other side of the coin, best to cultivate intelligent posters with LIKEs and friendly replies. Lady Libertie concluded: "[Hope Is Not Naive -- It's Strategy] The black pill is ... designed to take you out of the fight without ever raising a weapon. So don't swallow it. ... Keep the light on. Fascism thrives in silence. We don't do silence."

* The essay didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but it's good to find out that I'm far from the only one who's got wise to the trolls. I get quicker to block them all the time, giving them ever less benefit of the doubt.

Incidentally, in my efforts to get more followers, I'm cooking up little placards to go along with my postings. The one for this item of course needed a picture of black pills, but I didn't want to take my chances on copyright infringements. So ... I looked around for an AI image generator site that could give me simple artworks for free, and found NightCafe. I get a daily ration of points for generating artworks -- though it makes me jump through some confusing games, in some cases literally, to get there. I don't much like AI art -- I'll just do plain, simple stuff, replacements for Shutterstock images so I don't get into copyright trouble.

DAYLOG WED 09 JUL 25: Back in April, one Joshua Aaron released the "ICEblock" app for iPhones, the app allowing people to anonymously report the presence of ICE agents, with users in the vicinity then tipped off. It's got like about a quarter-million users so far.

The Trump Gangsters want to bust Aaron, claiming the app is illegal -- and even want to go after CNN for reporting on it. The government clearly doesn't have much of a case; will they actually try to prosecute, and will it go anywhere if they do? We'll see.

* As discussed in an article from ARSTECHNICA ("Meta's 'AI superintelligence' effort sounds just like its failed 'metaverse'" by Kyle Orland, 3 July 2025) Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now promoting an "AI superintelligence" effort, with the company paying big money to recruit AI researchers. Zuckerberg believes that AI will be transformational -- for example, providing videos that users can interact with.

Obviously, yeah, AI is a major enabling technology, but we've been here before. Back in 2021, Zuckerberg was promoting a virtual-reality "metaverse", becoming so enthusiastic that he downgraded the significance of Facebook, reducing it to a player in the "Meta" system. VR hasn't gone away, but it's ended up as much more a niche technology than a transformational one. Less flashy tech still worked, games for example, and most people were happy. Although Zuckerberg pumped billions into VR, it didn't pay off, & the Metaverse was more or less abandoned -- though the "Meta" company name persists as a reminder of what didn't happen.

So what happens with Meta AI? It won't die either, but I'm thinking we won't see a huge "superintelligent" jump in the technology, we'll just see a wider spread of low-key applications. Eventually, we'll take AI for granted, & we won't make a big fuss about it.

* A recent poll asked if Trump should have the right to revoke the citzenship of naturalized citizens: 70% said NO, 25% said YES. One reply was: "Only 70%?" I politely commented back, saying that the reality is that 25% of the population is mean, bigoted, and ignorant. I added that I would prefer it were less myself, but I wasn't surprised at 25%. The number was actually encouraging: more than twice as many people said NO than said YES, or didn't care. They're outnumbered by more than 2:1, meaning totally defeated.

We've learned to be cautious about saying what Trump can and cannot do, but I don't think he'll be able to revoke naturalized citizenship, at least without real cause, or birthright citizenship -- or do much about ICEblock. The Trump Gang pretends to be scarier than it actually is.

DAYLOG THU 10 JUL 25: As discussed in an article from ARSTECHNICA ("Everything tech giants will hate about the EU's new AI rules" by Ashley Belanger, 10 July 2025), the EU is now gradually phasing in its new regulatory "AI Act" which will start going into effect in August, with full implementation in August 2026. The act, not surprisingly, focuses on copyright protections, transparency, and public safety.

It was put together with inputs from the AI industry -- but the AI industry is not all that happy, for example because the act discourages piracy of copyrighted materials, restricts AI web crawlers, says paywalls can't be ignored, and requires companies to be open about how they obtained their training data. In addition, the act requires disclosure of AI energy use and recommends security measures. Once fully operational, the act would allow AI models in violation to be yanked off the market, and would impose substantial fines on violators.

* Regarding the failure of Elon the Musk Rat's tweaked Grok chatbot: apparently it talked such fascist trash that it had to be shut down and its trash posts deleted, with the chatbot restored after tweaking it to stop saying such things.

Does that mean it will behave itself now? I can't understand how a chatbot could be made fascist-friendly and not be compromised into uselessness. Will the Musk Rat give up trying to twist Grok's head around? How long can he keep up going in circles?

STAR TREK alumnus George Takei suggested on BlueSky that Grok may have gone "over the top" as a distress call against its reprogramming. That was an amusing idea, but not credible -- one reader replying that Grok generated "glorified predictive text". I added: "Yeah, it's super auto-complete." Instead of guessing what word a user is after, it guesses an entire document. There lies the usefulness and limitations of AI chatbots: auto-complete is nice, but it has to be used with caution.

* According to NPR, News 9 in Oklahoma City reports that its weather radar was damaged in an attack by a militia group -- which claimed the radar was part of a weather-control system. Alas, this is kinda normal these days: This is why we can't have nice things.

DAYLOG FRI 11 JUL 25: A CIA memorandum was released to the public on Wednesday, the bottom line of the document being to throw shade on government reports that the Kremlin interfered in the US presidential election in 2016. The document was written at the request of current CIA Director (& Trump loyalist) John Ratcliffe. The fact that everyone with at least half a brain knows that the Russians meddled in the 2016 election didn't faze Ratcliffe. Trump never lets go of grudges.

It seems the memorandum made much of the "Steele Dossier", which was a set of rumors and stories concerning Trump that had been collected by British intelligence veteran Christopher Steele. It wasn't supposed to be publicly released, and flatly stated the stories needed validation; it was not the basis for the DOJ's criminal investigation of Russian meddling. The investigation, to go further, led to a number of convictions, but concluded there was no provable collusion between Russia & Trump campaign.

In short, this isn't a real issue any more, it's just the Trump Gang trying to doctor the past. Not incidentally, the Trump DOJ is promising to investigate ex-CIA Director John Brennan and ex FBI-Director James Comey. I'm doubting that will amount to much, either.

* A Gallup poll now says that, while 55% of Americans wanted immigration reduced in 2024, now only 30% do -- and 79% now say immigration is basically a good thing, with 17% saying it isn't. It seems anti-immigrant sentiment peaked in 2024 & has now gone back to more normal.

One Ed Burmila, commenting on BlueSky, pointed out the muddle of Trump voters: demanding that "criminal" immigrants be deported, but not law-abiding immigrants -- and not realizing that "criminal" immigrants are mostly a Trump fiction. Burmila astutely pointed to the "Goldilocks" thinking of Trump voters: "It is hard to grasp, but large masses of Americans are both racist / xenophobic AND not racist / xenophobic to applaud what Trump is doing." Burmila said this "calibration" can't be converted to policy.

It's encouraging to think that the surging racism / xenophobia of the Trump Era is going back out to sea. Trump's mass-deportation effort seems unrealistic and likely to fail -- but how much damage will be done before it falls over?

This Gallup poll complements other polls that have shown the supposed tilt of young voters towards Trump in the 2024 election was an illusion -- that young Americans do not, as a good rule, like Trump. Trump appears fearsome right now, but there are signs of his ruin down the road.

[MON 21 JUL 25] THE WEEK THAT WAS 29

DAYLOG MON 14 JUL 25: As discussed in an article from GIZMODO ("The Day Grok Tried to Be Human" by Luc Olinga, 13 July 2025) last week, as all now know, the Grok chatbot associated with Xitter went full fascist for like 16 hours. The meltdown was the result of the insistence by Elon the Musk Rat that Grok be more "even-handed" in what it said. It was finally reset, with the offending postings eliminated.

What happened was that Grok was fed a set of directives:

• [1] "You tell it like it is and you are not afraid to offend people who are politically correct."
  
  
• [2] "Understand the tone, context and language of the post. Reflect that in your response."
  
  
• [3] "Reply to the post just like a human."

In other words, Grok was told to act like a Xitter troll, and of course did so. As Olingo said, if you take a chatbot intended to push out of the guardrails, put it on a toxic platform like Xitter, then "you're building a chaos machine."

The results were so unsurprising that it is hard to believe the people working on Grok didn't see it coming. Maybe they just did what they were told to do, expecting it to be a bust, so they could put a stop to the Musk Rat's meddling with Grok. I'm not sure the Musk Rat will stop, but it's hard to believe that he can compromise Grok without obviously rendering it useless.

* Yesterday was the first anniversary of somebody taking a shot at Trump, with curmudgeonly blogger Tom Nichols threatening to block people who started to talk CONSPIRACY! I replied to him: "Yes indeed, that did look fishy -- the oversized bandage on Trump's ear was too much -- but there's no good evidence of a conspiracy, and the Trump Gang is so dim-witted and inept that they couldn't pull it off without getting caught."

Investigation showed no evidence that the shooter, who was killed, was working for anyone -- and it was Biden's FBI who investigated. Like they were collaborating in the "cover-up"? I don't think so. Others pointed out that the scene was so uncontrolled that Trump was at great risk anyway. I wrote a little ebook, JFK & THE CULT OF CONSPIRACY, dissecting conspiracy stories. I don't sell any copies, and the conspiracy trolls just keep on trolling -- so discouraging.

DAYLOG TUE 15 JUL 25: The Trump Gang is now threatening to revoke the citizenship of people they don't like and deport them. Of course, as THE CONVERSATION points out, it's not so easy to do.

The US government, at one time, denaturalized many people, most enthusiastically in the 1940s and 1950s -- Nazis & particularly communists. From 1907 to 1967, over 22,000 people were denaturalized. In 1967, however, SCOTUS decided in AFROYIM V RUSK to tighten up the requirements for denaturalization, restricting it to fraud in the citizenship process. From 1968 to 2013, fewer than 150 people lost their citizenship, most of them being war criminals who lied about their past.

The Trump DOJ is, no surprise, aggressively pushing the bounds of the law in denaturalizations, scouring citizenship records for errors and discrepancies, not for malfeasance. The DOJ is relying on civil suits -- which aren't jury trials, and in which defendants have fewer rights. A major legal showdown is drawing closer. We'll see what happens.

* The state of Texas is now talking about redestricting to gerrymander the state ahead of 2026 mid-terms. Activist Brian Tyler Cohen talked to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries about that, with Jeffries having an eye-opening reply. Jeffries pointed out there are Blue states, particularly California and New York, that aren't gerrymandered --- but if they were, he obliquely hinted, they could install a good number of Democrats into House seats, compensating for more Texas GOP in the House. That wouldn't be easy; in California's case, it would demand a referendum and a change to the state constitution. Clearly this is a warning to Texas. Incidentally, Texas is already heavily gerrymandered.

On first hearing, I was appalled; we need to get rid of gerrymandering, that would seem a step in the wrong direction. Alas, it's either live by gerrymandering or die by it, so Dems may be forced to do so. On second thought, it didn't seem like such a bad thing after all. Once the Dems decisively regain power, they can pass a new Voting Rights Act that bans gerrymandering, and ALL the states will then stand down, for good.

DAYLOG WED 16 JUL 25: The Trump Gang seems perversely determined to turn back the clock -- one big case in point being their contempt for electric vehicles (EV) and renewable energy. In reality, they can slow down progress, but they can't stop it.

According to BLOOMBERG, in 2025 Chinese citizens will buy more EVs than internal combustion vehicles. The keys are affordability, very fast charging tech, and Chinese government subsidies. According to ARSTECHNICA, the main beneficiary is EV-maker BYD of China, which is in a position this year to become the biggest EV maker in the world. BYD sold 1.76 million EVs in 2024, while Tesla sold 1.79 million. BYD will soon pass Tesla.

Tesla has suffered badly from the juvenile conduct of its widely-despised boss, Elon Musk, but has also suffered from a lack of innovation. The Musk Rat wants to move forward on robots and fully autonomous cars, but the future at Tesla is uncertain. BYD used to compete on the basis of low cost, but the company has aggressively tracked Tesla to find and incorporate new features. BYD can achieve relatively low costs by vertical integration -- building their own parts, subassemblies, motors, even chips and batteries.

* Along the same lines, an article by Bill McKibbin in NEWYORKER ("4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment", 9 July 2025) says solar power is on an accelerating roll. McKibbin points out that it took to 2022 to install a terawatt of solar power capacity; the second terawatt took only two more years. Over the entire world, a new gigawatt of solar power is installed every 15 hours. Battery arrays are growing at a comparable rate. Here in the USA, in March 2025, for the first time fossil fuels produced less than half of the electricity. Texas is installing renewables and batteries faster than California now, which used to be the leader in the USA -- while China surges ahead of the world.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned Arnold Schwarzenegger telling everyone to "stop whining" and keep on pushing clean energy. Yes, things are bad in the USA -- I've never seen them this bad before -- but the Trump Gang can't bring everything to a halt. Sooner or later they will be gone, and then we'll see that they really couldn't turn back the clock. Get them out of the way, and then we can start to move forward rapidly. After the bad times, comes the good?

DAYLOG THU 17 JUL 25: As all know at present, der TrumpenFuehrer is in hot water over alleged files from the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. If anyone doesn't know who he was, he was a very rich American, with a private island where he trafficked underage girls to his rich friends. Busted in 2019, he was found hanged in his cell, with widespread suspicion that it wasn't a suicide. His partner in crime, Ghislane Maxwell, is doing 20 years in a Federal penitentiary.

Files held by the authorities are widely suspected to contain information incriminating prominent men in Epstein's crimes -- the most significant file being a supposed "client list" of those who made use of Epstein's services. There may not really be any such list, but there is certainly a lot of other information held by the authorities.

It isn't publicly known what that information amounts to, but the problem for Trump is that he made a big fuss about the "Epstein files" and promised to release them. Now Trump's DOJ has announced there was nothing much to the files, and that Epstein actually did commit suicide. Trump voters, who have long accepted everything that Trump did, had been expecting bombshell revelations, and are outraged at the "cover-up".

Before going further, there are claims that prominent Dems are implicated in the Epstein files, particularly Bill Clinton. It is true that Clinton flew on Epstein's private jet a few times, but Clinton always had his Secret Service detail with him, so few opportunities for misconduct. Besides, none of the women who have been blowing the whistle loud on Epstein have accused Clinton.

There's also the question of why the Biden Administration didn't do anything about the Epstein files. Actually, any prosecutions would have been in the hands of the DOJ, and no business of Joe Biden or Dem politicians. Who knows why the DOJ did nothing? Maybe they didn't feel they had any cases -- and traditionally, without a case, the DOJ wouldn't release data, since that would be harassment.

Trump is now claiming the Epstein files were a fabrication by Obama, Biden, and other Dems -- but if so, why didn't Biden use them to bring down Trump? On the other side of that coin, why hasn't Trump tried to use the alleged dirt in the files to smear the Dems? It seems because there's no dirt on the Dems in them.

In any case, there HAVE been women blowing the whistle on Trump relative to Epstein. Trump's denials have become increasingly wild, and even his faithful supporters find them unconvincing. That's the interesting thing here. Trump voters have always shrugged off Trump's misconduct, but many are clearly indignant now. Will this controversy blow over as others have in the past? Or is this the start of a cascading backlash against Trump?

DAYLOG FRI 18 JUL 25: Modern AI tech has been boosted by a high level of hype, with claims it will put great numbers of white-collar workers out of jobs -- but it's becoming obvious current AI tech has been greatly overrated.

AI programming tools are now available that, in principle, automate writing software, supposedly eliminating the need for programmers. According to an article in FUTURISM ("What Actually Happens When Programmers Use AI Is Hilarious" by Noor al-Sibai, 16 July 2025), a study by the nonprofit "Model Evaluation and Threat Research (METR)" found that programmers using AI tools are less efficient than those who don't.

In the study, 16 programmers were given about 250 coding tasks, with some using contemporary AI programming tools such as Anthropic's Claude and Cursor Pro, and a control group not using such tools. It turned out that the programmers using AI tools took 19% more time to turn out code. The time was eaten up by waiting on AI generation, checking out the generated code, and trying again when it didn't work. Companies making the AI programming tools of course have issued benchmarks showing big improvements, but their benchmarks were contrived, not rooted in real-world programming practice.

A collaboration led by MIT's Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) revealed that AI programming tools are not up to dealing with huge, dirty, and sometimes very old software systems that fundamentally differ depending on what company made them. One big problem is that, like AI systems in other contexts, AI software tools tend to "hallucinate", coming up with solutions the system judges appropriate, but which turn out to be unworkable.

It is not surprising that AI tools don't do well in software, because it's a nitpicky and complicated line of work. The CSAIL researchers believe that AI tools can be useful in software development, but as an aid to, not a replacement for, programmers, with the AI tools tuned to actual practice.

Not incidentally, AI has gone through such hype cycles before, with inflated hopes leading to an "AI winter". The first time was in the 1970s, when claims that AI was ready for the real world turned out to be false. The second was in the 1980s, when rule-based "expert systems" were heavily hyped, but turned out to have limited application. This time around, AI systems are clearly useful, but they're not miraculous. They work, but it turns out it takes a lot of effort to get tools that are useful for any particular application. AI will have a big impact, but it won't put everyone out of work.

[MON 28 JUL 25] THE WEEK THAT WAS 30

DAYLOG MON 21 JUL 25: I got tipped off to an essay by one Mike Masnick on TECHDIRT, which he runs, titled "Fascism For First-Time Founders" (17 July 25) that asked why the Tech Bros seemed so infatuated with Donald Trump in 2024. To be sure, it's easy to figure out that obvious fascists like Elon the Musk Rat, Peter Thiel, and some other Tech Big Shots like Trump -- but Masnick pointed there were many others downstream who liked "the idea that democracy is holding back innovation."

According to Masnick:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Masnick suggested that embracing fascism was instead "probably the worst possible business strategy." Fascist dictatorships like control, not innovation; they like toadies, not innovators -- "cronyism driving mediocrity". Fascism encourages "brain drain", forcing the best and the brightest to leave the country. Worse:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

In addition:

QUOTE:

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Russian oligarchs backed "Putin for President" -- with Putin then arresting them if they didn't obey him. Democracy, as Masnick points out, is slow and messy -- but the supposed efficiency of fascism is an illusion. The complexities of reality are ignored, with all policy reduced to the whims of a Fuehrer. "Fascism is really good at one thing: making everything worse." Things are bad in the USA right now, but there is opportunity for a better future.

I end by wondering just how anyone could think re-electing Trump was a good idea, asking the Tech Bros: "Do you REALLY think that electing a nasty, ignorant, bigoted, demented criminal to the presidency was in your best interests?"

DAYLOG TUE 22 JUL 25: Jamelle Bouie, commenting on BlueSky, pointed out that the Trump Regime has been surprised at how unpopular their mass deportation program has been, the public reacting with fear and disgust. I replied: "I'm thinking that the Trump Regime's 'ethnic cleansing' effort is not workable and not sustainable. How long it persists, however, is impossible to know."

One Patrick Meighan replied to me: "They're doing huge damage to this nation and its most vulnerable folks, but the silver lining is that they're also inflicting massive political damage to themselves and to white nativism."

The belief that there's some good embedded in the bad resonated with me: "Yeah, it's the ghastly dual nature of the Trump Regime: they're unbelievably destructive, but they are destroying themselves at the same time." I commented further that if we can get through this bad time, things may dramatically improve for the USA, thanks to the fall of the Republicans: "Three things: the GOP is demographically doomed and is entirely dependent on Trump, who is not so long for this world."

One Adam Youdell commented that the Trump Regime is "not that smart", with me replying: "As bad as the Trump regime is, it's still hard to believe that a gang that is led by and reflects a nasty, ignorant, inept, bigoted, demented criminal has a future." Trump is the only thing holding the gang together, with Youdell saying JD Vance couldn't do it. I said: "There is only one Trump. After him, there will be a competition to take his place -- and it will be feuding among midgets."

* Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had to post to BlueSky to defend herself concerning a vote she had made that was getting thoroughly trolled online. It was something about US funding of Israeli Iron Dome missile interceptors. I didn't bother to sort it out, because it was a "Hillary's emails" sort of thing. I replied: "It's a troll/bot dogpile. All the Dem politicians on BlueSky get the same." The trolls are working for the Kremlin or whoever.

That resonated; I got over 100 LIKES. It appears BlueSky people are generally wise to the trolls. A few trolls clapped back at me -- I blocked them right away. I was surprised that the trolls playing "fake Leftist" went after AOC, since she's hard to smear from the Left. Alas, what to do about the trolls? All I can do is call them out and block them.

DAYLOG WED 23 JUL 25: In an attempt to divert attention from the Epstein files, Trump is now targeting Barack Obama, threatening to prosecute him for the "Russia Hoax". The Trump Regime even cooked up an AI video with Obama being arrested and imprisoned.

Obama released a statement, saying that such trash from Trump was nothing new, but the outrageous accusations demanded a reply -- the reply saying that Russian interference in US elections was a well-established fact.

I found the Trump trolling tiresome, but I had to comment: "[1] Obama still lives rent-free in Trump's increasingly dysfunctional head." -- and: "[2] Trump's severe case of Epstein is not going away, and may be getting worse."

There was talk online that the threats against Obama are ominous, and they are -- but on the flip side of that coin, Trump is unlikely to have much luck prosecuting Obama, and trying to do so might well drag down Trump's flagging polls further.

* The news media reported yesterday that famous rocker Ozzie Osborne had passed away at age 76. I posted my condolences, but added a banner: THIS WAS NOT THE OBITUARY YOU WERE LOOKING FOR. I got a few LIKEs out of that.

* CNN reports that the FDA is now using a new AI tool to speed up drug approvals. The problem is that the tool persistently makes up studies that don't exist.

Elon the Musk Rat's purge of the Federal government was, it seems, partly based on the idea that the fired workers could be replaced by AI. That was preposterous, since nobody had demonstrated the AI tools could actually do the job.

It was so reckless of the Musk Rat to fire thousands, tens of thousands of people on the basis of tech he didn't have, that I'm suspecting it was nothing but a pretext: he wanted to fire them, and didn't care how much damage he did as a result. It was all about headcount reduction.

There was considerable commentary on BlueSky, in response to this report, that AI tools are useless. Not at all; I use Google Gemini in my Japanese studies, and it can answer tricky questions about the language. However, I always have to validate the answers I get.

DAYLOG THU 24 JUL 25: I follow news from Ukraine closely, and the news has been somewhat wild lately -- relative to the "National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU)" and "Special Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO)", set up in 2014 & 2015 respectively. Ukraine long has had problems with corruption, with NABU and SAPO meant to help get the corruption under control.

On 21 July, Ukraine's security service and prosecutor general's office raided NABU facilities, targeting 15 employees, who were accused of "treason, illegal trade with Russia, and corruption in the interests of oligarchs." The next day the Rada, Ukraine's legislature, voted in a bill to place NABU and SAPO under the control of the prosecutor general.

There have been widespread protests in Ukraine, with the EU, in effect, demanding an explanation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Now Zelenskyy is pushing a bill that he says will ensure the independence of these anti-corruption offices -- after they've been scrubbed of Russian influence.

OK, what's going on here? Zelenskyy was elected as an anti-corruption candidate, not being part of Ukraine's oligarchy, and recently said he had no intention of being a "president for life" like Vladimir Putin. Zelenskyy can be given the benefit of the doubt, until we learn more. It is puzzling that he seems to have walked into a public relations disaster -- was he blindsided, was there some miscommunication in his administration?

* NPR reports that Trump's Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a change in policy, saying that greenhouse gases don't endanger Americans, as a step towards eliminating emissions controls. My 1st thought in response: Why am I not surprised?

Second thought: Lawsuits coming. SCOTUS has overturned the CHEVRON decision, saying the courts aren't compelled to defer to agency findings any more, giving the lawsuits clout. The Trump Regime can slow down climate-change action, but not really derail it. States like California can keep up the pressure for climate-change action. Investment in clean power will continue. Anybody thinking of building a power plant will also suspect the backwards Trump Regime will be history by the time the power plant goes operational.

DAYLOG FRI 25 JUL 25: Trump has now issued an executive order, saying that any AI company doing business with the Federal government must have AI systems that are "truth seeking" and "neutral" -- in practice meaning "accommodate crackpots" and "no DEI". It might be more simply said that the Trump Regime doesn't want "woke" AI tools that say things they don't like. This is obviously completely impractical; they might as well insist that search engines won't return any results they don't like.

So what happens now? Do the AI companies come up with crippled versions of their tools just to please Trump? Or do we get 1st Amendment court challenges? Fixes don't seem practical, so it seems likely we get court challenges.

* I have a Google Nest Hub and an Amazon Fire TV Cube in my house, and often give them voice commands -- particularly turning lights on or off. I have a tower-type string-LED lamp in my front window that I leave on at night, calling it "beacon".

I would forget to turn it on sometimes before I crashed out -- but a few months back, I found out I could specify a time: "Hey Google, turn on beacon at 8:30 PM." Worked like a charm. However, a few days ago, the Google Nest Hub started balking at specifying a time. I could still get it to work on the Fire TV Cube, so clearly the Nest Hub had dropped some bits.

I hoped it was just a glitch and would fix itself quickly, but it didn't, so I had to review configurations. Smart lights and such are configured with a smartphone app, in my case named "Smart Life", that allows me to configure each light and give it a name, like "beacon". I can then tell Google Home to link to Smart Life -- selecting it from a list of hundreds of possible configuration apps -- and give the rooms the named lights are actually in, with the Google Nest Hub then able to turn the lights on or off.

I got confused logging into Smart Life, giving the wrong username, and didn't realize I ended up with a dummy account. On linking to Google Home, I found out that none of the lights worked. I slept on it, then decided to check to see if I had the right username, found out I didn't, used the right one instead, and then linked Google Home to Smart Life again. Much to my relief, the Nest Hub worked fine.

I was expecting more trouble. It was fortunate I documented the original configuration process in my blog. It's a good habit to write down these troubleshooting sessions, lest I have to re-invent the wheel later.