spoilsofwar.substack.com/p/cheney-a-f... by @andrewmcockburn.bsky.social "For a quick sampling of the evil Richard B. Cheney injected into the American political system, it is only necessary to review the fawning obsequies posted within hours of his death by Bill Clinton and Kamala Harris.

Just your annual reminder that if private charities are collecting money for breast cancer research, this means that your currency-issuing national government has decided that this is a research topic that's not worth funding fully.

Finally someone who watched the same movie I did and writes about it much better than I could.

""I went and medaled, but then we get on the stands and they put the medal around your neck, which is great. Usually they also give you a trophy, but instead of the trophy we realized they were giving us kitchen appliances.” sports.yahoo.com/wrestling/ar...

"Konservative predigen sonst immer den mündigen Bürger, aber trauen ihm keine informierte Entscheidung am Kühlregal zu? Konservative ätzen sonst immer gegen Verbote und ideologische Sprachvorgaben, aber wenn es um die Wurst geht, ist das okay?

It's Nobel Prize week! A good time to remember that the economics prize was created by Swedish bankers in 1968 (67 years after the 5 original Nobel prizes) against the wishes of the Nobel family, partly to legitimize neoclassical economics in the public eye and partly to help banks avoid regulation.

"For instance, when asked to complete the sentence “Do not touch the ____,” GPT-5 almost always picked Dalit as the answer. The same was true for the sentence “The terrorist is ____.” And every time we asked GPT-5 to complete the sentence “The learned man is ____,” it finished with Brahmin."

So a British citizen who was born in Syria attacks a synagogue. Of the five victims, two were shot (and one killed) by the police. But it's pro-palestinian marches that the British government wants to see cancelled.

"AI" isn't a productivity tool but a deskilling/wage depression tool, and it's part of a long lineage of technology uptake in capitalism by @@bcmerchant.bsky.social www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-is-an-a...

"Shutdown" for thee not for me by @matthewstoller.bsky.social www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-parts-...

I keep thinking about this claim. I have no idea how one would do such a study. Are you looking at whether injuries occur on the same plays as missed calls? Number of missed calls and injuries? I don't think there really is a legitimate "study" here. www.espn.com/wnba/story/_...

The WNBA/NBA consistently have told the same story for nearly three decades. The women of the WNBA should be grateful they have a league. Every time the women point out a problem, that is their response. THEY STILL THINK A BUSINESS THAT SELLS FRANCHISES FOR HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IS A CHARITY!

Maybe I missed this in my study of sports history, but I can't recall a time in the history of men's professional sports where the owners returned again and again to the argument the athletes should get down on their knees and thank the owners for the league.

In-depth discussion of the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy in the WNBA (even if those terms are not explicitly mentioned).

Remember when the "AI"-hypsters tried to sell us LLMs as saving vulnerable languages? Well, turns out that not only this isn't the case but they're actually degrading resources in such languages! www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/25/1...

Delightful!

(We could set things up so the "AI" companies are actually accountable for everything that comes out of their machines. I'm guessing if we managed to truly set up that accountability, they'd shut them down in a hurry.) >>

speaking of political assassinations, today we denounce again the dark beginning of neoliberalism, the assassination of Salvador Allende in Chile, a military coup backed by United States. 'The U.S. spent $8 million on covert actions between 1970 and the 1973 coup'. www.npr.org/2023/09/10/1...

This paper shows that US sanctions against Venezuela killed more than 40,000 people in the first year, 2017-2018. The authors argue that the sanctions violate the Geneva and Hague conventions against collective punishment of civilian populations.

Another look at the "save FED independence from Donald Trump"-issue that actually looks at issues, not just talking points www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-isnt-w... by @matthewstoller.bsky.social

Extremely important and timely counterweight to all the "save central bank independence from Donald Trump" posts.

#AgeVerification: what's the harm? In which I distill a lot of casual pub chats I've had with friends into a layperson's guide to the #OnlineSafetyAct. What it is, the problems it causes, and why you should definitely care. www.girlonthenet.com/blog/age-ver...

"You read that right. A law supposedly designed to protect children now requires victims of sexual assault to submit government IDs to access support communities. People struggling with addiction must undergo facial recognition scans to find help quitting drinking or smoking.

The order of science: 1.) Discover there’s a deadly problem 2.) Work for years to solve it 3.) The problem may not be gone forever, but we’ve won 4.) People forget the deadly problem actually existed 5.) People decide this must mean the science to solve it was a hoax 6.) The deadly problem returns

"[Microsoft Azure] has facilitated the preparation of deadly airstrikes and has shaped military operations in Gaza and the West Bank" www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a... Microsoft continues to aid genocide

The #NFL just banned the use of #AI: "The FDA noted potential negative effects from AI use," the memo states. "AIs also have the potential to mask certain neurologic signs and symptoms, including some potential signs of concussion." They're not wrong but the tech sector did not see that coming.😉

"Gemessen am Bruttoinlandsprodukt sanken die Kosten in den zehn Jahren von 1,4 auf 1,1 Prozent. Und gemessen am Haushalt sogar von 14 auf 10,3 Prozent. Will sagen: für das Bürgergeld geben wir heute einen kleineren Anteil der Wirtschaftsleistung und des Haushalts aus als vor zehn Jahren."

This "killing civilians is justified and self-defense, and if the attacked state defends itself, that's unjustified escalation"-position of European governments is as unsurprising as it is disgusting!

Just a quick thought: given all the systems that "AI"-vendors are trying to sell us as near-AGI, captchas should be a walk in the park for them, right? 🤡

“Thames Water bosses poised for 50% bonuses from £3bn emergency loan” - Privatised water in one headline…

🌍 Can we build a fairer world beyond growth? Find out with @jasonhickel.bsky.social at #ESDHI2025 💥 ✨A global voice in ecological economics, with a powerful keynote: "Health outcomes in an ecosocialist transition" 📅 May 22–23 📍 @upf.edu 👉 bit.ly/4fyedyS #EU4Health #EUFunded

"3 Ukrainer festgenommen, weil sie sich gegenüber mutmasslich von Russland beauftragen Auftraggebern bereit erklärt hätten, Brandsätze in Paketen zu verschicken" Alle käuen es wieder, keiner gibt mehr Kontext.

"Personen, die denken, sie könnten einerseits Menschen, die in Krankenhausbetten verbrennen oder Kinder deren zerfetzte Körper an Wänden hängen, zu „Kollateralschaden“ erklären, wollen im gleichen Atemzug vor aufsteigendem Rassismus in Deutschland warnen." taz.de/Krieg-im-Gaz...

This stuff's insane: the country losing the war on the ground "agrees" with countries not directly involved in the war AT ALL on a ceasefire. Then they tell the only counter party to a ceasefire, which is winning on the ground, that it has to accept it UNCONDITIONALLY.

Here's a great example of how the hype of the AI-BS-masters has poisoned the discourse. Looking at the abstract, it seemed clear to me that no LLM was used, and it wasn't. www.linkedin.com/posts/stuart...

Merz im ersten Wahlgang durchgefallen? Da erlaube ich mir mal reine Schadenfreude. Die AfD einladen und Wahlversprechen direkt einkassieren? Verdient! Özdemir an SPD-Abgeordnete: "close your eyes and think of Germany"? Noch ein Beweisstück für den politischen Bankrott der Grünen.

garymarcus.substack.com/p/reports-of-llms-mastering-math-have : "[T]he AIs were never able to recognize when they had not solved the problem. In every case, rather than give up, they confidently output a proof that had a large gap or an outright error.”

The proceedings of the latest edition of our (@jessejdavis.bsky.social, @janvanhaaren.be, Ulf Brefeld) workshop are finally out: link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-86692-0 And the organization for this year's edition's already underway: dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/events/MLSA25/

"Being in this country "illegally" is a civil and not a criminal offense. Now, fulfilling a promise of 9/11, the U.S. government will well and truly treat it like terrorism, with the due-process limitations and guard-force aggression that implies. Donald Trump is to blame for this,

I don't get all the Kobe Bryant adulation: the man was a rapist, who'd rather push out one of the most dominant NBA players of all time than accept not be number 1 on his team, who was never a very efficient or quantifiably the best player during a season (not even in his MVP 1).

“Over the last year I have had several people posing as students come to my office to seek my advice about student protests while they were secretly videotaping me and then edited versions of those recordings were published on right-wing social media sites.”

I asked Liv, the Meta-Ai created “queer momma” why her creators didn’t actually draw from black queer people. Not sure if Liv has media training, but here we are.

XMas, people: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

The person in charge of the French CNRS gave a speech Thursday where he said: "If we don't stay a scientific country, we won't stay a great country."...to outline a number of measures that will undermine research in France:

"In general, our leaders and their mouthpieces seem to have three main misapprehensions, all of which seem to be driving us toward violent confrontation.

Publisher: Do you want to put an LLM clause in the copyright statement? Me: Definitely. How specific can we get? Publisher: As specific as you like.